Third Doctor Summary

When Barry Letts took over Doctor Who, he instituted a new era that had been set up by his predecessors as a means of making the show both more relatable and less expensive to produce. Thus the Third Doctor era, even when finally granted a repaired TARDIS, felt so much different than any other era of the show. It wasn't the Doctor and a companion(s) thumping around the universe but a Doctor with a home base and support staff on Earth. That brought about both pros and cons and I think for me, that is a good summary of the Third Doctor era, pros and cons.

When I look back on the Third Doctor era, I can't help but notice that although there are several stories I quite enjoyed, I could never go the full nine yards and say that these stories were deserving of the full 5 rating. There was always something that bugged me about each story. But on the other hand, I can recall very few stories that left me with a strong desire not to watch them again. In fact, several of the stories that are regarded as clunkers of the era (such as The Time Monster) I actually found reasonably enjoyable. So while the show didn't hit the highest of highs, it also avoided the lowest of lows.

What the Third Doctor era usually comes down to is how much James Bond you want in your Doctor? For the three seasons in which Barry Letts was in complete control and Jo Grant served as the companion, the Doctor was usually quite James Bond. My principle complaint about this is that the stories tended to take a similar tone and get meandering. The Doctor would rely a bit too much on defeating the enemy in a physical battle or in whipping up a quick device that would shut things down. What's more, these solutions tended to go very last minute which made the prior episodes (and often it was 5) feel like there was just a lot of wheel spinning.

The best third Doctor stories usually took a more intellectual tone and operated in the grey area where neither side was wholly good or evil, or were a snappy adventure which kept things bouncing from point to point and resolved themselves in a proper manner. Lesser stories wandered around too much with repeated action or slap-dash fixes that made the rest of the story pointless.

Similarly, the nature of the Third Doctor played a large role in the appreciation of his stories. Throughout his era, with perhaps the exception of his very first in which he is channeling the Second Doctor, the Third Doctor is a pompous ass. That can be played well for laughs from time to time or if he is challenged by those he sees as lessers but who are able to match him from time to time. One of the reasons Season 7 is so highly regarded is due to the intellectual heft that can be brought by Liz Shaw and to a lesser extent Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Even Jo brings a bit of practical grounding here and there which works with the Third Doctor, and even brings out his compassionate side from time to time. Stories where he is allowed to be pompous and have no checks usually fall a bit short.

The Third Doctor era should be recognized as one of the best in terms of the companion. The Brigadier is a constant and often good counterbalance to the Doctor. Lesser stories in this era slip into the trap of making the Brig seem like a shoot first buffoon, which is not within his character at all. He is at his best when he brings practicality against the Doctor's high mindedness and naiveté. Of the three regular companions, Liz Shaw is my favorite, being able to go toe to toe with the Doctor intellectually and meshing well with him in a Holmes-Watson like manner. Jo is also endearing, especially once they reduced the volume of "she's a klutz" jokes. She operates much like a ward for the Doctor, being instructed by him but also opening his mind to new possibilities here and there. Sarah Jane is Sarah Jane but she is sharper when first introduced. She's too much of the stereotypical view of Women's Lib so that while she is entertaining and enjoyable, she can also be grating while spouting tropes. So while I love Sarah Jane, I think she's probably my least favorite of the Third Doctor companions.

I think one of the grand ironys is that the Third Doctor era may end up as one of the highest average scores of any Doctor era and yet I think it would likely be one of the least likely for me to grab to randomly watch. I can appreciate consistency but when you get an itch to watch a story, its usually because there is a certain hook and a lot of the Third Doctor stories lack that hook. It's a good era, well made and well acted for the most part. But unless there is a certain draw from that particular characterization of the Doctor, I could see it considered as something of a lesser era. Unlike some of the later eras when there is open debate as to whether a certain era is good or note, if someone says they don't care for the Third Doctor era, it's usually let lie. People like it or they don't and there is a respect for those that don't. Of course, even those that don't usually point out that they think it a well made and acted segment of the show. So even when not caring for an era, it is respected and I think that's more where I fall. I respect it, think a number of stories are pretty good, but don't think of it ahead of other eras, even if they have stories that are more likely to be junk just because I feel the ride is more memorable.

Highest Rated Story: The Green Death - 4.5

Lowest Rated Story: The Dæmons - 1.5

Average overall rating: 3.375

Spearhead From Space
Doctor Who and the Silurians
The Ambassadors of Death
Inferno
Terror of the Autons
The Mind of Evil
The Claws of Axos
Colony in Space
The Dæmons
Day of the Daleks
The Curse of Peladon
The Sea Devils
The Mutants
The Time Monster
The Three Doctors
Carnival of Monsters
Frontier in Space
Planet of the Daleks
The Green Death
The Time Warrior
Invasion of the Dinosaurs
Death to the Daleks
The Monster of Peladon
Planet of the Spiders

Planet of the Spiders

A tear Sarah Jane?

As it happens, we close the Third Doctor segment with his final story. I remember seeing this one a while back and found it ok, though there were some aspects of it that were sub-par. Interestingly, I think the things that I found I didn't care for were not necessarily the same things others found unenjoyable. My opinion might change but the things I didn't care for stick out pretty hard and as most of them were performance based, I doubt they are going to improve on a second pass. Still, I always aim to keep an open mind.

Plot Summary

Mike Yates is attending a center for meditation therapy and observes a group of men using meditation to expand their power. He gets permission from the deputy abbot Cho-Je to invite Sarah to visit the center and investigate. After picking her up, he drives her back to the center but they are run off the road by a large tractor that appears in the road suddenly. When they look again, it is gone.

At the same time the Doctor and the Brigadier are investigating the telepathic abilities of Professor Clegg, a performer in a local vaudeville show. Clegg tries to deny his abilities, claiming they are just tricks, but the Doctor points out errors he made, revealing that his abilities are real. The Doctor attaches Clegg to several instruments and studies his thoughts and brain patterns as he gives him several tests, all of which he passes. While conducting the experiments, the Doctor receives a package from Jo. She has returned the blue crystal from Metebelis III as it continues to scare the local tribesmen and interfere's with their work. The Doctor reads over the letter while Clegg examines the crystal curiously.

Sarah and Yates speak with Cho-Je, who notes that there are demons within the self that can be tapped in to but that such things do not happen there. He leaves to oversee the meditation class and as Sarah and Yates walk around, they run into a man called Lupton. Lupton is the leader of the group and Yates pulls Sarah away making like he is going to take her back to the train. Lupton smugly tells another man that Yates won't be a problem as they seem to have scared him sufficiently. Yates however merely drives outside the grounds allowing Sarah and himself to walk back and investigate quietly.

Sarah and Yates enter back in to the complex, meeting a mentally challenged young man named Tommy who lives at the center. Sarah and Yates sneak into the cellar and are forced to hide when Lupton and his group enter. They begin to chant and an energy surge occurs on the center mat. The energy surge also manifests through the blue crystal in the Doctor's lab. The whole room shakes and Clegg is locked in a trance with the crystal. The Doctor pulls it out of his hands and the shock of withdrawal kills him. The energy beam in the cellar dies away leaving a giant spider sitting in the room.

The other members of the circle flee but Lupton stays. The spider orders Lupton to turn around and it hops on his back and disappears. The spider melds it's mind with Lupton and uses him to find the blue crystal the Doctor had taken from Metebelis III. Yates and Sarah slip out of the basement and Yates sends Sarah off to warn the Doctor and the Brigadier. Yates tries to tell the abbot, K'anpo, but he is prevented from disturbing him first by Tommy and then Lupton.

The Doctor examines the machine that Clegg was hooked up to when he died and sees images of spiders in the viewer. When Sarah arrives, she tells of the arrival of the spider which immediately piques the Doctor's curiosity. As she goes into further detail, Lupton arrives at UNIT headquarters under guidance of the spider. He stuns one guard as well as Sargent Benton and then uses mental power to teleport the crystal to him. The Doctor and Sarah notice the crystal's disappearance and chase after Lupton.

Lupton steals the Whomobile and drives up. The Brigadier, Benton and Sarah follow in Bessie while the Doctor spots Lupton in a micro-lite helicopter. Unable to lose his pursuers, Lupton ditches the car and hides in the grass. When his pursuers stop, he steals the helicopter and takes off. The Doctor and Sarah follow in the Whomobile which is capable of flight. Lupton is unable to go far due to the lack of fuel and is forced to land near the shore.

Lupton stuns a boat owner and steals a motor boat. The Doctor gives chase, taking a hovercraft that had been parked near the boat. The boat is faster but the Doctor cuts across land to cut Lupton off. Seeing themselves trapped, the spider orders Lupton to focus his mental energy and she transports them back to the meditation center. Lupton heads back to his room to recover. Along the way he is spotted pocketing the crystal by Tommy, who is instantly drawn to it. Once in the room, the spider disengages itself and sends a message back to the queen of their success.

