STORY PLACEMENT

 THIS STORY TAKES

 PLACE BETWEEN THE

 TV STORY "TERROR OF

 THE ZYGONS" AND THE

 NOVEL "MANAGRA."

 

 PRODUCTION CODE

 4H

 

 WRITTEN BY

 LOUIS MARKS

 

 DIRECTED BY

 DAVID MALONEY

 

 RATINGS

 9.9 MILLION

 

 RECOMMENDED

 PURCHASE

 'PLANET OF EVIL' DVD 

 (BBCDVD1814)

 RELEASED IN OCTOBER

 2007.

 

CLICK TO ENLARGE

 

 BLURB

 THE DOCTOR AND SARAH

 ANSWER AN

 INTERGALACTIC

 DISTRESS CALL THAT

 TAKES THEM TO A FAR-

 FLUNG PLANET AT THE

 EDGE OF THE KNOWN

 UNIVERSE - ZETA MINOR.

 ARRIVING AT THE SAME

 TIME AS A RESCUE TEAM,

 THEY SEARCH FOR

 SURVIVORS OF AN

 EARLIER EXPEDITION.

 BUT WILL ANYONE BE

 ALLOWED TO LEAVE THE

 PLANET ALIVE...?

 

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Planet of Evil

27TH SEPTEMBER 1975 - 18TH OCTOBER 1975

(4 EPISODES)

 

 

                                                       

 

 

Prior to this DVD release I had not watched Louis Marks’ “Planet of Evil” for a long time, but after watching its spectacular trailer included on last month’s DVD release I was actually quite looking forward to it… but then I remembered why I had not watched “Planet of Evil” for such a long time.

 

“We buy our privilege to experiment at the cost of total responsibility.”

 

Simply put, “Planet of Evil” is a serial that has always thoroughly failed to grab my attention. An amalgamation of the movie Forbidden Planet and Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, this four-parter details the gradual transformation of Sorenson - a determined scientist - into a voracious anti-matter monster. And in fairness, at times this distinctive blend does work quite well - Frederick Jaeger is

very imposing as Sorenson, and there are a few other standout performances too from the likes of Michael Wisher, Elisabeth Sladen, and of course, Tom Baker. Regrettably though, save for the odd few gripping scenes and some really quite remarkable electronic effects, I have always found the whole production to be quite torrid.

 

 

The DVD is not one of the best that the Restoration Team have ever put together either. The cover artwork looks great from a distance, but up close it looks like a bad bit of colour separation overlay. What is more, the feature documentary is, for some reason that escapes me, divided into two parts. The first is entitled “A Darker Side” and focuses heavily on the production team’s input. There are some really fascinating parts that look at the evolution of the script, for example, but inevitably a lot of the 26-minute running time is eaten up in discussing Roger Murray-Leach’s celebrated design for the jungles of Zeta Minor.

 

The second part is 13-minutes long and entitled “Planetary Performance”. This featurette offers less insight into the mechanics of the production, but as is habitually the case with these things, the actors share a few charming anecdotes in relation to the actual filming of the story (although most of these can also be found within the entertaining commentary). However, the most interesting thing that I learned from the special features on this disc was that when this serial was first broadcast in 1975, something like one in six Britons watched it. Philip Hinchcliffe took great pride in this statistic but, quite comically, Baker was gutted!

 

 

And so in all, “Planet of Evil” is neither a story nor a DVD that I am ever going to rave about. It is my least favourite serial of an otherwise astonishing season, and it is also probably my least favourite story ever to be penned by Marks. Most damningly of all though, I asked my fiancée (a lay person so far as Doctor Who is concerned) whether she thought “Planet of Evil” stood up well today, and her answer contained no less than six expletives.

 

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2007

 

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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