The Space Pirates

25 Jun 2005, 2:16 pm

The Space Pirates 1:

Oh dear lord.

I listened to this ages ago. Usually that would be a problem for Day by Day. This time, it won't be. It's a memorable episode. For all the wrong reasons, yes. But memorable.

There's a phrase that keeps repeating itself through your head when you listen to the Space Pirates. It's this: Robert Holmes wrote this. Robert Holmes wrote this. It's hard to believe that the man who, three or so years later, is writing Carnival of Monsters is here writing something so inept and turgid. It just makes you wonder - how good could Peter R Newman and Geoffrey Orme become, had they only been given the chance.

This episode isn't one of those spectacularly 'love it or loathe it', or 'so bad it's good' type stories. It's just bad. Even with the worst turkey's, the problems of poor dialogue, misconceived plots, ludicrous costumes, etc. are usually placed on top of a script that you can actually see that someone might have thought could work. You know, one that's been constructed. A poorly put together plot is still a plot, for an example. You can usually see that someone's really gone for it Generally, I prefer a film that is awful but you can tell why someone might want to make it to turgid movies with no discernable point. This episode is just that. Twenty five minutes that doesn't seem to be about anything. It's hard to conceive how anyone could have looked at the script and thought: yep, that'll work. This episode is barely constructed at all! The TARDIS takes forever to arrive, and the regulars remain purely tangential to the plot (they vaguely distract the guards, but are pretty irrelevant for the rest of the episode with only one speaking character aware of their existence by the end of the episode). This is just stupid. In a vibrant story, this might be less of a problem (viz Revelation), but they're vital in something this flat. We watch the show for the leads, they have to be central. Even if they don't entirely drive the plot at all times, they need to fundamentally be our focus. Shoving them away into a brief corridor run for a couple of minutes without affecting the other people in the episode seems to be dismissive of them in the highest order. I'm sensing that the writers are losing interest in them in contrast to their interest in their own creations.

Most bizarrely of all, the entire 'plot' of the episode is the exact same thing happening. Three times. In a row. Slowly. But, most bizarrely of all, the entire 'plot' of the episode is the exact same thing happening. Three times. In a row. Slowly. But, most bizarrely of all, the entire 'plot' of the episode is the exact same thing happening. Three times. In a row. Slowly.

See? Pretty tedious isn't it? Who in their right mind would think this is a suitable plot for a family adventure show? When Frazer Hines' narration has to keep jumping through hoops to find new ways of describing the action ('they go through their practiced moves' etc.) and by the end of the episode when that bloke from It Ain't Half Hot Mum is saying the Pirates are attacking a third time, and they say 'we're too late - again' IN THE FIRST EPISODE, didn't someone spot that the plot was somewhat repetitive? Worse still, it hardly helps that the opposing forces in this episode are millions of miles apart throughout. The military here are reduced to watching the villains on television whilst sitting around for twenty five minutes moaning about how they can't do anything. How exciting! As a result, there's no suspense, no tension. Each time you know you're going to see pretty much the same thing as the last time.

And there is a major problem with the military too. Jack May, the actor playing General Hermack, has a fabulous voice, great for the audio. Unfortunately, this disguises the fact that he's a terrible actor. (it's something of a syndrome for British actors in US shows too, usually for guest slots. The RP accent seems to convince executives that their frankly talentless UK discovery has the acting chops of Laurence Olivier. I've lost count of the amount of mediocre performances in British set episodes of Murder She Wrote, Quantum Leap, etc...) His voice is plummy and rich - but that's it. He's so concerned with the words sounding well spoken, he's forgotten to think about what he's saying, or at the very least just thinks he can let the voice do all the work. The other characters are faceless and functional at best.

Beyond that, there is nothing at all to write, as there's nothing at all to the episode. The equally plotless opening of Seeds managed to work because there was direct conflict, interesting characters, suspense, a plot that developed, good performances, and the lively work of the central cast, kept relatively central. This episode seems to have been written as a bet to see whether you could get away with none of these things. Answer: you can't.

I seem to recall reading an article that a few years back an early video recorder was found, and the guy who had it had taped an episode of Who that they thought was Space Pirates 1. When the tape was viewed, it turned out to be part two, which they already had.

