‘Doctor Who: Planet of Evil’ (1975)


It feels like an absolute age since I last did one of these posts (back in October last year to be precise) and what better time to get back into it than a day when all my brain was really good for was watching ‘Doctor Who’ on the telly? Funnily enough, the last time I tried watching some ‘Classic Doctor Who’, for the blog, ‘Planet of Evil’ got the nod but a number of things prevented me from finishing it. Okay… I fell asleep and there was never a good time to get back into it after that, until now that is. Covid may have messed up my sleep routine but it was kind enough to leave me a small window of opportunity to finally watch this story. So that’s what I did, let me tell you all about it…

The Doctor and Sarah answer an intergalactic distress call that takes them to a far-flung planet at the edge of the known universe. 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…?

I ended up really getting into ‘Planet of Evil’ but to start off with, it really didn’t feel like that was going to happen… As much as I loved the oppressive atmosphere and the sense of paranoia as people are slowly killed by this invisible threat; it really felt like the actual plot took a while to catch up with all this good stuff and that gave the story a ‘slow burn’ feel that hung around just a little too long and lost its moment. Like I said, I didn’t fall asleep this time but I was starting to think about checking my phone, maybe playing a game or two…

I stuck with it though and I’m really glad that I did. The ‘slow burn’ atmospherics gradually form into an intriguing mystery that not only sparks with outbreaks of otherworldly violence (the claustrophobic jungle of Zeta Minor and the narrow corridors of the rescue ship play a very effective role here) but leads to some properly chilling cliffhangers. The Doctor falling between two universes was one thing but watching the Doctor and Sarah-Jane about to be ejected into space…? I only had to wait a minute for the next episode to kick off but that was enough for me. I can only imagine how people must have felt back in 1975, watching that and then having to wait a week for the next episode…

The plot around the ‘anti-matter monster’ (which given the date this story was aired, looked surprisingly creepy from where I was sat) probably wasn’t enough to carry a whole story so it was good then to see ‘crew politics’ explode into action as Captain Salamar becomes a little too eager to take charge. There was some nice back and forth between these two plot strands and neither of them grew stale, not when the other could take the strain for a bit.

Was the ending, with Sorenson, a little too neat? I think so. And could have Doctor have given the Morestran’s the means of saving their race right at the start (getting them off Zeta Minor and out of danger)? Almost definitely. That’s not really the point come the end of ‘Planet of Evil’. We’re all about an invisible killer, crewmen on the edge and the Doctor trying to keep everything from coming crashing down. ‘Planet of Evil’ does all of that very well and it’s absolutely on my ‘would watch again’ list.

And I was only a few days old when the first episode was aired, damn I feel old... ;o)

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