The Sun Makers

"I can't pay the taxes."

Writer: Robert Holmes
Format: TV
Broadcast: 26th November - 17th December 1977
Season: 15.04

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Leela, K9

Synopsis

The TARDIS, along with the Doctor, Leela and K9, arrives on Pluto in the distant future. The time travellers discover the planet has a breathable atmosphere and enjoys heat from six small suns, but the humans who live there are taxed and exploited heavily for the privilege. When Leela is captured and sentenced to death, the Doctor must save his companion, as well as stopping the ruthless Company, before it's too late...

Verdict

The Sun Makers was an excellent serial! I really enjoyed this one and I think it must go down as a quite underrated story. Tom Baker was magnificent as the Fourth Doctor and I really enjoyed his relationship with Leela. They're a terrific duo and throwing in K9 is always wonderful. The story being bookended by TARDIS scenes depicting a chess match between the Doctor and his robot dog was magnificent and I loved how sure the Doctor was of victory, only for K9 to calculate that check mate was in six moves. The Doctor saw that the game would have to be restarted though. The setting of Pluto in the far future was really intriguing and I loved how this was a story about galactic imperialism. The Company were superb villains with the Collector serving as an excellent central enemy. His obsession with work and money was beyond an obsession and I really liked how just weird and enthusiastic he was about his economic responsibility. Starting the adventure with Cordo failing to be able to pay his late father's death taxes set the scene fantastically and he went so far as wanting to kill himself. Leela prevented that quite desperately. Hade was also a brilliant character and I really enjoyed his role as the Gatherer. His position meant that he didn't really care about the troubles and hardships imposed on the lower levels of the population by the taxes but once he was held responsible for the Doctor's impact on the Company, the financial hit would come out of his purse and his reaction to that was magnificent. Mandrel was another very good character and I quite liked the idea of underground resistance. They took a while to trust the Doctor, especially after Hade used him to spy and locate the Others, but he ended being a crucial cog in the revolution wheel. The steps taken towards achieving that revolution were really good and I have to say I thought the pace of this story was very well done. The cliffhangers were great and I liked how aggressive and passionate Leela was throughout. Her continued references to tribes and taken pride in coming from the Sevateem was lovely. She had a really strong outing here. Marn was a good character and her joining the revolution was terrific. The conclusion with the Collector revealing he was in fact a Usurian was great and the Doctor's 'something clever' was adding a 2% tax effect on the economy and that was enough to send him mad. They'd exploited Mars and had to sustain six suns to get finance out of humanity, but now the Company were sent packing and the Collector literally crawled into his own chair and the plug was put on. The ending was lovely with everyone waving the TARDIS off and as a whole, this really was a tremendous little story!

Rating: 9/10