I'm not sure I'm that disappointed frankly. If, in a somewhat unlikely scenario, a mad film hoarder offered me every single missing episode - as long as I burned one of them - I think I know what episode I'd pick. Space Pirates 1: Even duller than episode one of the Chase.


#214 25 Jun 2005, 8:49 pm
Dorney

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The Space Pirates 2:

OK, so after the monumental tedium of the first episode, this one is something of a relief. That's not to say the overly static, non-existant 'plot' does anything as extreme as 'move forward' - hint, it doesn't - but that this episode at least has a few things to recommend it.

Most of these are derived from the visuals. Firstly, George Layton's tache is worth the price on the video in itself. Secondly, Zoe's hot pants are so outrageously minute I'm almost regretting the fact that the rest of the story doesn't exist (I said almost). If nothing else they do distract you from realising that the regulars do even less in this episode than they did in the last one (all that guff about magnets is pure time filler that achieves precisely nothing). And some of the model work is quite pleasant.

The biggest bonus of this episode is Milo Clancy. Now, the problems with the rest of the story still affect him - the accent is dodgy, and the static direction means he's not quite the distracting whirligig the script wants him to be - but he's a welcome source of life and energy in the script. The other characters are bland stereotypes, and Clancy is a refreshing change, blistering with personality. The dullness of the rest of the script doesn't help him, it has to be said, because it means he looks worse than he is in comparison. But the character is energised and a bit barking and, most importantly, this is for no good reason. In deed, the talk from the other characters about him suggests someone a hell of a lot different from the person we see - potential killer, potential head pirate? Hardly. Whereas all the other cast members are lumbered with 'characters' defined by their plot function - villain, military man, pirate, etc. - and hence one note, Clancy feels like a proper character. He's an individual, and he's not quite like anyone we've seen in the entire series, let alone this story. He doesn't talk like everyone else (everyone else speaks in roughly the same who-ese style voice). The fact that the character doesn't completely work is probably down to the fact that Holmes is still refining the prototype, but make no mistake, this is a solid leap forward in characterisation. In many ways, Holmes is Clancy - leaping into a fairly black and white show (in every sense) and adding colour. The joyous wit and life he's going to perfect in the next five years of the show can be seen here. Of course, there's a famous saying about a silk purse and a sow's ear, and the story surrounding him is still dull enough to ensure that this is merely a burst of colour in an otherwise drab tapestry.

Beyond that, it's business as usual. Hermack is still dreadful. How anyone can call someone 'Ian' in such a dramatic and plummy way I can't comprehend. And he completely fails to make his big expositional speeches feel like anything other than big expositional speeches. He always seems dead behind the eyes (watch the shots of him in the reprise - he's just a voice, that's all). Warne makes more of an effort, but is lumbered with an unconvincing accent, and Madelaine Issigri (visited in a rather silly and contrived scene by Hermack, who's vague flirting just makes him seem like an idiot) is equally lumbered with a silly hat/wig/whatever it's supposed to be. And the general static nature of the plot just bores - again, this episode is pretty much about the military wasting time, farting around, stuck away from anything of any import - it's something of an irony that the only episode of this story to exist is the one with no Space Pirates in it. And that, despite the first episodes dullness, was a positive point, because piracy implies action, and action implies excitement. You tune into these shows for certain things. Take the Bill for example. This is like an episode of the Bill with all the policeman standing around the station saying 'maybe we ought to go out and catch someone' for thirty minutes, before deciding to follow someone on the basis that they're wearing an odd shirt. Oh, and it would only be the extras and bit part actors from the Bill saying this. The main cast would have been locked in the stationary cupboard for the entire episode having a conversation about paper clips. Come on, drama needs drama, doesn't it? Television has to move doesn't it?


#215 26 Jun 2005, 1:00 am
Alzarian

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Gee...

I really wish you wouldn't hold back. What do you REALLY think?

Anyway, I agree that this isn't one of the more sterling moments for the show, but I agree that at least Milo Clancey helps to keep it watchable. It is a bit of a puzzle that the show kept using Robert Holmes on the basis of his work in this season. (Of course, lucky for us that they did.)



