Sunday, November 27, 2016

Planet X by: Guy Adams directed by: Scott Handcock: The Most Excited I've Been Over A Trowel

Planet X stars Lisa Bowerman as Professor Bernice Summerfield, David Warner as the Doctor, Julie Graham as Prime Minister Four Hundred Seventy, and Sophie Wu as Millie.  It was written by Guy Adams, directed by Scott Handcock, and released in August 2016 by Big Finish Productions in The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield: Volume Three: The Unbound Universe Box Set.

 

I’ve experienced a bit of structural whiplash in listening to The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield in order.  The first box set seeing Benny face off against the Daleks has a loose story arc running through all of them having one episode be a complete story, but it leads to each other very smoothly.  The second set having Benny face off against Sutekh in four stories that are all interconnected with Sutekh having a huge presence in all four of them.  They’re all part of one story in the same vain as The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure.  The third set however doesn’t have stories that lead into each other.  Yes there is a defined arc, but these stories really have nothing to do with each other which causes this whiplash when listening to the series in order.  It however is really the only problem that intrudes on Guy Adams’s Planet X, the rest of the story is just great.

 

The Doctor has offered Benny trips in the TARDIS to any planet, but the TARDIS is dying so it can’t go anywhere else in time.  Benny has the Doctor take her to the titular planet X, famous for being boring.  It’s a planet where nothing interesting ever happens, so much so that nobody has ever been to planet X.  Benny being an archeologist wants to see what the entire fuss is about with this planet and the Doctor wants desperately to avoid it.  The time spent in the TARDIS arguing about going down to the planet is just hilarious as the two larger than life personalities play off each other in differing ways which is just funny.  Adams’s script is really good for a lot of things for the story.  They of course go down to the planet, but it turns out the real reason Planet X is the most boring planet in the universe.  It’s not because it’s just boring, but it’s actually a planet run under a fascist Orwellean rule where if you are any emotion other than bored, you are executed by death squads.  Seriously, this is just a terrifying concept which is great from Guy Adams.  The Doctor is immediately arrested for being too interesting.  Benny is fine because archeology is boring.  Yes archeology is boring so she can run free.  I think this is hilarious and Benny’s reaction is priceless.  She gets excited over a trowel and the prospect of digging things up.

 

Benny works to overturn the regime by turning Millie, one of the inhabitants to whom she gives the name Millie.  Children are assigned numbers and Millie is the shortening because Millie is one of the millions of girls on this planet.  Benny actually weasels out Millie’s human emotions and it turns out she was in love with a boy who was killed for being too smart.  Yes the intelligent are killed and Millie nearly was killed in this way, but she got a few questions wrong so she gets to live.  Sophie Wu gives a heavily nuanced performance as well as Lisa Bowerman as they want to overthrow the government.  Their plot gives well with the Doctor’s plot as the story is split between them which is for the best.  Bowerman is enthusiastic in her role as she’s pretty much reversing the brainwashing of Millie.  It’s done really well and Bowerman and Wu enjoy every minute of it.

 


The Doctor actually is allowed to the government as they want to use his knowledge to help their planet before killing him.  He meets the Prime Minister, played by Julie Graham, and they are allowed to have emotions because they have dampeners that suppress the emotions from the death squads.  It was really something that allows the audience to see how the Doctor has changed while the universe dies around him.  This is what the box set is using as an arc for its stories as the Doctor kills half the government indirectly, now people say he may not be responsible.  That’s false as he is actively the one who takes off their dampeners which kills them.  Warner does a great job as the Doctor, playing up almost a psychopathic nature that was present in The Library in the Body, but very subtle.  Yes this Doctor kills people without having real remorse which makes you really want to explore what is off with this Doctor.  It’s really quite good and makes the story interesting.

 

To summarize, Planet X is a definite improvement over The Library in the Body as it is a story that while suffering from structural whiplash, it manages to tell an engaging story.  It’s almost a macabre comedy seeing a totalitarian state having a lot of things all for the suppression of individuality and emotions which is a brilliant idea.  It is something that would have to work for the story and the acting in this one is perfect with all the characters giving across exactly what they’re supposed to give across.  95/100.

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