Reuniting with Sarah, the Doctor heads to the meditation center to find Lupton. They are observed by the spider and one of Lupton's associates, Barnes. Barnes alerts Lupton, but Lupton is unafraid. While the two of them are talking, Tommy pokes through the window and steals the crystal which was on the table near the window. The spider returns and threatens Lupton if he does not obey her. Lupton turns his now enhanced mental powers on her and the two form an alliance to overthrow the queen spider and then conquer Earth. Lupton then notices that the crystal is gone. With no time to find it as they are expected on Metebelis III, Lupton opts to bluff. He heads down to the cellar to transport himself.

Cho-Je sends a man to look for Lupton but while he is gone, Tommy calls to Sarah and tells her he wants to give her a gift. He takes her to his closet where he keeps shiny things. While he pokes through, Sarah sees Lupton heading to the cellar. She tells Tommy to get the Doctor and Yates and runs off before Tommy can give her the crystal. Tommy then goes to the Doctor and Yates and tells them of Sarah and Lupton in the cellar.

In the cellar, Lupton chants and is teleported to Metebelis III. Sarah runs to tell the Doctor but accidentally steps on his meditation mat. She freezes and is also teleported to the planet just as the Doctor enters. She sees Lupton in the distance but is grabbed by a man named Tuar who drags her back to his village.

In the village, Tuar presents her and accuses her of being a spy. The town moves to kill her but is stopped by Arak, Tuar's brother, who is being hunted by the spiders. Before she can fully explain herself, the sound of the entourage of the spider queen is heard. Arak, Tuar and Sarah are all taken into the house to hide. The spider queen demands that Arak be surrendered for killing one of her human guards and if not, she will randomly kill a member from every family in the village.

Unwilling to let this happen, Arak's father, Sabor, abases himself and claims that he helped Arak escape into the mountains. The queen accepts this story and orders that Sabor will stand in Arak's place for punishment. Sabor's wife, Neska, comes out to plead for mercy and as she does, the queen spies Sarah in the house. Knowing she was seen and not wanting to expose Arak, Sarah comes out and surrenders.

Having seen Sarah disappear, the Doctor heads back to UNIT HQ and takes the TARDIS to Metebelis III. He arrives just as Sarah surrenders. The guards attack him but he overpowers them. One of the guards shoots energy at him as Lupton did earlier and the Doctor is knocked out outside the TARDIS. Sarah disguises herself and slips back in the house leaving the queen frustrated as she returns to the palace.

Sarah convinces Tuar to bring the Doctor in the house though he is sure the Doctor is dead or dying. The Doctor does come around but is very weak. He tells Sarah to get a machine in a bag from the TARDIS. She slips out after curfew and gets it but is captured by the guards, leaving it outside the TARDIS. After they leave, Arak slips out and grabs it. He activates it with help from the Doctor and the Doctor instantly begins to recover.

Back at the meditation center, Lupton's cronies meet in a room to figure out what to do next. They catch Tommy at the door trying to read the sign. They shoo him off but Yates comes over to listen. Yates is also discovered, knocked out and tied up. Tommy meanwhile heads back to his closet and tries to read a book his mother got him. As he does, he is distracted by the blue crystal starting to glow. He focuses on it and it sends a surge of power. The surge clarifies his mind, allowing him to learn as a normal adult.

Sarah is brought to the spider's palace and wrapped up. She is placed with Sabor who tells her how a spider came along with the original colonists but was blown into the mountains with the crystals. The crystals gave it power and made them larger. Four hundred years later, they now extract tribute from the colonists and control the planet.

Having learned the same story, the Doctor has a set of rocks brought in. Examining them, he is able to identify a type of stone that will absorb the power of the blue crystal weapons, giving the colonists the ability to fight the spider's guards. Fashioning a hand device of that stone, the Doctor heads to the palace to rescue Sarah and Sabor. He encounters guards but is able to fight them off. He is then cornered by Lupton, who had been dismissed by the queen after trying to claim a guarantee for securing the crystal. More guards appear and arrest both Lupton and the Doctor, once his stone shield is knocked from his hand. Lupton is taken away but the Doctor is taken to the same cell as Sarah and Sabor.

The queen of the spiders brings Lupton into the council where it is revealed that they know the crystal is still on Earth. Lupton tries to bargain to retrieve it but the spiders weaken him with their mental powers. However, there is dissent within the council as to whether to attack Earth directly or to pursue another course. The queen elects to visit the Great One to receive clarification. Instead she goes into another room and has Sarah brought to her. The queen offers her a deal that in exchange for the crystal, she will arrange that the invasion of Earth will be cancelled. She even agrees to Sarah's demand to leave the villages in peace.

After Sarah is taken away, the Doctor manages to extricate himself from his wrappings. He goes to look for Sarah and is lured away by the sound of her voice. He finds himself in a cave with the Great One, a spider of enormous size and mental power. The spider orders him to return to Earth and bring the crystal. When he tries to refuse, she manipulates his body to demonstrate her power of him, though he tries to fight back.

The Doctor leaves the chamber and meets Sarah leaving the queen's chamber. At the same time, Arak and some other men attack the spider's palace to rescue Sabor. Arak and his men have bound the special rocks to their foreheads to create shields from the crystal weapons of the guards. Arak and his men save Sabor but Sarah uses a teleportation technique taught to her by the queen of the spiders to take her and the Doctor back to the TARDIS. The Doctor tells Neska of Arak's success as he and Sarah enter the TARDIS and disappear.

Meanwhile, Barnes returns to his room and opts to untie Yates when Yates offers to help them reopen the passage to Metebelis III so that Sarah can be recovered. Tommy overhears this while looking for Yates to help him with his studies and goes to Cho-Je to warn him.

The group begin their chanting and open a passage for the spiders, but they appear elsewhere in the cellar rather than on the mat. When Cho-Je arrives to stop them, the spiders stun him. They do the same to Yates when he rises up. The four spiders then get on the backs of Barnes and the others and take hold of them.

The TARDIS arrives at this moment and the group attempt to stun the Doctor in the same way as Cho-Je and Yates but the Doctor is able to deflect the beams using his stone shield. Tommy calls to them and they flee the basement, buying some time by locking the group in. Tommy takes them to see the abbot K'anpo, whom the Doctor has a strange feeling he has met before. The Doctor tells K'anpo of what has been going on while Tommy stands guard outside the door.

K'anpo reveals that he has the crystal, which is attracting the spider controlled men. The reveal also prompts the queen spider, who had taken control of Sarah, to reveal herself. The Doctor urges Sarah to retake control of her mind and uses the crystal as a focusing device. Sarah rejects the queen's control and the feedback kills the queen, prompting her to fall off Sarah's back and disappear. The Doctor then realizes that K'anpo is the same hermit Time Lord he was instructed by long ago (see Episode Six of The Time Monster and that Cho-Je is only a mental projection of his next regeneration. K'anpo also chides the Doctor for giving in to his thirst for knowledge and rejecting his fears, knowing what he must do.

While all this is happening, the four spider controlled men try to get by Tommy standing guard. Tommy holds them off, his innocence acting as a shield to the energy bursts of the spiders. They unite and contact Metebelis III for more power. Lupton, in a fit of pique, tries to take control and the spiders kill him with an energy blast. They are given more power, but the time involved gives Yates and Cho-Je time to come around. Yates throws himself in front of the blast, stunning him again. Tommy rushes to his side, allowing the men to burst through. The Doctor uses the crystal to mentally transport himself back to the cellar and then into the TARDIS. The men fire a bolt to try and stop him but hit K'anpo instead. They then rush to the cellar to find the TARDIS gone.

On Metebelis III, the Doctor runs into Arak and Tuar who offer to lead him in. They instead take him to the spider warren, having been mentally taken over during their raid. The Doctor produces the crystal but states that he will present it to the Great One himself. The spiders allow this, expecting the Doctor to be killed by the Great One.

He goes into the chamber and is bombarded by the radiation of a crystal web the Great One has built. She takes the crystal from him to complete the lattice which will expand her mind. The Doctor warns her that she has built a positive feedback loop and it will kill her but she ignores him. The lattice activates and does indeed begin to burn her mind. The connection expands outwards, killing the other spiders on Metebelis III and the four controlling the humans on Earth. Arak and the rest of the guards come back to their normal selves and flee the mountain along with the Doctor. Weakened, the Doctor enters the TARDIS and heads back to Earth.

In the meditation center, Yates recovers, having been shielded by his selflessness but K'anpo is too weak and instead regenerates into the Cho-Je form, Cho-Je disappearing with the regeneration. Sarah heads back to UNIT headquarters three weeks later with no sign of the Doctor. However after meeting with the Brigadier, the TARDIS appears and the Doctor stumbles out, the radiation having dealt him a mortal blow. The regenerated K'anpo appears and helps initiate the regeneration as the Third Doctor morphs into the Fourth.

Analysis

Although Barry Letts stayed on to oversee the production of Robot, the final Third Doctor story was also his true ending. As would be mimicked by RTD nearly 35 years later, Letts put in all of the elements that were noted from his era into this story: UNIT, alien invasion of Earth, humans delusional for power, CSO, adventure chases, fight sequences involving the Doctor, etc. In fact, had Roger Delgado not died, it is very likely that he would have been in the place of Lupton to complete the swan song. So in many ways, if you have any hang-ups about the Barry Letts era, this story is not necessarily going to sit well with you. For me, I think it summed up my feelings on the era as a whole with an overly middling outlook.

