Pyramids of Mars

4 Episodes
Aired between 25th October 1975 and 15th November 1975

Written by Stephen Harris
Produced by Phillip Hinchcliffe
Directed by Paddy Russel

Synopsis

Professor Marcus Scarman, An archaeologist, enters a newly unearthed tomb in Egypt, 1911.  Inside he finds a door to the burial chamber, marked with the eye of Horus.  This spooks Scarman's aids, who flee in terror, leaving Marcus to go on alone.  He enters the burial chamber to find a masked figure sat atop a black throne.  He gasps in terror as he is bathed in a green light...

In the TARDIS, the Doctor and Sarah Jane are on their way back to London.  The Doctor's a bit distracted because he doesn't fancy the prospect of going back to work for UNIT - he's got fed up of it.  He's so distracted in fact that he calls Sarah "Vicky" when she decides to wear one of Victoria's period dresses.

As the Doctor and Sarah bicker, the TARDIS is rocked violently and Sarah sees an apparition of an Egyptian dog-headed demon.  The Doctor is concerned, as the power to beach the TARDIS exterior must be huge.  He decides to track the source of the energy release and brings the ship down to land.

The Doctor and Sarah quickly work out that the TADIS set down in 1911 on the site of an old priory that existed at the same location as the UNIT HQ until it burned down mysteriously.  Exploring, they find lots of Egyptian artifacts around, and see that the place is run temporarily by an Egyptian man called Ibarhim Namin in the employ of Marcus Scarman.

Marcus' old friend, Dr Warlock turns up and demands to know what's happened to Marcus as he feels the Egyptian has done something terrible to him.

As Ibrahim and Dr Warlock argue, the concerned butler discovers the Doctor and Sarah-Jane.  Mistaking them for friends of Dr Warlock, he gives them a friendly warning to leave whilst they can.

 It seems that that Ibrahim has a vile temper and has driven most of the staff away. He would be furious if he caught them.  The Doctor agrees to go and he and Sarah nip out the window, failing to see the lid of one of the sarcophagus move.They move under the windows until they find another way in.

Back in the main room, Ibrahim and Dr Warlock hear a terrible scream and rush to see what's happened, finding the butler dead on the floor.  Ibrahim pulls a gun on Warlock and intends to kill him because he's seen too much.  Luckily the Doctor heard his intent and manages to knock his gun out of the way, just wounding Dr Warlock in the arm instead.  Together, Warlock, Sarah and the Doctor race off into the grounds.  instead of chasing them, Ibrahim opens one of the sarcophagus, revealing a large Mummy.  He holds his gold ring up to the Mummy and commands it.  The thing moves.

The fugitives race into the woods and try to hide from the Mummy's (two in total).  They end up splitting up, with Sarah looking after Warlock whilst the Doctor finds them someplace better to hide.  He comes back eventually, having found a hunting lodge nearby where Lawrence Scarman, Marcus' brother lives.  They take Warlock their and regroup.  They bring Lawrence up to speed and see that he's something of an amateur scientist.  He has built a marconiscope (something of a radio telescope).

 They switch it on and find that there's some kind of signal being beamed from Mars: beware Sutekh.
The Doctor instantly knows that this pertains to an alien race known as the Osirans. They came to Earth a long time ago and ended up being woven into the Egyptian mythology.  Sutekh was a terrible tyrant who destroyed everyone and everything that he came into contact with until the rest of the Osirans banded together and with the help of their leader, Horus, trapped Sutekh inside a pyramid prison on Mars.  It seems that now, somehow, Marcus Scarman is embroiled in a plan to free Sutekh.

The Doctor, Sarah and Lawrence go back to the Priory to try and find a way of stopping Sutekh, leaving Warlock at the lodge to recuperate.  Lawrence brings his rifle with him, even though it won't do any good.

As he's out looking for the fugitives, the great organ in the Priory summons Ibrahim back.  He goes and prepares for the coming of what he believes to be Sutekh.

From a sarcophagus of Sutekh, comes a man dressed in black.  Proclaiming himself to be the true servant of Sutekh, he places his hands on Ibrahim and burns him to death.

