The Hand of Fear

Eldrad must live.

We now come to the last of the classic era stories for me to review. I still have some new series stuff to go through and as long as the show is on, we'll have new content, but this marks a type of end for me. My original thought when starting this was that I would be able to arrange for Survival to be the end, but that came and went a while ago. So I decided that The Hand of Fear, Sarah Jane's leaving story, would make an adequate substitute.

This story is generally divided. Everyone acknowledges that the last five minutes where Sarah leaves is damn near perfect. It's just the rest of the story that causes debate. I recall feeling that it wasn't quite as bad as it's reputation but still a rather mundane story for such an important companion to go out on. Of course you could say the same for Ian and Barbara going out in The Chase so it's not like there isn't a history of it. Perhaps it makes the goodbyes more memorable if the stories people leave in aren't that stellar overall. We shall see.

Plot Summary

On an alien planet, a group of hooded figures are overseeing the exile and destruction of a ship with a figure named Eldrad on it. However, the atmosphere is deteriorating and the hooded figures are forced to detonate the ship before it reaches it's maximum destructive potential. Once it is destroyed, the figures are dragged back inside their protective dome.

On Earth, the Doctor and Sarah land in a quarry, unaware that a segment is about to be exploded. They are caught in the blast, though they manage to avoid the worst of it. Sarah is partially pinned under some rock and as she reaches for the hole, she touches a petrified hand with a ring on it. She screams and that alerts the Doctor and the workers to her location. They find her unconscious, along with the petrified hand. She and the Doctor are then taken to a local hospital.

The Doctor is examined and cleared. Sarah is found to be ok but is still unconscious. They also find that her arm is very tense and her fist cannot be unclenched. Believing that it was the stress of nearly being buried alive, they leave her to rest. The Doctor instead heads down to the lab where one Dr. Carter is examining the petrified hand. The Doctor is quite interested in the initial reading of the hand and arranges for an electron microscope to be brought into the lab to examine it better. He leaves Carter to study a small sample of the hand while he heads back to the quarry to examine the layer of rock where it was found.

As the Doctor leaves, Sarah wakes up under the control of the mind embodied in the hand and the ring, which is hidden in her fist. She sneaks down to the lab and knocks Carter out with a blast of energy from the ring. She then takes the hand in a plastic box and slips out of the hospital. Carter comes to an hour later and reports her missing.

Shortly after the report is made, the Doctor returns to find Sarah gone. He becomes concerned and even more so when he sees the scan of the rock sample of the hand. The Doctor reveals that he found nothing in the rock pile which was from Jurassic strata. This means that the hand came down from space by itself 150 million years ago. The Doctor reasons that the sample is drawing regenerative energy from the radiation produced by the microscope. He then has Carter take him to the nearest nuclear reactor, a testing complex a few miles away.

Sarah arrives at the test complex and knocks the guard out with a blast from the ring. She then makes her way through the complex, stunning any worker who crosses her path. The Doctor and Carter arrive but are stopped by guards who have found the stunned guard. Sarah meanwhile makes her way into the reactor core where the hand begins to absorb the radiation and move on its own. As it gains more control, Sarah gets up and jams the door. She attempts to open the door but does not know the security code to open the inner door.

When Sarah opened the outer door to the core, the alarms initiated in the complex. In the chaos of workers running to their emergency positions, the Doctor and Carter slip away from their guards and make their way to the control room. They find the control room run by Professor Watson, giving orders to his people and trying to extricate Sarah from the room. Upon finding the door is jammed, Watson orders all staff out of the facility. The Doctor manages to make contact with Sarah over the security feed but is confused by her repeated statement of "Eldrad must live."

The Doctor runs to the roof to slip down the vent shaft. Unknown to him, Carter has also been taken over by the Eldrad consciousness and he follows the Doctor. He attacks him on the stairs but slips off when the Doctor dodges the blow, killing himself. The Doctor continues up the stairs and launches himself down the shaft. He bursts into the core and knocks Sarah out with a quick nerve pinch. As he carries her out of the core, the ring slips off her finger.

With Sarah out, the core returns to normal and Watson returns everyone to their stations. The Doctor examines Sarah and finds no radiation on her at all and her having no memory of anything after grabbing the hand in the quarry. The Doctor shows Watson the video feed of the hand and the radiation results, demonstrating it's alien nature. Watson orders a technician named Driscoll to collect the hand. He does so and seals it back in the box Sarah brought. He also grabs the ring, which takes over his mind.

Driscoll takes the hand and places it in the decontamination room. He denies finding the ring but the Doctor asks him to look a second time. The Doctor then puts Sarah under hypnosis to learn about Eldrad. Sarah is only able to tell the Doctor of Eldrad and his planet of Kastria. He then brings her back to herself, telling her to forget about Eldrad.

Driscoll again denies finding the ring and the Doctor suspects that he has found it and is now under it's control. This is further confirmed when another technician reports a knocking from the decontamination room, where the hand has absorbed more radiation. Driscoll knocks out this technician, grabs the hand and takes it back to the core. Watson again orders the evacuation of the facility and the Doctor chases after Driscoll, only to see him unlock the inner door of the core and walk inside. This triggers a core explosion, causing much of the computer equipment in the control room to explode.

