YY4 - The Space Pirates 4

Usually, before settling to watch each story on this marathon of mine, I try and flush all preconceived notions of how the story I'm about to view ranks with me, based on previous viewings, or more generally in the eyes of fandom. Before The Space Pirates started for me, though, it was almost like an eerie silence settled across the land of viewer opinion for this story.

The Space Pirates is an odd bird, and not only because of its relative lack of involvement of The Doctor. Amidst a fairly intact Season 6, only one episode (Episode Two) completely exists in the BBC Archives. No telesnaps for the story survive, as the last known of these were created for Episode Three of The Mind Robber. There's even a scarce amount of publicity photos for the story; so much so that the main villain of the piece, Caven, has seldom been seen because he doesn't appear in Episode Two. This story often rates very low in "Favourite Story" polls, not because it's bad, but because so little is known about it to rate it any higher.

Thus, I officially proclaim The Space Pirates to be "The Most Forgotten Doctor Who Story of All Time". So much so that I've already forgotten most of which has gone on in it so far....