#216 26 Jun 2005, 4:00 am
The Secretive Bus


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Hurrah! Marvellous. A rip-to-shreds review.

I actually rather like the story, in spite of its faults. Actually, I'm awfully fond of Hermack because he's so rubbishly acted ("We are going to be too late AGAIN!"). And that chap who went on to play Eckersley in "Monster of Peladon" is rather good. I can see why others hate it, but it passes the time amiably. Actually, I'll probably be giving it a relisten this week.

Oh, and I notice you haven't mentioned the musical score yet, an aspect of the story that I reckon works wonderfully. The space opera theme is particularly effective.

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#217 26 Jun 2005, 12:51 pm
Dorney

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I know what you mean - Donald Gee is just about pulling off a fairly underwritten part. And I've been meaning to mention the music but keep forgetting. It is rather good, echoing parts of the superior Ice Warriors score. Rather bizarrely, they keep forgetting to use it though - so you get it osunding beautifully over the model shots - but then vanishing from interiors, where it really needs a bit of life.




#218 26 Jun 2005, 8:29 pm
The Secretive Bus
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OK, nothing to do with "The Space Pirates", but just a little pondering about the 1st Doctor's regeneration in "The Tenth Planet". Y'see, I've always been a bit dissatisfied with that story and particularly about the way the Doctor does sod all in his swansong. The following is copied from a post I just made in another thread 'round these parts, but I thought I'd reproduce it here for your own consumption and comment.

I've never liked the 1st Doctor's cause for regenerating, especially because it's never made clear exactly what causes it. Is it simply old age, or is the power of Mondas, or both, or what? It's never stated.

The writers really missed a trick for increasing the drama of that story regarding the Doctor's position. Hypothetical storyline: the Doctor realises that the energy drain of Mondas is affecting him, and is slowly killing him. However, he knows that any offensive against Mondas would be futile, and so the only solution would be to do nothing and wait for Mondas to burn itself out (as he suggests in the actual story), despite knowing himself that such actions would also cause him to die if he sticks around for much longer. He makes to leave in the TARDIS, but the Cybermen that attack the base are so powerful that he's forced to reconsider the matter - he knows that he is needed to combat the Cybermen, and so must remain in the base to do so.

Imagine the drama in that - the Doctor torn between saving the entire planet Earth, or saving his own life. Fantastic.

Unfortunately, in the story we do get the Doctor does nothing at all - his advice is rejected, and he doesn't have any hand in the defeat of the waves of Cybermen at all. The fact that Hartnell was ill for episode 3 doesn't help, but even this could have been integrated into the story in a far better fashion as I suggested above - the Doctor falling under the power of Mondas's energy-tapping. It wouldn't have been so glaring if he'd actually had had a role to play in the story up till that point. As it is he's a guest character in his own finale, and simply collapses at the beginning of part 3 for no explained reason other than "This body of mine is wearing a bit thin." As it is, a story solution that consists of not doing anything is a bit rum anyway, but could have been saved by having the Doctor at the centre of the drama in part 4. As it is, his regeneration comes across as more as an afterthought.

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#219 26 Jun 2005, 11:37 pm
Dorney
Time Lord
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It's a shame I can't recall much about Tenth Planet, other than the Doctor's treatment is a bit weird, and rather an afterthought to the rest of the story (after I type that, I realise you've said almost the exact same thing - great minds, eh).

The problem is possibly that they haven't quite decided what the process is - it isn't until the end of Planet of Spiders (and maybe not until Logopolis, I'm not sure) where it's explicitly about saving a dying man. So looking at it with hindsight, it does seem a bit rotten, but in context there's no reason for it to be a direct part of the process. Having said that, it's a shame that the most momentous part of the story doesn't really kick off til part four, and in a way that could have been in any script.

I'll try to recover some of this when I rewrite the lost review of it, but that'll obviously be a bit of time.


#220 27 Jun 2005, 12:38 am
Dorney

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The Space Pirates 3:

OK, the runaround continues.

