"Space Atmosphere!"

"Space Atmosphere!"

It's very hard to pin down the scripts Louis Marks wrote for 'Doctor Who', simply because there are such big gaps between most of them. It's only with Seasons 13 and 14 that he becomes a semi-regular member of the writing, but clearly his success with 'Planet Of Evil' is what gains him the rapid invite to come back and do 'The Masque Of Mandragora'.

People don't tend to talk about 'Planet Of Evil' very much and although Season 13 is very strong overall, that's no reason to forget these four epsiodes of pure Space Atmosphere as Lisa called it in our recent video.

Now, I'm not going to quibble about the more eccentric bits of science on display here, as I can still remember the effect this story had on me the first time around. One of the reasons why 'Doctor Who' exists is obviously to scare kids and this production achieved this aim very efficiently indeed.

With David Maloney building on what he'd done with 'Genesis Of The Daleks', the lights are turned down even lower and unknown (and therefore scary) forces lurk in the shadows. The jungle, especially on film, pushes the series into new and ambitious territory when it comes to building a convincing alien world.

The Anti-Matter Monster (even today we don't have a more specific name for it, which shows the value of not explaining everything) was weird and worrying. Presented on screen with an imaginative mix of costuming and effects, the sheer mystery of it was hypnotic.

Meanwhile, I could identify with Professor Sorenson, as I was a martyr to bad headaches, but at least my medicine neither smoked nor resembled the dregs of a bottle of Camp Coffee...

As I say in the video, the bit where Sarah emerges from the TARDIS on the Morestran ship sticks in my mind, even if I had rather got the wrong end of the stick. At the time I thought the crew had no need to breathe oxygen, simply because of the way it was shot. David Maloney would probably have called me a Stupid Boy, but there you go...

I can still remember that glorious week when the story got a repeat showing from Monday to Thursday ('The Sontaran Experiment' was on the Friday as a bonus) and a second viewing was still pretty frightening.

The book's cover does an effective job too, even though it seems to imply that Sorenson grows to giant size later on. Oddly, the Doctor's strange manacle-device he uses in the TARDIS doesn't get a mention (being replaced with some common-or-garden chains, I think), but it is a hard thing to describe in detail without asking awkward questions such as exactly why it just happens to be within easy reach and why the Doctor owns it in the first place...

It's a shame that with the departure of Bob Holmes, no-one managed to get another story out of Louis Marks, although he was a busy man, of course. But his eight episodes of mid-70s 'Doctor Who' are still ones I am always look forward to rewatching.

Strong stuff all round and just what I was after on a Saturday night.

Our video covering 'Planet Of Evil' plus 'Pyramids Of Mars' may be seen here.

(By Andrew Trowbridge)