The Ribos Operation was pretty good fun and beautifully made, but Mary Whitehouse's bombardment of the BBC to soften the Series had a major effect. The Pirate Planet is a very silly story, Douglas Adams style of writing is extremely apparent, love or hate.
I hate to say but the feeling I got was Philip Hinchcliffe's astounding work making the show glorious was slowly being undone and the show was reaching new levels of silliness.
The Doctor and Romana begin their search for the second segment and set off for Calufrax, and we meet the Pirate Captain and Mr Fibuli. The Captain declares a new golden age with riches for all, and a strange band of male psychics appear (Mentiads.) The Doctor fails to land the TARIDS on Calufrax, and something has seemingly gone wrong. They have landed where they should have, but it isn't Calufrax. New character Pralix is seemingly affected by the Psychic 'mentiads,' Romana gets arrested for using a 'fordbidden device,' The Mentiads cross the Mountains in order to acquire Pralix, they are seemingly magical, as the Captain's guards have no effect on them. The Mentiads break in and turn on the Doctor.
You will either utterly love or totally loathe Bruce Purchase's Pirate Captain
Romana continues to grow as a character, gone is the Pure white outfit, she's now looking rather gorgeous.
I've never been the greatest fan of The Pirate Planet, and sadly my opinion hasn't changed on the re-watch, episode 1 is just silly, there is zero connection with any of the characters and the Pirate is just annoying.
Very average, 5/10