To be fair, the plot begins to kick in in the last five minutes or so of this episode, but the first twenty or so retains is daft structure of being an action series where the goodies are too busy dealing with each other for the baddies to even appear (the titular pirates are absent for forty five minutes straight). This wouldn't matter so much if this was a subplot, but as a main plot it's lacking in tension. As it is, this episode is fairly samey, and spends the vast majority of its length with the characters all completely removed from the story's central premise - pirates. A plot shouldn't be basically people reacting to the echoes of the main storyline happening off stage (well, perhaps a stage play could). It should be central. You keep getting the impression that all the action is happening elsewhere, and this is about watching people caught up in the wake. This story is dealing with the consequences and ripples from major events rather than the events themselves, and as a result seems desperately inconsequential. By making the episodes centrally about the incorrect scheme of Hermack, we're locked into a plotline that has nowhere to go - chase and escape, or realisation of the mistake. This is a small scale obstacle, rather than a plot point that changes the story's direction.

The plot is basically a runaround done really slowly, and at distance. Everyone's worried about how much time they've got to do this or that, and usually they say ninety minutes or something vast, which isn't exactly the most urgent countdown. Now, whilst I appreciate the attempt to suggest scale, this does just mean a lack of narrative drive and tension. It's all static - no one ever seems to feel anything is all that urgent (even when Milo has Warne on his tail, he just sits around). You see, I've managed to get through another twenty five minutes, and I really can't think of much that actually happened.

Hermack remains annoying. Petulant (his childish dismissal of Warne early in the episode) and cretinous, it's hard to conceive of this man as a military leader. Particularly daft is his jumping to conclusions over Clancy, ordering the Liz 79 to be destroyed on sight, with no evidence at all beyond his own wild surmise. And whilst the script seems to be pushing him as a major antagonist, it's clear with a mere glance that he's done precisely zip in the first three episodes, moving at snails pace around the galaxy, and growled away about what he's going to do when he catch some people, and then never getting close. He's like the frustrated principal or father in all those teenage films, having to cope with those 'crazy kids, but without the amusing frustration (he seems to think he's dynamic, confident, and is acheiving something). He's a character trying to look and sound important, to conceal the fact of his utter irrelevancy (again, he's been semi-permanently removed from all the central characters, as have all his crew, and isn't driving the plot in anyway, merely reacting - you could drop him from the script and the central plot would not be substantially different). His biggest acheivment is to have gone for a cup of tea with a woman of no relevance to his investigation midway through a campaign (and completely failed to notice she blatantly knows more than she's saying). The man's a liability.

If you can ignore him, there's some nice stuff in this episode. Clancy's fun, and Holmes has a flair with the regulars, an instinctive grasp of their characterisation, that's usually lacking. In the greatest sitcom style, their interaction is warm and funny, purely because of who they are and the way they respond to each other (the Doctor's line in part two: Zoe, don't be such a pessimist, is rather wonderful in it's droll summation of them both). It's really the only joy in this episode.

That and the somewhat bizarre serendipity of everyone turning up on the pirates base by accident. Considering how long range the scanners have been shown to be, how come Hermack didn't spot the beacon pieces? If Liz 79 is going faster, how did it miss them?

In the last five minutes we do get a promise that the script is going to stop ignoring the central question of the narrative, and deal with the pirates. The cliffhanger is a little trite, but it's a step in the right direction.



#221 27 Jun 2005, 7:56 am
The Secretive Bus


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It's interesting that I don't recall Hermack ever actually meeting the Doctor and his companions...

If I remember, we do begin to get a bit of pirate action action action in part 4, but I've a feeling by the time you get to the climaxing threat in episode 6 you'll have lost the will to live. I found the whole story rubbish and enjoyable, but from your reviews I'm guessing you'll be throwing your CD player out o' the car window...

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#222 27 Jun 2005, 11:02 am
Dorney

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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Secretive Bus
"It's interesting that I don't recall Hermack ever actually meeting the Doctor and his companions..."

If I remember, we do begin to get a bit of pirate action action action in part 4, but I've a feeling by the time you get to the climaxing threat in episode 6 you'll have lost the will to live. I found the whole story rubbish and enjoyable, but from your reviews I'm guessing you'll be throwing your CD player out o' the car window...

