The Curse of Peladon

He seemed to rather enjoy being scratched behind the ears.

The Curse of Peladon is a generally well regarded episode but it does have a few notable detractors. It's a pretty good barometer to one's level of acceptance of Doctor Who as the plot and acting are fairly interesting but if you get nit-picky about costuming and effects, you may not care for this one as much.

Plot Summary

On the planet Peladon, the king is preparing to host a peace conference where Peladon will be invited to join a Federation. His Prime Minister is in favor but the High Priest Hepesh opposes, fearing that it will bring the curse of Aggedor, a local deity. While on his way to welcome the latest delegate, the Prime Minister is killed in a corridor.

The Doctor and Jo arrive after taking the TARDIS on a test run. The Doctor believes he has returned to Earth, but the TARDIS becomes unbalanced. They leave the ship just as it tumbles down a cliff. With no way to go down, they see a castle above them and begin to climb the cliff face. On their way up, they find a cave with a tunnel in the back and proceed through it.

In the wake of the death of the Prime Minister, the king welcomes the arriving delegates and informs them of the PM's death. The delegates are worried but vow to continue the conference. They however cannot start until the delegation from Earth arrives. Hepesh again tries to dissuade the king but the king is set on moving the planet forward into the Federation.

The tunnels take the Doctor and Jo to a set of secret passages in the castle. They emerge and are rounded up by the guards. They are taken to the throne room where they are assumed to be the representatives from Earth. The Doctor goes along, requesting that the TARDIS be recovered from the bottom of the cliff. As non-royal women are not allowed at the Peladon court, Jo is assumed to be nobility and the Doctor presents her as Princess Josephine of Tardis. The group prepares to head to the council meeting chamber but as they leave, a statue of Aggedor falls down. The Doctor pushes the Martian delegate (an Ice Warrior) out of the way.

Hepesh proclaims it a sign and the delegates move to leave Peladon but the king begs them to stay. While he talks, Jo slips through a door and up to the ledge where the statue fell. She finds something and takes it back down. The delegates retire to their quarters and Jo shows what she found to the Doctor who notes it as Ice Warrior technology and immediately assumes they are behind the attack.

An alarm goes off and the Doctor and Jo investigate. The delegate of Arcturus has had his life support system tampered with. The Doctor is able to repair it, although the other delegates observe him doing it and are immediately suspicious. While they make sure the Arcturan is alright, Jo slips away and searches the Ice Warrior quarters where she finds the missing component of the Arcturan life support system. She is caught by one of the Ice Warrior guards who lock her in while the Ice Lord Izlyr is summoned.

The Arcturan cannot remember who sabotaged his system. Lord Izlyr is summoned and informed that Jo has be found in his quarters. The Doctor starts to go along, but is summoned by the king's mute champion Grun. Grun has been commissioned by Hepesh to kill the Doctor as he is convinced that membership in the Federation is against the will of Aggedor. Grun leads the Doctor into the secret tunnels but then runs off when a roaring is heard.

Jo escapes through a window but upon reentering a castle, sees a beast and runs back into the arms of Lord Izlyr. Izlyr refutes her accusations, noting that the removal of the device would not have killed the Arcturan delegate, only put him into a coma. Jo apologizes for suspecting them and suggests they talk with the Doctor to find out what is going on. Meanwhile the Doctor also has run into this creature and runs away. He emerges from the tunnels into the inner sanctum of Aggredor. Upon touching the statue, Hepesh swoops in a accuses him of defiling the temple. He is brought before the king who reluctantly sentences him to death.

The Doctor is allowed to appeal for trial by combat, which he does. Hepesh escorts him back to his quarters where he gives him a map of the tunnels and encourages him to flee. The Doctor puts together a little hypnotic device and proceeds into the tunnels. There he meets Aggedor, a bear like beast, and uses his device to calm the creature down and set him into a more docile state.

Jo attempts to appeal to the king, but he feels bound by the old laws and will not intervene. Lord Izlyr on the other hand, vows to help as he is indebted to the Doctor for saving him from the falling statue. When Izlyr discovers the Doctor is not in his room, Jo runs into the tunnels searching for him. Seeing Aggedor with the Doctor, she grabs a torch and chases it off. The Doctor is annoyed but heads back with Jo. They enter the throne room and tell the king of the nature of Aggedor. Hepesh accuses the Doctor of further blasphemy and requests the trial by combat begin immediately. The king buckles and agrees.

In the fighting pit, the Doctor disarms Grun once but Hepesh drops another weapon into the pit. When the Doctor manages to knock him out, the Arcturan delegate moves to fire his weapon. However, the Ice Warrior guard also draws and kills Arcturus. Hepesh and his guards flee.

