The Monster of Peladon

Of course. I've always been very keen on survival.

The Monster of Peladon is a story whose reputation is heavily defined by it's production values. It's the story of the badger miners and Ruprect the Special Ice Warrior (per Radio Free Skaro) and neither of those speak of this story in glowing terms. I rather liked The Curse of Peladon but that was only four episodes and had the benefit of the twist in the form of the Ice Warriors being the good guys. This is six and reverts the Ice Warriors to the villain role so my expectations are a bit lowered for this one. Still, there's at least a decent chance it could exceed those expectations.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Sarah arrive on Peladon fifty years after the Doctor's first visit. War has broken out between the Federation and Galaxy 5 and there is a critical mineral on Peladon needed for the war effort. The miners however are scared as use of modern equipment has resulted in attacks from "the Spirit of Aggedor" which have destroyed equipment and killed one miner.

As the Doctor and Sarah arrive, one of the Federation representatives has been killed and the Doctor and Sarah are arrested on the suspicion of being spies. Chancellor Ortron advocates for their execution but Queen Thalira, daughter of King Peladon, is reluctant. Alpha Centauri enters the throne room and vouches for the Doctor and he and Sarah are released into it's custody.

The miners, fearful of what has happened, begin to stage and uprising. Their leader, Gebek, goes to see the queen to ask for things to stop but another miner, Ettis, organizes the other miners into a rebellion and attacks the armory. Ettis breaks into the room where the Doctor, Sarah, Alpha Centauri and Eckersley (the engineer in charge of the mines) are working to force Eckersley to open the armory. The Doctor disarms Ettis and takes him to the throne room.

Gebek is angry with this uprising but Ortron overreacts further by ordering Ettis to be immediately executed. The Doctor stops the guard and both Ettis and Gebek flee. Ortron wants the Doctor killed in their place but the Queen objects. She gives the Doctor leave to take Blor, her champion, into the mines to investigate the most recent attack. While in cave, the Doctor discovers rich veins of the mineral desired but the entrance is blown up by the miners as a sacrifice to appease Aggedor. The Doctor and Blor are stunned but unharmed. However, a figure in the shape of Aggedor appears in the cave and fires a beam that vaporizes Blor.

Gebek returns and uses the plasma driller to create a hole for the Doctor to escape through before the Aggedor apparition can shoot him. The Doctor has Gebek rally the miners and retreat to a hidden lair. There he proposes to address their grievences with the queen so long as they instigate no more violence. Gebek agrees and offers to take him back to the citadel. However, after they leave, Ettis rallies the miners to re-attack the armory but this time using the information the Doctor gave them.

Sarah, concerned over the Doctor's safety, goes into the mine and gets lost. She finds a chamber in the rocks and sees a figure silhouetted against the light. She tries to open the door but activates the security system which sends a jolt into her mind and knocks her out. This is observed on the monitor by Alpha Centauri and Eckersley who rush down and take her back to the control room.

As they approach the control room, Ettis knocks Eckersley out and forces Alpha Centauri to open the armory door. It does so but the alarm sounds as the miners grab handfuls of weapons. Ettis opts to take Sarah as a hostage but she manages to slip away just before they enter the mines. However, she is seen and apprehended by Ortron and his guards. Ortorn, believing she was in league with the miners, takes her to the Temple of Aggedor where he has full authority.

The Doctor and Gebek run into Ettis and the other miners and learn what has happened. Gebek goes back with them while the Doctor enters the Temple. Ortron charges him with also helping the miners and opts to render them both for judgment. Meanwhile, Alpha Centauri and Eckersley go to see the queen to appeal to her intervene. She is reluctant to overrule the traditions giving Ortron power over the temple, but she becomes convinced that it is right.

The queen arrives at the temple just as Sarah and the Doctor are pushed into a pit below the temple where an Aggedor beast lives. The Doctor sings the same lulliby he sang to the Aggedor beast in The Curse of Peladon and the creature becomes docile. Convinced of his innocence, the queen orders the Doctor and Sarah out of the pit. Ortron agrees but warns the Doctor against leaving the citadel as he still does not trust him.

The queen meets with the Doctor and Sarah in private and he convinces her to meet privately with Gebek and negotiate with him for better working conditions and profits brought from interaction with the Federation. While this conversation is occurring, Eckersley convinces Alpha Centauri to contact the Federation and request troops to reimpose order. When the Doctor finds out he is upset and tells Alpha Centauri that their presence will only further antagonize the situation. Sarah also tells the Doctor about the mysterious figure she saw at the refinery.