The true servant of Sutekh then transforms into a corpse-like Marcus Scarman.  He communicates through the time-space tunnel that is Sutekh's sarcophagus with his master who remains trapped on Mars.

Sutekh commands Marcus to secure the perimeter with the Mummy's and begin construction of an Osiran War Missile.

As Marcus and the Mummy's leave the room to dispose of Ibrahim and carry out their orders, the Doctor, Lawrence and Sarah-Jane enter the room, having witnessed everything including the death of Ibrahim.  He fills Sarah Jane and Lawrence in on Sutekh and begins examining the time-space tunnel, accidentally activating it and nearly getting dragged through.

Luckily, he manages to stop it with the help of the TARDIS key but is knocked unconscious in the process.  Fearing the Mummy's returning, Lawrence leaves Sarah trying to wake the Doctor whilst he searches for a priest's bolt-hole that he and Marcus discovered as kids.  He helps Sarah get the Doctor inside just before Marcus returns.

Outside, in the grounds of the estate, a poacher called Ernie Clements runs across one of the Mummys.  it's trapped its leg in one of his traps.

Ernie watches in shock as it frees itself and goes about it's business of setting up an invisible barrier around the Priory grounds so nothing can get through.

Ernie legs it and soon comes nose to barrier with the invisible force field.  He is forced to go looking elsewhere and heads to Lawrence's place.  When he gets there, he finds that Marcus Scarman and the Mummy's have got their before him.

Inside, Marcus confronts a bewildered Dr Warlock and demands to know where Lawrence is.  once he's found out, Scarman sets the Mummy's on Warlock, killing him.

As soon as Clements hears the death screams he legs it to cover and follows Scarman back to the Priory.

Now recovered, the Doctor speculates that with Namin's ring, he could likely disrupt Sutekh's commands to Marcus and the Mummy's.

As they debate ways to get the ring however, Marcus returns and knowing there are humans around, begins looking for them.  He's just about to try the priest hole when Clements shoots him in the back through the window.

Marcus' body convulses but the wound reverses in time, healing him.  Marcus orders the Mummy's out to kill him, which of course, they ultimately do.

The delay buys the Doctor and co. enough time to leave the priest hole and go into the storage room.  The Doctor takes Ibrahim's ring from his body and together, they all pile into the TARDIS.  Once Lawrence has gotten over his shock at the TARDIS interior, Sarah and him suggest just going on to the future (1980).  The Doctor says they can't because the threat of Sutekh is too great.  Sarah challenges this by saying that she knows the world didn't end in 1911.  The Doctor shows them 1980 which is now a barren wasteland because of Sutekh.  He says they have no option.

They go back to 1911 and taking some equipment from the TARDIS, go back to Lawrence's lodge to jury rig a jamming device.

 As they prepare, Lawrence protests that Marcus is still alive, despite the Doctor's insistence that he's dead now.  It does no use.  When Marcus and the Mummy's inevitably come for them, Lawrence has a moment of weakness and tries to stop Sarah-Jane from throwing the switch that will jam their control signal.  The Mummy's attack and one reaches out menacingly to kill Sarah.  As it strikes, it hits the jamming device and is stopped by the discharge of power.  This allows her to escape and stop the other Mummy by using Namin's ring.  She commands it to return to control and it does.

After berating Lawrence, the Doctor looks at the equipment - it's beyond repair.

He decides that the only way of stopping Sutekh now is to destroy their missile before they can launch it.  Trying to be helpful, Lawrence suggests getting some blasting gelignite from the poacher, Clements.  The Doctor and Sarah go off to find the gelignite, leaving Lawrence to unwrap the bandages from the fallen Mummy.

On their travels, they run into the barrier.  Once they deactivate it via switching off a circuit hidden in a canopic jar, Sutekh senses the disturbance.  He orders Scarman to find and kill the humans, but not at the expense of building the missile.  Marcus obeys and goes to the lodge with a Mummy to find out what's gone wrong.  He sees Lawrence, who foolishly tries to turn him back to the good side.  Unfortunately for him, the Doctor was right, there's nothing left of Marcus Scarman.  He sets the mummy onto Lawrence, torturing and killing him also.