The Doctor and Sarah head into the core room where the Doctor reseals the door. Watson comes down shocked to find that all the radiation from the core explosion had been absorbed. He calls the military who decide to airstrike the reactor with nuclear missiles. The three exit the facility as Eldrad begins to burn through the door.

From a distance away, they observe two fighters launching missiles at the facility but, much as the Doctor expected, they fall inert, their energy having been absorbed by Eldrad. The Doctor and Sarah head back in where they meet Eldrad, who has reconstituted in a feminine form. She probes the mind of the Doctor to find that he is telling the truth about what happened and that he is a Time Lord. She asks for his help to return to Kastria from which she was exiled after her people turned against her, she claims, following an alien invasion. The Doctor agrees but only that he will take her to Kastria in the present time and not shortly after she was exiled 150 million years ago. She accepts his terms.

As the three make their way out of the core, Watson attacks Eldrad with a pistol. His shots have no effect and she chases him as he retreats to the control room to get more ammunition. She catches him in an energy beam and threatens to kill him but the Doctor stops her by declaring their deal void if he dies. She releases him and once they are sure he is ok, they leave the facility for the TARDIS.

The Doctor, Sarah and Eldrad travel via the TARDIS to Katria, a windswept wasteland. They make their way into the main complex where Eldrad reactivates the power. With the defenses she built shut down, the solar winds destroyed the surface. Eldrad reasons that her people have retreated into a network of caves far below the surface. She opens a door to head down there when she is stabbed by a poisoned spear, a booby trap left behind.

Eldrad tells them that her only chance is to go to the regeneration chamber below. The Doctor and Sarah take her down, avoiding several other booby traps along the way and passing over a deep abyss, which Sarah almost falls into. Upon reaching the chamber, Eldrad is laid out on the slab and the Doctor initiates the process. Eldrad's body is crushed and vaporized but the essence is reconstituted in his original masculine form. Eldrad emerges from the chamber, vowing to become king and take his full revenge on Kastria.

The Doctor and Sarah learn from Eldrad that there was no alien invasion and that the barriers protecting the planet were destroyed by him when the people of Kastria rose against him. As Eldrad finishes, King Rokon appears on the monitor telling Eldrad to come take his kingdom from him. Eldrad goes into the throne room but when he confronts Rokon, he finds only a dead body that crumbles to dust. Undeterred, Eldrad enters a chamber that held the genetic information of his people, from which he can regenerate the Kastrian race. But he finds that chamber empty as well.

An image of Rokon appears on the screen informing Eldrad that rather than attempt to scratch out a miserable existence, the Kastrian people opted for obliteration. They also destroyed their genetic repository so that no one could revive their race to serve as slaves to their will. Eldrad briefly breaks down, robbed of his revenge and dreams of power. He collects himself and then decides that he will become the ruler of Earth and use them to conquer the galaxy. The Doctor however refuses to take him back or to give him back his ring, which the Doctor had taken earlier to avoid another booby trap.

The Doctor makes it appear that he tosses the ring aside, distracting Eldrad. Eldrad lunges for it but realizes it was not the ring. He then runs after the Doctor and Sarah. The two reach the narrow bridge that spans the chasm and hide behind two rocks, stretching the Doctor's scarf between them. As Eldrad runs to the bridge, they raise the scarf, tripping him and causing him to fall into the abyss. The Doctor then takes the ring and tosses it into a different part of the abyss.

The Doctor and Sarah head back to the TARDIS and take off. The TARDIS lurches oddly, affected by the cold and the Doctor begins to work on it. But out by the stress of the adventure and the fact that the Doctor isn't even listening to her concerns. Sarah leaves the control room to gather her things, making a show of leaving. While she is gone, the Doctor receives a psychic message from Gallifrey, ordering him to return. When Sarah reenters as part of her show, the Doctor informs her of his call and how he must leave her behind. She protests but Doctor insists. He lands the TARDIS and they share a quiet goodbye as she leaves. She stops to watch the TARDIS disappear before realizing that the Doctor had once again miscalculated and dropped her off nowhere near her home in South Croydon. Undeterred, she walks off whistling.

Analysis

Aside from the resolution to how to deal with Eldrad, I can't really understand why this story is regarded as middling at best. It has it's problems, but when looked at as a whole, it really does fairly well and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it a second time through.

Aside from a little bit of uncharacterized wimpy-ness from her in Episode Four, this is an excellent story for Sarah Jane and one that features her range nicely. You have her chummy relationship with the Doctor and her noble concern for those around her to say nothing of when she is possessed by Eldrad. Those scenes of her in that state in Episodes One and Two are a very strong performance punctuated with little personality quirks that take it from generic possession to Sarah Jane being controlled. It's a rich delivery from a strong character.

This doesn't even take into account her performance in the leaving scene. The bit of pique that sets up the scene is right within the normal teasing and jostling that goes in between the Doctor and Sarah but then it drops immediately into sincerity. There are no tears, no begging aside from that lone appeal at the beginning but there is that wistful moment of saying goodbye and trying to draw it out to preserve the moment. Once the TARDIS lands, you have the Doctor trying to lie as though it's a simple "I'll see you later" with Sarah going along with it. But she has this reserve in her eyes that lets you know that her travels with the Doctor are over. But once that moment's gone, its a reflection on the good times again. Playing with the dog and laughing that the Doctor dropped her in the wrong location then whistling as she walks down the road. I think I would have preferred a fade out as she walked off in the distance with her back to the camera rather than the freeze frame, but it still worked very well as a goodbye.

