The CLASSIC WHO continues and It Has Improved (Planet of Fire Review)
I liked this! But that doesn't mean it's without its problems.
I was engaged the whole way through this, and I put that down to Turlough. His nervousness and investment in what was going on made me much more invested in the mystery, and made every conversation he had with both the inhabitants of Sarn and the Doctor interesting and tense. The reveals about his past felt satisfying and fitting, and led to a nice end for him where he essentially stops running away and faces his past and his home. Also him deciding to sacrifice his freedom (as he believes will happen when the Trions arrive) to help others was a fitting end to his character arc that started with him agreeing to sacrifice the Doctor to help himself.
The setting and dynamics of Sarn, with the conflict between believers and doubters, is fairly unoriginal for Classic Who but perfectly serviceable. Although this is where my biggest complaint comes in- the treatment of the native inhabitants of Sarn. The Trions' actions on Sarn are horrific, and this is never truly acknowledged. They manipulated the society to place one of their criminals (unclear whether he's actually a criminal or truly a political prisoner, either way it seems he was viewed as a criminal?) as leader. This makes it very uncomfortable when the inhabitants of Sarn are sent to Trion without a clear acknowledgement (that I recall) of the Trions' previous harmful actions. It is established that Trion has changed for the better, but this centres around not taking political prisoners (which is important, obviously) with no mention of stopping messing with the politics and society of other planets to create prisons. It didn't ruin the story for me, but made the ending uncomfortable.
Onto the Master. His introduction through Kamelion was really neat and made for some interesting stakes as Peri could temporarily get rid of the Master and the Master was reliant on his Kamelion scheme to be rescued giving him greater investment in the situation. I'm not totally sold on Peri yet, but her confidence and bravery growing throughout the story culminating in her standing up to the Master was a good start. Also seeing the Master fall victim to his own nefarious experiments is always fun.
Kamelion was more of a plot device than a character. And his death was...weird. It's not the noble sacrifice that I have a problem with, but the Doctor had less hesitation about letting Kamelion die than letting the Master die? Which felt wrong when it was established that the whole Master thing was not Kamelion's fault, whereas the Master... well he's the Master. I feel there should have been much more anguish over Kamelion's death. Then again it's not without precedent, the Doctor's reaction to Adric's death was basically 'that was sad, let's go on holiday'.
I feel like I've been quite negative about Planet of Fire, I actually enjoyed watching it quite a lot, there were just a couple of plot beats that weren't so great.
This story was definitely an improvement from the last for me- and Caves of Androzani is next....