To be fair, I don't actually hate it yet - there's so little there to really get worked up about. It's just dull. Some nice dialogue and characterisation from the regulars and Clancy - now that both are fully integrated into the episodes - make it pass by relatively painlessly.



#223 28 Jun 2005, 2:06 pm
Dorney


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The Space Pirates 4:

I think I've got why I have a problem with this story now. It's not painful listening, well, after part one it isn't. The script isn't vastly worse than anything surrounding it, neither is characterisation (OK, the Space Corps are bland, and the villains one note but the vibrancy of the regulars and Clancy balance it out), neither is the acting (bar Hermack everyone is competent).

The problem is that it doesn't have a plot. At all.

The basic set up of the story is this - Argonite pirates are nicking argonite. The Space Corps want to stop them. And that's it. It doesn't go anywhere. The pirates have no grand scheme, there's no escalation of the stakes. This is the plot as has been established in part one, and it's the same now. There's one minor twist at the end of this episode, with the reveal of Madelaine as a villainess (ish), but that's hardly a surprise, considering she's the only other character in the story, and has no function otherwise. It's capture, escape, runaround, for the entire script! The story needs some sort of clock, or forward motion to really engage us, otherwise you just have series of similar set pieces.
Notice how, in this episode, the Doctor and co. are put into a cell, locked away, and spend the majority of the time trying to escape. Isn't that rather similar to episode two? Even down to Clancy turning up outside the door! It's obstacle, resolution, obstacle, resolution, over and again, with none of them really doing anything. The return of Sorba in this episode, for example, adds little, apart from being canon fodder, and means the regulars are no further along than they were at the beginning. The villains are established, and the Doctor tries to stop them.

It's worth observing to that the villains are terribly small fry. Just because the title adds the word 'Space' to 'Pirates' doesn't make them anything more dramatic than ram-raiders. Is this really worthy of the Doctor? In the last two stories he's saved a race from slavery, and stopped the invasion of Earth. Now, he's tackling a bunch of futuristic chavs? It's a comedown isn't it.

Also the three main groups of action (Team Who, the corps and the pirates) don't really interact all that much. None of them really meet beyond watching the others on monitor screens, lending the 'action' a removed, second hand feel. Ironically, the main plotting and scheming remains entirely with the guest cast, as the main actors are consistently tied up in irrelevant subplots. The vague plotting to frame Clancy is the main concern of two thirds of the characters in this episode, and the Corps go off on yet another wild goose chase. It's still all sound and fury though, as much as it looks like it's going somewhere, the incompetent space corp are still just drifting around not doing much. Again, the emphasis on time and distance slows it down, and makes it all seem terribly pedestrian.

Now I've looked again, this review doesn't seem terribly episode specific does it. Well, there's very little stuff to mention. There are often complaints about the screams at the end of the previous episode being weakly resolved in this (suggesting there's a vast drop, when it turns out that the fall is easily survived), but I'm not so sure. It's clear the regulars have been forced into an oubliette of sorts (the punishment cell), and it beggars belief that this is accessed by a sheer drop (because they're not interested in killing the victims). Hence I visualise a sliding shaft of some kind, rather than just a hole, and that would be relatively easy to survive. Some of the action in the second half is interesting and entertaining, and more about direct action, but the problems of petty scale and irrelevancy rear their heads again. Not terribly impressive.


#224 28 Jun 2005, 5:35 pm
The Secretive Bus
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Isn't there a bit where the Space Corps wander off to Clancey's mining planet, realise that there's nothing there worth investigating, and then leave again, having accomplished bugger all?

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#225 28 Jun 2005, 5:51 pm
Dorney


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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Secretive Bus
"Isn't there a bit where the Space Corps wander off to Clancey's mining planet, realise that there's nothing there worth investigating, and then leave again, having accomplished bugger all? "

Seems to be heading that way. Possibly episode 5. Oh joy.


#226 28 Jun 2005, 7:58 pm
The Secretive Bus

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Damn, can't believe I just gave a spoiler for a story made in 1969...

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#227 7 Jul 2005, 6:46 am
pizzalero
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I'm really hoping that with the success of the new series, a few more lost episodes may turn up.

