Doctor Who: The Space Pirates

Only you can prevent space piracy.

Gunsmoke by way of 2001: A Space Odyssey – for the kiddies

Season Six, Serial Six (production code YY)

Starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor
with Frazer Hines (Jamie) and Wendy Padbury (Zoe)

Written by Robert Holmes
Directed by Michael Hart
Producer – Peter Bryant
Script Editor – Derrick Sherwin

Broadcast Dates, Viewership, Appreciation Figures

• Episode One – 8 Mar 1969 (5.8m, 57%) ** MISSING **
• Episode Two – 15 Mar 1969 (6.8m, 52%)
• Episode Three – 22 Mar 1969 (6.4m, 55%) ** MISSING **
• Episode Four – 29 Mar 1969 (5.8m, 53%) ** MISSING **
• Episode Five – 5 Apr 1969 (5.5m, 56%) ** MISSING **
• Episode Six – 12 Apr 1969 (5.3m, 52%) ** MISSING **

"The Space Pirates" is the latest Doctor Who story to have any missing or unrestored episodes.

How To Watch

• No plans to re-animate missing material for future DVD/Blu-Ray release (as of October 2025)
• Not available on streaming services.
• Episode Two is included on the 2004 Lost In Time DVD, as well as the 1991 VHS "The Patrick Troughton Years."
• The Loose Cannon reconstructions of the missing episodes are available here. There were no tele-snaps made of this story, so the LC team took unused special effects shots, promotional photos, and composite still images to accompany the surviving audio.
• The soundtrack, with additional narration by Frazer Hines, was released on CD in 2003.

Synopsis

Unmanned space beacons are being raided throughout the local section of the galaxy, and their cargos of precious argonite stolen. General Hermack and the Interstellar Space Corps are investigating and pursuing the piracies. Hermack is convinced that the eccentric miner Milo Clancy is the mastermind, but in actuality the fearsome Caven and his gang are responsible, raiding from his secret base on the planet Ta. He is blackmailing Issigri Mining Company head Madeleine Issigri, daughter of Milo's former business partner Dom Issigri, into assisting him. She believes Dom to be dead, but actually he has been kidnapped and held prisoner by Caven and his men. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe, working with Milo, find Dom and reunite him with Madeleine, who helps Hermack and his team destroy Caven and the pirates.

Blather

Did you notice that the Doctor only appears in the last sentence of the synopsis? That's one issue with "The Space Pirates," in that the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe barely impact the story at all. They don't appear until 2/3rds of the way through Episode One, are not part of the main plot until the Episode Two cliffhanger, and their involvement with the resolution in Episode Six is engineered so their scenes could be pre-taped so they could spend that week working on the location shooting for "War Games." They're tourists in their own show.

The principal cast waiting for their scene...

When you get right down to it, a lot of sci-fi has its roots in old western serials. Just look at a series like Firefly or old-school Battlestar Galactica for confirmation, though they don't wear it on their sleeves as much as "Space Pirates" does. This is basically Gunsmoke in space. There are the lawmen in pursuit of the thievin' varmints that done stole the Western Union strongbox, old prospectors, etc... Robert Holmes made no secret of his openly cribbing from cowboy tropes, especially given that Milo looks, dresses and sounds as if he was airlifted directly from a John Ford film.

John Ford meets Stanley Kubrick, for the kiddies

The show is also noting the progress that science fiction has made on the big screen, using grand, graceful shots of spaceship models filmed against a jet black background, very much trying to crib from 2001: A Space Odyssey and not doing too badly with it all things considered.

So the story is simultaneously trying to be an old school horse opera and a sweeping space epic, while awkwardly trying to shoehorn the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe into the plot. Holmes attempts to do too many things at once, and consequently does none of them particularly well. Between this and his first story, "The Krotons," there's not a lot that would hint at the brilliant scripts he'd churn out in the coming years.