After being pulled out of the pit, the Doctor explains that Hepesh had made a secret deal with Arcturus that they could mine Peladon if Peladon could be kept out of the Federation and allowed to be ruled through the old ways, effectively making Hepesh the ruler of the planet. He had captured one of the remaining Aggedor beasts in the mountains and brought it to live in the tunnels, releasing it every once in a while to reinforce the "Spirit of Aggedor" legend. The king vacillates and Grun motions for the Doctor to follow him.

Grun heads into the tunnels and tries to pull Hepesh away from his group of guards preparing to attack the citadel. Hepesh however knocks Grun out and marshals his men. The Doctor finds Grun and revives him. He then finds Aggedor and sets to calming him down again.

Jo and the Martian delegates meet and convince the Alpha Centauri to vote to have the Federation support King Peladon in the battle against Hepesh. They attempt to radio this to their governments but find their communications have been destroyed.

Hepesh and his men seize the throne room and take the king prisoner. They bring in the delegates whom they have also captured. Hepesh tells the delegates that he wants them to leave and decline membership of Peladon to the Federation. Before they can answer, the Doctor appears with Aggedor behind him. Seeing it as a beast, Hepesh's guards waver and Hepesh moves to control the beast through fear as he had done before, ordering it to kill the Doctor. Aggedor instead lashes out and kills Hepesh before the Doctor can calm him down and lead him away. With Hepesh dead, the rebellious guards lay down their arms and surrender.

King Peladon is officially crowned with acceptance of Peladon into the Federation. He has proposed to Jo and she has reluctantly declined. The Doctor suggests that they watch the coronation and then leave to spare both her and the king any more pain. However, as they walk to the coronation, they see the real Earth delegate and they immediately retreat back to the TARDIS, which had been hauled up from the cliff below. They disappear as the delegates enter the room to find out what is going on.

Analysis

I think story makes for a pretty barometer of how forgiving a person will be of classic Doctor Who as far as production values go. Granted some things are too ridiculous for believability but in other cases, such as this one, you can give points for trying at least. Alpha Centauri is a good example of that as it is somewhat phallic in appearance and wrapped in a shower curtain for a cape. But, if you can get past that and focus on the character rather than the immediate appearance, you can let that slip away and get lost in the story.

As a story, it's a pretty good political drama. There was probably an allegory intended with Britain looking to join the EU around the time of this story's initial release (the UK joined in 1973 while the story aired in 1972) but even without that, it has a pretty good political drama around it as well. The political drama would have probably been even better if King Peladon had stayed stronger through the story. He was pretty good initially but as the story continued, he seemed to grow weaker and move vacillating. This made him more malleable to Hepesh's will, but it also made the character boring.

Also of interest are the political machinations involving the Ice Warriors. The audience, like the Doctor, would have immediately jumped to the conclusion that they were the bad guys as they had only been villains through the Second Doctor era. To see them become not only allies, but the most intelligent and noble of all of the races displayed was a rather good development. Izlyr even gets a funny line when he comments how he preferred Arcturus' quiet cowardice to Alpha Centauri's hysterical whimpering.

The acting was fairly good as well in this. Perhaps it was the sets that helped it along, but this story had a bit of a Shakespearean feel to it with royal intrigue and all the players mixing well, with just about everyone being a suspect to conspiracy throughout. As mentioned before, some characteristics became annoying after a time, such as King Peladon's weakness or Alpha Centauri's simpering, but I would not cite those as faults of the actors. Those characters were developed in that way and they were played up to that level. Most of the others started well and only got more interesting as they developed such as Lord Izlyr and Hepesh himself, although I thought Hepesh's death whisperings were a bit overplayed. I think the character would have been better served if he had been either unable to speak or simply asked the king's forgiveness as he died. His speaking of the future didn't seem quite right to me, especially as he was dying.

As noted earlier, there are some down sides to this story. Some of the costuming does look a bit cheap, although they were at least trying. I think the worst offender is probably Aggedor himself. The head piece isn't bad, but it's fairly obvious that it's a man in a suit and his fur is also a bit too sleek. When you do see him close up, it would probably have looked better if there were some matted patches or tangles or something else that would have indicated that this beast had been living in the caves for a while and was a bit more wild. But at least the lighting of the creature is kept down so the worst of it is still not shown.

Another problem that other people have pointed out that I missed are the sets themselves. Apparently there is at least one point where a wall can be seen to move when struck. I myself didn't see that, but I don't doubt it happening and I can easily see how that would take someone out of the scene. On the other hand, the sets that didn't move look pretty good and the use of real torches adds a nice element of realism to the sets.

Overall, I enjoyed this one. It has it's flaws but I think those are flaws that are fairly common to the Third Doctor era. I enjoyed the political nature of it without too much emphasis on monsters. It starts a little slow with the introduction of the plot but it really ramps up to an enjoyable level in Episodes Three and Four. I wouldn't have any objection to watching this one a second time around, although I think I might turn down the volume whenever Alpha Centauri speaks. That does start to grate after a while.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5