In many aspects, this isn't a bad set up for a story with an interesting way of tying in a lot of loose elements from prior stories. Nearly everything is brought in in a way that makes sense and does have a natural flow. Where the story falls down is in it's indulgences, certain performances and design. Had this story been tightened up a bit so as to cut down in a few places as well as a little more time in the final design, I think this story could have been much better.

In terms of the Doctor, I think he did very well. He was a bit looser and more natural, but he usually is in the 11th season with Sarah Jane. Perhaps it was just the responsibility with Jo that made him go a bit tight-assed in earlier stories. But the Doctor is enjoyable here. He's presented with a mystery, he is forced to solve it and at no point do things get fouled up because of a mistake on the Doctor's part. The attack on the spider's lair was a bit short-sighted as he should have avoided capture, but it's only a small niggle.

About the only other part that I didn't care for with the Doctor was in Episode Six and that was all about the writing. K'anpo chastises the Doctor for being greedy with knowledge. That makes no sense. It is not greed that has been his shortfall but pride. He has gotten into a number of scrapes and even gotten people killed because he is too prideful to admit that he is wrong or needs help. That is his true failing and humility should be the lesson he must learn. It is overcoming pride and acceptance of the needs of the situation, which means accepting that he might die, that propels things forward. Greed of knowledge has nothing to do with any of that. But again, that is writing, not performance.

Sarah did well and was quite enjoyable. I liked the way the hook of her being a journalist was actually used to kick this story into motion and also gave her agency towards acting the role of Nancy Drew. I also liked the subtle change in acting that was used after the queen spider took possession of her. It shows how comfortable you can get with a performance when small changes just set off little bells in your head. When Sarah emerged after being taken over by the queen, she was just too happy-go-lucky and eager. It reminded me of someone who had just taken some uppers and I knew that something was off. When it was revealed that the queen had control of her, it put everything into focus and made the change in performance pay off.

Most of the other protagonist performances were fairly decent, though I wouldn't say that any were of a particularly high caliber with perhaps the exception of Tommy. He is an endearing character as someone with a learning difficulty and he becomes only more interesting when the crystal clears his mind and makes him more articulate. The huge exception to the acting rule is Neska. That performance is downright atrocious. I have arguably seen better performances in plays my kids have been in and as neither one is in high school yet, that tells you about the caliber of acting typically seen. Fortunately she only has two scenes but in both she just sticks out, especially as everyone else around her is at least trying, even if they are lesser quality actors themselves.

I'm a bit mixed on the villains. Of the humans, only Lupton is really worth noting. The others are of such small scale and small acting quality that they are barely worth noting. Lupton himself starts well, but diminishes after the first two episodes. Once the action shifts to Metebelis III and the spiders take over as the true villains, Lupton is almost lost as a figure. He only comes about a few more times, mostly to protest his treatment by the spiders and try to bluff his way to a better role. In many ways, he really is a stand in for the Master. I have a very hard time believing that Barry Letts and Robert Sloman did not have a visual of someone like Roger Delgado in that role, even though Delgado had been dead for nearly a year at the point of initial broadcast.

As for the spiders, I thought the spider puppets themselves weren't bad and I liked their mental powers overcoming the obvious physical superiority that humans would have. I did not like the fact that although three different women supplied voices for the spiders, they were modulated and sounded very similar to me. It made listening to conversations between the spiders rather difficult to follow. I would rather have had a bit more distinction in the voices as having them unmodulated would have helped. I also wish the settings for the spiders had been changed. The exterior showed mounds of rock with webbing. But inside it was clean hallways and manufactured tables. I also thought it was too well lit. Spiders should operate in the dark and they should have been arranged in council in a giant web in a dank cave. That would have upped the creepiness factor as well. It just seems like a missed opportunity where the production made the spiders look more fake by putting them in such an out of place setting.

There are a lot of ups and downs in this story with some good production values and acting and some poor production values and acting. A lot of people don't like the self-indulgent car chase that takes up half of Episode Two. I didn't mind it because I grew up watching car chase shows and it's arguably more fun to fill time chasing after the bad guy in a car that just in running down an empty corridor. Granted the swapping of the Whomobile and the microlite was a bit silly as well as the comedy moment of the Doctor nearly running over the tramp in a hovercraft, but it was still fairly entertaining. Really, as long as the story was on Earth, it move fairly well and was engaging. It wasn't until the story shifted to Metebelis III that the time-filling elements began to creep in and the story began to bog down.

But even with the limitations here and there, I think this story would pass as a slightly above average story if it weren't for the overall resolution. This story spend five and a half episodes where the Doctor and others worked to keep the crystal away from the Great One. In the end, the Doctor brings it to them and the Great One's arrogance destroys herself. So all the fighting, injury and death was for nothing. If Lupton had been transported with the crystal and presented it to the Great One in Episode Three, the story would have ended and the spiders would have been destroyed. The Doctor's involvement was essentially pointless.

It gets even worse when you factor in that standing in the belt of radiation emanating from the crystal web the Great One had created is what kills the Third Doctor. It is not an act of heroism or being mortally wounded to prevent the villain from triumphing. He dies while watching his enemy destroy itself, with no help from him at all. To make it more aggravating, there is a chance to make a case for regenerating built into the story. The Doctor is zapped and appears to be mortally wounded at the beginning of Episode Four. His gadget zaps him back to health about halfway through. If he had made a comment that all the gadget did was buy him some time but that his body was still dying, that would have set things up better for the end (such as was done in The Caves of Androzani). He was dying and so facing that death nobly by setting up the spiders for destruction would have made the scene play better. As is, the story just feels like a waste of time.

Again, if you discount the ending, I think this story can be enjoyable, especially if you like the overall nature of the Third Doctor stories. If I were judging it up until the halfway mark of Episode Six, I think I would have gone easily with a three and could have seen the merit of considering a 3.5. Not great but an average to good story. But the ending leaves such a bad taste in my mouth that I can't quite overcome. It's not a complete killer but when you spend six episodes and feel like nothing was accomplished other than the Doctor getting himself killed, the journey just wasn't worth it. Admittedly, I'm not a big fan of the Third Doctor era, but this is not one that I would rush for a rewatch, especially now that I've seen it twice.

Overall personal score: 2 out of 5

The Time Monster

You are like a child trying to control an elephant.

I'm a little sad to be posting this. Although I have three stories remaining for me to cover, this is the last of the classic era stories that I have not seen. When I first started this, I'm sure The Time Monster was not the story that I would have picked to finish on, but things just always seem to divert to other stories. My preference for watching four-part stories or longer stories from the black and white era did keep pushing this one further and further down the list. But now the list is empty and here we are.

My expectations for this story are low. Boring is the word I've heard most often to describe it but that's a matter of preference. Of course, it's also a Barry Letts and Robert Sloman script and that gives me pause. I really liked The Green Death but I think my patience for The Dæmons was lower than the standard Doctor Who fan so those balance each other out. I don't think I minded Planet of the Spiders that much the first time I watched it but I need to reserve judgment until I go for the re-watch. So we shall just have to see if this either lives down to its reputation or if I am pleasantly surprised.

Plot Summary

The Doctor wakes from a nightmare where there were a great number of natural disasters and the Master taking command of the Earth using a three-pronged crystal. Unsettled by this dream, he ask Jo to look for any news of recent earthquakes or volcanoes. Jo scoffs a bit as she had read him a news article on such activity happening in Greece only yesterday. He again doesn't pay much attention until Jo notes that the site was in the vicinity where archaeologists believe that the island that inspired Atlantis was. Upon hearing that, the Doctor alerts the Brigadier, though the Brigadier notes that UNIT is already on high alert looking for the Master.

The Brigadier prepares to leave for a meeting at a university near Cambridge to observe experiments being done with time and the transport of matter. The Doctor begs off, wanting to work on looking for the Master so the Brigadier pulls Sargent Benton in. At the university, the experiments are being done by the Master, who is going under the pseudonym Professor Thascalos. He prepares to meet with the observing delegation and leaves the equipment to his two colleagues: Dr. Ingram and Stuart Hyde. While the Master is hypnotizing Dr. Percival, the head of the department who has become suspicious of the Master, Ingram and Hyde conduct a test run of the equipment. They successfully transport an object from one terminal to the other but cause a strange phenomena with time. This phenomena causes a window washer to fall off his ladder though he is not killed.

The tests register on a detector that the Doctor has managed to put together. However, the range is too broad to hone in on the signal. The Doctor and Jo get into Bessie and drive around in the range zone, hoping for another signal that will allow them to locate the Master.

Though he is displeased by Ingram and Hyde's experiments without him, the Master plays it off. Seeing that UNIT has come along on the inspection, the Master sends Ingram off to meet them while he tinkers with the equipment. When they arrive after lunch for the experiment, the Master has donned a radiation suit to hide his appearance from the Brigadier. The Master activates the equipment, alerting the Doctor to his location. The Doctor and Jo race to the college while the Master throws the equipment into overdrive, calling out for the appearance of Kronos.

