The Space Pirates

It's the future again. Somewhere out in the far reaches of Earth's empire lay navigational beacons made of a valuable mineral called argonite. Space pirates have long been attacking floater convoys of the mineral and have now turned their attention to the satellites themselves, and it is on board one of these that the TARDIS arrives. The beacon is blown apart into sections, and the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie are separated from the TARDIS and rescued by Milo Clancy, an independent miner feeling the squeeze from his bigger competitor, the Issigri Mining Corp. As Milo and the travellers attempt to trace the missing argonite, the local space authority are investigating the shipping routes as well with the co-operation of Madeline Issigri herself. None of this is missed by the space pirates, who have some sort of hold over Issigri, and plan to get rid of the patrolling V-ship to keep their own piracy venture safe. The Doctor's group follow the trail of the pirates to the planet Ta which is the home base of Issigri, and find that the pirates are using the Issigri base as their own, having kidnapped the senior Issigri (Dom), who was also Milo's partner in the old days.

And blah blah blah. This story is kinda lame. 6 episodes and the Doctor and company don't exactly do much except get captured or knocked out. I'm sure the space corps would have figured it out eventually even without the Doctor's help. Only episode 2 exists on the Lost in Time DVD with the balance on CD from the BBC Radio Collection. The incidental music provided is an extension of that made for The Ice Warriors with a high trilling operatic sound here and there, which is a bit painful when you're listening to it at the gym with your headset turned up loud to block out the gay-club-ish thumpa thumpa that they have on too load as it is. I will, however, give snaps for the spaceship design and the in flight effects, which are sharpened up by the VIDfire processing of the DVD. It would have been nice to see how the rest of the episodes effects went with several more minnow-ships in pursuit of the pirate vessels.

At the end of the story the pirates are locked up and good has triumphed, but the TARDIS is still missing, its section of space beacon orbiting the planet Lobos. Milo kindly offers the travellers a lift in his old clunker, the Liz, and off they go. Anything could happen on their way back to the TARDIS, which could make for some interested extended adventures with Milo as part of the crew. But fortunately no-one has tried to do a novel set in there yet.

So we move on.

NEXT EPISODE : THE WAR GAMES