Episode 1
Me: The big news here is that this six-episode story is entirely missing, apart from episode two.
Hannah: We've watched so many proper ones recently, I'd forgotten that was a thing. Oh well. I'm thrilled, honestly.
Me: It'll be worth it; after this story, that's it. No more missing episodes.
Hannah: Interesting. I'll grin and bear it.
The first thing we have to contend with is the sight of a spaceship suggestively docking with a government beacon.
Hannah: Oh, yeah. Spaceship erotica.
Dr Freud, call your office.
Hannah: Was that an explosion? Because it looked like some bits just fell off.
Me: Look, this one is written by Robert Holmes.
Hannah: I don't know who that is.
Me: He wrote The Krotons.
Hannah: Oh.
The second thing we have to contend with is the wailing music.
Hannah: They got people to do weird atmospheric music again.
Me: Well, this is just after 2001: A Space Odyssey came out. It's not exactly Johann Strauss, I'll grant you.
Hannah: It's space opera. Not the official meaning of space opera, but literally an opera in space.
The Space Corps arrive, under the command of General Hermack.
Me: I don't suppose there's any point asking whether you recognise the actor Jack May?
Hannah: None whatsoever.
Me: He was in Adam Adamant Lives!, a series about an Edwardian gentleman adventurer who gets frozen and wakes up in the swinging sixties. It was the next programme made by Doctor Who's first producer, Verity Lambert, after she moved on from the series.
Hannah: That sounds interesting.
Me: It was, which is probably why Austin Powers tried the same idea thirty years later. Patrick Troughton made a guest appearance in the series one finale. Oh, and Ridley Scott directed a few episodes.
Hannah: Oh, okay. No, never heard of it.
Me: Anyway, this is the actor who played his valet. He also did the voice of Igor in Count Duckula and he's in the TV version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as the head waiter at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Hannah: I haven't seen that either.
Me: Really? Peter Davison plays the Dish of the Day.
Hannah: No, just the radio series and the books.
Me: Well, it's not such a big loss. The radio series is the definitive version anyway.
As the plot unfolds (essentially a pirate story in space with a Wild West subtext), one character is notable by his absence.
Hannah: Seven minutes in, and the Doctor's not here yet.
Then, after fourteen minutes...
Hannah: Wow, he's taking ages to turn up.
Me: Yep, this is the longest it ever takes him to get involved in the story. Unless you count "Mission to the Unknown".
Hannah: Of course not.
The TARDIS crew finally joins the party at the fifteen-minute mark.
Hannah: What is Jamie wearing? Look at that big crinkly shirt.
The Doctor and his friends are immediately accosted by Lieutenant Sorba (whom I'm willing to bet is not Greek, unfortunately).
Hannah: They've only been there three seconds! It's been hardly any time at all and the guards are already on top of them, so why didn't any of their scanners detect the pirate ship? Nobody was paying attention.
As the beacon gets blown to pieces with our heroes on board, it occurs to Hannah that we haven't seen many TARDIS interior scenes lately.
Hannah: We don't really see the TARDIS at all anymore, apart from the console. I miss seeing random bits in the TARDIS, like the room with the chairs.
Me: The room with the chairs?
Hannah: Where Susan goes mad and tries to stab everyone with scissors.
Me: These collars are atrocious, even by Doctor Who standards.
Hannah: Why are people are always wearing identical or identical-style clothing in the future? Sometimes they're part of a corporation or the military, but often it just seems to be the fashion. It seems very unlikely that the wide range of clothing styles we have today, or even in the sixties, would have completely disappeared in all these time periods that the Doctor visits.
Be careful what you wish for: as if on cue, Milo Clancey and his dodgy accent turn up.
Hannah: Okay, fine; I'm happy to see this old-timer miner wearing such distinctly different clothes. But his character is clearly supposed to be an oddball and stuck in the past, so I assume he's not typical. Why can't people in the future have individuality?
Me: Just be thankful he's one of a kind.
Hannah: Why does he have a machine specifically for hard-boiling an egg?
Me: Why not? We have a machine specifically for toasting bread.
Hannah: But it looks huge! Also, you'd think that the incoming call on his screen would make a noise, rather than having to rely on him to notice that something is flashing somewhere.
Me: It's probably on silent.
Meanwhile, the Doctor is trying to revive his companions.
Hannah: So they're going to have survived, completely unscathed?
Me: Well, not quite unscathed, no.
Hannah: Oh, okay. So they're going to be mildly bruised, after being exploded.
We're brought up to speed by a doughy lump of exposition: General Hermack tells us that Clancey is that last of a wild breed of old mining prospectors, who had the place to themselves back when they were the first to venture out into deep space and still haven't adjusted to the arrival of law and order.
Hannah: Interesting that they've designed the miners to be like prospectors.
Me: Yeah, it's about pirates but it's got the feel of a western.
Hannah: What year is this supposed to be set? Even on Earth, that kind of accent and that character archetype barely exist now, let alone the far future.
General Hermack, the Space Corps' answer to Inspector Clouseau, has spontaneously decided that Clancey is the mastermind behind the whole organisation ("Really?!") and considers using the mind probe.
Me: No, not the mind probe!
Hannah: That doesn't sound very fair. It always seems to cross a line; I don't think that kind of technology should ever exist, even if it's used to catch criminals. You don't read another person's mind.
Me: Is it really that different from a polygraph?
Hannah: They don't work. Not reliably.
Me: I expect it's possible to fool a mind probe as well.