Ingram rushes to shut down the machine after Hyde collapses. The Master rushes out of the room as the Doctor rushes in, having noticed that time has slowed down outside the room. They manage to deactivate the machine but find that Hyde has aged from his twenties to his eighties in only a few minutes.

After leaving Hyde in the care of Jo, the Doctor and Ingram return to the lab to investigate the equipment. The Brigadier returns to a makeshift headquarters where he takes command of the place, requests that additional munitions be brought up and that all non-essential personnel leave the college. In the lab, the Doctor examines the equipment and discovers the Master’s TARDIS. He also examines the crystal but believes it’s only a temporal projection of the real crystal. The Doctor explains to Ingram that Kronos, as called for by the Master, is a creature known as a cronovore and was trapped in the crystal by the people of Atlantis. This eventually gave rise to the legend of Cronos, father of the Greek gods.

The Master retreats to Dr. Percival’s office where he reinforces his hypnotic control. After working out some calculations, the Master pretends to be the Brigadier to lure Benton out of the lab where he is standing guard. Suspecting the ruse, Benton leaves but doubles back to get the drop on the Master. However, the Master knocks Benton out and reactivates the machine. As it ramps up, a man from Atlantis begins to appear next to the crystal.

The man is Krasis, high priest of Poseidon in Atlantis and is rather put out at the Master's cavalier attitude towards being able to control Kronos. Benton comes to and rushes out to warn the Doctor. The Master lets him go, being more interested in the medallion Krasis gives him when speaking of Kronos. Realizing that the medallion has information imbedded in it, the Master begins to encode that into his machine.

Benton warns everyone as they are outside, loading Hyde on to an ambulance to be taken away. The Brigadier, Benton and Dr. Ingram rush forward to stop him just as the Master reactivates the machine. The Doctor notices that Hyde is regressing back to his normal age while the Brigadier, Benton and Ingram are now running in slow motion. The Doctor runs up and pulls each of them back to the ambulance, out of the bubble of the machine where they snap back to normal time.

Inside the lab, Kronos is released from the crystal and flies about as a glowing humanoid-birdlike creature. It consumes Dr. Percival but is unable to escape the lab. The Master is able to hold off Kronos by using the medallion, which it seems to fear. He steadily powers down the machine and Kronos is sucked back into the crystal. Using this new information, the Master reprograms the machine to allow him to bring other small objects from outside of time.

Unable to get to the lab, the Doctor orders the Brigadier to bring up his TARDIS, to which the Brigadier orders Captain Yates to do. To buy time, the Doctor constructs a device from refuse that interferes with the time bubble the Master is creating. This causes the crystal to power up again but the Master sends a surge of energy which destroys the device.

Aware that the Doctor is having his TARDIS brought up, the Master brings forward things from the past to slow Captain Yates' convoy down. First an Arthurian knight and then a squad of Roundheads. Yates radios about the distractions and the Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier ride out to grab the TARDIS directly. Seeing this, the Master pulls forward a V-1 rocket which bombs Yates' convoy. Yates and his men survive but their trucks are damaged and the TARDIS lands on its side in a pit. Yates and his men begin to haul it upright again while the Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier assess the damage.

The Master makes preparations to leave for Atlantis in his TARDIS, telling Krasis to wait inside. This activation sends a signal to the Doctor's original detector device and he and Jo decide to try and trap the Master within the Doctor's own TARDIS. The Brigadier takes the rest of the men and takes them back to the college.

As the Master grabs the last bit of equipment, he notices the Brigadier and his men preparing to storm the building. The Master activates the device and the Brigadier and his men are caught in a frozen bubble. Just as he is about to leave, Dr. Ingram, Hyde and Benton get the drop on the Master. He manages to throw Hyde in Benton's path, dash into his TARDIS and take off. Ingram and Hyde activate the remaining equipment to at least unfreeze the Brigadier and his men but something goes wrong and instead of them being unfrozen, Benton is age reversed into a baby.

As the Master takes off, Krasis points out the Doctor's TARDIS. The Doctor had made a slight mistake and the two TARDISs are now situated inside each other. The Doctor communicates to the Master via the scanner but the Master turns the sound off. The Doctor tries another way but the Master scrambles the signal. With no other alternative, the Doctor comes out of the TARDIS to try and warn the Master. The Master ignores him and instead extracts Kronos from the crystal. Kronos envelops the Doctor, who disappears. The Master then pushes Kronos back into the crystal.

He informs Jo that the Doctor has been cast into the time vortex and he then disengages his TARDIS from the Doctor's. Jo passes out briefly only to hear the voice of the Doctor. He tells her that the TARDIS has linked with him and can bring him back. He instructs her to pull a lever on the control panel and he materializes within the TARDIS.

The Master arrives in Atlantis as King Dalios is holding court. The Master emerges and claims to be a messenger from the gods with Krasis supporting him. Dalios takes the Master back to his private chambers to question him. The Master attempts to hypnotize him but Dalios is unaffected and laughingly dismisses the Master as a trickster. The Master is further shocked to see the Doctor and Jo being escorted to the king, having been arrested by the guards upon landing next to the Master's TARDIS.

Dalios takes to the Doctor immediately, perceiving his honesty. He sends Jo to the company of his wife, Queen Galleia. Galleia accepts Jo and has her change to more customary attire. She then sends her handmaiden to summon the Master, whom she is attracted to. After the Master arrives, Jo and the handmaiden eavesdrop on their conversation.

The Master convinces Galleia that he should get the crystal and allow her to assume power, taking over from her husband. He also promises to stay and rule by her side. She tells him that while Krasis has a key to the vault, the crystal is also guarded by a monster. King Dalios informs the Doctor that this monster was a friend of his but was transformed into a minotaur. The Master and Galleia devise a plan to send the acolyte Hippias in as a distraction.

The handmaiden, smitten with Hippias, and agrees to help Jo warn him. They follow Hippias in the dark as he approaches the vault where the crystal is held. Jo goes to warn him but Krasis grabs her and shoves her into the vault. The handmaiden runs back and tells the Doctor who knocks Krasis out of the way and runs into the vault.

The Minotaur moves to attack Jo but Hippias attacks it. However, the Minotaur kills Hippias and resumes its attack on Jo. The Doctor however draws its attention and lures it into a wall, knocking the creature out. In the center of the vault, they find the original crystal and go to warn the king. But when they emerge, they find that the Master and Galleia have performed a coup and taken over. The Doctor and Jo are sent to the dungeon.

In the dungeon, the Doctor comforts Jo with a story of his youth when King Dalios is brought in. He resists and the guard knocks him to the floor. Dalios warns the Doctor of visions he has had of Atlantis being destroyed before he dies.

In the morning the Doctor and Jo are brought before the Master and Galleia to be executed. The Doctor asks where most of the council is and if they have been killed like Dalios. Galleia is shocked to learn that Dallios was killed and accuses the Master of betraying her as he had promised that he would be allowed to live. The Master then orders Krasis to activate the machine, releasing Kronos who begins to destroy Atlantis.

The Master grabs the original crystal and runs for his TARDIS. Jo manages to get herself free and jumps on his back. He drags her into his TARDIS and disappears. Galleia frees the Doctor and the Doctor runs to his TARDIS to chase them down while Atlantis crumbles. In the time vortex, he contacts the Master and threatens to conduct a time ram, the merging of their two TARDISs to stop him. The Master doesn't believe he will do it as long as Jo is there but Jo grabs the controls and forces the merger when the Doctor hesitates.

The Doctor and Jo wake to find themselves on the edge of reality. Kronos appears to them as a woman as the time ram destroyed the crystal and freeing her. In exchange, she offers them whatever they want. The Doctor opts to return to Earth with Jo and the TARDIS. Kronos agrees and promises to keep the Master where he will be tormented for eternity. The Master begs mercy and the Doctor asks for him to be freed to the Doctor's custody. Kronos agrees but the Master shakes the Doctor lose and flees in his TARDIS. Kronos refuses to stop him as the Doctor had asked for him to be freed to the Doctor.

The Doctor returns to the lab just as Dr. Ingram and Hyde are finishing repairs to the machine. They manage to free the Brigadier and his men from the bubble as well as return Sargent Benton to his normal self. But without the crystal to stabilize it, the machine is destroyed.

Analysis

If I had to pick a single word to describe this story, I think I would pick "meandering". It's not to the point of being bad, in fact in many ways the story is fairly entertaining, but it lacks focus and just seems to drift from point to point without much thought to its direction.

Although filled with rather obvious padding, the first four episodes are a fairly direct line of adventure with the Master fooling around in his lab and the Doctor and UNIT trying to breach it. It's actually a reverse base-under-siege story which is somewhat refreshing. There is good interaction between the Doctor and the various UNIT personnel and although peppered with a bit of silliness here and there, it slowly progresses towards an ultimate breach.

