N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!

Perhaps it’s the shared forename or initials but I’ve always thought of Robert Holmes as Doctor Who‘s Dean of Science Fiction – one of the masters of the classic series. Given the weight of what’s just around the corner with his Third Doctor stories, I’d placed The Space Pirates and The Krotons as Holmes’s equivalent of Robert Heinlein’s so-called juvenile novels: in short, some good ideas but the real achievements come later.

If Holmes is Heinlein to the Doctor Who universe, who are the equivalents of the other members of science fiction’s so-called Golden Age big three – namely, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke? Would it be Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks? Or Hulke and David Whitaker? Or going further back, Whitaker and Terry Nation?

It’s a tortuous analogy that I shan’t pursue further, but for me, rightly or wrongly, watching a story written by Holmes has always carried a weight similar to that I feel when I pick up a novel by Heinlein.

Moreover, it becomes even an increasingly tenuous parallel when, after viewing (or rather listening to) The Space Pirates again, I realise that this is the point where Holmes has matured with his Doctor Who writing. Owing to those oft-cited blind spots in my Doctor Who memory, once again I remembered very little of the story. As with The Wheel in Space, this makes for a pleasant surprise – The Space Pirates is a cracking tale.

Once you’ve seen Francis Coppola’s Dracula or the remake of Ocean’s 11, no accent seems dodgy, so I wasn’t about to let the occasionally unconvincing American twang spoil my enjoyment of The Space Pirates. Indeed I had greater difficult not imagining General Hermack as a descendant of the 13th Duke of Wybourne – I kept expecting him to tag a ‘with my reputation’ onto every line of dialogue.

“Is it alright if I blow my nose or is that another offence?”

Milo Clancy, The Space Pirates: Episode Two

Unlike The Wheel in Space, it’s over fifteen minutes before we see the TARDIS regulars, which gives the viewer to plenty of time to settle in to Holme’s space opera of Space Corps, argonite mining and piracy. But once he arrives, outshining all around him – be they space Corps or pirate – is Milo Clancy. Coming across like an ol’ timey prospector from days of yore, Clancy is one of the most endearing of guest characters we’ve yet met on the Doctor’s travels. With his admirable lack of respect for military bureaucracy, the fact that he carries a backup tea pot (even if it makes lousy tea) and an amusing turn-of-phrase – the LIZ79’s radio whistles ‘like a hysterical canary’ – Clancy is the perfect antidote to the dull-but-worthy protagonists of the The Seeds of Death and Holme’s own The Krotons, and is arguably the earliest example in Doctor Who of Robert Holmes’s gift for character and dialogue.

“I like drawing pins … normally.”

The Doctor, The Space Pirates: Episode Four

The Doctor too is on fine form here. When he’s not exhorting Zoe not to be such a pessimist or telling Jamie he should appreciate him a bit more, he’s exhibiting his knack for cobbling together complex solutions from the contents of his pockets and whatever happens to be lying around. (He’s a one-man A-Team, without the consequence-free casual violence, of course.) During the course of The Space Pirates, the Doctor employs the use of a tuning fork, stethoscope, marbles – the green one is “one of his favourites” – candle wax, even an old shirt, to aid their travails.

The Space Pirates is great fun. I even like the joke ending. In my head, it’s accompanied by a pretend freeze frame as in an episode of Police Squad!