But that's not to say that "The Space Pirates" is complete rubbish. I love Madeleine's steel hair. The ship models, for the era, look quite good. The pirates' riveted steel armor has a campy charm. The Loose Cannon recon, having very little visual information to draw from, does its best but is inevitably limited in its ability to fully bring this story to life, and the surviving episode also isn't the best of the six. I would like to be able to see the reunion between Milo and Dom, and between Dom and Madeleine. We'd get more of a chance to see the relationship between Caven and Madeleine, and the unraveling of the relationship between Caven and his primary henchman Dervish.

Tidbits

Episode One is the last Doctor Who episode to be taped at the cramped Lime Grove Studios. From here on, nearly all episodes would be taped at the BBC's primary production facilities.

Episode Six marks the first time that two Doctor Who episodes were in production simultaneously; while the episode was being rehearsed and recorded, the primary cast was working on the large scale location shooting for "The War Games."

He was uncredited, but future 80's producer John Nathan Turner served as a floor assistant, marking his first time working on Doctor Who.

This was the last story to contain missing episodes, though not the last with missing broadcast video. Much of the Pertwee era is also missing the original colo(u)r broadcast videotapes, but over the past 20-30 years they've all been restored as close to original broadcast quality as we're ever going to get, restoring PAL-to-NTSC transfers back to PAL, colorizing b/w film copies, etc.

Havent I Seen You...

• Jack May (General Hermack) also appeared in the series A for Andromeda, was the waiter at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, among many other credits
• Donald Gee (Major Werne) would return as Eckersley in "Monster of Peladon"
• George Layton (Penn) would appear as "The Timelord" in an un-aired French & Saunders Doctor Who parody (available here, as well as on the VHS release of "Curse of Fatal Death")
• Gordon Gostelow (Milo Clancey) has an amusing guest role in Elizabeth R as the hapless Duke of Medina Sidonia, assigned by King Philip of Spain to lead the Armada despite his sputtering refusals
• Steve Peters (Pirate Guard) also appeared as astronaut Joe Lefee in "Ambassadors of Death"
• Esmond Knight (Dom Issigri) also appeared in A for Andromeda, I Claudius, and Elizabeth R.

Does the BIPOC character survive? No (Sorba dies at the end of Episode Four)

Sausage Factor: 90.9% (11 credited guest actors, 10 males)

Rating: Two out of Four Solar Toasters

Wrapup!

Years ago I discovered Mark Greig's snarky reviews of classic Doctor Who on this website, but noticed that he only started at Season Six, the point at which most of the stories were complete. I myself had never been a particular Stan (as the kids say nowadays) of those first five seasons, but then I hadn't really had the chance to do a deep dive, particularly the many serials that were partially or completely incomplete. I decided that I wanted to fill the gap that Mark left, and in September 2015 – TEN YEARS AGO – I posted my review of "An Unearthly Child," which now has over 5,000 views. I intended to write one review a week, but then I kinda sidetracked for several years (i.e. I had a kid), but eventually got back to it as I rotated through my various ADHD-fueled obsessions, bit by bit, until this final review that finally completes my mission.

Perhaps, as rumors are currently circulating about the Film Is Fabulous team of researchers being in touch with elderly collectors of film and video, some of whom have missing episodes in their possession, I'll update the appropriate reviews if they become available in my lifetime. I may also update some of my early reviews that I realize now have some incorrect details, or add in the Sausage Factor and Does the BIPOC Character Survive in the reviews that I posted before I started putting them in.

But mostly, just wanted to thank Billie Doux for letting me post, and all of you who have read, commented, and appreciated my writing over the past decade. I might post a few articles about the early days of BBC sci-fi. I was planning a smaller scale dive into Blake's 7 but now that it's been yoinked off Britbox I've lost my primary reference material. Maybe I'll still try.

If you really want to get into the nerdiest of the nerdy, I heartily recommend the Doctor Who: The Missing Episodes podcast, which take the incomplete serials and give them a thorough examination, including meticulous research into how the episodes came to be missing, where the film copies were sent, how the episodes that have survived were found, and the relative likelihoods of their future recovery (spoiler: somewhere between slim and none) based on all available information.
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John Geoffrion is a semi-retired semi-professional thespian, a professional data guy, and a Dad. He usually falls asleep to the Classic Doctor Who channel on Pluto.tv

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