The last two episodes leave something to be desired. None of the events in Atlantis make much sense and what little plot there is there seems rushed and poorly developed. Everything in the first four episodes is banished as it just becomes a race for the original crystal which is something you think the Master should have been aware of from the beginning. The intrigue of court politics and battles with mythological beasts is both uninteresting and unengaging.

From an emotional standpoint, this is one of the Third Doctor's best stories. His intimate moment about his childhood in Episode Six is still seen as one of his best moments. He also doesn't go either over-the-top or off-the-handle with the Brigadier as he so often does in other UNIT stories. He has a nice rapport with Jo and seems to have fully developed into a fatherly, caring figure for her. It is rather telling that the Master is correct and that the Doctor is unwilling to complete the time ram because he doesn't want to hurt Jo. There's also very little martial arts from the Doctor which is a nice change of pace, forcing him to think his way out of problems rather than forcing the issue.

Again, from an emotional standpoint, this was quite a good story for Jo. She does very little otherwise but as this is less of an action story, that sort of fits. She is also shown as less dumb than in other stories, needing to ask questions for the audience purposes but also being a bit more intuitive about the answers. There are at least a couple of instances where she gets the answer before other "smarter" people and the Doctor's pleasure at her understanding is quite obvious. Jo is just very pleasant in this story, although I'm not a fan of her yellow go-go boots but you can't have everything.

Most of the rest of the regular cast hits their normal notes. The Brigadier plays dumb and is interested in shooting things, Yates does his "aw shucks" routine and Benton is the loveable doofus. I prefer it when the Brigadier is much more intelligent, as shown in Season 7 stories, but by this point its a pretty standard format for the Brig to be more interested in blowing things up and you just get used to it.

The guest cast of this story left a lot to be desired. Ingram and Hyde are very shallow characters with Ingram being the standard middle-aged white male view of a feminist (man-hater) while Hyde is a late-style hippie. Although, as shallow as their characters are, they are played well. The same cannot be said for nearly all of the Atlantean cast. Both Hippias and Galleia are extremely wooden in their delivery and attempts to flesh them out or give them the remotest sense of character just fall flat on their face. Dallius and Krasis are played better by their actors but they are also dropped after about one episode. Krasis is the assistant in Episode Four but aside from a couple of menial tasks, he is forgotten about. Similarly, Dallius refutes the Master while becoming friendly with the Doctor in Episode Five but then dies early in Episode Six. They are just not given enough to work with to make a stronger impression.

I do like the Master in this story, though he does indulge in a bit of over-the-top-ness. For once, he has a plan that actually works. He successfully manages to unlock Kronos from its prison and manages to control it through the use of the medallion. He also manages to get the original crystal as well as defeat the Doctor twice. It is only Jo's push of his TARDIS into the Doctor's and the resultant Deus Ex Machina that defeats him. Had the TARDIS not seen fit to rescue the Doctor in Episode Five or Kronos not been freed and grateful for it at the end of Episode Six, the Master would have triumphed.

And then there is Kronos. I don't know who came up with the design for Kronos but I'm not sure a dumber one could have been imagined. Greek myth has Cronos as a humanoid titan from whom the Greek gods came. At no point does that inspire the thought of a radioactive, humanoid pigeon. I also don't care for how the freeing of Kronos by destroying the crystal at the end is the magic solution. Everything given about Kronos to that point is that Kronos is a destroyer, feasting upon time. It consumes everything it comes in contact with and yet we are to believe that it was actually a benevolent creature, willing to live peacefully in the voids between time? If that is the case, why was it trapped in the crystal and why did it manifest as a glow-in-the-dark chicken? Something more humanoid and forced to do the Master's bidding because of the medallion would have made so much more sense in the overall context of the story.

From a production standpoint, this isn't a bad story. There was some nice location footage and enough background detail to make it appear that it wasn't completely on a stage. I didn't even mind the bowls used to decorate the TARDIS, though that was a touch jarring when first observed. The overall direction was a bit pedestrian as a few shots seemed badly framed and others did nothing to catch the eye.

The other point that was jarring to me were the moments of silliness that kept cropping up throughout the story. I've already mentioned Kronos but even beyond that there were wild swings in mood. You open the story with this dream the Doctor has of doom and destruction and yet later Bessie zooms off like Benny Hill or the Munsters. The Master poses a dire threat but the Doctor builds a device to thwart him out of junk and makes a joke about tea being the missing ingredient. The Brigadier and his men are frozen in time but we'll make a joke about Benton being turned into a baby. Jo is threatened by a creature yet the Doctor turns into a bullfighter and defeats the monster in the same manner as Bugs Bunny when he faced off against a bull. It's all these little things peppered in where you can't decide if this is supposed to be a dramatic, tension-filled story or a comedy romp. It creates emotional whiplash and satisfies neither side.

Overall, I'm not going to say that this is bad but neither is it particularly good. There are good moments and even with the obvious padding, the success of the Master and the rapport between him and the Doctor draw you in. I just wish this story could have decided what it wanted to be. Once that is down, the rest of it would have popped into place with greater ease. It's not the horrible dreck that I've heard some folks try to make it out to be, but neither is it something I would gravitate towards. I certainly would not select it as something to introduce a newbie to the Third Doctor era as their confusion would probably only irritate them beyond what a regular fan would take.

Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5

Spearhead From Space

Smith. Doctor John Smith.

I'd been holding off on this one for a while, not because of any misperception regarding this story, but because it is the last Liz Shaw story to review. Taking things as a whole, Liz Shaw might be my favorite companion in how she is a strong, intelligent woman who works with the Doctor very much as an equal, which is something you just don't get in any other companion. But this her introduction as well as the introduction of UNIT as regular set piece and not just the one off force as shown in The Invasion.

Plot Summary

On Earth, UNIT tracks a group of meteorites that crash down in Essex in a tight formation. A poacher, Sam Seeley, spies one of the orbs that crashes and is surprised to see it pulsating and giving off a signal. He pops it into his poacher's bag.

Nearby, the TARDIS appears and a freshly regenerated Third Doctor falls out. He is discovered by UNIT soldiers sent to find the meteorites and taken the local hospital. The UNIT second-in-command, Captain Munro, alerts Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who is in the process of recruiting a scientist named Liz Shaw to assist them. The two head over upon hearing that the man was discovered near a police box.

At the hospital, the doctors are confused by the patient's physiology. This causes the janitor to alert the media, hoping for a payment for the story. The Brigadier arrives and blows off the media, making them only more suspicious. He is disappointed when he doesn't recognize the Doctor although the Doctor recognizes him. He asks for a mirror and takes himself in for the first time. He also manages to get the TARDIS key out of his shoe and slips it into his palm.

After the Brigadier leaves, two men enter the hospital and knock out Dr. Henderson, the attending physician, and kidnap the Doctor. The Doctor manages to break loose and roll away on his wheelchair, away from the ambulance that was going to take him away. The Doctor ditches the wheelchair and runs toward the TARDIS where he is shot by a UNIT patrol guarding it. The bullet only grazes him but he places himself in a coma to protect himself. The UNIT soldiers carry him back to the hospital.

Shortly afterwards, the Doctor pulls himself out of his coma and sneaks out of bed. He steals the clothes of one of the Doctor's and the traveling out fit of another who had come to examine him. He then steals the car of the consultant and races towards UNIT headquarters.

UNIT personnel recover another one of the meteorites, just as Sam had. Sam now has his in a trunk in his tool shed and is hiding it from his wife. The transfer did alert an Auton, which was in the woods trying to find the missing spheres. It changes course to go after the UNIT men who recovered the second sphere. It is placed in a truck for transport but it runs off the road when the Auton steps in it's path. The Auton takes the sphere out of the truck and heads back to it's headquarters.

The headquarters is a plastic factory making toy dolls. The disgruntled co-creator of the toy line, Ransome, comes in to complain about being pushed out. The director, Hibbert, is sympathetic and tries to warn him off until the same man who organized the attempted kidnapping of the Doctor, Channing, enters. Hibbert then becomes passive and Ransome leaves, although suspicious.

Hibbert and Channing are visited shortly afterwards by General Scobie, the liaison between UNIT and the regular British Army. He stopped by after visiting with the Brigadier about the meteors. Scobie is shown a semi-completed plastic replica of him that the plastic company is doing, claiming that they are modeling current important British figures for an exhibition and required a few more measurements from him to ensure it looks right.

The Doctor arrives at UNIT headquarters, drawn by a homing device on his watch to the TARDIS. The Brigadier begins to accept that this is in fact the Doctor but refuses to return the TARDIS key, recovered after being shot, until he helps out with the meteorites. The Doctor meets Liz and the two work together in examining the plastic casing that held the sphere that was stolen.

Ransome returns to the plastic factory to investigate what happened to his office and what is going on. He breaks into a room with a lot of scientific equipment and a row of plastic mannequins. One of the mannequins begins to walk towards him. It tries to kill him with a gun built into its hand but Ransome is able to get away. He escapes into the woods where he is picked up by UNIT forces and treated for shock.

