Planet of Evil
The plot was inspired by the film Forbidden Planet (1956) and the novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), with a focus on antimatter.
The TARDIS picks up a distress call and the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith arrive on the planet Zeta Minor.
The Doctor finds the original Sorenson, takes him back to the planet in the TARDIS and throws both him and his samples into the pit, fulfilling a bargain he earlier made with the anti-matter creature.
[1] The plot was deliberately conceived by Philip Hinchcliffe, Robert Holmes and Louis Marks as a mixture of the film Forbidden Planet (1956) and the novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886).
[3] The BBC was so impressed with it that they kept photographs of it for several years as an example of excellent set design and producer Philip Hinchcliffe recommended that he be nominated for an award for this work.
"[1] In The Television Companion (1998), David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker described Planet of Evil as "a wonderfully creepy story" with the borrowing of material from Jekyll and Hyde "done with such style and panache that the viewer, far from complaining about a lack of originality, delights in spotting all the familiar sources to which the writer and the production team are paying homage."
Howe and Walker also praised the jungle set and the performances of Frederick Jaeger and Ewen Solon, but criticised Prentis Hancock's "poor" portrayal of Salamar.
[10] Reviewing the serial in 1999, literary critic John Kenneth Muir drew attention to similarities between Planet of Evil and Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien, in particular the scenario of a spaceship answering a distress call, the crew being gradually killed by a malevolent alien life form, and corpses being ejected into space in metal coffins.
Muir hesitated to suggest that Alien was directly influenced by this story, but considered it significant that Doctor Who dealt with science fiction themes that became popular later in the 1970s.
[11] In 2010, Patrick Mulkern of Radio Times awarded the serial four stars out of five and wrote that it "feels original", particularly praising the jungle set and David Maloney's direction, as well as Tom Baker's performance.