The Doctor and Sarah find the gelignite and take it to the Priory grounds, hiding it before heading back to the lodge.  They find Lawrence dead, and the Doctor gives his best, I told him so performance, an act that disturbs Sarah Jane because she's not used to him acting so alien.  The Doctor realises however that millions will die, far more than the five so far, if he doesn't get on with the job.  They use the bandages and wrap the Doctor up, disguising him as one of the Mummy's.  He goes to the gelignite and sets Sarah nearby with a rifle, ready to shoot it, thereby detonating it once he's clear.

The plan goes almost swimmingly, with the Doctor placing the box on the ramp of the missile and eventually getting clear.

But when Sarah shoots the explosives, the blast suddenly stops and then reverses.  The Doctor hypothesises that the sheer mental force of Sutekh is keeping the blast contained.

With nothing else left to do, the Doctor decides to sneak into the Priory once more and goes through the time-space tunnel, being transported to Sutekh's chamber on Mars.

As he looks upon the Osiran, it causes enough of a distraction for Sutekh's concentration to slip and the missile is destroyed.

With his only chance at freedom gone, Sutekh uses his eye beams on the Doctor causing him to scream in agony.  He pauses for a second, having the foresight to interrogate the Doctor.  In doing so, he discovers that the Doctor is a Time Lord from Galifrey and that means he can travel through time.

He intends to kill the Doctor and steal the TARDIS but the Doctor points out that the controls are isomorphic, meaning they respond only to him.    Sutekh demands the Doctor help him but he refuses.  It's only by Scarman capturing Sarah-Jane that he is able to force the Doctor to do his bidding.

Backed into a corner, the Doctor allows himself to be possessed by the will of Sutekh and he goes through the time-space tunnel back to the Priory.

He leads Scarman, a captive Sarah and the remaining Mummy into the TARDIS, taking them to Mars so they can destroy the Eye of Horus and free Sutekh.

Once they've arrive on Mars, Sutekh orders the Doctor killed and the Mummy strangles him to death.  They then leave Sarah alone and go off into the prison.  Sarah cries at the Doctor's death but he soon revives, stating that he has a respiratory bypass system to allow him to stop breathing.

Sutekh has let his mind go now, believing him dead.  Together, they go off after Scarman and the Mummy.

They each pass through a series of tests, moments apart from one another, including one with a fake button, and a pattern puzzle.

Sarah is inadvertently trapped in a plastic cylinder to face the judgement of Horus.  There's two buttons on the cylinder, one instant freedom, one instant death.  Two of Horus' Mummy's appear and the voice of Horus explains the test, stating that they can ask the Mummy's one question.

The Doctor thinks that one is programmed to tell the truth, the other a lie, so asks one of them what button the other would say.  He uses reasoning to deduce that the answer given would be false, so would point to the death switch, and if it was true, then it speaks the truth of the answer that the other must be the liar and therefore would point to the death switch anyway.  The upshot is, he presses the right switch and releases Sarah.

They are too late to stop Marcus as they enter the main chamber, they see that although another Mummy of Horus is holding off Sutekh's Mummy, Scarman has managed to destroy the eye, killing himself in the process.  Sutekh is free.

All seems lost, but the Doctor finally remembers there's a time difference from Mars to Earth.  He grabs Sarah's hand and rushes back to the TARDIS and races back to Earth.  Once there, he takes a portion of the TARDIS console with him and hooks it up to the time-space corridor, that Sutekh is coming through.

He manages to move the exit of the tunnel far, far into the future, effectively trapping Sutekh in the tunnel forever.  This however, causes a thermal imbalance and causes the Priory to catch fire, explaining the mystery of it being burned down.  Sarah and the Doctor race back to the TARDIS and set off again, trying to get back to UNIT.

