Episode #134 : Planet of Fire

"I'm Perpugilliam Brown, and I can shout just as loud as you can!"

Episode 134:    Planet of Fire.
Companions:   5th Doctor, Peri and Turlough.
Air Date:          23rd February to 2nd March 1984.

On holiday in Lanzarote, a young American girl named Peri narrowly escapes drowning when she is rescued from the sea by Turlough and taken into the TARDIS to recover. The Doctor is on the island because the TARDIS has detected a mysterious signal being transmitted from an unknown artifact retrieved from the sea bed by Peri's stepfather, Howard Foster. The Master reasserts his control over Kamelion and gets it to bring the TARDIS, along with the Doctor, Turlough and Peri, to the planet Sarn, where he is hoping to use that world's supply of revitalising numismaton gas to restore his body - accidentally shrunken in an experiment with his tissue compression eliminator weapon - to its correct size.

By this point I am now fairly sick to death of the Master. He was over used during the Jon Pertwee era and since his return he has appeared far too often. I don't suppose you really notice when watching the show of the television but watching the stories in a quick succession he does seem to appear a little too often. Ainley is still just as good as the Master but once again I wish they would give him some better schemes that can't be so easily thwarted by the Doctor. At least this story has a fun twist where the Master is concerned.

Planet of Fire sees the death of Kamelion and the departure of Turlough. Kamelion was a poor choice for a companion and he wasn't able to appear more than twice so killing him off wasn't a bad idea. Turlough on the other hand I am going to miss. His character has matured and grown since he first joined the TARDIS crew as an agent of the Black Guardian. His story ends on a high note with him being able to return to his people on Trion a hero.

Instead we are joined by Peri "Perpugilliam" Brown an English actress playing an American student with a bad American accent.I never knew what to make of the character when I was ten and I still don't. In this introductory story she is just a whiney American teenager who just seems to have an attitude problem and the ability to get herself into all sorts of trouble.

There is a lot of character development in this story but not enough to the story. It is comes across as a tale about religious persecution and how alien visitors can be misinterpreted as gods. By itself this could have been an excellent "reading between the lines" sort of story but it is overshadowed by the Master chewing the scenary and the character interactions between our three time travellers. Planet of Fire is another story that isn't bad but could have been a lot better.