📝8/10

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time! This time: it's the planet of the deadly bore!

MY SCATTERED AND TOTALLY IRRELEVANT NOTES:

Planet X features warm humour, coming from the light banter between the Doctor and Benny; always a sign of a good TARDIS team.

Both David Warner and Lisa Bowerman are superb throughout the entire thingm

I love how Benny is looking for adventure while the Doctor complains that they have arrived on a planet so boring that the people don't bother with warfare or panic and so boring that excitement is lethal.

I also love how the Doctor is taken away for being too boring while Benny is offended because she is seen as boring

It’s a pity that Benny and Unbound spend most of the audio separated because that means they cannot bounce off each other as much as I'd hoped.

This is an interesting exploration of authoritarian worlds, a classic subject for Doctor Who, but explored from a slightly different angle and with both Benny and Unbound as good contrasts to the dull Planet X. So while there is a lot of humour in this one, there is a darker and more upsetting edge to it, especially when death catches up to the lawbreakers and the reality of the society is unravelled.

The Doctor’s investigation into the planet and Benny’s trouble with the law follow a typical Doctor Who pattern but bring tension to the story in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

The weird rubber-faced zombie thingies are like a simple version of the Cybermen and make for effectively eerie enemies. And the Prime Minister proves to be a good villain, especially once her real colours are revealed.

I enjoy how the humour is slowly replaced by tension, suspense, and heartbreak, which helps the tail end of the story feel more serious.

The second half doesn't grow much, as it mostly keeps switching between the two main plots with the two main characters.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

• The idea of a planet so boring it has no name is a fun one (“a planetary equivalent of cabbage”). The inhabitants within it are only identified by titles and numbers.