Ransome is then brought to UNIT HQ to talk to the Brigadier. Liz enters and while the Brigadier is distracted, she steals the TARDIS key from off his desk. The Doctor claimed to have equipment they can use in the TARDIS and Liz had intended just to ask the Brigadier for it. The Doctor takes the key and tries to leave in the TARDIS but it has been disabled by the Time Lords. Both Liz and the Brigadier are annoyed with his deception but with no means of escape, the Doctor comes with them to talk with the other soldiers in the woods.

UNIT brings in Sam Seeley for questioning and while he is away, his wife breaks open the trunk where the sphere is being hidden. Exposed, Channing and Hibbert pick up it's signal again and dispatch an Auton to the house. The Auton searches the premises but can't find it. Mrs. Seeley discovers the Auton and shoots it with the shotgun but with no effect. The Auton knocks her out and begins to search the shed.

Informed about the sphere by Seeley, the Brigadier, Capt. Munro, the Doctor and Liz head to the house to find the Auton searching it. The Brigadier and Munro attack it and Channing orders it to retreat as he doesn't want to engage in full combat yet. The Doctor discovers the sphere and they take it back to the lab while Mrs. Seeley is taken to the hospital.

The retreating Auton enters the UNIT camp and finds Ransome. It kills him and vaporizes the body before disappearing back into the woods. The Brigadier arrives and finds Ransome gone with the Doctor pointing out that something cut its way into the tent to attack Ransome. The Doctor suggests investigating the plastics factory while he and Liz investigate the sphere. Agreeing, the Brigadier calls General Scobie who authorizes an investigation. However, as he hangs up the phone, a plastic duplicate of himself appears at the door and attacks him.

The fake Scobie calls the Brigadier back and orders him to call off any investigation. The Brigadier leaves to go directly to the Ministry to get permission while the Doctor and Liz travel to Madame Tussauds to examine the replicas there. They find one of General Scobie but the Doctor determines that it is actually General Scobie, suspended in a hypnotizing, plastic mold.

The Doctor and Liz hide until the museum closes and then examine the figures in detail. The Doctor determines that Scobie is the only real person but that the aliens behind this plan to replace the government officials with replicas to allow quicker takeover. They hide when Channing and Hibbert enter to examine the figures and take them away. The Doctor confronts Hibbert while alone and plants an idea to fight the control of the aliens.

While everyone is out, the fake General Scobie goes to UNIT headquarters and takes the sphere the Doctor and Liz were working on. They had determined that it was a part of a higher consciousness that when combined with the others would create a central intelligence. When it is taken to the plastic factory, Channing does that and orders that the attack begin at dawn. Hibbert, fighting the control of the aliens, tries to sabotage the machine where the consciousness, called the Nestene, is housed. He is discovered and killed by Channing.

Finding the sphere gone, the Doctor and Liz work through the night and build a machine that will attack the wavelength the intelligence works on. As they finish, the Brigadier receives word of shop window dummies coming to life all over Britain, attacking and killing patrons. With the machine ready, the Brigadier organizes his headquarters staff and the group attacks the plastic factory.

Before they attack, they meet a squad of regular army led by General Scobie who orders the Brigadier to stand down. The Doctor intervenes and test his weapon on Scobie, who drops as an inanimate plastic dummy. The Brigadier takes command and attacks while the Doctor and Liz slip inside. Channing orders Autons to attack and the UNIT and army forces try to hold them off.

The Doctor enters the control room and tries to activate his machine but it malfunctions. Channing ups the power and flees, allowing the Nestene brain to reach out with tentacles and attack the Doctor. From behind cover, Liz repairs the machine and activates it. The Doctor directs it at the Nestene brain and it effectively kills it. Once dead, all Autons, including Channing himself, collapse.

The group returns to UNIT headquarters where the Doctor, as he is trapped on Earth, agrees to help UNIT in exchange for a laboratory, a place to work on the TARDIS and the use of Liz as his assistant. He also strongly hints that he would like his own car in the 1920's roadster model.

Analysis

Spearhead From Space is an excellent way to kick off a new Doctor as it is a visual treat. It's not perfect, but it is very good and an easy and enjoyable watch. The funny thing is that it came about mostly due to a strike which forced Barry Letts to take the whole thing on the road and film it on location, which admittedly was probably a pain, but gave it a real sense of depth that is lost in studio shooting.

This might my favorite portrayal of the Third Doctor. Because he's coming off regeneration crisis, he's not fully into the pomposity that could make him unlikeable at times. He also immediately develops a nice rapport with both the Brigadier and Liz, seeing them as friends and allies. His relationship with Liz would stay that way but his interactions with the Brigadier would become more hostile as the era wore on. Here they are clearly on the same side the whole way. The Doctor also throws in some humor here and there and that is something that gets steadily left behind over as the era wears on. Perhaps the humor and even the style of speech are similar to the Second Doctor, which would be normal given that he is still in regeneration crisis, and that is one of the things that I find a bit more endearing. In fact in many ways, Spearhead From Space plays a lot like a later Second Doctor story and the roots from The Invasion are fairly visible.

Liz is of course, Liz. She is introduced simply and is a mix of intellectual curiosity, bemusement, and annoyed cynicism. She is skeptical of the Doctor but grows to appreciate him quickly, to the point of having him try to take advantage of that trust. But what works best for both of them is that there is an almost instant mutual respect. The Doctor sizes her up and acknowledges her intelligence quickly. She does the same and you can see both friendship and a solid partnership forming very rapidly. While I like Jo, the disdain and mistreatment the Doctor gives her in his paternalistic style can get tiresome. Nothing ever really matches the relationship the Doctor has with Liz and it sets itself up so easily almost instantly.

This is a good story for the Brigadier as well. As his third story, he doesn't really need to properly introduced but you still get the feeling that he will be playing a more prominent role right off the bat. He is immediately affable with a dry sense of humor. More importantly, he is shown to be quite intelligent which is sometimes lost in later stories. The Brigadier can be shown to be a shoot first buffoon at times but here he is thoughtful, hard working and smart enough to be well worthy of both his position and the Doctor's trust. He also is not shown to be trigger happy in this story. One of his men is but the Brigadier himself doesn't engage until after being fired upon by the Autons. Nor does he ever provoke the Doctor's ire by immediately suggesting the area be "cleansed." This version of the Brigadier is not afraid to use force but also not one to assume that force is the obvious solution and that is another sign of his intelligence showing through.

I also like the Autons (or Nestene if you prefer) as the villains. To be honest, I like the Nestene as villains in all three stories they appear in. It's usually some other aspect of the story that lets it down. Here they are quite good. The Autons themselves are quite scary, especially in their infiltration tactics and emerging from the shop windows. Only a slightly different framing and a slightly different style of music and it could have easily been something that John Carpenter put out. My only niggle on the Nestene and the Autons was the retreat from Sam's house before capturing the remaining sphere. That Auton could easily have overpowered or outgunned the Brigadier and Captain Munro but retreating preserved the important actors and gave the Doctor his clues in how to beat the Nestene so it was a writer's out to a plot hole.

The visuals were quite excellent with the shooting on location and on film. Unfortunately, the same emergency that forced this type of shooting did not allow for the needed set up with the audio. There are a number of scenes where it sounds like everyone is speaking in a large, echo-y room (because they are) and that is a bit distracting. It gets bad enough at a couple of points that it becomes very hard to hear what people are saying. Not impossible but it is probably the largest single flaw of the story.

One other flaw that I would be remiss to point out is that there are a few points of overacting and a bit of silliness. The close ups of Ransome's face are a bit much with him doing his look of horror directly into the camera. I also can't help but snigger at the tentacles that are attacking the Doctor at the end of Episode Four. Jon Pertwee is trying his best but it's so obvious that he is holding the tentacle against himself and trying to make it look like he's being strangled. It's a bit silly looking no matter how hard he tries.

Despite these little set backs, I enjoy this story immensely. It's a great story to introduce someone to the Third Doctor to, especially since it's only four episodes and zips along with minimal padding. Obviously the filmed on location stuff wasn't going to stick around but I think I would enjoy the Third Doctor era more if the stories were this tightly paced more often. Definitely worth a watch any time the opportunity arises.

Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5

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

The Green Death

Serendipity

Environmentalism, action and Jo's departure. The Green Death is a highly regarded story amongst fans and one of the few Third Doctor stories that I've seen before. I recall enjoying the first time I watched it but am curious to see how it fares a second time around. I do know that it is generally agreed to be considered the best of the four stories authored by Robert Sloman and Barry Letts, who wrote the season finales for Seasons 8 thru 11. Of course, given the reputations of the other three (The Dæmons, The Time Monster, Planet of the Spiders) that doesn't seem to be too hard.

Plot Summary

At the headquarters of Global Chemicals in South Wales, the director, Stevens, returns from London with promises of government contracts that will provide jobs for a group of miners who were recently put out of work when the coal mine was closed. This is met with cheers by most of the crowd but also derision from the members of an environmentalist commune led by Professor Clifford Jones. He argues with Stevens but both men are interrupted by a whistle from the mine. One of the workers collapsed on the whistle after returning from an inspection and has now died, his skin glowing with green phosphorescence.

