Sun 20 Sep 2015
A Science Fiction TV Review: DOCTOR WHO “The Monster of Peladon” (1974).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV Science Fiction & Fantasy[3] Comments
“The Monster of Peladon.” A serial of six episodes from Dr Who, BBC, UK, 23 March to 27 April 1974. (Season 11, Episodes 15-20). Jon Pertwee (Doctor Who), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Donald Gee, Nina Thomas, Frank, Rex Robinson, Alan Bennion. Writer: Brian Hayles. Script editor: Terrance Dicks. Director: Lennie Mayne.
This six-episode sequel to “The Curse of Peladon” (Season Nine, 1972) takes place 50 years later, with the Doctor and Sarah Jane discovering that the planet Peladon’s decision to join the Galactic Federation is not going so well.
The trisilicate miners are demanding better working conditions, but keeping them under their rulers’ thumb is a phantom replica of Aggedor, the royal beast, who starts appearing in the mines and using a heat ray to disintegrate rebellious miners. The politics of the situation are not only local. There are also intergalactic considerations at play as well, and the Doctor and Sarah Jane land the Tardis right in the middle of them.
Not one of the better serials, I’m afraid. All of the action takes place in a underground rooms connected by dark torch-lit passageways, with a lot of fur-haired miners running back and forth (and probably in circles) to mostly no avail.
Episodes two and three cover mostly the same ground and could easily have been combined into one. It isn’t until episode four, when Commander Azaxyr and a force of Ice Warriors come to take over the planet in the name of the Federation, that anything other the same old, same old happens.
There is a surprise twist or two in the final two episodes that almost (but not quite) makes this serial stand out above the mediocre. There is a brief attempt by Sarah Jane to convince the Queen of Peladon that she should stand up more herself, but not too long afterward, the latter is dragged along as a hostage just as damsels in distress always did, long before women’s lib came along.
It should be noted that Commander Azaxyr’s full-face helmeted and caped garb, along with his heavy breathing while talking, is unmistakably an early prototype of Darth Vader, well before the latter showed up in a totally different setting.
September 21st, 2015 at 12:17 am
The low budget shows on this one, and I agree it isn’t the best written episode. The third Doctor seemed to fare better when Earth bound for my taste. He always seemed better suited to ginning around in that old jalopy than the TARDIS, maybe it was the cape. All my favorite episodes of his are set on Earth involving UNIT.
Ironically the current Doctor most reminds me of Pertwee, maybe because they make less effort to make him likable than any version since Pertwee. Hopefully they have toned it down a bit this season since for much of the last one he was just a huge prat with a Scottish accent in all save a few top notch episodes (Robin Hood? Really, Robin Hood?).
And there was a tendency in those days with the low budgets for many alien set episodes to consist of running around in rather spare looking hallways, something the better stories usually made me forget about, but which could be painfully obvious when the your mind wandered a bit.
September 21st, 2015 at 1:58 pm
I agree with David. The low budget on this one shows. My favorite ones with Pertwee are the ones in which he faces off with Roger Delgado’s The Master
September 21st, 2015 at 2:33 pm
It tends to be the least liked story of the 1974 season amongst fans. The previous Peladon story was fun, but there was no real need to return other than the obvious one of re-using costumes and sets in order to save money.
It’s a little early to say what Capaldi’s Doctor will be like this year, but they do seem to have toned down the more unpleasant apsects judging by the first episode of the new season. A favourite of the Pertwee stories is CARNIVAL OF MONSTERS, which is an alien set story, and DEATH TO THE DALEKS from the ’74 season is rather fun. One of the ways that they were able to keep the longer stories fresh was to go from the ‘here and now’ to some wild setting over the course of the six episodes. THE TIME MONSTER starts off at Cambridge University but ends up thousands of years ago in the lost city of Atlantis!