Hannah: But all sorts of things can affect a polygraph; all the responses it measures can also happen due to stress from another reason, not just the stress of trying to lie. If you're a highly anxious person, you probably set it off constantly.
Me: I think it's a bit more nuanced than that.
Hannah: Does anyone actually use them?
Me: Well, there's Jeremy Kyle...
Hannah: But that's just bollocks.
Madeleine Issigri, the daughter of Clancey's late business partner, isn't buying it either.
Hannah: No one cares what you think, you've got a bum for a head. Look at her, she's got buttocks; her little metal sculpty-thing looks just like a little bum cleavage.
Me: Of course not, that would be ridiculous. It's a metal wig.
Hannah: Right. Silly me.
The Doctor realises he's trapped himself and his companions on board an isolated piece of space debris, with miles of empty space separating them from the TARDIS. His escape attempt backfires spectacularly, and as they rapidly run out of oxygen, the Doctor berates himself for getting them into their current situation. Hannah is moved by this heartwrenching scene ("I don't like it when it's all depressing"), until the Doctor mentions that he doesn't need as much oxygen as humans.
Hannah: He's got two hearts; surely everything goes around faster and he uses up even more.
Me: They still haven't established that yet!
The cliffhanger sees Clancey cutting his way in and shooting down Jamie.
Hannah: I know I keep joking about people dying, but... is it actually true this time?
Me: You'll have to wait and see.
Hannah: I really hope Jamie's not dead. But he's been shot twice already, and his luck can only stretch so far.
Hannah: This story is interesting, but it's not what I was expecting when they were talking about space pirates.
Me: You thought it would be more like Pirates of the Caribbean in space?
Hannah: Not entirely like that, because obviously you can't have ship-shaped ships.
Me: No, of course not. Were you expecting it to be more like Firefly, then?
Hannah: Maybe.
It doesn't take long for Clancey to assess the TARDIS crew: "A boy, a girl and a nutcase."
Hannah: How has he managed to identify the Doctor so quickly? He's barely spoken to him, and he already knows exactly who the Doctor is.
Our heroes make their escape with Clancey ("He's funny, but annoying"), and Hermack sends a small armed spaceship after them; apparently it's called a "minnow" but it looks much more like a mosquito. (Jamie's fine, by the way, although he seems to be having some trouble with travel sickness.)
Hannah: Who's the Muppet with the long nose?
Me: Ringo Starr?
Hannah: Gonzo. That's what this ship reminds me of; things with long noses. I don't know what Jamie's worried about, he can always upchuck in his sporran if he needs to.
Then we get another couple of scenes where everyone spews great gobs of exposition.
Hannah: I don't know why, but there's a lot of talking in this and I'm not finding it particularly interesting.
Me: You mean this episode, or the whole story?
Hannah: Well... all of it, I think, but especially this. I want it to be interesting, with pirates and running around, but there's no real excitement except the bit where they were sitting in a room waiting to suffocate to death; that was thrilling, but everything else is just flying around and waiting to see who's innocent, who's guilty, and who's most likely to try and kill everyone. I'm just not finding this interesting at all.
Me: It's not just you; I don't think anyone likes this story. I don't want to prejudice you against it before we're halfway through, but pretty much everyone finds it fairly dull.
Hannah: No, I did think that was probably the way everyone else would be swinging.
I'm sure it would be a little more engaging if we could actually see it, but as a reconstruction this story is a huge slog. I've been fairly restless myself since we started the first episode, so we both appreciate the occasional funny line to break up the monotony; good thing, too, because Zoe's about to demonstrate her leet maths skills to an unimpressed Hannah.
Hannah: So she's calculated that all the other segments of the exploded module landed on the same planet, and less than ten miles away? The pirates had a spaceship that could have towed them somewhere else, so there's no way she could have predicted that the segments would have ended up on the same planet; they could have been towed past the planet and carried on. She's just spewing bollocks.
Me: Don't knock it; it's the only reason anyone ever reads this blog.
As they enter the mine tunnels below the planet's surface, the Doctor tells his companions not to make any noise... seconds before Jamie falls over a piece of equipment.
Hannah: Why is Jamie so rubbish this time?
The cliffhanger involves the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe falling down a mine shaft.
Me: Want to watch the next one?
Hannah: Do we have to?
Me: Come on. Otherwise we'll never finish it.
Me: Are you ready?
Hannah: I suppose. But the footie is on.
Me: You know we're in trouble when you'd rather be watching football.
Hannah: I was joking. Sort of.
We're watching this episode during the England vs. Croatia match in the World Cup semi-final; given that we both have a crashing lack of interest in anything football-related, Hannah's relative enthusiasm for it is a very bad sign. But we persevere.
Hannah: I assume you've watched this before.
Me: Yes. Once.
Hannah: Poor you.
Me: That's why I haven't been paying much attention to anything that's happened so far; I'd already given up before we started.
Hannah: Is this the one that people don't care is missing? And they're annoyed that there's even a single surviving episode?
Me: Well, I don't think there are any missing episodes that people don't care about. Actually, I'd probably choose this as one of my most wanted recoveries; I'd be interested to see if fandom would re-evaluate it, like they did when episode two of The Underwater Menace was found. It's the same reason I'd love to see The Smugglers recovered.
Hannah: Really?
Me: Well, it's one of my mid-tier ones, anyway. It's not like it's up there with The Myth Makers or The Power of the Daleks.