The Doctor tries to leave the citadel to see Gebek but he arrested by Ortron and taken to the dungeons. Sarah heads into the mines to meet with Eckersley, who had gone to take the sonic lance drilling device back to the citadel. As she arrives, Eckersley is ambushed by the miners and the lance is taken. Eckersley and Sarah are sent back to the citadel but not before Sarah passes on the message to Gebek.

Gebek sneaks into the citadel and meets Sarah who informs him of the Doctor's arrest. Gebek heads to the dungeons and frees the Doctor. Sarah, Alpha Centauri and Eckersley meanwhile head to the throne room and inform the queen of the approach of Federation troops. Both Ortron and the queen are outraged but Sarah comes up with the idea of pretending that things have gone back to normal to get the troops to leave as quickly as possible. Ortron agrees and organizes a meeting with the miners and his guards to convince them to go along with the charade. This however is interrupted by another attack by the phantom Aggedor.

The Doctor and Gebek meanwhile head back to the refinery to investigate the figure Sarah saw. He opens the door and is confronted by an Ice Warrior. More Ice Warriors appear and they seize control of the citadel under Commander Azaxyr. Azaxyr listens to all sides and imposes martial law. He orders that the miners are to return to work or he will execute hostages that his troops have taken. His actions enrage all sides and unite both Ortron and Gebek. Their meeting is briefly interrupted by Ettis leading a group of miners to rescue Gebek. Nearly all of them are slaughtered by the Ice Warriors and only Ettis escapes.

Convinced that there is a higher plot, the Doctor and Gebek devise a plan where Gebek will convince the miners to go back to work but only to rebel against the Ice Warriors when they have a chance. Azaxyr threatens to execute the Doctor if anything goes wrong and locks him in the control room after the miners return to work. From there, the Doctor increases the heat in the mines, making the Ice Warrior guards groggy. While they become overheated, Ettis returns but does not believe Gebek's plan. He plans to blow up the citadel with the sonic lance. One of the miners tries to stop him by informing Gebek but Ettis stabs him and runs off.

Seeing the state of the Ice Warriors, Gebek and his men attack and overcome them seizing their weapons. The Doctor and Sarah alert the guard and run off while he examines the monitors and informs Azaxyr. In the battle, Gebek finds the stabbed miner who tells him of Ettis' plan. Gebek then tells the Doctor as he arrives. The Doctor runs to the cave where Ettis is to stop him while Sarah stays with the wounded miner. She is however caught by Azaxyr and taken back to the control room.

Azaxyr is aware of the lance's new position and has activated it's self destruct via remote control. The Doctor finds Ettis just before he fires it. The two fight but Ettis gets the drop on him and knocks him out. Ettis tries to fire the weapon but it explodes, killing him. Watching on the monitor, both Sarah and Azaxyr believe the Doctor has been killed. Azaxyr deactivates the heating unit and orders Eckersley to switch off the ventilation and air to force the miners to the surface. He then orders Sarah and Alpha Centauri into the throne room with the queen and Ortron.

The Doctor wakes and works his way back to the main mine tunnels where he meets Gebek. Gebek informs him of Sarah's capture as well as how the Ice Warriors have them pinned in the tunnels and are trying to force them out. The Doctor decides to head to the refinery to see if he can reactivate the vents.

In the throne room, Sarah devises and escape plan so that Alpha Centauri can activate the general distress beacon for the Federation. She has the queen pretend to faint to draw the guard in and then they make a dash for it. Sarah and Alpha Centauri escape but Ortron is shot down defending the queen. Thalira is recaptured but lies to Azaxyr, telling him that Sarah and Alpha Centauri went into the mines.

Azaxyr heads into the mine and to the refinery to speak with Eckersley. Seeing him on the monitor in the control room, Sarah activates the speakers and learns that he and Eckersley are in collusion and plan to sell the minerals to Galaxy 5. The also see the Doctor peering in through the open door and Sarah heads down to help him. Eckersley then uses his equipment in the refinery to send apparitions of Aggedor in the mines to cause panic amongst the miners and force them to the surface more quickly. He and Azaxyr leave for the control room to reactivate the security field.

Sarah comes down and distracts the guard while Gebek knocks him out with a rock. The Doctor then reconfigures the door to allow access without sending any signal to the control room. They enter and reactive the ventilation circuits. The Doctor also learns how to use the Aggedor projector.