As far as the Doctor, he was very engaging. He had his aloof and funny moments but his deep concern for Sarah drives all the action in the first two episodes. It is after that, once Sarah is out of danger than the aloofness returns to the fore and his almost mocking of the situation disarms Eldrad of her power while on Earth, hiding the true danger of Eldrad while she is on Earth. I would even go so far as to suspect that he doesn't trust Eldrad's story but still goes along with it both to return Eldrad to Kastria as well as try to save her life on the hope that some good can still come of the situation. The change and yet consistency within character draws one in to the Doctor's performance and makes him enjoyable through the whole story.

Even the side characters are interesting and well performed. Though there is little action with him prior to Eldrad taking control Dr. Carter is interesting and you feel bad for him when he is killed trying to kill the Doctor. Similarly, Professor Watson is also engaging, with the little character moments of saying goodbye to his family when he thinks he might die and also not being the typical obstinate bureaucrat and actually believing the Doctor the first time around when the Doctor theorizes about the nature of Eldrad. Watson does go a little off script with his pistol attack on Eldrad, especially given that Eldrad had just absorbed the equivalent of three nuclear explosions worth of energy, just to add a little action and reinforce the fact to the audience that Eldrad is not who she claims to be. But it still works out and it's nice to have secondary characters that draw you in so well.

Eldrad her/himself is probably the weakest thing in the story. Eldrad is abstract in Episodes One and Two which is far scarier than being fully realized. The female Eldrad is not bad in her performance though she does go through the pantomime shtick of being the victim. I think it would have played better to make Eldrad appear more sincere in these situations, which would have made the trick of the Doctor and Sarah more believable, rather than the obvious wink to the camera that she was lying to the Doctor about her nature. I also didn't like the direct address to the camera after realizing her new form but that's more on the director.

The male Eldrad is where it really goes to pot though. Female Eldrad had some depth and could have played the deception better depending on the script or direction. The male Eldrad simply goes to eleven and stays there. It's all rage fueled revenge and even the moment of brokenness feels like it should have been more shattering than it was. Eldrad recoups rather quickly and decides to just move on to Earth without much more than a passing glance at Kastria. Had Eldrad not started at eleven but been a bit more reserved, perhaps even sly, his breakdown at being denied revenge and rule over Kastria would have felt deeper. He then could have gone to eleven when talking about taking over Earth. That would have felt like a man who has fallen into a desperate madness and clawing at anything that would give him purpose. Instead, it becomes just another monster and one who is dispatched in a very ignoble fashion.

The dispatching of Eldrad is a failure on multiple fronts. It is a failure of writing as such a crude trick should never have been employed in the first place. It is a failure of direction as it was neither set up nor shot in a way to make it even semi-believable. It is also a failure of performance as Eldrad does not even properly trip over the scarf. He actually more steps on it and then effectively jumps into the chasm rather than properly falling. I'm sure moving around in the suit was difficult but it was the most kiddy and stage-y moment in the whole story. As such, Eldrad went from the creepy, legitimately scary force, to a bumbling monster that would be at home in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

I thought the overall direction was pretty good along with the visual effects as well. The hand moving independently worked very well and everything else was all within normal. I also enjoyed the large use of different shooting angles when maneuvering around the plant on film. Not only did you get the nice look of film, but it better captured the scope of the facility Sarah and the Doctor were moving through. It was much nicer than just looking at corridors the whole time. I think the only point where things erred is when the missiles were fired at the plant. They weren't supposed to go off but it felt like just a static shot of the plant. An indicator that the missile had at least fallen to the ground near it would have looked good.

Overall, I think this story gets a bit shortchanged by fans. Is it a brilliant masterpiece for Sarah to go out on? No. But it is a good and entertaining story to enjoy in one sitting, which puts it at least one above The Chase. Sarah's leaving scene also has the advantage of clearing out the bad taste that the disappointing ending can leave and that does wonders for improving the overall feel of the story. Not one to start with, but I'm happy to have ended on this one.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5

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 Brain of Morbius

That squalid brood of harpies, the Sisterhood. That accursed hag Maren found out I was holding a Time Lord and rescued him. May her stinking bones rot! I'll see her die Condo! I'll see that palsied harridan scream for death before Morbius and I are finished with her.

Continuing in the trend of taking old stories and putting a Doctor Who spin on them, we now go to Frankenstein. This is another story that is highly regarded as a classic but for which I didn't care as much on my first watch. Granted, I'm not that big on the story of Frankenstein (original or the various movie adaptations) so the setting for this one put me a little off right from the get go. But we shall have to see if a second visit improves my opinion of things.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Sarah arrive on the planet Karn, the Doctor highly put out as he suspects the Time Lords to have redirected him there. Although he tries to sit things out, he can't overcome his curiosity when Sarah discovers the decapitated body of an insectoid who crashed on planet. In fact, they discover a number of ships crashed into the surface of the planet. They also spy a small castle nearby and head towards it as it begins to rain.

Their movements are observed by Ohica, an acolyte in the Sisterhood of Karn, a society of women that tends a sacred flame that produces a special "Elixir of Life" which they share with the Time Lords. Ohica reports to the leader Maren and Maren discloses that the flame is dying and hasn't produced Elixir in over a year. She suspects that the Time Lords are interfering and summons the other acolytes to investigate.