Trivia

• Stephen Harris is a pseudonym of Robert Holmes and Lewis Greifer

• Greifer originally wrote it, but was unable for re-writes that were desperately needed.  In essence, the script was totally re-written by Bob Holmes and looks nothing like the original

• This is the first story to mention his respiratory bypass system

• A new TARDIS console built at the time of this story and used for Planet of Evil (because POE was filmed after this story) would not be used until the Invisible Enemy due to the cost of setting it up for what would be a small use.

• As this is the Gothic era of Doctor Who, this story is based on a classic horror story.  This time, it's the turn of the Hammer Horror classic - The Mummy

What worked

• The acting is superb, especially from Ibrahim and Michael Sheard 

• I love that the Doctor is quite serious here, it gives a definite gravitas to the threat

• The soundtrack is also suitably gothic

• Loved the effects of Scarman getting shot

• Loved how Sutekh is so unrepentant and evil

• Loved the end of the first episode

What didn't work

• The Mummy's chest press 

• The dog face of Sutekh looked lame

• The fact that the good guys couldn't figure out that if they stayed at the lodge long enough, the Mummy's were bound to turn up and kill whoever was there

Overall Feelings

More than any other story of Tom Baker's so far, this feels like the start of a new era.  There's no doubt that he made a big impact before this and at this point was probably a huge star already.  To get the full appreciation of it, I want to take you momentarily back to 1963.  When the first Doctor found himself on Skaro for the first time, there was a deep sense of wonder that came across to the audience, even when watching it in 2013.  That was when Doctor Who was about exploring threats on new planets in a Dan Dare fashion.  It was pulpy and incredibly enjoyable.  Now, Tom Baker introduces us to a new concept, threats in sleepy villages.

Hang on though, didn't Jon Pertwee just spend 4 years doing that?  Yes, sort of.  The thing about Jon Pertwee's run is that everything is action packed.  The closest we get is The Daemons, but even then, it's full of bike chases, helicopter chases and other such drama.  The Pyramids of Mars shows what Jon Pertwee's run never would.  It sports a huge death count and shows the consequences of failure.  It is extremely dark and gothic in nature.  It shows that threats can come even in bright, summer daylight and they're of such a scale that even the Doctor would be hard pressed to beat them.

This is a fantastic episode and will form the benchmark for more stories of ominous threats in sleepy English villages, just like I remember watching as a kid.

Rating

10 out of 10!

Rewatchability Factor

10 out of 10!

Watch this if you liked...

The Daemons

Death to the Daleks

The Awakening

The Image of the Fendahl

The Stones of Blood

Shada

Consulting the Matrix

Who is your favourite enemy from Mars - Ice Warriors, Sutekh or the Waters of Mars?

Planet of Evil

Four episodes
Aired between 27th September 1975 and 18th October 1975

Written by Louis Marks
Produced by Phillip Hinchcliffe
Directed by David Maloney

Synopsis

On a distant jungle planet known as Zeta Minor, a human science team works near a deep pit in the bowels of the jungle.  They collect strange crystal deposits until they get a radio call from their ship stating that night is falling.  The caller, Braun, is nervous at this prospect, as is Baldwin, the guy who receives the call.  Baldwin tells his companion, Professor Sorenson that they need to go as something apparently stalks the jungle at night but Sorenson is adamant that he wants to stay as the crystals are the purest form of a mineral that he has sought for some time.

It seems that they've found similar veins before, but according to Sorenson, the planet took them back and killed their crew.

Baldwin eventually leaves Sorenson and heads back, only to find that whatever stalks the jungle has been and killed Bruan.  It attacks Baldwin in the ship too and he disappears, screaming just after he manages to send a distress signal.

The Doctor picks up on the signal from the TARDIS console as he's trying to explain to Sarah-Jane how he could overshoot London by 30,000 years.

He becomes interested in the call and using a small tracking device, heads out of the ship with Sarah to find the source of the distress.  They too find themselves in a deep, alien jungle.

After searching for a while, Sarah gets momentarily transfixed by a sound she hears in the distance.

In the orbit of Zeta Minor, a human spaceship approaches, it too catching the distress call.  The ships commander, Salamar orders his deputy, Vishinsky to head up a search party and go down to the planet.  Vashinsky questions some of Salamar's processes, such as not scanning the surface before going down there, but ultimately obeys orders.