Hannah: I suppose having the footage would improve it. It's not like it could get much worse.
Having just made a hard landing at the bottom of the mine shaft, the Doctor reveals that he keeps drawing pins in his back pocket. Not unreasonably, Zoe asks why he's carrying them around with him.
Hannah: Has anyone turned that snippet into a meme? "I like drawing pins.".
Me: No. There are lots of odd lines from Doctor Who that have unexpectedly turned into memes over the years, but for some reason "I like drawing pins" has never really taken off.
Hannah: I know it's not quite weird enough, but it's still a bit odd.
The Doctor's effort to pick an "audio lock" with a tuning fork raises a smile, but points of interest are few and far between.
Hannah: You know, I've been staring at PowerPoint presentations at work for six hours today whilst people talk at me, and this is still a bit boring in comparison.
Me: To be fair, that's more or less exactly what we're watching here as well.
As our heroes make their escape from the mines, Clancey identifies the pirate Caven as the villain of the piece.
Me: (looking at phone) The match has gone to extra time.
Hannah: You need to pay attention in case I have a question to ask you! This is slightly more interesting than the previous episode, at least.
Me: I wouldn't say it was more interesting, just slightly less boring. The main problem is that the Doctor and his companions aren't really doing much, they're just along for the ride.
Hannah: Yes, the story is happening around them. They're just there to break up the monotony of this plodding story with little comedic moments every now and again.
Despite the metallic hairpiece, Madeleine still manages to give off a certain elegance.
Hannah: Why does she look and sound so much like Barbara?
Me: Does she? I'd say she looks more like a sixties film star.
Hannah: Yes. Barbara.
Me: She's been gone four seasons and you still haven't moved on.
The Doctor and party confront Madeleine, but Caven and his men burst in and shoot down Lieutenant Sorba.
Hannah: Oh no! Whose side are they on? Whose side is she on? Who else is going to get shot? It's really hard to care. The pacing is so off, and the characters are either obnoxious or flat; I don't care if anyone dies except for the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie. There are so many questions about who's in alliance with whom, and that's about the only interesting thing that makes me want to carry on watching. I just want to know how it all plays out; I don't care about the characters at all. The story pacing isn't good, there's no build-up of threat, and it's not helped by having such an outrageous character as Clancey. Maybe they wanted it to be light and fun, with a dark edge, but they certainly haven't achieved that feel.
I think we're losing her.
Hannah: I don't even have enough interest in this story to criticise it strongly. It's not bad, as such - the acting isn't awful, the premise is somewhat interesting, and the little world they've created is mostly believable - but it's all a little bland and unengaging. I don't want to pick holes in it; I just want to let it be today, other than to say that I really hope something more thrilling happens in the last two episodes. Otherwise the review of this story is going to be really short and boring, because there's nothing to review except for the Doctor and his companions stumbling along and getting caught up in a dispute about some stolen bits of metal.
The first five minutes pass in lethargic silence, until...
Hannah: Did Zoe just ask if those were candles?
Me: Yes.
Hannah: Wow. I love the fact that she doesn't know what they are; there's absolutely no need for them in the distant future at all.
Me: Except that she knew about them in The Mind Robber, four stories ago. So much for eidetic memory.
Hannah: Do the writers not get to read the scripts of previous ones? Surely there's a series producer or script editor to stop this kind of thing happening.
In the darkness, our heroes discover a half-crazed old man.
Hannah: Oh, is that the missing father? He's been locked up.
Me: The one who was presumed dead, yes.
Hannah: Has she been imprisoning her own father, just to cast suspicion on other people? That's horrible.
Me: No.
Hannah: Or did he accidentally lock himself in, and everyone thinks he's gone missing?
While the Doctor and company attempt to break out of a study, Caven tells Madeleine that Clancey will be involved in an accident, adding "I haven't quite decided where it'll take place yet."
Hannah: I'm sure that's similar to a line from The Lion King.
Me: Is it?
Hannah: Scar is talking to the hyenas and says the king is going to die; one of the hyenas says "Is he sick?" and he replies "No, we're going to kill him." I don't know why it reminded me of that.
Me: (after a long pause) No, nor do I.
Hannah: Rewind it, I was thinking about The Lion King. I forgot to pay attention.
It's not easy to tell from the reconstruction - not least because there aren't any surviving images of him - but the actor playing Madeleine's father is almost completely blind.
Me: Apparently it happened during a torpedo attack in World War II.
Hannah: What, in his face?
Me: I'd be very surprised if he took a torpedo directly to the face. If he did, he's obviously taken it like a champ.
Hannah: No, I suppose there wouldn't be much of him left if he had.
It soon becomes apparent that Madeleine still thinks her father is dead, but that he's actually spent ten years being held prisoner by Caven in case he ever needed extra leverage against her. Talk about forward planning.
Hannah: Oh, the villain planned ahead and kept her father alive for years in case she became a problem.
Me: Yes, he's very organised.
Hannah: What a bastard.
The episode ends with the Doctor getting caught in the exhaust of Clancey's spaceship during take-off, and Hannah is left waiting breathlessly for the next exciting instalment.
Me: What's wrong?
Hannah: (wearily) I just want it to be over.
Me: I thought you were feeling a bit more engaged with this episode?
Hannah: Yes, I am. I still want it to be over.
Hannah is still struggling, and she's not the only one; I had been hoping to re-evaluate my opinion of this story, despite its terrible reputation, and maybe I would feel differently if we could actually see the original episodes. As it stands, though, I just want it to be over and done with. As far as Hannah's concerned the villains are the only saving grace, and she's practically cheering when they cut off the oxygen supply on Clancey's ship.
