| THE SPACE PIRATES by Robert Holmes |
| Story 49 Synopsis: The TARDIS materialises aboard Beacon Alpha 4. The Doctor and friends are soon threatened by Sorba, who believes they are argonite pirates. The real pirates arrive shortly afterwards, blowing the Beacon apart. The Doctor tries to re-attach their section to the others, but fails, and they shoot off into space. A spaceship comes alongside, with Milo Clancey, old-time prospector on board. The Space Corps believe Clancey to be the ringleader of the pirates. Clancey decides to hide out on Ta, thinking the Corps will never dare look for him there, as it's home to Madeline Issigri's Mining Company. But in the tunnels, they realises the pirates are based there. They go to Madeline's office to call in the Corps, but she objects. Then the pirate leader, Caven, arrives. Madeline is in league with him. Caven has them locked in Madeline's father's old office. What Madeline doesn't realise is that her father, Dom, is locked in there with them, still alive. They plot to escape using Milo's rocket, but Caven plans to use it to throw the Space Corps off the scent. Milo and Dom are trapped in the ship. Caven has a chain of bombs rigged to explode, destroying the evidence on Ta, but the Doctor defuses it in the nick of time. Madeline confesses to the Space Corps, and Caven is blasted out of space. |
| Review:- Few stories have as bad a reputation as this. Perhaps because there seems so little to say in its favour compared to the other stories in the season, or even for the 2nd Doctor, it gets a wholesale slating by those few who do talk about it. The 1 surviving episode is hardly representative of the whole story, and there are some dodgy acting efforts to dissuade the casual viewer. The book version was almost the very last to be released, as if they kept putting it off until there was no alternative. All of this flannel is by way of preparing you for my own views, which are, as you might have come to expect, somewhat contrary. Unusually for a space opera, there is some talk and importance given to the distances travelled from A to B. Indeed, it is a central plot point early on, when the Space Corps are too far away from the exploded Beacons, and when Milo explains that the only near place that the missing argonite could be going is Ta. Rockets are crucial to the expediting of the story, and whilst it is true that much of the narrative is a parable of frontiersmen travelling the Old West, there is a fun freshness to this that makes it captivating. The Space Corps are stock characters, from the bombastic Hermack to his faithful underling Warne. Their function is merely to confuse themselves by picking the wrong bad guys, and being blinded by the charm of the real bad guys, and then clean up at the end when they realise the truth. Of the bad guys, Madeline Issigri is rather far-fetched, having neither the steel nor the fluster to be convincing as either reluctant villainness, or total baddie. Caven is better, a blackhearted scoundrel who'd double cross anyone if he had to. Of the good guys, though, Dom Issigri is too bland and ill to be anything other than a cipher. Milo Clancy, meanwhile, is so OTT and 3D that he pretty much steals the show, and he is not diminished by association with the Doctor. Milo remains his own man to the end, and can therefore be imagined beyond the end of the story as a real person, which isn't always the case. As for the regulars, Jamie and Zoe get little to do except hang onto the Doctor's coat-tails. The man himself is fairly basic here, a means to tie parts of the story together. With no special depth, this story could have been related to any series, not just Doctor Who. So overall, I would commend this as a simple tale of good guys and bad guys in space, and worth experiencing. |
| Disclaimer: I've read the book. |