Back on the planet, the Doctor and Sarah find the science team's ship.  They discover the bodies of Braun and Baldwin, both mummified.

The ship is dark and abandoned and the Doctor theorises that they're months too late.  The Doctor decides to do some tests, for which he needs a Spectromixer.  Sarah volunteers to go back to the TARDIS and find it whilst he waits there.

Unusually, she gets back to the TARDIS without incident and finds the equipment the Doctor needs.

 Unknown to her however, Vishinsky and the search party have found the TARDIS and Salamar orders it to be teleported back to the ship.  Strange clamps are placed around the blue box and the TARDIS is taken away with Sarah in it.  Once it's gone, the party encounter Professor Sorenson hiding in the jungle.  He claims he's found something magnificent and important to Earth.  He takes them to the base, believing Baldwin to still be alive. Vishinsky questions Sorenson on the way, who is more than a little apprehensive to reveal details, confirming that some of his former crew are dead but he stresses that the important thing is is breakthrough.

When they get to the ship, they discover the Doctor working on the controls and they immediately suspect that the Doctor has killed Braun and Baldwin.

Sarah meanwhile exits the TARDIS to find herself orbiting the jungle planet.  Salamar puts her under arrest and contacts Vishinsky.  He orders him to keep an eye on the Doctor whilst he questions Sarah about how they got there.  He ignores their protests on stumbling over the distress call, as Zeta Minor is at the very edge of the known universe.

Salamar's crew take the ship down to rest next to Sorenson's small craft.

Sorenson explains to Vishinsky and Salamar that they'd only been working there a few weeks when the killings began, always at night.  Salamar immediately suspects enemy interference and warns the Doctor to confess before he's interrogated.  When he finds out that there's no sign of life anywhere else on the planet, he immediately sentences them to death.  They are put into a room to await execution and manage to escape just as a semi-transparent creature approaches and attacks.

The guards fire at it, but it begins killing them systematically.  They disappear screaming, only to reappear as the mummified husks.

Salamar discovers that the Doctor and Sarah have escaped and orders his men to shoot at them as they flee into the jungle.

The creature disappears as the sun breaks the horizon, leaving the crew to regroup.  They send out the occuloid tracker after the fugitives.  It catches up to them as they reach a huge pit.

Back at the ship, Sorenson exclaims that the creature was obviously what killed his old crew, but insists that the only thing that matters is his discovery of the crystals as a potential new energy source to replace their dying sun. He demands the crystals be taken aboard immediately and they get off the planet, but Salamar is adamant that he wants the Doctor and Sarah re-captured.  He sends out another patrol after them and they catch them at the pit.

After a minor struggle, one of the men falls into the pit and finds it bottomless.  The others look to rescue him, but the Doctor warns them all to stay away from the pit as they're tampering with the balance of the planet and it could already be too late.  He and Sarah are taken back to the ship. Once there, the Doctor tries to explain to Salamar that he thinks Zeta Minor is on the threshold between two dimensions, and that the pit is a gateway between matter and anti-matter universes.  He says that if they try to take the crystals off the planet, then the planet will stop them.  Salamar dismisses them and locks them up in the ship's cargo hold where the TARDIS is also.

Sarah suggests just leaving in the TARDIS, something that the Doctor admits is tempting but says that it wouldn't just be Salamar and the crew that would buy it, it would potentially be the entire universe.  Looking around, he finds Sorenson's crystals and puts a few in an old toffee tin.

As the Doctor predicted, the ship tries to take off, but the controls don't respond quite as expected.  The creature shows up again and Salamar sends his men out to fight it whilst also putting up the force field.

Neither of them do any good and the creature begins working its way through to the ship.  The Doctor implores Salamar to connect the force field with the atomic accelerator, but Salamar is reluctant due to their limited energy reserves.  Vishinsky grows impatient and yells at Salamar to do it.  Low and behold, the boosted force field does the trick and drives the creature off.