Hannah: (laughing) Bastards!
Me: I love these still images of his face.
Hannah: Yeah, they're all just smug git faces with these really weird bonkers eyes. Simon told me to stick with it.
Me: Really? What did he say?
Hannah: He asked which story we were up to, and when I told him we were on The Space Pirates he told me to stick with it.
Me: Maybe he meant life in general.
Hannah: I think he also meant this; that it gets better, or at least more interesting, so I should tolerate it until then. I can see what he means. The beginning is just boring; all the interesting stuff happens in the last two episodes, and it's not just interesting, it's also evil. Horrible.
I have my suspicions that he was actually referring to the events of the next story, but I don't want to spoil the surprise. Meanwhile, this story has started trudging towards its conclusion.
Hannah: It's finally started to get a bit urgent; the combination of the acting, music and pacing haven't made it feel very important until now. And even now, it's still not great.
Me: No, it's been fairly languid right from the start.
Hannah: The problem is that it's supposed to be quick and urgent, but they keep referencing these long periods of time. Two hours doesn't make it sound like you're making a quick dash and hoping you'll get there in time; you're just going to be sitting and twiddling your thumbs. I know it's more realistic to show that space travel involves those kinds of distances and takes that kind of time, but it's not very dramatic. You don't get any feeling of urgency; it feels slow and gentle, and even when people's lives are hanging in the balance it doesn't feel very engaging.
Caven abandons the operation and makes his escape, but General Hermack's missiles are waiting for him.
Hannah: They're not intending to catch the pirates, then? Just blow them up? No right to a fair trial? I mean, I'm not defending them, but you can't just blow someone up. The threat has been removed and they can't do any more harm; they should invade the ship and take them as prisoners.
Me: In the old days they would have been hanged.
Hannah: They're not proper pirates, though. The only booty in this pirate story was the one on Madeleine's head.
Me: You've changed since we started doing this.
Madeleine, for her part, does have to stand trial but Clancey promises to pull some strings.
Hannah: She also deserves it! She directly engineered his downfall, and was deeply involved in the piracy of goods and the destruction of government property, and he's straight-up forgiven her.
Me: Are you saying she deserves a trial, or that she deserves to die with the others?
Hannah: She certainly deserves prosecution; they weren't using leverage over her until the very last minute, at which point they'd already started stealing from Clancey, destroyed his livelihood, turned him into a hermit and started destroying government property. There may be parts of it she didn't really want them to do, but she knew what she was signing up for and she let them carry on. And he's basically forgiven her and told her not to worry about it, and promised to make sure that nothing bad happens to her. She's the main reason that he's lost everything!
We don't even get to see a tender scene where Madeleine is reunited with her father; instead, in the time-honoured tradition of Scooby-Doo, the episode ends with the Doctor cracking a weak joke and everyone else laughing. It's a slightly awkward moment, but it's the end of the story so what the hell.
Hannah: Lols. Oh, it doesn't end with them actually getting in the TARDIS? Is that the first time?
Me: Probably not. Anyway, that's it; our final missing episode!
Hannah: Excellent.
Me: We've watched 97 missing episodes of Doctor Who; that's quite an achievement. There are plenty of "proper" fans who have never done what you've just done.
Hannah: And think of all the other things I could have been doing with my life.
Me: So, what do you think? Better than Firefly?
Hannah: Better at being shit. I don't really understand the question; Firefly is already better than Doctor Who.
Me: Controversial.
Hannah: It's better than modern Who, anyway.
Me: I think they need to be judged against different standards. Obviously Firefly is more consistent, but it's a lot easier to be consistent when you've got 14 episodes of Firefly and 55 years of Doctor Who; I don't think you couldn't sustain 55 years of Firefly and still maintain the same level of quality. And Doctor Who has a different writer, setting and even genre every week, so it's never going to have the same kind of consistency as most other TV shows.
Hannah: But that's what keeps it interesting; there's something for everybody, and you never know what you're going to get.
Me: How about if I rephrase the question: this, or The Edge of Destruction?
Hannah: This was better. I liked the design of the spaceships, I actually understood what was going on in the plot, it had a plot, it had space pirates - even if they weren't very piratey - and it had a maniacal villain, so it still had some things going for it. I can't even remember the plot of The Edge of Destruction and I still don't really know what was going on. I'd actually like to retrospectively go back and give it an even lower score if I could.
Me: It was only two episodes though, so it does have the virtue of being two hours shorter than this one.
Hannah: That's true; this one was meandering and I didn't feel like anyone was in any real danger, except when the Doctor got fumed. I always get a bit wary now; after they've had at least one season I'm always thinking the regeneration could happen at any moment, because I was surprised the first time
Me: The end of episode five in a six-part story would be an odd time to do it.
Hannah: Well, no, not if it doesn't happen immediately; we know he can delay it slightly, or make it as slow as he likes. They could have introduced that early on, I don't know.
Me: Yeah, but how disappointing would that be?
Hannah: You mean if the Doctor died from getting exhaust in the face?
Me: And it was at the end of this story? It wouldn't be much of a swansong.
Hannah: It would be one of the most talked-about stories, but also one of the worst ever written. That's sad.
I ask Hannah to summarise her feelings on the story.
