Planet of Fire was pretty good. Peri in a bikini, getting info about Turlough's past, the Master -- all good.
Turlough rockin' the swimsuit also helps, but audiences would get bored quickly if the only things the story had to offer were brief swimming scenes.
Magic gas the heals? It's cheesy,
Yup, but I like how they play it sincerely. The modern show would probably yuk it up with winks and nods and making it self-parody. Plus, various substances have healing properties here on Earth - just not in accelerated form, since eating 10 pounds of antioxidants won't restore you to the equivalent of a 25-year-old in as many seconds.
but Davison's acting gives it just enough oomph to not make it too cheesy.
Season 21's scripts were stronger and Davison definitely has this verve and assertiveness - I wish he had stayed another year.
I did think it was funny how Peri was going to hit the tiny Master with her shoe like squashing a bug.
It was a funny moment and yet it also shows Peri having her own assertiveness that's generally been lacking in companions. A shame it didn't last.
I liked the alternative clothing options for the Doctor and Turlough (except Turlough needed longer shorts -- sorry 1984, that's one fashion choice I'm glad died off). Now that I think of it, some of the guys on Sarn had skimpy bottoms on, too! Doctor Who and the Short Shorts - coming to a Chippendale's near you?
ROTFL. There's much in the way of testosterone, and even by 1984 standards this story feels a little much. And yet the characterizations and the acting of easily rise above any skimpiness.
Glad they found a way to remove Kamelion from the team, even if it did seem a bit harsh to have the Doctor kill him.
It's a reminder that even the Doctor will do what has to be done, Davison sells the sadness and humility of the scene extremely well. A shame they couldn't have found alternatives to Kameleon sooner as the shapeshifting aspect didn't
always require the robot prop and this story proves it. A good idea cratered because there was little documentation on how to program it and tragedy struck its creator. How much it could be practicably used to teach kids what real electronics could do for every single week is also questionable.
The puppet was too problematic to keep being used, and they really couldn't do anything with it unless they had him morph into another actor. Also, having a shapeshifting robot would make getting out of prisons way too easy - just shapeshift him into the big baddie of the serial and call the guards to let him out.
A step ahead, you're right: Shapeshifting would be the very story of "get out of peril free" that JNT had hated when the sonic screwdriver was waved.
I forgot how bad Peri's accent was. [Nicola Bryant has improved it a lot since 1984] She'll be OK, but then pronounce a word wrong or put the emphasis on the wrong syllable and shatter the American illusion. I do specifically remember one instance of her using the wrong word in the Colin Baker years where she calls something "a lift" instead of "an elevator" like any self-respecting American would lol.
She fumbled, but as a kid I never really noticed. In rewatches, some of it does stand out, but not as much as using UK terminology instead of US terminology what with her ostensibly being American and all. (Also to compare, the US pilot for Red Dwarf did the inverse: It never bothered to change UK terminology to US so, for it, "walkway" was not changed to "sidewalk". I don't recall instances of Peri using UK terms instead of US ones, apart from remembering she had a couple of times.)
No wonder I remembered watching this one from back in the day. Peri goes for a swim, and the Master gets flame-broiled.
Turlough finally gets his background explained, and it's good, even if it's sometimes at odds with dialogue accorded him in his first. Why, in his first adventure, is he eager to get home when, in his swansong, he's proverbially peeing his pants in fear because he's an exile from there and doesn't want to return (making a couple of decisions he makes in this story a lot more dramatic as a result)?
Also, Timanov is a more sympathetic character than what you'd think, and even Amyand for all his stinging cynicism is willing to forgive Timanov.