The Doctor and Sarah arrive at the castle where lives a surgeon named Solon and his dimwitted servant, Condo. Solon invites them in and attempts to appear welcoming. He is in fact only interested in the Doctor's head, having been looking for a suitable specimen for some time. In fact, the decapitated body found was Condo's work, Condo having been promised a replacement arm after Solon completes his work. Solon takes them in and offers them drugged wine. The Doctor drinks it but Sarah does not. The Doctor recognizes Solon and also manages to recognize a bust of the renegade Time Lord Morbius just before he passes out. Sarah mimics doing the same.

Solon has Condo take the Doctor to his lab but elects not to operate until they repair the generator as he does not wish to operate by candlelight. Sarah gets up and sneaks down the hall, hiding as they pass. Unbeknownst to any of them, the Sisterhood has gathered together and using their power, teleported the TARDIS to their cave. Feeling vindicated in her suspicions, Maren has the Sisterhood use their power once again and teleports the Doctor to their cave. Sarah enters the lab a minute later but instead of finding the Doctor, finds a body constructed from various creatures by Solon.

Sarah hides as Solon and Condo reenter. They notice that the Doctor is missing but Condo assures Solon that he put the full vial of the drug in the wine. Solon immediately suspects the Sisterhood and he and Condo leave to see what they plan to do with the Doctor. Sarah follows behind them.

In the Sisterhood's temple, the Doctor comes to and Maren offers him a chance to admit his collusion with the Time Lords. The Doctor admits that he might have been sent by the Time Lords though he isn't sure but denies any plan to steal the Elixir of Life. The Doctor also tells them that he thought he felt the presence of Morbius just before he passed out. Maren scoffs at this, stating that she was present when Morbius was executed and is certain he is dead.

Solon and Condo observe a couple of Sisters entering their cave with wood and follow them. They enter just as the Doctor is being tied to a pole with a pyre built around him. Solon intercedes for the Doctor, first offering Condo as a replacement and then begging for just the head of the Doctor if he must die. Maren denies both and shoos them off. However, while they are distracted, Sarah, disguised as a member of the Sisterhood, reaches up and cuts the ropes binding the Doctor to the pole. As the Sisterhood lights the pyre, the Doctor leaps off and he and Sarah make a run for it. Maren sends a bolt of energy after them from her ring which hits Sarah but they still manage to loose them.

Solon and Condo return to their castle and Condo attacks Solon for offering him as a replacement. Solon only placates him by offering to restore his arm. Condo relents and goes to prepare the lab. Solon then goes downstairs and speaks to Morbius for whom he is building the new body. Morbius is becoming impatient and wants implantation immediately. They are interrupted by the sound of the door opening upstairs.

Condo and Solon enter the main hall and find the Doctor and Sarah sitting at the table. The Doctor tells Solon that Sarah was blinded by Maren's ring and wants him to examine her eyes. They head to the lab where Solon looks closely. He has Condo take her back to the main hall and informs the Doctor that the retinas are almost completely destroyed. Her only hope of regaining her sight is to drink the Elixir of Life which can restore tissue. The Doctor leaves, leaving Sarah at the castle.

Solon then writes a note and calls Condo. He tells him to give it to Maren and to get there before the Doctor. Condo rushes off. This leaves Sarah alone in the hall where she hears a voice calling for Solon. She follows it down the stairs but is unable to see the brain of Morbius speaking from within a jar. Morbius cries out and Solon shoves her out of the room. Sarah however stays in the stairwell to listen.

Solon tells Morbius that he has offered a deal with the Sisterhood that will return the Doctor's head to him. Morbius is alarmed when Solon mentions that the Doctor is a Time Lord and fears that the Time Lords have discovered him. Also fearing that the Doctor has made a deal with the Sisterhood, Morbius orders Solon to put him in the artificial brain case that Solon manufactured. Solon objects noting that he never got it working right and the risk might be too great but Morbius overrides him. Before he can continue, Sarah pulls the door shut and locks Solon in. She then wanders out to warn the Doctor.

The Doctor arrives at the Sisterhood's cave, is captured and brought before Maren. She had just received the letter from Solon warning her of his approach and offering a deal in exchange for his head. The Doctor explains his problem but Maren laughs, telling the Doctor he has been tricked as the ring's effects are only temporary. She also notes that the fire is dying and they have no more elixir anyway. The Doctor examines the flame and pops a firecracker down into the hole. The fire goes out for a moment and then a burst of flame erupts. The Doctor notes that there was a build up of soot and that should have cleared things out. Still suspicious and disbelieving of the Doctor's theory regarding Morbius, Maren renders the Doctor unconscious and has her acolytes bear him to Solon.

While looking for the Doctor, Sarah is discovered by Condo who drags her back to the castle. He frees Solon who ties her up in his lab. Condo strokes her hair but Solon orders him to get the lab ready. As he does, Condo discovers his arm attached to the body Solon had put together. Condo attacks Solon and knocks Morbius' brain out of its jar and on to the floor. Solon shoots him and rescues the brain, replacing it in the jar. Gut-shot, Condo stumbles off but Solon, not wanting to let the brain die, frees Sarah and forces her to assist him in the operation.