Unfortunately, I'm of the mindset that if any of the lost 108 are found to exist, they will all be from THIS story.

I've never heard the audios for this one and to be honest, I've never been able to stay awake all the way thru the one existing episode.

And yes, I repeat the mantra, too.

"Bob Holmes wrote this. Bob Holmes wrote this..."

On the bright side, you have THE WAR GAMES to look forward to, and the front end and back end of that story is top notch!

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#228 7 Jul 2005, 7:55 am
The Secretive Bus


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Having just finished "The Myth Makers" last night (wonderful story), I decided to begin "The Space Pirates", simply because Dorney's reviewing it at the moment. And I still can't bring myself to dislike the story. Most of Dorney's comments on episode 1 are quite correct - the episode is about the pirates attacking three beacons in the same way, whilst some intergalactic Key Stone Cops chatter on knowledgeably about them, and five minutes from the end the Doctor and companions appear to get shot at and locked in a room. But I still find myself enjoying it, and I can't put my finger on why. I don't even mind the Doctor doing sod all - it makes a refreshing change to have a story having advanced itself before he's arrived, and the guest characters are all rather entertaining in their own way (mainly because of the accents). Plus the music is groovy, too. Maybe it's I certainly wouldn't mind this story being found.

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#229 11 Jul 2005, 11:35 am
Dorney


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Oh, well, if I must...

The Space Pirates 5:

I haven't been deliberately avoiding this, in case you were wondering. Work related stuff took me away to London, and it was a bit tricky listening in my sisters flat - I wouldn't inflict this on her willingly. So it's taken a while, and I apologise.

I love the line from Cavan early in this episode: 'the space corps ship is becoming a nuisance'. Really? Since when? They're a bunch of idiots who treat speculation as hard evidence, and have been running around like headless chickens following the pirates painfully obvious ploys. There's a particularly glorious moment when, after having travelled all the way to Lobos and dismissed it instantly (rather ramming home the point that they have no plot function at all so far, and are just being given distractions to fill in the time until they may eventually be needed), they finally get around to tracking the direction the satellite pieces were originally going. What's wonderful about this is it is a) pathetically easy and b) doesn't need to come in a blinding flash of insight, so it's clear that it's something they always knew they could do. You wonder why it wasn't the first thing they did. Hermack really is incompetent. Also, seeing as the pieces being en route to Lobos is categorical proof that Clancy is behind the crime, why do they still think he did it when it transpires they were heading to Ta, even to the degree of making ludicrously convoluted justifcations of what happened? Remember, the only actual evidence they have that Clancy is behind it is a wild supposition by Hermack. For which he's having them run back and forth around the galaxy, with orders to shoot to kill. I wouldn't want him running any police force in Britain, would you?

Another example of the 'make it up as you go along' style of storytelling comes with Madelaine. Up until the revelation at the end of part four, she's been acting all schemy. And then she's revealsed as being in on it (big surprise). However, she then has a complete change of personality, suddenly becoming all moralistic and turning into an ersatz goody. The script at least tries to justify this by using the death of Sorba as a catalyst, but it seems woefully unconvincing, and slightly without point - if you're going to have her as a surprise villain, do something with her, rather than have her change sides practically the second she's revealed. (In deed, it seems rather odd that someone wandering around acting so principled ever got involved with pirates at all - I can't quite imagine how the initial offer or discussion was made or approached).

The story, for want of a better term, still ambles along without any real point or focus. It remains focused on the guest cast, without the regulars doing anything of particular note (there are whole stretches where they just seem to shut up and hide). And in deed, this episode is very plot light - being entirely focused on one minor plot point, the set up of the cliffhanger, rather than any overall direction. The entire episode has pretty much nothing but conversations between Madelaine and Cavan with her constantly saying 'you can't do this'. And the main cast spend the entire episode escaping from their cell in an effort to get to exactly the same place they would have been had they stayed there (and the sudden disappearance of Zoe and Jamie screams 'plot contrivance'). Oh that and they met a demented old man who recovers in about twenty seconds flat.

Still, the line about the Doctor having a favourite marble is rather terrific.