With renewed hope, the Doctor tries to reason with Sorenson and the crew once more, asking them to dump the crystals and look at another way of fueling their home.  He suggests making it obvious that they've left the stuff behind and that he could go back to the pit and re-negotiate with the creature on their behalf.  Salamar eventually agrees but only if the Doctor goes with another occuloid tracker following him.

The Doctor sets off as the soldiers dump the crystals and makes his way to the pit.  Once there the creature rises from the pit and engulfs the Doctor, sending him careering into the blackness.

knowing the Doctor is dead, Sorenson begins to argue with Salamar to keep some of the crystals onboard.  This debate allows Sarah enough time to escape into the jungle once more.  She goes to the pit and finds the Doctor climbing back out of it, half delirious.

On the bridge, Vishinsky sees the Doctor alive again and disobeys Salamar to go and retrieve him.

In the chaos, Sorenson goes to the hold and takes one of the canisters of crystals away.  A short time later as he's making notes on the substance, he doubles over in pain and goes to the mirror, terrified to find that his eyes are glowing bright red.

He scrambles to his desk for a flask of odd smokey liquid which he drinks and is cured.

The Doctor is taken by Vashinsky and Sarah to the ships sick bay and they set off.

The Doctor comes around and begins to panic, but Sarah assures him that all they crystals are off board and he relaxes.  As the ship starts to malfunction again however, he realises that he still has the crystal samples in the toffee tin in his pocket (apparently the only thing that stopped him from being killed in the pit of anti-matter).

The Doctor still weak, passes the tin to a crew member called Morelli.  He goes to fire it into space but is attacked by something clearly anti-matter and drained to a husk.

Sorenson returns to his room, looking more feral and sick.  He drinks more of the liquid and returns to normal.

The crew find Morelli dead and deduce that one of them must be the murderer.  On the advice of Soernson, Salamar goes and accuses the Doctor and Sarah of being the ones to kill him.  Vashinsky objects but is told to tow the line and they take the Doctor to the TARDIS and demand that he open it up or be shot.

Their discussion is cut short as the ship stops moving.  The Doctor tells them that they've reached the end of their 'elastic' and will begin to head backwards towards Zeta Minor, picking up speed until it crashes into the planet.

As this discussion is taking place, Sarah sees Sorenson beginning to change and goes into a trance again.  When she wakes up, he is gone.  She tries to find him but only finds another dead crewman.

 The Doctor hears her cry and rushes to her, punching Salamar to do so.  When Salamar gets to them he again believes them to have killed the crew and orders them executed.  They are taken to the ejector tubes and strapped into them despite Vashinsky objecting again.  He refuses to obey Salamar and ends up fighting him, accidentally throwing the ejector switch in the struggle.  The Doctor and Sarah slide from view, as a scream is heard over the intercom.  The scream indicates another crew member being attacked.  Salamar rushes off with the rest of the men to help his crew, leaving Vishinsky to retrieve the Doctor and Sarah just in time.

In light of the new evidence, Salamar is forced to admit that the Doctor couldn't have done it.  Vishinsky relieves Salamar of his command and steps the ship up to red alert.

Back in the ejection room, Sarah explains to the Doctor the peculiar feeling she'd had when confronting Sorenson.  This allows the Doctor to conclude that Sorenson is the attacker and is somehow influenced by the anti-matter crystals.  The Doctor decides to go after Sorenson and leaves Sarah to go and tell Vishinsky about what they discussed and tell him to close all section airlock doors.

Once on his own, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to enter Sorenson's room, finding the crystals and the flask of solution.  Sorenson arrives and allows the Doctor to spell out his theory that Sorenson thought the solution would protect him from the crystal's anti-matter radiation, but it only help it to interact with him in strange ways, precipitating the change in his DNA instead.

He says the next time he changes, it could be the last, as he is slowly transforming into an anti-matter creature. He gives Sorenson one last chance to save everyone by ejecting the anti-matter.   Sorenson does take the crystals but change into "anti-man" before he can flush them out into space.

