July 24: Planet of Evil Parts Three & Four

It's a bit sad that, after we spent so much time in that awesome jungle for the first two episodes, that most of our time in these last two are spent on the Morestran spaceship.  It just can't compare.  But you can see what Louis Marks (whose last script was Day of the Daleks, you might recall) is doing by heading inside the ship; it's one thing to have something roaming the jungles outside, but it's another to have it in the ship with you.

Part three does a good job of maintaining the suspense, with the Doctor spinning through a black void and communicating with the antimatter creature -- apparently his promise as a Time Lord to return the antimatter was good enough for the creature to accept.  And so the spaceship tries to leave Zeta Minor, Salamar having ordered that the antimatter be taken off the ship -- only it seems that Professor Sorenson has hidden some away, thus preventing the ship from getting too far into space.  That's bad enough, but it seems that Sorenson is being taken over by the antimatter, turning into some sort of animal (this is often compared to Jekyll and Hyde, but it's also a lot like a werewolf).  The glowing eye effect is pretty nifty, but there's a lot of "hands covering face" acting -- presumably to remove whatever has been painted on Frederick Jaeger's eyelids.  Still, it's an effective shot.

But yes, Sorenson has turned into an animal-like creature and started killing people, but Salamar is convinced that the Doctor and Sarah are responsible.  There's a nice moment after the first death in this episode, where Vishinsky consigns Morelli's body into space, while playing the last rites for a Morestran Orthodox.  It shows the level of thought that went into things (even if Vishinsky doesn't seem particularly sympathetic towards Morelli's beliefs: "One of those," he says a bit derisively upon learning his faith, and then when he plays the last rites silently, he remarks, "We may have to play the last rites, but we don't have to listen"), and it's a clever way of establishing the jettison equipment -- so that when Salamar wants to space the Doctor and Sarah, we already know what that entails.  Thus the cliffhanger is even more effective, particularly since we see them both disappear from view...

The antimatter creature watches the TARDIS depart. (Planet
of Evil Part Four) ©BBC

Part four doesn't quite wrap things up as nicely as one might want.  There's a sense in which things have been nearly sorted out less than halfway through, which is presumably why they introduce a new threat by having a crazy Salamar shoot Sorenson with a "neutron accelerator", which turns him into a whole bunch of antimatter creatures roaming the ship and attacking people.  It only stops when the Doctor finds the real Sorenson, knocks him out, and drags him into the TARDIS so he can take him back to Zeta Minor.  It's noticeable that this is one of those rare instances in which the Doctor seems to have total control over the TARDIS, able to make short hops in space but not time with it -- and to have a dangerous enemy along for the ride is even more striking.  But in any event, the Doctor is able to return the antimatter and the hybridized Sorenson back to Zeta Minor and save the Morestran spaceship.  Pleasingly, the antimatter creature decides to return Sorenson to "our" universe, minus any antimatter contamination -- it's nice to have the misguided "villain" survive the story.  The Doctor thus returns Sorenson, picks up Sarah, and heads off to Earth again.

There are two things going for Planet of Evil: the superb design work on Zeta Minor and its antimatter creature (pinched from Forbidden Planet or not, it's still cool) and the desire from Louis Marks and the rest of the crew to make a straightforward scary story.  These decisions go a long way in papering over any flaws the rest of the story might have (such as making Salamar go mad -- difficult in the best of circumstances, but Prentis Hancock does seem to be a little out of his depth, such that it's almost like a switch is flipped when it's decided, "oh, he's crazy now").  It's not designed to be an allegory or an "event" story; it's just there to tell a tense, scary story, and at this it succeeds marvelously.  A solid, well-done tale.

One lingering question though: what is it about the planet that makes it evil, exactly?