Planet of Evil

The Doctor and Sarah answer a distress call at the edge of the known universe and find what's left of a Morestran scientific expedition on the planet Zeta Minor. The Morestrans, lead by Professor Solon, are desperate for new sources of energy and have extracted mineral ores from the planet to refuel their sun, but the scientists have been attacked by unnatural forces which have left all but Solon for dead. A military ship arrives and the Doctor and Sarah are blamed for the murders until the real culprit is revealed: the planet exists on the edge of not just our universe, but that of antimatter as well, and Solon's experiments have disrupted the delicate balance between them, stirring up a creature made of antimatter. And as the Doctor predicts, the Morestrans will not be allowed to leave Zeta Minor with any antimatter on board no matter how hard they try.

Another fantastic tale from what many refer to as the golden age of the show, with the fourth Doctor and Sarah continuing to be a perfect combination. The atmosphere of fear is established very early in the serial with the nervous members of the expedition dreading the approach of night. And the setting - the only word that fits for the jungle of Zeta Minor is "diseased". It looks like everything is rotting yet still alive at the same time. Thick red vines and sweating tree bark, stagnant pools of water... it's all there, even if it was built in two different studios (as the occasional switch from TV studio video to film quality shows). And it's scary. The wind blows and the air is filled with the clanking of.... what? It's the stuff that nightmares are made of.

Other nightmarish things would be Salamar, the hysterical controller of the Morestran probe. At first he is cold as a matter of routine, but as the situation spirals out of his control and beyond his understanding he cracks and even attempts to eject the Doctor and Sarah into space from the ship. It's good that he gets it in the end. Sorenson is a bit of a problem as well; singleminded to an extreme he refuses to accept that his experiments might be wrong, that his hypothesis might be flawed, and even when the antimatter starts to infect him and turn him into a killer, he still refuses to do anything until it's far too late.

I remember as a child not liking this one for some reason or another. Now as a thirtysomething perhaps it can be seen a bit differently, because like I say, I find it brilliant and scary. And it's also the first time we see the "new" Doctor (it's his second season now and even though it's hard to think about it, Tom Baker was still the new guy at the time) in the TARDIS console room with Sarah. I think I said before that there's something about seeing the Doctor at the helm that validates him once and for all.

Maybe I didn't like the effects. That could be it. The Morestran weapons were just flash guns but they have a really cool sound to them. The creatures of Zeta Minor only appear as red outlines, their complete form a mystery. Oh. And a word on design: why is it that the science hut on Zeta Minor has power-operated sliding doors and the doors on the Morestran probe all have handles and need to be manually opened and closed? And this might be a niggling point but do they need an entire room (with a hanging sign no less) for four pieces of force field equipment? And (oh no I'm on a roll) what's up with those unflattering impractical military uniforms?

I'll stop now. And I'll get set for the next one.

NEXT EPISODE : PYRAMIDS OF MARS