Planet of the Spiders Part Six

The one where the Doctor faces his fear, and loses his face...

So this is it, the end of Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor era. And although Planet of the Spiders hasn't been the swansong I wanted for him, it's nice that, at the end, Pertwee was surrounded by a good many familiar faces, whether it be Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney, John Levene and Richard Franklin on screen, or Barry Letts, Terrance Dicks and Robert Sloman off it. And let's not forget that almost everybody else involved in Planet of the Spiders has had a hand in one of Pertwee's stories beforehand: Cyril Shaps (The Ambassadors of Death), John Dearth (The Green Death), Christopher Burgess (Terror of the Autons), Terence Lodge (Carnival of Monsters), Andrew Staines (Terror of the Autons and Carnival of Monsters), Kevin Lindsay (The Time Warrior), Pat Gorman (several), Terry Walsh (several), Stuart Fell (The Curse/ Monster of Peladon), Ysanne Churchman (The Curse/ Monster of Peladon), Walter Randall (Inferno), Max Faulkner (several) and George Cormack (The Time Monster). And let's not forget Kismet Delgado, Roger's widow, and Maureen Morris, wife of production manager George Gallaccio.

It was a veritable reunion for Pertwee, a familiar environment in which to say goodbye. But first, the viewers must say goodbye too...

The start of the sixth episode is a strange hotch-potch of new and old. After the usual 90-second reprise, we learn that Sarah has been possessed by the queen spider all along, which sits on her back, controlling her mind. The Doctor and K'anpo manage to empower Sarah to shrug off the spider's hold on her, after which we cut to the action on the other side of the door where Tommy is facing off Barnes and his men. This rather drawn out scene was actually the final scene of part 5, but is slotted into part 6 slightly further into the plot. Weird. Wouldn't it have been better to have the reveal of the spider on Sarah's back as the cliffhanger?

There comes a moment where the Doctor realises that he has met K'anpo before. Although it is not explicitly stated, the abbot is the hermit to which the Doctor referred earlier in the story, and as far back as The Time Monster (it's fitting that the Doctor told Jo about the hermit while imprisoned in Atlantis, ruled over by King Dalios, played by George Cormack!). The Doctor says that K'anpo believes everything that has happened is the Doctor's fault. When the Doctor stole the blue crystal from Metebelis III in The Green Death, he set in motion a sequence of events that led directly to this calamity. The Doctor says that his greed for knowledge and information is to blame.

If the Doctor hadn't taken the crystal, the giant spiders would not be plotting an invasion of Earth to get it back. But surely, even if they had the crystal, the Great One still planned to return to their rightful home, it would have just happened quicker? However, certain things definitely would not have happened if the Doctor hadn't stolen the crystal, such as the death of Herbert Clegg or the mental subjugation of poor Lupton. One good thing comes of it though: the renewed mental capacity for Tommy, so it's not all bad, is it Mr Rimpoche?

There's a timely reminder of what regeneration is too (although the term itself hasn't been used before), informing both Sarah and the audience in readiness for what is to come. The Doctor does not make it clear to Sarah that regeneration means a whole new body, face and personality, although she kind of gets that idea when she witnesses K'anpo regenerate later in the episode. I believe this is the first time we see a Time Lord other than the Doctor regenerate on screen in the series. Rather wonderfully, we learn that Cho-je is a projection of K'anpo's self, which is all the clearer if you've seen Logopolis (which hasn't been written yet!). So Cho-je was K'anpo all the time, the equivalent of the Doctor's Watcher.

The Doctor realises what he must do: return the blue crystal to the Great One, putting right the wrong he committed in the first place and facing up to his personal demon, which is his fear of being wrong, a fear of failure or giving up. The Doctor isn't to know that the Great One's positive feedback circuit will cause her ultimate destruction. Not just yet anyway. So his resignation to the fact he must return to the cave of crystal, which will destroy every cell in his body, is a mighty self-sacrifice for a man who thinks an awful lot of himself. It's a well-considered ending for a proud (sometimes condescending) Doctor.