Hannah: There are a few good ideas. There's some nice world-building; we've got mining out in deep space, pirates are still a thing, and a military organisation is still trying to uphold the law even this far out from civilisation. It's interesting and it could have been so much more, and I wanted it to be so much more, but instead we just got a weak plot where the Doctor and his companions are along for the ride. It had a few interesting characters, and the villain was particularly villainous, but generally it was weak, annoying, boring in places, and... still better than The Edge of Destruction. So maybe it should be a 4, because I gave that one a 3.
Me: You also gave The Tomb of the Cyberman a 4.
Hannah: Hmmm. Is this worse?
Me: I don't want to influence you. But yes, it is.
Hannah: Really? I think more stuff happens in this one. You think this is worse?
Me: Well, put it this way: I would give The Tomb of the Cybermen a 9, and this would get a 2 or a 3.
Hannah: And it was stretched out far too much. Yeah, this doesn't deserve a 4.
3/10
Me: So, not a fan of Robert Holmes, then?
Hannah: I don't want him to write one and then have Douglas Camfield direct it. Imagine if that happened; I'd be so torn. At least he'd probably do a good job at making a shit story look pretty.
Hannah: Wow, he's taking ages to turn up.
Me: Yep, this is the longest it ever takes him to get involved in the story. Unless you count "Mission to the Unknown".
Hannah: Of course not.
The TARDIS crew finally joins the party at the fifteen-minute mark.
Hannah: What is Jamie wearing? Look at that big crinkly shirt.
The Doctor and his friends are immediately accosted by Lieutenant Sorba (whom I'm willing to bet is not Greek, unfortunately).
Hannah: They've only been there three seconds! It's been hardly any time at all and the guards are already on top of them, so why didn't any of their scanners detect the pirate ship? Nobody was paying attention.
As the beacon gets blown to pieces with our heroes on board, it occurs to Hannah that we haven't seen many TARDIS interior scenes lately.
Hannah: We don't really see the TARDIS at all anymore, apart from the console. I miss seeing random bits in the TARDIS, like the room with the chairs.
Me: The room with the chairs?
Hannah: Where Susan goes mad and tries to stab everyone with scissors.
Episode 2
Me: These collars are atrocious, even by Doctor Who standards.
Hannah: Why are people are always wearing identical or identical-style clothing in the future? Sometimes they're part of a corporation or the military, but often it just seems to be the fashion. It seems very unlikely that the wide range of clothing styles we have today, or even in the sixties, would have completely disappeared in all these time periods that the Doctor visits.
Be careful what you wish for: as if on cue, Milo Clancey and his dodgy accent turn up.
Hannah: Okay, fine; I'm happy to see this old-timer miner wearing such distinctly different clothes. But his character is clearly supposed to be an oddball and stuck in the past, so I assume he's not typical. Why can't people in the future have individuality?
Me: Just be thankful he's one of a kind.
Hannah: Why does he have a machine specifically for hard-boiling an egg?
Me: Why not? We have a machine specifically for toasting bread.
Hannah: But it looks huge! Also, you'd think that the incoming call on his screen would make a noise, rather than having to rely on him to notice that something is flashing somewhere.
Me: It's probably on silent.
Meanwhile, the Doctor is trying to revive his companions.
Hannah: So they're going to have survived, completely unscathed?
Me: Well, not quite unscathed, no.
Hannah: Oh, okay. So they're going to be mildly bruised, after being exploded.
We're brought up to speed by a doughy lump of exposition: General Hermack tells us that Clancey is that last of a wild breed of old mining prospectors, who had the place to themselves back when they were the first to venture out into deep space and still haven't adjusted to the arrival of law and order.
Hannah: Interesting that they've designed the miners to be like prospectors.
Me: Yeah, it's about pirates but it's got the feel of a western.
Hannah: What year is this supposed to be set? Even on Earth, that kind of accent and that character archetype barely exist now, let alone the far future.
General Hermack, the Space Corps' answer to Inspector Clouseau, has spontaneously decided that Clancey is the mastermind behind the whole organisation ("Really?!") and considers using the mind probe.
Me: No, not the mind probe!
Hannah: That doesn't sound very fair. It always seems to cross a line; I don't think that kind of technology should ever exist, even if it's used to catch criminals. You don't read another person's mind.
Me: Is it really that different from a polygraph?
Hannah: They don't work. Not reliably.
Me: I expect it's possible to fool a mind probe as well.
Hannah: But all sorts of things can affect a polygraph; all the responses it measures can also happen due to stress from another reason, not just the stress of trying to lie. If you're a highly anxious person, you probably set it off constantly.
Me: I think it's a bit more nuanced than that.
Hannah: Does anyone actually use them?
Me: Well, there's Jeremy Kyle...
Hannah: But that's just bollocks.
Madeleine Issigri, the daughter of Clancey's late business partner, isn't buying it either.
Hannah: No one cares what you think, you've got a bum for a head. Look at her, she's got buttocks; her little metal sculpty-thing looks just like a little bum cleavage.
Me: Of course not, that would be ridiculous. It's a metal wig.
Hannah: Right. Silly me.
The Doctor realises he's trapped himself and his companions on board an isolated piece of space debris, with miles of empty space separating them from the TARDIS. His escape attempt backfires spectacularly, and as they rapidly run out of oxygen, the Doctor berates himself for getting them into their current situation. Hannah is moved by this heartwrenching scene ("I don't like it when it's all depressing"), until the Doctor mentions that he doesn't need as much oxygen as humans.
