Review of all 4 episodes:
This story is an adventure which is a political satire of tax, greedy capitalism and bureaucracy. It is full of comedic moments and underlying witty observation. It is written by the great Robert Holmes and this is also very sadly his last story as Script Editor. His time in that role saw the most consistently great quality of any era and his talent as both writer and script editor are second to none. Despite the push to move the series towards lighter, more comedic content and away from horror and darkness, Holmes cleverly manages to make this story comedic whilst maintaining some darkness and intelligent, sharp witted edge.
I agree with many observations I have read over the years that this story is an attack on greedy capitalist extreme right-wing politics and on bureaucracy. This is shown in the obsequious Gatherer and the clear extreme capitalism of the villainous wealthy overlords with oppressed workers paying taxes to fund the sheer greed of the elite until the downtrodden workers unite against them. It works very well indeed both as sheer fun entertainment and as an amusing satire.
The Doctor, Leela and K-9 arrive in a future Pluto colony controlled by wicked tax collectors who control and oppress the hard working population, exploiting them completely and secretly sending the profits to their unknown alien masters. The Doctor shakes things up.
There are numerous clever tax linked jokes such as names of corridors being tax form titles and the silliness and cruelty of aspects of the system are successfully made fun of. There is much enjoyment to be had in this adventure and there are some serious points made too. The first two parts are excellent and slightly stronger than the final two parts but it is all high quality and good fun. An example of when humorous stories can work very well. I cannot say the same for the adventure which followed next when the departure of Holmes was made immediately noticeable. It is such a shame he left. Thankfully he wrote stories from time to time but his loss at the helm hurt the series consistency and diminished its grown up qualities.
Parts 1 & 2 - 9.5/10, Parts 3 & 4 - 9/10. Overall - 9.25/10.
This story is an adventure which is a political satire of tax, greedy capitalism and bureaucracy. It is full of comedic moments and underlying witty observation. It is written by the great Robert Holmes and this is also very sadly his last story as Script Editor. His time in that role saw the most consistently great quality of any era and his talent as both writer and script editor are second to none. Despite the push to move the series towards lighter, more comedic content and away from horror and darkness, Holmes cleverly manages to make this story comedic whilst maintaining some darkness and intelligent, sharp witted edge.
I agree with many observations I have read over the years that this story is an attack on greedy capitalist extreme right-wing politics and on bureaucracy. This is shown in the obsequious Gatherer and the clear extreme capitalism of the villainous wealthy overlords with oppressed workers paying taxes to fund the sheer greed of the elite until the downtrodden workers unite against them. It works very well indeed both as sheer fun entertainment and as an amusing satire.
The Doctor, Leela and K-9 arrive in a future Pluto colony controlled by wicked tax collectors who control and oppress the hard working population, exploiting them completely and secretly sending the profits to their unknown alien masters. The Doctor shakes things up.
There are numerous clever tax linked jokes such as names of corridors being tax form titles and the silliness and cruelty of aspects of the system are successfully made fun of. There is much enjoyment to be had in this adventure and there are some serious points made too. The first two parts are excellent and slightly stronger than the final two parts but it is all high quality and good fun. An example of when humorous stories can work very well. I cannot say the same for the adventure which followed next when the departure of Holmes was made immediately noticeable. It is such a shame he left. Thankfully he wrote stories from time to time but his loss at the helm hurt the series consistency and diminished its grown up qualities.
Parts 1 & 2 - 9.5/10, Parts 3 & 4 - 9/10. Overall - 9.25/10.