I went into this serial bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.  Ribos Operation was a little weird but left me excited for the new adventures with Romana, this has DOUGLAS ADAMS as its credited writer, and it's a fun little premise with a famous little robot.

How the hell did this all go so wrong?  I could not get into this story to save the life of me.  I found the characters incredibly underwhelming - the Captain was kind of boring and I flat-out hated his actor's performance. Queen Xanxia, who feels like a crucial part of the plot barely felt like a presence in the story.  The Fourth Doctor had some decent moments but they were few and far between, while I don't know if Romana did much that couldn't have been done by any generic companion.  It is insane to me that Adams worked on this at the same time as Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - because my experience with that classic book and The Pirate Planet could not have been more black and white.  Hitchhiker's is engaging, silly, full of fun characters, and full of little details that make its universe feel a very specific brand of satire you can very rarely experience in many other corners of science-fiction.  The Pirate Planet's world of Zanak wasn't very interesting to me and without any solid characters to back that up, I was left thoroughly disengaged.

I know it isn't just Adams outside his element either, since City of Death is one of my favourites in all of Doctor Who.  I really, really expected to like these episodes more than I did but by the third and fourth part I was just feeling miserable watching it.

Even that robot parrot just looked awful.  I was expecting something that could actually make some noise or talk but that thing barely did anything.

Anyways.  I did enjoy the idea of the Captain shrinking down random planets for trophies.  To be blunt, a better villain could have made more use of that idea in a fun way.  I feel like I'm being harsh here, but I hated this episode on a level comparable to some of the worst moments in all of Doctor Who.  It really took me off guard because I know The Pirate Planet has its fans.  The best I can offer is the notion that I simply am not one of them.