The story was repeated on BBC1 on four consecutive Thursdays from 12 July - 2 August, 1979, achieving viewing figures of 2.8, 4.0, 3.3 and 2.9 million respectively [REF].
Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping wrote of the serial in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), "An inventive story, The Pirate Planet has matured into a satisfying mixture of the clever and the absurd."[REF]