Review of Planet of Fire (#134)
DVD Release Date: 07 Sep 10
Original Air Date: 23 Feb – 02 Mar 1984
Doctors/Companions: Five, Vislor Turlough, Perpugilliam Brown
Stars: Peter Davison, Mark Strickson, Nicola Bryant
Preceding Story: Resurrection of the Daleks (Five, Tegan, Turlough)
Succeeding Story: The Caves of Androzani (Five, Peri)

For some reason, Planet of Fire has always sort of flown under my radar. In the back of my head, it had become “the story where both Mark Strickson and Nicola Bryant were scantily clad for their farewell/introduction, and there were volcanoes or something—oh yeah, and the Master.”

According to received fan wisdom (at least in the form of io9’s Best-to-Worst ranking, which puts PoF at #227 of 254), I can hardly be blamed. Even if I’d forgotten some of the key elements (the Master’s predicament, the final appearance of Kamelion, the revelation of Turlough’s secret past, and where all those intersect on a geologically active planet), there wasn’t much in any of it to endear it to viewers. (The exception, of course, is the aforementioned minimal costuming; I’ve heard at least one person say they learned something about themselves seeing Turlough in those shorts.)

Poor Kamelion stands out as one of the biggest problems. I’m sure the idea of a shape-changing robot sounded exciting to the writers (or JNT? I don’t know who’s responsible for Kamelion) when it was first proposed, but creating a plot that works well for such a character—and then realizing it satisfactorily on screen—appears to have been too difficult a task. (I did, however, once win a round of the Verity! Podcast “In Defense Of” game at Gallifrey One by successfully arguing for 60 seconds that “Kamelion is better than K-9,” using its role in helping to defeat the Master in PoF as one of my talking points.)