Hannah: He's got two hearts; surely everything goes around faster and he uses up even more.
Me: They still haven't established that yet!
The cliffhanger sees Clancey cutting his way in and shooting down Jamie.
Hannah: I know I keep joking about people dying, but... is it actually true this time?
Me: You'll have to wait and see.
Hannah: I really hope Jamie's not dead. But he's been shot twice already, and his luck can only stretch so far.
Episode 3
Hannah: This story is interesting, but it's not what I was expecting when they were talking about space pirates.
Me: You thought it would be more like Pirates of the Caribbean in space?
Hannah: Not entirely like that, because obviously you can't have ship-shaped ships.
Me: No, of course not. Were you expecting it to be more like Firefly, then?
Hannah: Maybe.
It doesn't take long for Clancey to assess the TARDIS crew: "A boy, a girl and a nutcase."
Hannah: How has he managed to identify the Doctor so quickly? He's barely spoken to him, and he already knows exactly who the Doctor is.
Our heroes make their escape with Clancey ("He's funny, but annoying"), and Hermack sends a small armed spaceship after them; apparently it's called a "minnow" but it looks much more like a mosquito. (Jamie's fine, by the way, although he seems to be having some trouble with travel sickness.)
Hannah: Who's the Muppet with the long nose?
Me: Ringo Starr?
Hannah: Gonzo. That's what this ship reminds me of; things with long noses. I don't know what Jamie's worried about, he can always upchuck in his sporran if he needs to.
Then we get another couple of scenes where everyone spews great gobs of exposition.
Hannah: I don't know why, but there's a lot of talking in this and I'm not finding it particularly interesting.
Me: You mean this episode, or the whole story?
Hannah: Well... all of it, I think, but especially this. I want it to be interesting, with pirates and running around, but there's no real excitement except the bit where they were sitting in a room waiting to suffocate to death; that was thrilling, but everything else is just flying around and waiting to see who's innocent, who's guilty, and who's most likely to try and kill everyone. I'm just not finding this interesting at all.
Me: It's not just you; I don't think anyone likes this story. I don't want to prejudice you against it before we're halfway through, but pretty much everyone finds it fairly dull.
Hannah: No, I did think that was probably the way everyone else would be swinging.
I'm sure it would be a little more engaging if we could actually see it, but as a reconstruction this story is a huge slog. I've been fairly restless myself since we started the first episode, so we both appreciate the occasional funny line to break up the monotony; good thing, too, because Zoe's about to demonstrate her leet maths skills to an unimpressed Hannah.
Hannah: So she's calculated that all the other segments of the exploded module landed on the same planet, and less than ten miles away? The pirates had a spaceship that could have towed them somewhere else, so there's no way she could have predicted that the segments would have ended up on the same planet; they could have been towed past the planet and carried on. She's just spewing bollocks.
Me: Don't knock it; it's the only reason anyone ever reads this blog.
As they enter the mine tunnels below the planet's surface, the Doctor tells his companions not to make any noise... seconds before Jamie falls over a piece of equipment.
Hannah: Why is Jamie so rubbish this time?
The cliffhanger involves the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe falling down a mine shaft.
Me: Want to watch the next one?
Hannah: Do we have to?
Me: Come on. Otherwise we'll never finish it.
Episode 4
Me: Are you ready?
Hannah: I suppose. But the footie is on.
Me: You know we're in trouble when you'd rather be watching football.
Hannah: I was joking. Sort of.
We're watching this episode during the England vs. Croatia match in the World Cup semi-final; given that we both have a crashing lack of interest in anything football-related, Hannah's relative enthusiasm for it is a very bad sign. But we persevere.
Hannah: I assume you've watched this before.
Me: Yes. Once.
Hannah: Poor you.
Me: That's why I haven't been paying much attention to anything that's happened so far; I'd already given up before we started.
Hannah: Is this the one that people don't care is missing? And they're annoyed that there's even a single surviving episode?
Me: Well, I don't think there are any missing episodes that people don't care about. Actually, I'd probably choose this as one of my most wanted recoveries; I'd be interested to see if fandom would re-evaluate it, like they did when episode two of The Underwater Menace was found. It's the same reason I'd love to see The Smugglers recovered.
Hannah: Really?
Me: Well, it's one of my mid-tier ones, anyway. It's not like it's up there with The Myth Makers or The Power of the Daleks.
Hannah: I suppose having the footage would improve it. It's not like it could get much worse.
Having just made a hard landing at the bottom of the mine shaft, the Doctor reveals that he keeps drawing pins in his back pocket. Not unreasonably, Zoe asks why he's carrying them around with him.
Hannah: Has anyone turned that snippet into a meme? "I like drawing pins.".
Me: No. There are lots of odd lines from Doctor Who that have unexpectedly turned into memes over the years, but for some reason "I like drawing pins" has never really taken off.
Hannah: I know it's not quite weird enough, but it's still a bit odd.
The Doctor's effort to pick an "audio lock" with a tuning fork raises a smile, but points of interest are few and far between.
Hannah: You know, I've been staring at PowerPoint presentations at work for six hours today whilst people talk at me, and this is still a bit boring in comparison.
Me: To be fair, that's more or less exactly what we're watching here as well.
As our heroes make their escape from the mines, Clancey identifies the pirate Caven as the villain of the piece.
Me: (looking at phone) The match has gone to extra time.
Hannah: You need to pay attention in case I have a question to ask you! This is slightly more interesting than the previous episode, at least.
