Rate "The Pirate Planet"

In search of the second segment to the Key To Time, the Doctor and Romana are heading for a dreary planet called Calufrax.  But after materialization attempts prove nearly disastrous, our time travelling Time Lords find themselves instead on the planet Zanak.  And there's a bit less to Zanak that it first appears: it's essentially a space hopping hollowed out shell with a bridge run by a power obsessed Captain and his mechanical pet parrot.  Zanak jumps around, pulping and sifting the planets it lands on so as to obtain not only the jewels and precious resources, but also the tremendous energy released by the destruction of a planet.  And the reason they need to do that is the most closely guarded secret on Zanak.  And this is a problem for the Doctor because the second segment to the key to time is, in fact, the entire planet of Calufrax, around which Zanak has just materialized.

So what did you think of the story which gave us the second segment to the Key to Time?  Wild and piratical?  Or just sinking?

This is a story I will give an unreserved 5/5 to. A genuine classic. Bruce Purchase chewing up the scenery in an over the top fashion, the stupid little murderous robot parrot you were only too happy to see in K9's maw, a truly great story about planet-theft and harvesting, and the implications it has for the people on Zanak by virtue of the amount of energy released when you pulverize a whole world. The only portion of this story where things got slightly let down was in the performance of the Nurse. When it was revealed that she was the younger copy of Queen Xanxia, being sustained by the time dam, I'm afraid I didn't find the lady who played the Nurse/Young Xanxia all that convincing.

But for everything else, this is an absolute gem of a story.

I was a bit underwhelmed when rewatching this a few years ago. 3/5.

Do you just enjoy taking the wind out of everyone's sails, Silver Eyes?

I says what I sees Slow Kidney.