Story #49 - The Space Pirates (1969)

Sarah -
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Oh dear, Harry. Oh dear.

I was so looking forward to "The Space Pirates". After this, no more recons! I had been planning and preparing my Space Pirates party. There was going to be foam dancing and jelly babies and... oh, just everything!

Instead, I just want to go lie down.

Oh dear.


Harry -
I'm so depressed.

Our "Hooray For No More Bloody Recons Party" has been ruined, by the final recon itself.

I do however like the sparkly garlands you draped over the sofa for the occasion. Good show!

...speaking of which, I cannot say the same about "The Space Pirates." What an ordeal. Several times I began to wonder just what show we were watching.

The story, dull as dishwater.

The sets, cheap and forgettable.

The acting, wooden.

The pace, mind-numbing.

I feel a headache coming on. The party is ruined! At least we have a well-stocked drinks table here.


Sarah -
Well, it was well-stocked. How many bottles have we polished off, My Dear? Wait...have we always had two sofas? I could have sworn there was just one here when the party started.


Harry -
Mind where you step, dear. That's me on the carpet, curled around a bottle of gin. Hopefully the drink will drive Milo Clancy's rootin-tootin-varmint-shootin voice out of my head, along with that of General Hermack. What was he doing anyway, Boris Karloff in space? Diabolical stuff.

I suppose I could have just muted the whole thing and watched the spaceship models gliding hither and yon. So many shots of spaceship models, gliding hither and yon. Up and down, over and under. Hither. Yon. Hither again.

Could you roll that bottle back over here please?


Sarah -
Here it comes!


Harry -
Ta.


Sarah -
It's unfortunate that Milo Clancy was the highlight of this serial for me. Once I finished giggling about prospectors in space and trying to figure out the accents, I pretty much gave up and turned to the bottle.

Is there any vodka left?


Harry -
Is that a vodka bottle wedged between the cushions? Ah yes, there you are, cheers.


Sarah -
Don't bogart the potato juice, Sweetie!


Harry -
Silly voices aside, there wasn't really anything huge that killed this story for me. It's the fact that there just wasn't a story to be killed in the first place, if that makes any sense.


Sarah -
It makes more sense than anything in the story!


Harry -
It. Took. For. EVER. For this thing to get started. At first, those model shots looked really neat, and the production crew must have enjoyed working on them, taking a cue from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which would have been everywhere in 1969. Little did we know that the same shots would be used over and over again throughout the story. Ugh!


Sarah -
So, I wasn't actually hallucinating? It was, in fact, the same shots over and over. I feel so much better knowing that...


Harry -
And if you missed the opening theme, you'd find yourself wondering just what show you were watching. Some malarkey with an international space crew monitoring the theft of argonite by roving space pirates. Okay. The TARDIS doesn't appear until the first episode is half over and we finally see our friends the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. There's a flurry of action, then they get themselves locked into a small storage hold on a space beacon which is then blown up.


Sarah -
Leaving Zoe's leg quite suggestively draped, I must add.


Harry -
There did seem to be a lot of group pile-ons during this story. If only the wobbly sets could talk...

Anyway, normally, all that action would have made for an exciting flourish, but something feels off. Patrick Troughton seems either ill or fatigued. In Running Through Corridors Vol I, Rob Shearman (bless!) suggests that Troughton is brilliantly underplaying the script. Toby Hadoke (bless!) then points out that Troughton was fed up with the demands of the role and Bob Holmes was directed to give the TARDIS crew a smaller role in this space opera.

I daresay Bob Holmes overdid himself, as the remaining five episodes are brutally boring. The supporting cast are all miserable people - ruthless, bullying and generally unpleasant. With the TARDIS crew shunted into a supporting role, there wasn't anything interesting left.

I would have been totally happy if Milo Clancy's tinpot ship blew up (into smithereens, naturally) and took the lot of them up with it. I'm sorry but I had to say it!

*crawls behind sofa cradling gin bottle*


Sarah -
Can we just go on to "The War Games"... as soon as we sober up?


Harry -
Wait, wait! We haven't talked about Madeleine Issigri's bizarre helmet-hat thing. What a fascinating shape! Do you think her underlings called her "Butthead" behind her back?

*collapses giggling uncontrollably*


Sarah -
OMG! What was that thing?

*hyperventilating behind the sofa*


Harry -
Let us drink to Madeleine's... thing. It was the only amusing highlight to a story that was an utterly boring runaround. It was so awful I stopped caring by episode five. I spent most of episode six reading Rob and Toby's commentaries with the episode playing in the background.


Sarah -
And here I thought I was the only one to do that!


Harry -
*sobering slightly*

Doctor Who is supposed to be a joy, but this story was a miserable chore to watch. The only way I got through it was to take it one episode at a time, spread over several days. I wonder if it's possible to sit through the entire thing without dying? I'd love to know if any of our readers (?) have their own "Space Pirates" experiences to share.

Is this, in fact, the worst Doctor Who story in our marathon so far?


Sarah -
Yes.

Move along.


Harry -
I'm finished here, and so is the gin. The end-of-recons party wasn't as festive as I'd imagined it would be, but at least we got to drink together.

Best line: "Oh no. A boy, a girl and a nutcase - you can't be the pirates."

Favourite moment: PASS.

Lasting image: I want to say "Butthead!" but those damn model shots are stuck in my mind's eye.

2/10


Sarah -
The beverages were definitely the highlight here.

Best Line: You've hit upon the most memorable line there.

Favorite moment: The end credits

Lasting Image: I'll go with the butthead, just to cheer you up.

2/10

Onward to "The War Games"!

 


Our marathon continues with Story #50 - The War Games...