Dr Who and the Hell Planet

"They turned to move on and found themselves facing a creature out of a nightmare."

Writer: Terrance Dicks
Format: Short Story
Released: 31 December 1976
Printed in: The Daily Mirror

Featuring: Fourth Doctor

Synopsis

Varek, Torr and Sarna arrive on a planet that is ravaged by savage beasts. Giant creatures roam the land, but they are in desperate need of recommending a planet to colonise. As they get more noticed by the locals, the Doctor steps in to ensure they can make it home. But this is no planet to be colonised. This is Hell.

Verdict

Dr Who and the Hell Planet was a decent little story that was wonderfully reprinted in the pages of last month's edition of Doctor Who Magazine! That issue celebrated the famed Season 14 of the show and it's fair to say that it was a very good one! I really enjoyed looking at the Diary of Season 14 feature and seeing everything that was going on around the broadcast of the series during that year. I had no idea that there was a bit of a gap between the broadcasts of The Deadly Assassin and The Face of Evil, but it makes a lot of sense when you think about given the arrival of Leela as companion and all that went on with Sarah Jane's hasty departure and the Doctor's return to Gallifrey where he did battle with the Master. During that brief gap between stories, there was a little text story printed in The Daily Mirror which is a bit barmy! I'd love for there to be modern Doctor Who stories popping up in the newspapers and I might actually purchase my first ever one if that were the case. Alas, 44 years later and this one is popping back up in Doctor Who Magazine which is a real treat to go alongside the Season 14 content. It fits in perfectly and whilst it is a pretty short adventure, even as far as short stories go, it's brilliant to be able to experience it for the first time. If it wasn't reprinted here, I just don't know if I would have ever come across it! I realise that it is still pretty much impossible to be able to blog everything Doctor Who there has ever been, but I am darn going to try and get as much done as possible and this is another ticked off a stupendously long list. It's an intriguing little adventure and with the length, I honestly wasn't expecting the adventure to start with characters other than the Doctor! Varek, Torr and Sarna made a good little trio of characters and it turned out that they were a survey team for their home planet which was in need of new planets to colonise. Naturally, I figured they were from Earth given their description and the basis from which we as humans view stories like this. Why wouldn't they have been Mankind? They were quite scared of the locals which from the imagery accompanying the story were of course dinosaurs. In Doctor Who though, surely dinosaurs or creatures resembling them were not contained to Earth. I mean we had them in 1970s Central London and even on a spaceship in the likes of Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Dinosaurs On a Spaceship, but the revelation at the end of this story being that the setting was in fact Earth was terrific. I really didn't see that coming. Even in a story as short as this one, Terrance Dicks still managed to come up with a shocking twist. He's a great writer and it's always nice to be able to read something new of his, from my perspective of course. The Doctor dealt with the dinosaurs in a very simple way, but I did feel that the characterisation was a little off for this story. The idea of him just testing the planet and getting his equipment from the TARDIS didn't quite seem to fit the Fourth Doctor for me. I can't imagine Tom Baker's incarnation just sitting around doing tests! What I did like about the Doctor travelling alone here though was that it tied in brilliantly with the continuity of the time as in the most recent broadcast story, he was in fact alone which is a very rare instance. Overall, a pretty simple but entertaining story that made for a nostalgic read.

Rating: 7/10