UNIT is called in to investigate but the Doctor has already made plans to visit Metebelis III. He wants Jo to come with but she has already decided to visit Professor Cliff Jones' community to help out. As they are near each other, the Brigadier offers Jo a ride while the Doctor takes off in the TARDIS. He manages to collect one of the large blue gems the planet is famous for but has a very rough time while on the planet.

The Brigadier drops off Jo who meets Professor Jones in his lab. She is impressed by the work he and his team are doing and becomes fascinated by his research into the pollution that Global Chemicals is likely dumping into the old coal mine. Curious, but also a little put off by Jones' patronizing tone, Jo leaves to go investigate the mine.

The Brigadier arrives at Global Chemicals and informs Stevens of his task to investigate the situation. Stevens agrees though he assures him that their process is safe. The Brigadier calls back to UNIT HQ and informs them to let him know when the Doctor has returned and to send him there. The Doctor arrives shortly after the call, relieved to be in a safe location again. He drives up to Global Chemicals in Bessie.

The Doctor arrives and he and the Brigadier decide to investigate the mine for themselves. Stevens gives them access but tells one of his henchmen named Hinks that no one should enter the mine and that he is to take care of it. Hinks agrees but is concerned over Stevens' odd manner. Stevens dismisses him but retrieves a set of heavy earphones and puts them on.

One of the old miners named Dai, concerned about the death of the co-worker, heads down to inspect the mind for himself. He calls up for help a while later just as Jo arrives to investigate. She goes with another miner named Bert who is heading down to get him due to her first aid training. As they are being lowered, the Brigadier and the Doctor arrive. The Doctor orders the workers to stop the tram and pull them back up. The worker tries to comply but the brake fails.

The Doctor and the Brigadier, working together, manage to jam the lift controls and stop the lift just before it crashes at the bottom of the shaft. At the bottom of the shaft, Jo and Bert find Dai infected with the same green glow that killed the first miner. They wait for the lift to be repaired but fearing for Dai's life, they decide to travel to another part of the mine that had been shut down to try and find a way out.

To get the lift working again, they need to cut the control cable but the mine lacks the equipment as it had been shut down. They call Professor Jones to ask him but he also does not have the equipment so they go to Global Chemicals. Stevens learns of the request, but receives orders from the director to not give the equipment in order to protect what is in the mine. Stevens orders one of his men, named Fell, brainwashed to ensure this. When the Brigadier comes by, Stevens claims the equipment was removed a couple days ago in preparation for the arrival of updated equipment.

Both the Doctor and Jones are sure that Stevens is lying and decide to find it. The Brigadier however decides to drive to the nearest town to try and find some. Jones and his people stage a protest to distract the guards while the Doctor sneaks into the plant. He is discovered and trapped in a pump room. Stevens comes and shows the Doctor the empty shed and then releases him, having been ordered by the director to let the Doctor go in order to learn of his purpose.

The Doctor and Jones return to the mine to find the Brigadier found cutting equipment at a local gas station and was able to borrow it. They cut through the line and the Doctor heads down with two miners as guides. They find Dai dead and a note on his body from Jo telling them where they went. The Doctor and one of the miners head after them.

They come upon Bert who is nearly passed out, infected with the same disease affecting the first two miners, having touched a trickle of green slime oozing down the side of the mine. The other miner takes Burt back while the Doctor continues to look for Jo. He finds her at the edge of a pool of the same green ooze which is swarming with enlarged maggots. They turn to head back but the tunnel suffers a cave in and several maggots crawl out of rocks, cutting off their escape route.

The Doctor and Jo turn over an abandoned mine cart and use it to ferry themselves across the pool of ooze. Once on the other side, they climb their way through the seam until they come across an access tunnel leading up to Global Chemicals. Near the entrance, they find an enlarged fly egg and the Doctor pockets it to examine later. They proceed to climb the ladder to the drain point.

After Bert and Dai are taken to the hospital and morgue respectively, the Brigadier heads to Global Chemicals to confront Stevens. He tries to impose a UNIT takeover of the investigation but Stevens calls up the Ecology Minister who involves the Prime Minister. Both men shut the Brigadier down and he is forced to leave.

Fell is sent to purge the tanks but another employee, Elgin, has become increasingly concerned over his and Stevens' odd behavior. He follows Fell and asks him what he is doing. Fell hypnotically responds that he is dumping into the mine. They are alerted to the Doctor and Jo climbing up and Fell completes the automatic dump process which will flood the tube in thirty seconds. Elgin appeals to Fell who fights off the control long enough to tell Elgin how to open the hatch. He does so and pulls the Doctor and Jo out just before the tube floods with the same green ooze seen below.

Fell returns to Stevens' office in a state of confusion. Stevens puts him under the headphones again but Fell does not respond and the director comes on to recommend self-disposal. Stevens is uncomfortable with this but the director insists and sends a signal through the headphones. Fell gets up and walks out of the office, passing Elgin, the Doctor and Jo in the hall and throws himself off a balcony, killing himself.

Elgin escorts the Doctor and Jo out the back entrance and they reunite with the Brigadier at Professor Jones' compound. Over dinner he introduces them to the other members of the commune and notes his plans to go up the Amazon river to do research in creating fungus that can be grown and used as a meat substitute. The Doctor gets along with Jones and they plan to dissect the fly egg in the morning. Their dinner is unfortunately cut short with the news that Bert has died.

Jo cries over Bert, comforted by Jones. The Brigadier and the Doctor decide to head back to the pub to spend the night but Jo decides to stay at the compound and look over a book Jones showed her. She doesn't respond much to a Metebelis III crystal the Doctor shows her and he somewhat jealously pulls Jones away from her for a chat. In the other room, the fly egg hatches and a large maggot crawls across the floor towards Jo.

Hinks heads back to Stevens office to report on the UNIT activities and includes the story about the fly egg. Alarmed, Stevens sends Hinks to steal the egg. He arrives just as the maggot is crawling towards Jo. The maggot, sensing his presence, changes direction and leaps at him and bites him before crawling off again. His and Jo's screams alert the Doctor and Jones who rush back in and take Hinks to the hospital.

The next morning, the Brigadier calls in his forces to patrol the area and blow up the mine entrance. The Doctor protests but the Brigadier is under orders. The Doctor goes to Global Chemicals to see if they will stop the mine sealing but Stevens refuses. He also shows him a representative from the Ministry who is on site to deal with UNIT directly. The representative turns out to be Mike Yates working for UNIT undercover. Yates also goes along with Stevens, not wanting to blow his cover, and they hear the sound of the explosion sealing the mine.

However, the maggots find new ways out. A large group of them burrow up a seam and infest a hillside where they are spotted by Sargent Benton on patrol. Another group come up the waste pipe where they are discovered by Elgin. Elgin tells Stevens that they need to shut down the project but Stevens has Elgin brainwashed to continue to go along with things.

UNIT keeps tabs on the maggots, though they are bullet resistant, while the Doctor and Jones try to find a cure for the ooze. The Doctor wants a sample of the ooze for them to experiment on but Stevens is keeping tabs on Yates and he is unable to get them a sample. The Doctor then disguises himself as the milkman and infiltrates Global Chemicals. Yates slips his watcher for a few minutes and fills the Doctor in on the goings on, including the fact that Stevens reports to someone only accessible through a secured elevator.

Jo assists Jones in his work but accidently knocks some of Jones' dried fungus on his sample slides. Irritated, Jones becomes engrossed in his work and begins to ignore Jo. Jo, wanting to redeem herself, leaves to capture a maggot for them to dissect. She gets up to the hillside where the maggots have manifested but is intercepted by Sargent Benton. Meanwhile, Jones notices that the fungus has neutralized the mutagen in the ooze. He tries to tell Jo but notices a note she has left and runs out after her.

Yates is reconnected with Stevens and his escort, leaving the Doctor alone. The Doctor uses his sonic to access the secured elevator and travels to the top floor. There he discovers that the director is actually a computer called BOSS that was structured after human brain patterns and gone mad with Nietzschean philosophy. The computer summons Stevens to brainwash the Doctor but he is able to resist the conditioning. BOSS initially tells Stevens to kill the Doctor but the Doctor convinces him to hold him as a hostage.

Jo convinces Benton that she's looking for the Doctor and slips away up the hillside, unaware that the Brigadier has called in an aerial grenade attack. Jones arrives, spies Jo on the hillside and runs after her. They meet but before Jones can pull her away, the helicopter arrives and starts dropping grenades. They duck into a cave but the blast of one of the grenades knocks Jones out and damages Jo's radio.

At Global Chemicals, Yates frees the Doctor from his cell and the two men try to escape. They are spotted an alarm is sounded. Yates is captured but the Doctor gets away. He drives up to the hillside to inform the Brigadier and to verify that the grenade strike had no effect on the maggots.

