Fireball XL5 Episode 13 Review: Planet of Platonia

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Fireball XL5 Ep 13: Planet of Platonia

Rating out of 10: 9.2
IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0803298/?ref_=ttep_ep13

Review (SPOILERS AHEAD):
One of my favourite Fireball episodes that I've seen so far, hands down. The show avoids its own tropes very successfully and creates one of its most interesting and compelling stories, mainly by the extra dimensions given to the alien characters. The two Platonians in the show are the planet's ruler, and one of his aides; the ruler wants to trade platinum with earth, but his aide is secretly working for a shady opponent who wants to drive the two planets to war. A range of assassination plots are shown early on, setting up the story nicely without too much exposition being rammed into the script in odd places. Once on Platonia, despite the sad lack of seeing more of the planet (one usual Fireball trope is adhered to, namely that of rarely making more than two puppets per alien species), the plot continues to be interesting, with the king continuing to trust his aide until Steve, apparently aided by premonition (this is a rather weak point in the script, though his worry over Fireball is at least alluded to beforehand) manages to intercept the alien leaving Fireball Junior.

The later segments of the episode include some particularly good character interaction; realising there is no time to waste, the crew of Fireball set off, despite being aware that there is a bomb on board; it's planted inside Robert, but the others have no idea (indeed Robert presumably has no idea either as his circuits were all jammed when it was being planted). This sets up a nicely and genuinely tense ending sequence that involves character interactions aplenty rather than just timing and shooting. The aide is shown going through a genuine piece of character development under pressure; having moved from the suave actor of the early scenes to the defiant captured rebel, he is finally forced to make the choice between defiance or death, trapped on the ship with his own bomb ready to go off at any moment.

All in all Planet of Platonia is a really well-written episode and one that I very much recommend.