Before the final confrontation, K'anpo explains that it was Mike's compassion for Tommy, and Tommy's innate innocence, which protected them from being killed by the lightning bolts, suggesting that a goodness of heart or intent is a defence. But if that is the case, surely the lightning bolt that fells the Doctor on Metebelis III shouldn't have had such a debilitating effect? I mean, the Doctor is a good man at heart and in intent, surely?

After returning the crystal to the Great One - a very clever use of perspective to make a regular spider prop look enormous - the Doctor struggles back to the TARDIS before the Great One's mountain explodes. No thought is given to the inevitable release of deadly radiation by this explosion, which would undoubtedly poison the land, sea and sky, and the local population too (sorry about that, Tuar).

The TARDIS is lost in the vortex for more than three weeks before it brings the Doctor "home" to the UNIT lab. It's a lovely moment when Sarah Jane gently clutches the Doctor's coat (which, tellingly, he wore in The Green Death) and sniffs it, trying to get a scent of him. After collapsing to the floor, make-up artist Deanne Turner does a fantastic job of making Pertwee look at death's door. His pallid, grey, watery face is close to death, and Pertwee croaks his final words so pathetically that you can't help but feel a lump rise in the throat. This is it, the moment where the man of action, the Time Lord who brought colour and style to Doctor Who, the actor who gave the series a huge boost when it needed it the most... this is the moment he'll be gone forever.

"While there's life, there's..." He doesn't even manage to get his last sentence out before "dying", although thankfully the renewed K'anpo is on hand to give the Doctor's regeneration a "little push" (perhaps using some of his own residual regenerative energy?). "Here we go again," says the Brigadier as Jon Pertwee's face slowly fades into that of a new man. By 'eck! It's Eckersley!

The regeneration scene is quietly, modestly poignant and sad. It's not got the whizz-bang-wallop of The Caves of Androzani, or the laboured schmaltz of Twice Upon a Time. It's understated but meaningful, in keeping with the feel of this story (though not this Doctor). Thank you, Mr Pertwee, for five seasons of action, fun, warmth and scares. Before I embarked on the Pertwee era for this marathon, I wasn't the biggest fan of the Third Doctor, but now I've been through it, I get it so much more. I think the era as a whole gets gradually less engaging (although there are plenty of diamonds in the rough), but the clarity of vision for Season 7, the heartwarming relationship between Pertwee and Katy Manning, and the consistency of social awareness inherent in many of the stories makes it a very special, unique era. I've unexpectedly fallen in love with The Claws of Axos and Planet of the Daleks, and been reminded just how good some "forgotten gems" are, such as The Sea Devils and Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

Just don't make me watch The Monster of Peladon again.

In Doctor Who's seven-month absence, its Saturday teatime slot was taken by Grandstand, a wisely forgotten series called We Want to Sing which featured hundreds of children taking part in sing-a-longs (although one featured Bernard Cribbins singing Right Said Fred, which I want to see!), and Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game. When the Doctor returned just after Christmas, he - and the series - would never be the same again...

First broadcast: June 8th, 1974

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The regeneration of K'anpo into Cho-je is a masterstroke in setting up the regeneration of the Doctor.
The Bad: I kind of want to know what happens to everybody else. Is Lupton dead or stunned? What next for super-Tommy? What will be Mike Yates' next step? What about Barnes, Keaver, Land and Moss?
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (story average: 5 out of 10)

"Now listen to me" tally: 37 - the Doctor tells Sarah to listen to him when trying to rid her of the spider, and later he tells the Great One: "Now listen to me... listen!" It's lovely that he gets to say it twice in his final episode. Statistically, the Third Doctor says "Now listen to me" once every three and a half episodes! Don't worry, I won't be counting the amount of times the next Doctor says it!
Neck-rub tally: 17 - no more neck rubs, sadly. The Third Doctor rubs the back of his neck once every seven and a half episodes, which is nowhere near as often as I expected. So there you go.

NEXT TIME: Robot...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Two; Part Three; Part Four; Part Five

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/06/planet-of-spiders.html

Planet of the Spiders is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Planet-Spiders-DVD/dp/B004P9MUK0