Doctor Who - Planet of Evil (Episode 81)
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• Closed-captioned
• Color
• DVD-Video
• Original recording remastered
• Subtitled
• NTSC |
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Doctor Who - Planet of Evil (Episode 81) Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
"They killed DeHaan!" "Some THING killed DeHaan!"
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"Planet of Evil" is probably the moodiest and most atmospheric "Doctor Who" serial to come from Philip Hinchcliffe's tenure as producer. There's a scary monster only ever seen in outline; a dark jungle set dripping with reds, greens and purples; a near 100% fatality rate among the incidental characters; and a more somber than ever Tom Baker (sans his clownish scarf for more than half the story).
The story marks an interesting contrast against today's digitally animated and faster-paced "Doctor Who" episodes. The making-of featurette on the "Planet" DVD effectively contrasts the story's lumbering pace between a faster-cut moment from "Rose", the first episode of the new series. However, although "Planet of Evil" looks as dated as you might expect for something made over 30 years ago, there are still some interesting touches in the direction. Under the eye of David Maloney, who always brought something inventive to the camera, here we have multi-level sets and Hitchcockian camera angles stalking the characters from impossibly high up in the studio. The DVD extras give us 51 seconds of studio outtakes in which Maloney encourages Baker and Lis Sladen to scream and keep screaming while his crew struggle to bring the Chroma-key monster on-screen. It used to be said that this story influenced the movie [[ASIN:B00011V8IQ Alien (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)]] and it's easy to see why.
Apart from a crisp DVD presentation, the story is let down on a few sides. The red-outlined anti-matter monster (a blatant homage to [[ASIN:B000HEWEDK Forbidden Planet (Two-Disc Special Edition)]] disappears in the second half of the story, to be replaced by an ineffectively lumbering stunt double for Frederick Jaeger (playing accidental bad guy Professor Sorenson). The acting style is very stagey and doesn't hold up so well today; Prentis Hancock plays an emotionally unhinged starship captain without a hint of psychological subtlety. This is redeemed of course by Hancock's own contribution to the DVD commentary track, as he sets out such a compelling case for his character's motivation that it's a shame it wasn't incorporated into the actual script.
The rest of the cast is sadly disposable, as most of the starship crew serve the purpose of redshirts who have more effort put into their death screams than into their characters. The sole exception there is someone named Graham Weston, who adds some insight into the DVD extra features and whose character gets some of the lone grasps of comedy in the entire story.
Finally, the story itself makes little sense. Although Baker as always sells his explanation with terrific conviction ("Sorenson, if you don't remove the anti-matter from the ship you won't be allowed to leave this planet!"), the plot doesn't hold up once you start thinking about the story's core concept of a Jekyll-and-Hyde planet. Why does the anti-matter monster continue to kill even after the Doctor "promised" he'd return the stolen anti-matter crystals? How does Sorenson have an oral "anti-quark" antidote to the crystals' poison even before he's infected? Why does the captain not flinch (or even appear to notice) when his first three crewmen are killed, but suddenly goes nuts after DeHaan dies?
That said, this story's an obvious influence on modern "Who" episodes such as "The Impossible Planet" and "42", so it's hard to dismiss. One advantage to the classic "Who" episodes being released one episode at a time rather than season-by-season is that a story like "Planet of Evil" gets to receive deluxe treatment at the hands of the Restoration Team. With nearly an hour of explanatory material -- including a lengthy easter egg of producer Hinchcliffe narrating the story's production file -- any faults that may have developed in "Planet of Evil" after 30-plus years of repeat viewings are now easily glossed over. |
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Doctor Who - Planet of Evil (Episode 81) dvd movie.