On the command deck, Salamar breaks free from custody and takes the atomic accelerator, exposing himself to radiation.  He intends to find Sorenson and shove it at him, probably killing them both but solving the problem.

The Doctor finds the crystals abandoned, and runs into Salamar, hunting Sorenson with the accelerator.  The Doctor calls Vishinsky and tells him to open all the hatches again and rushes after him.  He's too late however.  He finds that not only has Salamar been drained to a husk like the others, but also, the "anti-man" has fed from the radiation and is now even more powerful and can duplicate itself!

The Doctor, surrounded by "Anti-men" manages to ward them off with the crystals and fight his way to the command deck.  He fills in Sarah, Vishinsky and the rest, nothing that they only have 15 minutes left before the ship crashes, then rushes off again with a pistol.  He finds and stuns the real Sorenson with the gun and then takes him to the TARDIS and sets off into the time vortex.

The Doctor takes the TARDIS back down to Zeta Minor and takes Sorenson and the crystals to the giant pit.  There Sorenson wakes again and begins attacking the Doctor.

Meanwhile, the ship is accelerating towards the planet and the duplicated "anti-men" are burning their way through the crew and the hull doors towards the command bridge.

Back on the planet, the Doctor eventually bests Sorenson as he slips and falls into the pit.  The Doctor throws the canister of crystals in after him and the duplicated "anti-men" all disappear, leaving the ship to slow and then climb back out of orbit, away from the planet.

To his surprise, the Doctor sees a newly restored Sorenson climb out of the edge of the pit, suffering from amnesia. The Doctor takes him back to the TARDIS and they leave again, flying back to the ship.

Sorenson begins to ask for an update on the crystals, but the Doctor fools him into thinking that he was going down another, more feasible answer of research that would help his people.

The Doctor ushers Sarah back into the TARDIS after a short goodbye with Vishinsky and says they're late for an appointment in London, by over a thousand years.

Trivia

• The production team originally worked on this story to have the actual planet killing people (hence the title name), but through revisions etc. the idea shifted more towards aliens linked to the planet

• The jungle set was so good that the BBC used photos of it in training manuals as an excellent example of set design

• Tom Baker was asked to work without his scarf for most of episodes 3 and 4 so that the filming of him falling into the pit would work easier.

What worked

• The jungle set WAS fantastic

• I liked how the Doctor suddenly got a bit more serious as it offered more gravitas to the threat they were facing

• I think they deserved points for trying to make different futuristic guns, even if they did look like flashbulbs on a piece of wood

• The scene where Sorenson's eyes glow red is pretty cool

• The shape of the creature is also pretty good I think

What didn't work 

• The "Anti-man" looked crap

• The logic of anti-matter in your pocket protecting you

• The overacting of Salamar and many of the other cast

Overall Feelings

You don't need to be a genius to see that this story was a hybrid of ideas.  It's widely regarded that the Planet of Evil was a re-imagining of The Forbidden Planet.  The invisible energy creature being a big give away.  The other aspect, of course, is Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde.  The latter has been tried before in the Third Doctor's run (see Inferno) with some degree of success but when they coupled that with an alternate universe yarn, the two ideas were mutually exclusive so neither made a big impact on the other.  The Planet of Evil is different.

Louis Marks (or perhaps even Robert Holmes and Philip Hinchcliffe) has combined the ideas in such a way that they don't really make a lot of sense.  Granted, this is family viewing and as a TV show, it's passable if you do want to switch your brain off and just enjoy, but the second you start to consider the logic, it starts becoming a headache.  The least of which is how can matter and anti-matter exist in the same place, why does the crystals protect the Doctor at all, why doesn't Anti-Man just go straight to the control room seeing as nobody can stop him etc.

Overall, there's elements of this story that are good, but this is a rare occasion where you'll see me saying it comes more from Tom Baker and Lis Sladen and the cool jungle set than it does from the actual story.

Rating

6 out of 10

Rewatchability Factor

4 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• Inferno

• Frontier in Space

• Planet of the Daleks

• Kinda

• Snakedance

• Survival

Consulting the Matrix

Do you think this story would have worked better without Sorenson and the "anti-man"?