1)You know, people complain about Tegan, but I find Peri more irritating,
2)We finally get an explanation for the celery. Kind of a lame explanation, but an explanation, nonetheless. "I'm allergic to certain gases in the Praxis Spectrum" and "It's a powerful resotrative where I come from." (They have celery on Gallifrey?)
3)I don't know, I didn't think the magma-monster was all that bad. Not all that good, either, I suppose.
4)John Normingtom was quite good as Morgus. I got a sort of "younger Montgomery Burns" vibe off of him.
5)Christopher Gable did OK as Sharaz Jek, another Holmesian deformed, masked weirdo who lives in a hole. He also gets to be the first villain to lust after Peri. He does get a good death scene: "You think bullets could stop me now?"
6)Maurice Roeves was also good as the casually brutal Stotz.
7)Lots of violence in this - both seen and implied. I gather the fact that people in the future are still using bullets rather than rayguns was a deliberate choice by Graeme Harper to make the violence more "real".
8)Jek sure got those android replicas of the Doctor and Peri ready pretty fast, didn't he?
9)"It could have been worse." "In what way, Trau Morgus?" "It could have been me."
10)I hadn't really noticed this the first time I watched this, but the "regeneration effect" starts briefly in Part Three, like he's fighting it off. It might've bene interesting to have him change in the middle of a story, once.
11)"Hello, Doctor." "That's more like it." "Goodbye, Doctor."
12)I thought the regeneration scene was well-done, with the montage of the companions and the Master. Interesting that the Fifth Doctor's last word was "Adric". On the commentary, Davison complains - humorously - that the viewers would be distracted from his acting by the fact that the camera seems to be focused on Nicola Bryant's cleavage.
13)And the Sixth Doctor's first words are: "You were expecting someone else?"
14)Also interesting that all of the male characters die - even the Doctor, sort of - and only Peri and Timmin come through intact.
15)Cliffhangers:
- Part One: The Doctor and Peri are executed!
- Part Two: The mamgma monster advances on the Doctor! (On the commentary, Davison makes much of the extremely clever way in which the Doctor escapes from the magma monster, i.e., by walking briskly away from it.)
- Part Three: The ship is about to crash!
- Part Four: "change, my dear, and it seem not a moment too soon."
Overall:
Davsion has said that he made the decision to leave at the start of his third season, and that if there had been more stories like this one in his second season, he might have decided to stay longer. For me, this is the last really good story that Holmes did for the show, and a good one for Davison to go out on. Also the directorial debut of Graeme Harper on the show, and I think he did a good job of it - I found this quite a tense, excting story.
[Part of list of Doctor Who episodes here.]
Replies
"Welcome aboard, Peri." "Oh, and in a few weeks, I'm going to turn into a fat, loudmouthed, tasteless jerk who'll try to kill you. Just a heads up."
I re-watched “Planet of Fire” and “The Caves of Androzoni” over the weekend. I often tend to watch stories featuring the first and/or last appearances of a Doctor and/or companion. These two feature the first Peri and the last Fifth Doctor, respectively. It’s not often a “last” so quickly follows a “first,” but because these stories are sequential, it does seem Peri got the short end of the stick by signing on to travel with the Fifth Doctor, then ending up with “a fat, loudmouthed, tasteless jerk who'll try to kill [her].” The Big Finish audio adventures go a long way toward redeeming the Sixth Doctor. I’ve been listening to some Sixth Doctor and Peri stories recently, with more to come in the near future, but Big Finish also provides some previously “untold tales” of the Fifth Doctor and Peri which take place between “Planet of Fire” and “The Caves of Androzoni.”
8. Red Dawn
24. The Eye of the Scorpion
38. The Church and the Crown
41. Nekromanteia
56. The Axis of Insanity
59. The Roof of the World
69. Three’s a Crowd
71. The Council of Nicaea
81. The Kingmaker
95. Exotron
99. Son of the Dragon
102. The Mind’s Eye
104. The Bride of Peledon
The first four are available as downloads only (approximately $3, depending on the ROE), the next seven have been reduced (approx. $8), and the last two are regular price. I may get to these someday, but right now I’m focusing on Sixth doctor and Eighth Doctor stories.
I've often wondered how Rose would have reacted if Ten had turned out more like Six.
Now I have a mental image of Six on a Vespa.
Maurice Roëves, who played Stotz in this story, and was a Romulan captain in the STTNG story "The Chase", has passed away.