Paradise 5 by PJ Hammond & Andy Lane
10 March 2010
"Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans." - Allen Saunders
I was a little surprised when the above quote popped up in Paradise 5. It wasn't in this exact format, but rather, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans," a variation popularized by John Lennon's song Beautiful Boy. It jumped out to me because of my recent Lennon review, but I think it's a pretty good summation for this story's ethos. Paradise 5 takes place on a space station where guests dream their lives away... quite literally, in fact.
Interestingly, the Doctor and Peri decide not to just show up somewhere for once, and instead put some thought into infiltrating Paradise 5, whence yet another of the Doctor's very old friends(!) disappeared some time ago.
Peri takes the most risk by getting herself hired on as a hostess, putting herself under the scrutiny of sadistic station manager Gabriel, played by a certain Alex Macqueen. Peri gets a lot of great scenes due to this higher focus on her. My favorite is a moment where she confides in a fellow hostess that she feels some anxiety about when she'll get to start deciding the direction of her own life, something I think we really could have stood to see with her TV counterpart.
The slow realization that the Cherubs are former guests who have been converted into forms that can no longer speak is a chilling one, in particular the case of one Cherub who has been helping the Doctor, whom we learn to be the Doctor's friend, Albrecht Thompson. There's a fair bit of body horror inherent to this, and it makes for a nice, dark touch.
The alien villains of the week, the Elohim, are visually and conceptually quite cool. I wish we could actually see them for real. Their illusory garden has a serpent in it - because of course it does. Kinda all over again, just with less Buddhism.
The guests, beaten down by the humdrum of workaday life on Targos Delta, a planet so focused on finance that it's all but made of futuristic ticker tape, seek escape and seclusion from other people on Paradise 5. In the process, they lose themselves in a false Eden, some even physically regressed into childlike bodies. Escaping from the real world is something we all need from time to time - but it is possible to go so far that you never quite return.
My thoughts on this one are almost as disorganized as my notes, so I'll leave it at that. I really enjoyed Paradise 5 and think it's the strongest of the set so far. Point of Entry is next.
(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 30 May 2024.)
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