#230 11 Jul 2005, 11:43 am
The Secretive Bus


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Possible spoilers for "The Space Pirates". Yes, it is possible. Just.


Ah yes, the old bloke, old Dom Issigri, AKA Daddy. Locked up in a study, on his own, for how many years - and yet his dementia passes as soon as he's let out. Mmm. And I'm sure that there's no reason for the pirates to have held him captive in the way they do - you'd think that they'd be using his captivity to ensure that Madelaine does what they say, which would also make sense of her principled character being involved in it all ("Do it, or the dad gets it!"). But she didn't even know that Dom was even alive, so what the Hell he's even doing there, locked up in a Victorian study, is anybody's guess.

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#231 12 Jul 2005, 10:59 am
Dorney

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The Space Pirates 6:

You know, whilst I'm not a fan of this story, it's not unbearably awful. There's some good dialogue and characterisation, with hints of layers (the implication of Dervish being blackmailed into the scheme is a nice touch, especially since it's never elaborated on). The only things that let it down are it's lack of plot, it's keep making up twists until we've reached the required episode count then wind it down structure (it seriously goes nowhere from episode one), the pettiness of the central problem and the lack of involvement from the Doctor and co. In this episode the Doctor finally impacts on the plot, to a vague degree, in the last five minutes by defusing the Pirate's bomb. The problem is that practically everything he does in the story is irrelevant, or could quite easily have been acheived by someone else (very obvious in this episode, with the resolutions given to Hermack and Clancy - it looks for a second like we're going to get a Aliens of London-esque Doctor defeating the villains whilst trapped in a box scene, but sadly no). It's odd to think that you could rewrite this story without them (for example, notice how the crew of the V-ship pretty much don't know they even exist!) All the regulars do is run around the caves and the beacons whilst other characters drive and shape the plot (he barely meets Cavan, the main villain of the piece!). All the narrative is made by the guest cast, which is pretty lax.

Actually, there is one other problem, and that remains the same one as we've had all the time, the leaden presence of General Hermack dangling from around the stories neck. Turns out that he is simply a plot device, hanging around marking time for six episodes until he's used to kill off the villains. Now, I know we know he's in the right, but once again, look at the man's evidence. He's been suspecting Milo Clancy for five episodes. Then Milo turns up and says 'I'm innocent.' Hermack instantly believes him. He's backed up by a woman who confesses to being in league with the pirates, and this woman's dad. Now, that's hardly conclusive proof is it? Especially when he's going to launch a missile attack on the villains spacecraft. The man's a fool who needs other people to tell him what to do. How he managed to become a General I don't know.

Another mild problem is how Madelaine is dealt with. She may have been assisting and masterminding a bunch of pirates for years, but suddenly, because she decides she isn't keen on murder, she's one of the goodies, and everyone's talking about persuading the general to have clemency. I'm sorry, she was perfectly prepared to arrest and trap everyone, and stealing en masse, and we're supposed to find her sympathetic because she hasn't got the stomach of the other villains? If anything, that makes me respect her less. Now it would make sense, and be less morally objectionable if, as discussed above, Dom was used as leverage throughout. Suddenly she could be sympathetic. In deed, surely that has to be the way the plot was originally planned (it makes no logical sense for the pirates to keep someone locked up, fed and watered for years, on the offchance that they might need him as leverage at some distant point - all that does is risk discovery).

A couple more things worth mentioning here. An odd line for Cavan when he describes the bomb as having the force of "eighty old fashioned hydrogen bombs". It's so blatantly writing for the modern audience. Would you talk about the power of a hydrogen bomb by comparing it to the amount of cannons you'd need to replicate it? And secondly, there's another bloody awful Scooby Doo 'laughing' ending, where all the cast seem to find an, admittedly okay, witticism far more long lastingly hilarious than they really should.

So overall - kind of listenable, but desperately weak on plotting and concepts. This is a Who story that isn't really about anything, it doesn't really have a hook. I always want my stories to be written by people with an idea for a great Doctor Who story, or a clear concept. Not with an idea that will just about fill the time because something else has dropped out. That's the Space Pirates. Inconsequential at best, it's a little dull and nothing to get excited about.

Still, this was the final missing episode, so it's something of a relief anyway.