Me: I wouldn't say it was more interesting, just slightly less boring. The main problem is that the Doctor and his companions aren't really doing much, they're just along for the ride.
Hannah: Yes, the story is happening around them. They're just there to break up the monotony of this plodding story with little comedic moments every now and again.
Despite the metallic hairpiece, Madeleine still manages to give off a certain elegance.
Hannah: Why does she look and sound so much like Barbara?
Me: Does she? I'd say she looks more like a sixties film star.
Hannah: Yes. Barbara.
Me: She's been gone four seasons and you still haven't moved on.
The Doctor and party confront Madeleine, but Caven and his men burst in and shoot down Lieutenant Sorba.
Hannah: Oh no! Whose side are they on? Whose side is she on? Who else is going to get shot? It's really hard to care. The pacing is so off, and the characters are either obnoxious or flat; I don't care if anyone dies except for the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie. There are so many questions about who's in alliance with whom, and that's about the only interesting thing that makes me want to carry on watching. I just want to know how it all plays out; I don't care about the characters at all. The story pacing isn't good, there's no build-up of threat, and it's not helped by having such an outrageous character as Clancey. Maybe they wanted it to be light and fun, with a dark edge, but they certainly haven't achieved that feel.
I think we're losing her.
Hannah: I don't even have enough interest in this story to criticise it strongly. It's not bad, as such - the acting isn't awful, the premise is somewhat interesting, and the little world they've created is mostly believable - but it's all a little bland and unengaging. I don't want to pick holes in it; I just want to let it be today, other than to say that I really hope something more thrilling happens in the last two episodes. Otherwise the review of this story is going to be really short and boring, because there's nothing to review except for the Doctor and his companions stumbling along and getting caught up in a dispute about some stolen bits of metal.
Episode 5
The first five minutes pass in lethargic silence, until...
Hannah: Did Zoe just ask if those were candles?
Me: Yes.
Hannah: Wow. I love the fact that she doesn't know what they are; there's absolutely no need for them in the distant future at all.
Me: Except that she knew about them in The Mind Robber, four stories ago. So much for eidetic memory.
Hannah: Do the writers not get to read the scripts of previous ones? Surely there's a series producer or script editor to stop this kind of thing happening.
In the darkness, our heroes discover a half-crazed old man.
Hannah: Oh, is that the missing father? He's been locked up.
Me: The one who was presumed dead, yes.
Hannah: Has she been imprisoning her own father, just to cast suspicion on other people? That's horrible.
Me: No.
Hannah: Or did he accidentally lock himself in, and everyone thinks he's gone missing?
While the Doctor and company attempt to break out of a study, Caven tells Madeleine that Clancey will be involved in an accident, adding "I haven't quite decided where it'll take place yet."
Hannah: I'm sure that's similar to a line from The Lion King.
Me: Is it?
Hannah: Scar is talking to the hyenas and says the king is going to die; one of the hyenas says "Is he sick?" and he replies "No, we're going to kill him." I don't know why it reminded me of that.
Me: (after a long pause) No, nor do I.
Hannah: Rewind it, I was thinking about The Lion King. I forgot to pay attention.
It's not easy to tell from the reconstruction - not least because there aren't any surviving images of him - but the actor playing Madeleine's father is almost completely blind.
Me: Apparently it happened during a torpedo attack in World War II.
Hannah: What, in his face?
Me: I'd be very surprised if he took a torpedo directly to the face. If he did, he's obviously taken it like a champ.
Hannah: No, I suppose there wouldn't be much of him left if he had.
It soon becomes apparent that Madeleine still thinks her father is dead, but that he's actually spent ten years being held prisoner by Caven in case he ever needed extra leverage against her. Talk about forward planning.
Hannah: Oh, the villain planned ahead and kept her father alive for years in case she became a problem.
Me: Yes, he's very organised.
Hannah: What a bastard.
The episode ends with the Doctor getting caught in the exhaust of Clancey's spaceship during take-off, and Hannah is left waiting breathlessly for the next exciting instalment.
Me: What's wrong?
Hannah: (wearily) I just want it to be over.
Me: I thought you were feeling a bit more engaged with this episode?
Hannah: Yes, I am. I still want it to be over.
Episode 6
Hannah is still struggling, and she's not the only one; I had been hoping to re-evaluate my opinion of this story, despite its terrible reputation, and maybe I would feel differently if we could actually see the original episodes. As it stands, though, I just want it to be over and done with. As far as Hannah's concerned the villains are the only saving grace, and she's practically cheering when they cut off the oxygen supply on Clancey's ship.
Hannah: (laughing) Bastards!
Me: I love these still images of his face.
Hannah: Yeah, they're all just smug git faces with these really weird bonkers eyes. Simon told me to stick with it.
Me: Really? What did he say?
Hannah: He asked which story we were up to, and when I told him we were on The Space Pirates he told me to stick with it.
Me: Maybe he meant life in general.
Hannah: I think he also meant this; that it gets better, or at least more interesting, so I should tolerate it until then. I can see what he means. The beginning is just boring; all the interesting stuff happens in the last two episodes, and it's not just interesting, it's also evil. Horrible.
I have my suspicions that he was actually referring to the events of the next story, but I don't want to spoil the surprise. Meanwhile, this story has started trudging towards its conclusion.
Hannah: It's finally started to get a bit urgent; the combination of the acting, music and pacing haven't made it feel very important until now. And even now, it's still not great.
Me: No, it's been fairly languid right from the start.