With the operation nearly finished, Solon is interrupted by the Sisterhood depositing the Doctor. He goes up to examine the Doctor but Morbius rises up off the table, controlled only by animal instinct. He advances and attacks Sarah, who had just regained her sight. She dodges away and runs upstairs, warning Solon. Solon runs downstairs and tries to stop Morbius but he knocks him down and lurches upstairs.

The Doctor comes to and Sarah warns him of Morbius' approach. Morbius emerges and knocks the Doctor down. He then turns on Sarah but Condo, still wounded, lurches to help her. Morbius overpowers and kills him. He then stumbles out toward the cave of the Sisterhood. The Doctor revives and carries Sarah down to the room where Morbius was to let her recover. He then returns to the lab where Solon has revived and arming a stun gun. Together they pursue Morbius.

Morbius discovers a member of the Sisterhood watching and kills her. After discovering her, the Doctor and Solon split up to look for Morbius and Morbius attacks the Doctor. Solon shoots Morbius, knocking him out and together they take him back to the castle. The Doctor threatens Solon to disconnect Morbius so that he can take him back to Gallifrey. He then leaves to check on Sarah but Solon follows him and locks the two of them in the room. Solon then resumes the surgery, correcting what was missed before.

Trapped in the room with no escape, the Doctor devises a plan. He mixes several chemicals in a dish and places them in a ventilation shaft. He then adds cyanide to the mixture. The mixture creates a gas which drifts up and kills Solon. However Morbius is unharmed. He comes down to the room where the Doctor challenges him to a mental battle. Morbius accepts, promising to kill him.

The Doctor and Morbius engage their minds using equipment in the lab. Morbius overpowers the Doctor but the mental strain is too much after the surgery and there is an electrical discharge in his brain case, forcing him to break off. The Doctor collapses into a coma, the strain too much for him. Morbius however stumbles upstairs, trying to clear the haze.

Meanwhile, the Sisterhood discovers the body of their murdered sister. Ohica becomes convinced that the Doctor was telling the truth that Solon has resurrected Morbius. She gets permission from Maren to lead the Sisterhood against Solon and Morbius. They gather torches and enter Solon's castle just as Morbius emerges from his battle with the Doctor. Already weak from his battle with the Doctor, Morbius flees from the torch-welding mob. The Sisterhood corners him on the edge of a cliff and drive him over the side to be smashed to pieces below.

Ohica finds Sarah and the Doctor. Noting that the Doctor is dying, they take him to the Sisterhood's cave for Maren to examine him. Maren notes that only the elixir can save him. A small amount had been created after the Doctor cleared the flame. Though she needs it, Maren orders Ohica to give it to the Doctor. The Doctor drinks it and recovers. Maren then passes into the sacred fire where she becomes young and then disappears.

The Doctor gives Ohica a couple more firecrackers to clean out the fire pit should it be required. He and Sarah then enter into the TARDIS and disappear, though the Doctor has the TARDIS leave in a bang and flash rather than it's usual vanishing act as a final joke.

Analysis

Unfortunately, a second pass through The Brain of Morbius did not improve the story for me. There are several small nits to pick here and there but the fundamental flaw of the overall story is that the Doctor acts like a childish moron throughout the story. If the Doctor was written in any way that was halfway competent, the story would have been over within one episode. Having your main character be deliberately stupid does not make for a good hook to draw one in.

So let's start with the Doctor. We always expect a certain level of naivety and some childishness, especially with the Fourth Doctor. His petulance at being tossed into a situation to do a job for the Time Lords is understandable and even entertaining. But after that, things go downhill. Sarah has the good sense to avoid the drugged wine but the Doctor does not, even though Solon might as well have "creepy bad guy" tattooed on his head. He continually dismisses the danger posed by Solon and Morbius. His playing around nearly kills Sarah when Morbius breaks loose the first time and does get Condo killed. He also allows Solon to finish his work on Morbius by being stupid and letting himself and Sarah get locked in a room, a trick that Sarah pulled on Solon. This actually forces the Doctor to become a blatant murder as he had to have been aware that Solon would have been in the room with Morbius and breathing the same cyanide gas. Even the final battle was a failure on the Doctor's part as he is mortally wounded by Morbius. It is only the flaws in the braincase (which Solon pointed out) that weaken Morbius to the point where he is easily driven over a cliff by the Sisterhood. Doctor Who is at its best when the Doctor is the central hero. Here he isn't even playing the helper role. All the critical actions (except the murder of Solon) are done by others.

On the flip side of things Sarah is very strong and this even includes her being without sight for nearly two episodes. Sarah has the presence of mind to see Solon for what he was and avoid the drugged wine. She rescues the Doctor from the Sisterhood at the cost of her own sight (temporarily) and manages to cage Solon to try and warn the Doctor a second time. She is constantly there for the Doctor and is never rescued by him. Her one instance of being in trouble is a direct result of the Doctor and it is Condo that saves her. If you are fond of Sarah Jane, this is a very strong story for her, but with the Doctor being as stupid as he is, she's being forced to make up for his shortcomings.

There are a lot of roles where I like Philip Madoc but this story is one where he goes up to eleven and never comes back down again. He's clearly trying to play the mad but frustrated genius but there is no subtlety in his performance. His constant irritation at Condo makes you question why Condo would ever believe or listen to him. Similarly, his lack of subtlety only makes the Doctor look that much dumber for not seeing him as he is at the start of the story. His only moment where he pulls it in is when the Doctor has him cornered and forces him to examine Sarah's eyes. He keeps things in check to the point where the lie is believable and that sends the Doctor off again. Knowing that this performance is obtainable, it makes the other moments where Solon goes to the extreme seem that much more out of place. I just couldn't get into it.