Eckersley and Azaxyr enter the control room and find Alpha Centauri. Azaxyr correctly guesses that it has been trying to activate the distress signal. He takes it to the throne room and upon further interrogation, learns that Sarah has gone down to the refinery and that the Doctor is still alive. Azaxyr dispatches several warriors down to the refinery who begin to burn their way through the door. The Doctor however is able to send the projection of Aggedor outside and vaporize most of the warriors.

The Doctor sends Gebek to rally the people trapped in the mines and sends a projection of Aggedor to reaffirm the people's spiritual belief that Aggedor will fight for them. This is successful and Gebek leads the men up to the citadel. The Doctor sends the Aggedor projection ahead and kills several Ice Warriors patrolling near the entrance of the mines.

Learning of the Doctor's destruction of the warriors, Azaxyr and Eckersley activate the internal defenses of the refinery. Sarah is forced to flee as the waves scramble her brain activity but the Doctor stays in, continuing to send the Aggedor projection. Azaxyr sets an ambush in the citadel which does kill several fighters but the Doctor destroys most of Azayr's forces, allowing Gebek and his men to overwhelm the remaining defenses.

Azaxyr retreats to the throne room where he takes the queen hostage with his remaining lieutenant. Gebek and his men drop their arms but swarm Azaxyr, steal his gun and kill the lieutenant, who holds his shot for fear of killing the commander. Azaxyr breaks loose and tries to fight but one of the soldiers stabs him and kills him.

Sarah comes out of the mines and finds a gun, with which she forces Eckersley to shut down the refinery defenses. Eckersley in unphased as the Doctor seems to have died anyway. He disarms Sarah as she is distracted by the monitor and flees the room, locking her in the control room. She is later found by Alpha Centauri who has come to signal the Federation. Alpha Centauri returns to the throne room to tell the queen of Eckersley's escape while Sarah returns to the refinery to get the Doctor's body.

Eckersley emerges from hiding when Gebek and his men leave to dispose of the Ice Warrior bodies. He knocks out Alpha Centauri, takes Thalira hostage and slips into the secret passage behind the throne, making his way for an escape ship on the far side of the mountain. Gebek and his men return shortly after and learn of what happened from a stunned Alpha Centauri.

Sarah enters the refinery just as the Doctor wakes up, having put himself in a coma to protect from the defense system. They return to the citadel and learn of the kidnap. The Doctor then gets the Aggedor beast from the temple pit and uses it to track Eckersley through the tunnels. When Eckersley refuses to surrender, the beast attacks him. Eckersley is killed by the creature but manages to get off a shot, killing the creature as well.

The Doctor and Sarah depart, recommending that she promote Gebek to the role of chancellor as the Doctor is not interested in the job. Gebek had pointed out where the TARDIS was and they return to it and depart Peladon.

Analysis

While not as good as The Curse of Peladon, I don't believe that this story is as bad as it is often made out to be. The story is a bit talk-y and slow to get started, but once the Ice Warriors make their appearance, the story starts to move at a good clip and becomes rather interesting, especially if you don't take it too seriously.

I don't think I will offend anyone if I note that this story should have been a four part story with the Ice Warriors making their entrance at the end of Episode One like the Daleks tended to. The antagonism of the miners and the problems between them and Ortron do nothing other than give a bit of a runaround. They truly end up going nowhere as Ettis' men are massacred by the Ice Warriors in one quick scene and Ettis himself is dispatched in the Episode Four cliffhanger. If the Doctor had arrived in the midst of a miner's strike with Gebek as the liaison between the two sides, things could have developed a lot faster and a lot of running around could have been avoided; to say nothing of some ham-fisted scenes of the Doctor's capture and escape.

Despite that, I did enjoy the performances for the most part. The Doctor is good, although he does have a couple of points where if he had just been a bit clearer, he might have avoided some trouble. Of course, there were a number of forces working against him so I think he can be forgiven of most of that. Jon Pertwee was also clearly replaced by a stunt man for his fight against Ettis but that's not surprising given that it was well known even then that Pertwee's back was completely shot. But aside from the fight with Ettis, this was a more thinking version of the Third Doctor and I always appreciate that. The Third Doctor has been referred to as the James Bond Doctor and would agree with that. While I like James Bond, I think the Doctor works better when he has to think more to get out of a situation rather than just fight his way out. That being said, I did like the clear and clean sword fight at the end of Episode Four. It was much better than the choppy fight between the Doctor and the Master in The Sea Devils.