Hannah: The problem is that it's supposed to be quick and urgent, but they keep referencing these long periods of time. Two hours doesn't make it sound like you're making a quick dash and hoping you'll get there in time; you're just going to be sitting and twiddling your thumbs. I know it's more realistic to show that space travel involves those kinds of distances and takes that kind of time, but it's not very dramatic. You don't get any feeling of urgency; it feels slow and gentle, and even when people's lives are hanging in the balance it doesn't feel very engaging.
Caven abandons the operation and makes his escape, but General Hermack's missiles are waiting for him.
Hannah: They're not intending to catch the pirates, then? Just blow them up? No right to a fair trial? I mean, I'm not defending them, but you can't just blow someone up. The threat has been removed and they can't do any more harm; they should invade the ship and take them as prisoners.
Me: In the old days they would have been hanged.
Hannah: They're not proper pirates, though. The only booty in this pirate story was the one on Madeleine's head.
Me: You've changed since we started doing this.
Madeleine, for her part, does have to stand trial but Clancey promises to pull some strings.
Hannah: She also deserves it! She directly engineered his downfall, and was deeply involved in the piracy of goods and the destruction of government property, and he's straight-up forgiven her.
Me: Are you saying she deserves a trial, or that she deserves to die with the others?
Hannah: She certainly deserves prosecution; they weren't using leverage over her until the very last minute, at which point they'd already started stealing from Clancey, destroyed his livelihood, turned him into a hermit and started destroying government property. There may be parts of it she didn't really want them to do, but she knew what she was signing up for and she let them carry on. And he's basically forgiven her and told her not to worry about it, and promised to make sure that nothing bad happens to her. She's the main reason that he's lost everything!
We don't even get to see a tender scene where Madeleine is reunited with her father; instead, in the time-honoured tradition of Scooby-Doo, the episode ends with the Doctor cracking a weak joke and everyone else laughing. It's a slightly awkward moment, but it's the end of the story so what the hell.
Hannah: Lols. Oh, it doesn't end with them actually getting in the TARDIS? Is that the first time?
Me: Probably not. Anyway, that's it; our final missing episode!
Hannah: Excellent.
Me: We've watched 97 missing episodes of Doctor Who; that's quite an achievement. There are plenty of "proper" fans who have never done what you've just done.
Hannah: And think of all the other things I could have been doing with my life.
The Score
Me: So, what do you think? Better than Firefly?
Hannah: Better at being shit. I don't really understand the question; Firefly is already better than Doctor Who.
Me: Controversial.
Hannah: It's better than modern Who, anyway.
Me: I think they need to be judged against different standards. Obviously Firefly is more consistent, but it's a lot easier to be consistent when you've got 14 episodes of Firefly and 55 years of Doctor Who; I don't think you couldn't sustain 55 years of Firefly and still maintain the same level of quality. And Doctor Who has a different writer, setting and even genre every week, so it's never going to have the same kind of consistency as most other TV shows.
Hannah: But that's what keeps it interesting; there's something for everybody, and you never know what you're going to get.
Me: How about if I rephrase the question: this, or The Edge of Destruction?
Hannah: This was better. I liked the design of the spaceships, I actually understood what was going on in the plot, it had a plot, it had space pirates - even if they weren't very piratey - and it had a maniacal villain, so it still had some things going for it. I can't even remember the plot of The Edge of Destruction and I still don't really know what was going on. I'd actually like to retrospectively go back and give it an even lower score if I could.
Me: It was only two episodes though, so it does have the virtue of being two hours shorter than this one.
Hannah: That's true; this one was meandering and I didn't feel like anyone was in any real danger, except when the Doctor got fumed. I always get a bit wary now; after they've had at least one season I'm always thinking the regeneration could happen at any moment, because I was surprised the first time
Me: The end of episode five in a six-part story would be an odd time to do it.
Hannah: Well, no, not if it doesn't happen immediately; we know he can delay it slightly, or make it as slow as he likes. They could have introduced that early on, I don't know.
Me: Yeah, but how disappointing would that be?
Hannah: You mean if the Doctor died from getting exhaust in the face?
Me: And it was at the end of this story? It wouldn't be much of a swansong.
Hannah: It would be one of the most talked-about stories, but also one of the worst ever written. That's sad.
I ask Hannah to summarise her feelings on the story.
Hannah: There are a few good ideas. There's some nice world-building; we've got mining out in deep space, pirates are still a thing, and a military organisation is still trying to uphold the law even this far out from civilisation. It's interesting and it could have been so much more, and I wanted it to be so much more, but instead we just got a weak plot where the Doctor and his companions are along for the ride. It had a few interesting characters, and the villain was particularly villainous, but generally it was weak, annoying, boring in places, and... still better than The Edge of Destruction. So maybe it should be a 4, because I gave that one a 3.
Me: You also gave The Tomb of the Cyberman a 4.
Hannah: Hmmm. Is this worse?
Me: I don't want to influence you. But yes, it is.
Hannah: Really? I think more stuff happens in this one. You think this is worse?
Me: Well, put it this way: I would give The Tomb of the Cybermen a 9, and this would get a 2 or a 3.
Hannah: And it was stretched out far too much. Yeah, this doesn't deserve a 4.
3/10
Me: So, not a fan of Robert Holmes, then?
Hannah: I don't want him to write one and then have Douglas Camfield direct it. Imagine if that happened; I'd be so torn. At least he'd probably do a good job at making a shit story look pretty.
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