Condo, again by contrast, is quite enjoyable. He is the typical Igor type character but doesn't go over the top. He give you the strong impression that while a slow person, he has his own level of intelligence about him. He has things he cares about and things that he wants, which keeps him tied to Solon. Of course he is not above violence and even going after Solon whom he knows deep down is a liar and foul person. It would have been very easy to go too far in Condo's portrayal but I think it was done well and sets up one of the most believable characters in the story.

The Sisterhood was pretty good for the most part. Maven was quite good and most of the Sisterhood seems to perform well but I thought Ohica was a bit too stiff. I get that she was trying to be formal but it still seemed more like someone who wasn't quite comfortable with their lines. I thought the Sisterhood did fairly well in their plot as well but I had a hang up with the idea that they would be so ignorant of what Solon was up to. They knew he was cutting up corpses and if Morbius was such a significant enemy to them, I find it hard to believe that he could have shielded himself completely from them. This gives them the appearance of being a bit more inept that you might have expected from a society that freely interacted with the Time Lords.

I thought about saying something about Morbius but he's not much more than a MacGuffin so there's little to say outside of the Time Lord brain match. This always sticks in the fan's craw as anyone can clearly see both in direction and in dialogue that the faces of the crew shown are meant to be prior versions of the Doctor. People attempt to retcon them to Morbius but that does go against the nature of the scene. Still, I can bring myself to care that much. It does throw a wrench into things from a continuity standpoint, but so do a lot of things and this scene at least has some dramatic tension. The real question is why does Solon just have one of these devices lying around?

I will praise the set design and the overall atmosphere of the story. It is completely studio and looks it at times, but the overall atmosphere is very enjoyable. There is the gloom and sense of fear pervading the story that you would need to give the story an extra sense of dread and call back to the old Universal 1931 version of Frankenstein. I wish the direction had been at the same caliber. It's not bad but it is fairly pedestrian and doesn't draw the eye in any significant way. I also blame the director for some of the failures of the acting performances as that would be his job to tell them to reign it in or ramp it up as the situation requires.

There are all the little things but I think the ultimate problem of the story is the writing. Terrence Dicks wrote the original treatment but it got reworked by Robert Holmes. Between the two men, changes were either introduced or old holes were not covered up that ultimately bring it down. People always seem to talk about the atmosphere and the quips, especially by Solon, in this story but when you boil it down, there are a lot of flaws in the overall plot and you can't wave those away by simply talking about how moody or intelligent things sound.

Ultimately, my trepidation for this story was somewhat justified. It's not painful and there are some things to enjoy about it. But it does have deep flaws that are all around and can't be overlooked. On a basic level, the story can be enjoyed, especially if the watcher is not overly familiar with some of the better written stories. But once you've been exposed to either the tighter plotlines or devious, intelligent nature of the Doctor in other stories, it's hard to not see the warts that are freely visible in this story.

Overall personal score: 2 out of 5

Terror of the Zygons

You've got to come out on to the balcony sometime and wave a tentacle.

Like much of the Philip Hinchcliff era, Terror of the Zygons is based on earlier material, in this case: Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It was originally slated to close Season 12, which is very apparent in the goodbye scene with Harry and the lingering acceptance of Sarah to continue with the Doctor, but problems behind the scenes pushed it back to the start of Season 13. It also is somewhat notable for being the last story released to DVD (baring any missing episode discoveries) supposedly just to screw with someone the 2Entertian execs didn't like and had said that this was his favorite story.

Plot Summary

The Doctor, Sarah and Harry land in Scotland after being summoned by the Brigadier. They land in the moors and are given a lift to UNIT headquarters by the local laird, the Duke of Forgill. The Brigadier informs them of several oil rigs that have been destroyed around the area in perfect weather with only a strange signal captured over the radio. The Doctor is a bit put out over being summoned for such a trivial matter but agrees to help. The three split up with the Doctor and the Brigadier heading to see the oil drilling company manager, Sarah to interview the locals and Harry to explore the seashore looking for other evidence.

Sarah interviews the local innkeeper, Angus, who warns Sarah of strange things on the moors and also claims to have a bit of "the second sight." Meanwhile, Harry spots a man stumbling around the shore and rushes to him. The man survived the destruction of the latest oil rig and tells Harry what happened. While talking, they are spotted by a bearded man in Scottish dress who produces a rifle and shoots them both. The rig survivor is killed but the second bullet glances Harry's head, only wounding him.

The Doctor and the Brigadier return from speaking with Mr. Huckle, the oil company manager who told them of a fourth attack. They also find a section of concrete with large holes poked into it. They receive a call from the hospital and drive over there with Sarah to check on Harry who is sedated. Knowing that he will recover, the Doctor and the Brigadier return to the inn while Sarah stays at the hospital.