I had forgotten how feisty Sarah Jane was in her season with the Third Doctor. Not that I mind feisty, but when 70's men write what they think women's lib is, it tends to come across as rather awkward, angry and condescending to all parties. I personally found her talk with Queen Thalira about women's lib to be rather painful, like someone writing only what they thought they knew rather than what they actually knew. It's also rather deflated by a later scene where Sarah tries to tell the Doctor some important news and she quietly waits after being verbally chastised by the Doctor for interrupting his conversation with Alpha Centauri. I think if this is the version of Sarah that the show wanted going forward, she needed more development by a woman writer. It is for that reason that I think she became softer and more demure in the Fourth Doctor era. In a way, that increased her feistiness because it make her spunky rather than abrasive and I think it worked better that way.

Of course, her performance outside the women's lib conversations is quite enjoyable. She shows a good head on her shoulders and gets a fair amount accomplished. In fact, she very well could have solved the whole situation if it wasn't for the sabotage of Eckersley. I also couldn't help but be amused that in two different instances where she thought the Doctor was dead, she was more upset by the potential loss of her friend than the fact that she would be stuck on Peladon in the future.

Of the protagonist guest cast, Gebek was clearly the best as his character was well developed and he was played by a good actor. Thalira was very nice to look at and did a decent job of playing the very young and deferential queen but a little of her went a long way. I blame that more on the underdevelopment of her character and the standoffness that royals undergo. Ortron was also not bad, although he was written as way too over-the-top with his paranoia. It is Ortron specifically that drags everything out six episodes and it's painfully obvious that he's doing that. He does well as a villain stand-in until the Ice Warriors show up but after than he pales in comparison to them. I'm not sure if we were supposed to feel sorry for him when he is killed but given his very condescending nature toward the queen and his own paranoia, it's hard not to feel glad that he's out of the way when he is shot down.

Unquestionably, the story really kicks into it's proper gear when the Ice Warriors show up. Azaxyr does very well as the villain. He has a cold menace to him that is much appreciated in contrast to the hyper-emotional villains we had earlier in the form of Ortron and Ettis. While it's still pretty obvious that he has a deeper plan, Azaxyr still plays things close enough that you could actually believe for a bit that he is just being a bit over zealous in his role rather than outright evil. He is just a good bad guy and the Ice Warriors as a whole come across as a more competent foe. I would rate this version of the Ice Warriors as villains higher than in The Seeds of Death as they just seem stronger and more dynamic, even with Ruprect (who is just a result of bad costuming rather than any flaw in the actor's performance).

Eckersley reminded me of a shorter, thinner Tom Baker for some reason. Something about his face I guess. I thought he worked reasonably well as the brains behind the operation and it's also nice to see that he was a fairly competent bad guy as well. If the Doctor hadn't been a Time Lord, he easily would have been thwarted and Eckersley prevailed. The only part I didn't like is when he gave the obligatory megalomaniacal addition to his plan in that he would be able to rule Earth. I think it would have played better if he had remained coldly mercenary. Rich on the wealth of Galaxy 5 and free to buy a planet of his own choosing. That would have been more in line with his established character as Eckersley never comes across as mad or egotistical enough to want to be a ruler. Still, he made for an enjoyable antagonist once revealed. It was somewhat obvious that he was the mole, but that's a small quibble given the intended audience of the show.

One thing that did jump out at me was the switching between studio and film. Normally I don't mind that, but generally in those times, there is a clear delineation as to why it is that way. In many cases, the film work is outside and the studio is done for interiors. That works well and there is a clear reason. In this story though, everything is inside and you have some scenes in the mines that are done in studio and then it will randomly shift to film. I think this was the first time that I actually found it distracting and wished they would stick with one or the other. If I can't discern a significant reason for the use of film, why have the changes?

Other than that, I didn't have much to say about the overall direction. It was straightforward and to the point. Nothing to write home about but nothing egregious either. I did enjoy the gloomy atmosphere and (aside from Ruprect) the make-up job on the Ice Warriors was quite good. I can't say quite the same for the badger look of the Pel commoners. That did look a bit silly but small props for trying at least.

Overall, I'd opt for The Curse of Peladon but I'm not going to say this is a bad story. It gets dinged, fairly in some cases but unfairly in others. Probably the biggest thing is just to make sure you don't watch it too close to The Curse of Peladon as the similarities will likely be a source of annoyance. But for me with a stretch of time between the two, I'd say it's slightly above average Third Doctor and that's good enough some times.

Overall personal score: 3 out of 5