The Monster of Peladon Part Five

The one where Eckersley is revealed as a traitor...

After the walloping Ettis gives the Doctor you'd expect him to have a few cuts and bruises, but the Time Lord comes out of it all remarkably well, just a bit shaken and dishevelled (I hate to see that lovely green combo dishevelled!). Sarah, watching from the comms room on a monitor, believes the Doctor to be dead, leading to Azaxyr's prescient line: "The death of the Doctor was an unfortunate necessity." Well, it wouldn't be shown for another 36 years yet, but Death of the Doctor wasn't that bad at all, Azaxyr...!

It's interesting that Sarah's first thought isn't for herself and how she is now stranded on Peladon without the Doctor or a means to operate the TARDIS. She mourns her friend, telling Thalira that "he was the most alive person I ever met". Just you wait until the next story, Sarah. Then you'll get a shock!

Azaxyr's plan isn't very clear to me. He announces that he is going to take complete control of Peladon by becoming its new ruler, with Thalira as a mere figurehead, and force the Pels to mine the trisilicate for Galaxy 5. By the end of the episode the whole truth comes out, that Eckersley is an undercover agent of the Martians' and is working with them to take control of the trisilicate mines and sell it for an inflated price to Galaxy 5 to help whoever lives there win the war against the Federation. By the end of it all Eckersley intends to become ruler of Earth! Emperor Eckersley!

But Azaxyr also decides to cut off the air supply to the mines to flush the rebel Pels out, with Ice Warriors waiting at all exits to destroy them as they emerge. Modern tools will be used to mine the trisilicate, meaning the miners of Peladon are no longer needed after all.

Something that intrigues me is who does live in Galaxy 5? Who is at war with the Federation? On screen, it's never confirmed, but in the New Adventure Legacy, author Gary Russell retcons Galaxy 5 as a terrorist organisation, rather than an actual galaxy, which works much better with the assertion that Azaxyr and his chums are a breakaway group from the main Martian administration, which remains part of the Federation. This retconning also succeeds in separating The Monster of Peladon's Galaxy 5 from the Fifth Galaxy mentioned in The Daleks' Master Plan.

Further observations about this episode:

• Ortron is redeemed by finally gaining respect for his Queen as soon as she starts to stand up for herself, and her people. And as is traditional, his redemption comes at a price, as he is mercilessly shot down by an Ice Warrior when trying to escape. Bye-bye Ortron.
• There's still far too much sneaking around corridors and hiding from passing monsters. This story is your typical runaround, with far too much meaningless padding and false jeopardy. It takes the Doctor most of the episode to get to, and then inside, the refinery, for goodness sake!
• The explanation for the "spirit of Aggedor" is muddled. The Doctor says that Eckersley has designed a matter projector which projects an image of the statue to wherever it's needed, accompanied by a heat ray which "does the damage". So if it's just a projected image of the statue, why does the statue disappear and reappear during the process?
• Ice Warriors don't like heat, do they? So why do they use heat rays to burn through the refinery door at the end? Surely that would be anathema to them? What's wrong with their usual sonic weaponry?

This fifth episode is yet another installment which fails to add very much at all to what has been a lacklustre serial. As a follow-up to the magnificent The Curse of Peladon, and as Jon Pertwee's penultimate story, it's proven a huge disappointment.

First broadcast: April 20th, 1974

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: It's nice to see Thalira grow into a confident ruler after spending time with Sarah!
The Bad: This story really is running on empty, and it didn't have all that much fuel in the tank to begin with.
Overall score for episode: ★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 34
Neck-rub tally: 16

NEXT TIME: Part Six...

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

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/the-monster-of-peladon.html

The Monster of Peladon is available on BBC DVD as part of the Peladon Tales box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Peladon-Tales-Monster/dp/B002SZQC70