Back at the inn, the Doctor makes a plaster mold of the holes to reveal two very large teeth punctures. They receive a call from Sarah stating that Harry seems to be coming around and is eager to tell them something, although he is still too groggy to articulate it. Sarah is suddenly attacked from behind by a Zygon. Overhearing her scream, the Doctor and Sargent Benton head over to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, they find both Sarah and Harry missing with the nurse suggesting that Harry escaped through the open window. The Doctor sends Benton out to search the grounds while he looks through the building. He finds Sarah in a decompression room and the Zygon who attacked her seals them in and activates the chamber. The Doctor hypnotizes Sarah into a minimal breathing state to preserve air while he goes into a trance himself. Benton and another soldier return to the hospital, find the Doctor and Sarah and pump air back into the chamber. The Doctor then brings himself and Sarah out of their trances.

Mr. Huckle arrives at the inn and finds the Brigadier and his staff passed out due to gas. When the Doctor, Sarah and Benton return, they rouse the Brigadier and the rest of the village, suspecting that they were gassed to hide the movement of something. Huckle produces an alien object that was recovered from the latest oil rig destruction and the Doctor recognizes it as something to lure the creature that is attacking.

The Zygon leader, Broton, observes all this through a camera hidden in the inn and sends one of his men to recover it, having morphed into the form of Harry. Benton calls the Brigadier and the Doctor away, having found one of the soldiers crushed to death outside the village, leaving Sarah alone. The fake Harry enters, takes the summoner and runs off. Sarah runs after him and finds him hiding in a barn. He attacks her with a pitchfork but he falls off while attacking her and is impaled on a hayrack. Broton, detecting the death of the Zygon, vaporizes the body remotely, leaving Sarah unable to show the Doctor the alien's true form.

Fearing discovery, Broton activates the summoner and sends the large mechanical plesiosaur-like creature towards the village. Suspecting what's happening, the Doctor grabs the device and drives out on to the moors. His car breaks down and he runs on foot, the creature steadily catching up to him. The Doctor dives out of the way as the creature lunges at him and the lunge knocks the tracker from the Doctor's hand. Thinking that the Doctor has been killed, Broton recalls the creature. Having triangulated the creature's origin to Loch Ness, Sarah and the Brigadier ride out after the Doctor. They find him walking the moors and they drive onward to the castle of the Duke of Forgill.

While they are away, Benton runs a search of the inn looking for the bugging devices. Broton becomes worried and orders that the camera in the eye of a mounted deer head be removed. After Benton leaves, Angus notices the camera and works to try and dismount the head, which was a gift from the Duke of Forgill. A Zygon in the form of the nurse, Sister Lamont, arrives, kills Angus and takes the camera. Benton hears Angus cry out and rushes to the scene to find Angus dead. His men fan out and see the creature fleeing through the woods. They open fire, wounding it. The wounded Zygon transforms back into Sister Lamont, knocks out a soldier and steals his jeep.

At the Duke of Forgill's castle the Doctor, the Brigadier and Sarah fill in the Duke with they Doctor's theory that the creature is a cyborg creature which allows the Zygons to control it. The Doctor suspects the aliens crashed hundreds of years ago and are making moves know as the oil drilling threatens to expose them. The Duke is skeptical but allows Sarah to stay behind and research his books while the Brigadier and the Doctor head back to the inn after receiving a call from Benton about the attack.

Sarah reaches up for a high book and accidentally triggers a door to a hidden passage. She sneaks down and discovers the alien ship with holding slots where the real Duke of Forgill, Sister Lamont and the Caber are in suspended animation. She also discovers Harry in a holding cell. Sarah rescues him, though they are forced to hide when the Zygons return helping a wounded comrade disguised as Sister Lamont.

The Doctor and the Brigadier learn of what happened from Benton and the Doctor realizes that the Duke has been taken over as well. They return to the castle just as Sarah and Harry emerge from the hidden passage. The Doctor heads down but is captured by Broton and taken into the ship. Broton warns off the Brigadier but the Brigadier gives his own warning.

They leave the castle and the Brigadier has depth charges launched into the loch, alarming Broton. Broton then orders the ship to launch and it rises out of the loch and into the sky. It flies south and lands in an abandoned quarry outside of London, jamming all radar instruments to aid its camouflage. Despite this, the Brigadier orders Benton to keep an ear out for any signals while Sarah and Harry comb over the Duke's library for any information.

The Doctor is placed in a cell and learns that the ship has cut it's power to half to avoid detection. He observes Broton resume the form of the Duke and head out on a mission to implement the next phase of the plan, which will terraform the Earth over the next several centuries before the Zygon refugee fleet arrives. The Doctor then forms a short link between two terminals using himself as the bridge. This sends out signal from the ship but also electrocutes himself.

Benton picks up the signal, triangulates it, informs the Brigadier and the whole group drives down from the inn to the ship. The Zygons manages to break into the Doctor's cell but think he has been killed by the electric shock. He revives after they leave and sneaks through the ship, freeing the real Duke, the Caber and Sister Lamont. The Doctor then sets off an alarm to pull the Zygons off the bridge and the group barricades themselves in there. Once on the bridge, the Doctor sets the self destruct and they flee the ship in the escape hatch. They run away just as the Brigadier's column arrives and they all dive for cover as the ship explodes, killing all the Zygons except Broton.

They receive word that the Loch Ness creature, called by the Zygons a Skarasen, has been swimming down from the sea and is now moving up the Thames. Pooling their information, they deduce that Broton is heading to a major energy conference disguised as the Duke and will attack the multitude of dignitaries there. The Doctor and UNIT head to the conference to stop him.