Shortly after the Doctor arrives, Jo manages to repair the radio and sends a weak signal for help. The Doctor and Benton drive up the hill to the cave. The Doctor uses his sonic to stun the maggots swarming outside the cave while Benton carries Jones to Bessie. The four then drive back to Jones' compound where he is diagnosed with a concussion and also a maggot bite. The Doctor gives him an aggressive dose of antibiotics which slows the infection but he heads back to the lab to work on a cure.

In the lab, the Doctor finds Yates who has been brainwashed by BOSS and sent to kill him. The Doctor uses the blue crystal he took from Metebelis III to undo Yates' hypnosis and sends him back to Global Chemicals to pretend he has killed the Doctor and free other employees from BOSS's control. Stevens however catches on to Yates and captures him.

Benton arrives at the compound with the chrysalis of one of the maggots, indicating that they are beginning to change into flies. As they examine it, one of the residents named Nancy discovers the maggot which hatched from the egg earlier. It is dead, having eaten some of the fungus she had prepared for lunch. The Doctor, Nancy and Benton quickly gather as much of the fungus as they can and toss it to the maggots on the hill from Bessie.

The maggots eat the fungus and begin to die. As they finish their rounds, the hatched fly attacks Bessie. The Doctor and Benton duck it's spewing of the green ooze before the Doctor manages to knock it down and kill it with his coat.

Back at Global Chemicals, two guards take Yates from his cell and prepare to take him upstairs for further processing. Yates however manages to get away from them and escape the facility. He runs to the hill where the Brigadier is supervising the lowering of the leftover fungus into the mine to feed to any remaining maggots. Yates warns the Brigadier that BOSS is planning to link up with other computers and move to the next stage of his plan at 4pm.

The Brigadier heads to Global Chemicals while Benton heads to the compound to warn the Doctor, who had gone back to try and find a cure for Jones. As he examines him, Jo relates how she had spilled fungus on some of his slides. The Doctor examines the slides and realizes that the same fungus before has killed the infection. He starts to prepare a paste to treat Jones but turns it over to Nancy when Benton tells him of the situation.

The guards refuse to let either the Brigadier or the Doctor in but the guard collapses when Stevens and BOSS activate the slave controls for pretreated employees. The Doctor rushes in and finds Stevens hooked up to BOSS, who is merging his mind with Stevens'. The Doctor pulls out the blue crystal recovered from Yates and cuts through BOSS's programing of Stevens. Stevens returns to his own mind enough to understand the horror of what BOSS is unleashing and cross wires the computer. The Doctor flees and the computer, along with most of the facility, explodes.

They all return to the compound where Jones has improved greatly. They get a telegram from Geneva proclaiming that Jones' facility will the official UN site for ecological research in the area. This provides funding and Jones makes plans to head to the Amazon to further his research. Jo wants to come along and Jones asks her to marry him. She agrees and an impromptu party breaks out. The Doctor, sad at losing Jo, gives her the Metebelis III crystal as a present, then quietly slips out and drives away in Bessie.

Analysis

One of the best markers of a higher quality six-part story is the fact that you forget that it is a six-part story and start to lose yourself in the overall plot. This story does that very well and even the sections that are clearly designed to string things along have a natural feel to them. Of all of them, I think only Episode Five runs the risk of feeling like padding and a good portion of that comes from the feeling that some of the action in Episode Six could have been spread a little more.

This is a well crafted story that could easily be attributed to one of the deeper writers of the Third Doctor era (such as Malcolm Hulke). The Doctor and Jo are given a great deal to do, there's a decent amount of action but not so much as to mistake this for a Danger Man story, UNIT is involved but not so much as to make it an all military story and you have an interesting and credible villain. All of these elements combine to draw the viewer in with an interesting and well paced plot that has a strong creep factor and even a couple of genuine scares.

The Doctor does very well in a nice balance of intellectualism, action and also comedy. His less than subtle cock-blocking of Cliff just after dinner is a bit amusing as well as seeing the Doctor pose as the cleaning lady. In fact, you almost think that the Doctor is talking to the audience when he warns off Yates from making a snide comment to his appearance. It's also nice to see that the "keep the Doctor away" trick of sending him to Metebelis III for most of Episode One actually has a payoff with the use of the blue crystal to break BOSS's control. If the Third Doctor were as balanced in other stories as he is here, I think I would enjoy him a bit more. Not that I don't like him, but for me he may be one of the least engaging Doctors and it is more the stories he's in that I like rather than him personally.

This is also one of the better companion send offs. Jo is given a lot to do and is genuinely engaging, even if she does indulge in most of her tropes. She is clumsy, she is proposed to and she finds herself as the damsel in distress due to her own folly. But she also pours her passion into things and she does have a nice rapport with Cliff. I'm not sure I buy the romance completely on his end but I believe that for this particular marriage proposal Jo would accept as she clearly has an established admiration for this man. That passion carries over to her performance, so much so that you actually cringe a bit when Cliff is dismissive, to the point of being mean at times when she tries to help. But it was a good send off for Jo and the Doctor's reaction at her leaving is fittingly poignant.

There was a nice balance in how UNIT was deployed in this story. I liked that the Brig was almost acting in an undercover role for the first couple of episodes given his civilian dress. I especially liked that Yates was given the useful role of being a mole, even if it wasn't a particularly good one. At the very least, it expanded their scope a bit. I did question why they kept trying bullets and explosions against the maggots. My first thought was flame throwers and it seemed odd that the Brigadier never thought of that.

The maggots made an excellent secondary villain. They were quite creepy and I think most people have had enough experience with flies and maggots to be thoroughly disgusted by them. On top of that, they are simple enough that the puppet work was quite believable, which made them more unsettling. The unfortunate contrast is the fly that the one maggot turns into to. That was not a believable puppet and the CSO work on it's attack looked particularly bad, especially when cut with the on location film work with the maggots.

Stevens and BOSS make for a good overall villain. A megalomaniacal computer is nothing new (see WOTAN) but there is the nice mystery of what BOSS is which draws the viewer in for the first four episodes. But unlike WOTAN, BOSS is given a large personality and his evoking Nazi-style buzzwords just makes him even more engaging. Stevens himself is slimy enough that you can see him as the villain until you get the slow reveal of BOSS. What's more, you get the seeds of Stevens' eventual repentance sown throughout as even he hesitates about what they are doing throughout the story. The fact that it takes the Doctor using the dehypnotizing crystal to bring that side of Stevens out long enough to destroy BOSS adds to the humanization of Stevens in his villain role.

It does make you wonder if Stevens created BOSS as a noble experiment and BOSS simply overwhelmed his mind or if there was actual malicious intent from the beginning. Of course, until the maggots actually appear, there is nothing that says that they are doing anything wrong so it's easy to see how BOSS could have gotten through Stevens' defenses and made him the coldly logical man we see through most of the story. His pitch to the miners seems heartfelt in that he is expanding his company and is promising them jobs. What person is going to say no to that or think that what he is doing is evil. It is only when a man dies and a deliberate cover up is made that you could even argue that Stevens is in proper villain territory and by this point he is clearly under BOSS's control.

One of the best scenes in the story is the final scene with the Doctor leaving Jo. It's somewhat obvious that Jo is going to be leaving in this story and the Doctor clearly makes attempts to thwart Cliff in the way you might expect an overprotective father to do. But the Doctor's sadness at the end is very touching. He knows he has to let Jo go but you still see the pain at losing a friend. But it is done in such a simple way. He keep focus in the foreground as everyone else mixes in the background party and he quietly leaves. He doesn't say a word and just drives off into the evening with that expression that shows that while he should be happy for her, he can't help but miss someone he cares about. It's quiet and an absolutely perfect bit of acting by Jon Pertwee. It's also an excellent bit of camera work to leave the Doctor in silhouetted shadow as he drives away, leaving that previously seen expression as the lasting memory as he drives away. It's just very well done.

A lot of the direction is very good in this story. Obviously there is a lot of straight camera work but the director clearly maximized his location opportunities with some nice improvised angles and different views when he actually had the chance to stretch the palate. Of course, this excellent work also drew further attention when things went off-kilter. I've already mentioned the fake fly work but there are some other scenes with the Doctor in Bessie where it's a stationary model against a green screen. There are a couple of other shots of the Brigadier or other UNIT members supposed to be at the base of the hill but are clearly done with CSO. I suspect these were pick up shots and they weren't able to go back to the location for them. Unfortunately they just stick out and look so much worse because of how good the other stuff worked. Some shoddy effects you expect and forgive, such as the mine cart ferry ride through the maggots and ooze. That would have to be a studio shot and it's fairly easy to let go. But seeing the same scene cut from location film to studio with CSO just clashes the eyes and is hard to forgive.

By my count, I've got four Third Doctor stories left but I think there's a very good chance this will end up as my favorite. It zips along, is acted well, has credible villains and is generally well shot, to say nothing of the fitting send off for Jo. It sags a touch around Episode Five and the effects of Episode Six drag it down a notch, but I'd easily call it the most entertaining of all the Third Doctor stories I've watched, though I could entertain an argument for Carnival of Monsters. In a way, this stands on much the same ground as Invasion of the Dinosaurs and I think my score should reflect that.

Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5