The Doctor and Sarah discover Broton planting the luring device for the Skarasen in a storage room. Broton attacks the Doctor and Sarah runs for the Brigadier. The Brigadier and two of his men enter. Broton turns his attack towards one of them but the Brigadier shoots Broton down. The Doctor scours the room and finds the luring device. He runs to a balcony just as the Skarasen emerges from the Thames. He throws it out over the river and the beast catches and eats it. With it's summoning device destroyed, the creature drops below the water and swims back up to Scotland.

The entire group returns to Scotland and the Duke helps the Doctor locate the TARDIS in the marshes. He offers Harry, the Brigadier and Sarah a lift back to London but both the Brigadier and Harry decline. Sarah hesitates for a moment, asking if he can get her back to London. The Doctor smiles and assures her he can. The two then enter while the other watch the TARDIS disappear.

Analysis

I had been avoiding this one for a bit as I had this odd feeling that I wasn't going to enjoy it as much as it's reputation stated I would. I'm not sure how I got that in my head because I know I enjoyed it the first time I saw it and this time I enjoyed it just as much. In a way, I had actually forgotten how well filmed and performed the story actually was.

First, all praise and honor to Douglas Camfield who does excellent work here. There is a lot of nice location footage on film and a really good use of lighting and mood to give this story a profound sense of creepiness. It would have been very easy to overexpose the Zygons and make them look rather silly, but this story keeps them as monsters in the dark and it does wonders. Kudos also goes to his work with the Skarasen in keeping it to the minimum of exposure. It could easily have gone into Invasion of the Dinosaurs territory with too much shown of the stop motion. Here you get just enough, leaving the majority of the action to be filled in by the viewer's imagination. It's just good work all around.

The Doctor is very good in this story with a very nice balance of comedy and drama. He shows annoyance at being called in for what seems a trivial matter but then gets very serious when figuring the real threat. When drama and tension are called for, such as the decompression scene, you can feel the tension coming from the Doctor. But at the same time, he's not so grim as to not crack jokes on occasion. His near mocking of Broton is quite funny and deflates the Zygons from the scary monsters they had seemed over the first three episodes to just another batch of aliens the Doctor needs to dispatch. The drama gets you invested but the humor gives you little payoffs while you wait for the overarching story to reach its climax.

Sarah is of course her normal proactive self and actually shows a bit more moxy than the Doctor, given that she is able to sneak on to the Zygon ship and rescue Harry without being caught while the Doctor is caught as soon as he walks into the tunnel. Ultimately it’s a nice balance but Sarah does get some dramatic action here and there and is very enjoyable to watch.

I wish the same could be said for Harry. Harry is his normal, affable self but with being injured halfway through Episode One and the Zygon using his body print killed in Episode Two, Harry is left without much to do. He serves as a small fount of exposition in Episodes Two and Three but just stands around and watches before deciding to stay at the end of Episode Four. It sums the problem the writers clearly had with Harry for most of Season 12 in that he was designed to be an Ian-like man for an older Doctor but the Fourth Doctor was young enough to make him superfluous. Harry really only shines when Sarah is cut off (like in Genesis of the Daleks) but here, Harry is the one who is cut off and he plays the damsel in distress for a short period of time.

The Zygons are pretty good villains with an interesting character trait of taking on the forms of others. However, there were points where they were written oddly. In both Episode Two and Episode Four, there's no good reason why Broton should go on expositionary rants to either Harry or the Doctor. It's useful for the audience but hard to imagine that any character would do such a thing to an enemy. There is also the question as to why they keep Harry and the Doctor alive. The other three prisoners and Harry initially make sense as they are using their body prints to disguise themselves. It could be argued that they intend to go back and give a different Zygon Harry's blueprint and they are keeping him alive for that purpose but what about the Doctor. Broton still thinks the Doctor is human at the start of Episode Four and the launch of the Skarasen attack on the nuclear conference renders the need for subterfuge irrelevant. So why keep the Doctor alive if you don't believe he has useful information or intend to use his body print to make a disguise? It's just one of those things that niggles in the background.

As far as the overall plot goes, the story works fairly well. There is some runaround but mostly in a tension building way. I actually appreciated that the Zygons were susceptible to conventional weapons as that made their dependence on deception more necessary. I also liked how there was a certain amount of paranoia that started to creep in, especially with Sarah and her reaction to Harry. Had this been a six-part story, I would imagine that paranoia would have been a high feature but there just wasn't time to incorporate it further. But as a thriller it does quite well. There are some genuine scare moments and the reveal of the Zygons at the end of Episode One is rather impressive.

What I would have liked developed a bit more is what Broton's ultimate plan was. They way it left off, it seemed as though Broton expected the Skarasen's attack on the nuclear conference to kill or scare enough people to cow the governments of the world into giving their authority to him, allowing him to terraform the planet. However armored the Skarasen was, there are things that would be able to destroy it and unless Broton had a fleet of these things on standby, just one was not going to be enough to subjugate all the peoples of Earth and sheer volume of numbers would have crushed Broton eventually. So there is an element of the story falling apart at the end, but it's still a good ride up to that point.

Overall, there is a reason this is one of the classics. It is well acted, well directed and a pretty good thriller of a tale. There are some small holes here and there and the technology of the day definitely does limit things with the Skarasen (much like the dinosaurs in Invasion of the Dinosaurs) but those are small points compared to the quality of the overall story. It can easily be watched at any time and actually would make a decent story to introduce someone to the Fourth Doctor.

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