The Monster of Peladon Part One

The one where the Doctor returns to Peladon 50 years later...

It's a bit short-sighted of the production team to take us back to Peladon so soon after our trip to Exxilon, because the aesthetic and design of the two planets is too similar. Basically, rocks and caves! I also have to ask myself whether we need a return to Peladon, although seeing as the first story was so good, I'll wait and see what Brian Hayles comes up with this time. His scripts have certainly improved in leaps and bounds since his first effort with The Celestial Toymaker.

The spirit of Aggedor - the big cuddly rhino-bear thing that everybody worshipped in The Curse of Peladon - seems to be killing scantily-clad middle-aged men with haircuts like badger hides. The badger wigs of the Pel miners is a major misstep which renders these characters utterly redundant when it comes to serious drama. They look silly, it's unavoidable. I can accept and turn a blind eye to rubbish dinosaurs, or wobbly sets, but when it comes to ridiculous wig choices, it's hard to take anything they're saying seriously.

And why is it only the miners of Peladon who have hair like this? I know the people of Peladon generally have different hair, often striped or coloured, but the miners' hair is something else again! I feel so sorry for the likes of actors Ralph Watson (Ettis) and Rex Robinson (Gebek), who did sterling work in their other Doctor Who appearances, but are completely undermined in their sincerity here by frizzy afro badger wigs! They almost completely envelop their faces!

Anyway, enough of the wigs (for now). There's Vega Nexos to talk about. He's another poorly realised alien, principally because the russet hair on his arms is hanging off, and his eyes are skew-whiff! The mask poor Gerald Taylor has to wear as Vega Nexos is badly thought out, as the holes cut in the eye-shields for him to see through aren't level, so make him look boss-eyed. I can see exactly how it's happened: the mask manufacturer cut out two identical templates for the eyepieces, but the mask was then put together with the eye-pieces in opposing positions, like yin and yang, meaning the holes don't match. It's pretty awful.

There's a lot of politicking goes on in the first five minutes of the story, which is quite a turn-off for the younger viewers who just want invasions, monsters and spaceships. We're reunited with the shrill Alpha Centauri, and introduced to Peladon's new ruler, Queen Thalira, her fruity chancellor Ortron, and a man named Eckersley, who's in charge of trisilicate mining on behalf of the Federation.

Eckersley is played by Donald Gee (who was also in The Space Pirates), but it's astonishing just how much like Tom Baker he is here, both in appearance and mannerism. It's almost as if the Doctor's next incarnation is inspired by Eckersley!

Peladon - and the Federation as a whole - is at war with Galaxy Five, and needs as much trisilicate as it can get its hands on, as their whole technology is based upon it: electronic circuitry, heat shields, inert microcell fibres, radionic crystals... The Federation has sent new-fangled super-technology to Peladon to speed up the mining process, but the superstitious badger miners are wary of it, and when the "spirit of Aggedor" starts manifesting and killing every time the tech is used, the workers would rather down tools. To be honest, I don't blame them, because both times we see the sonic lance used, somebody dies horribly.

When the Doctor (resplendent in green) and Sarah are taken to the throne room, the Doctor is thrown slightly when he discovers it's not his old pal Peladon on the throne, but his daughter Thalira. Nobody knows who he is... except for good old hermaphrodite hexapod Alpha Centauri, now commonly referred to as a "he" (much preferable to the "it" used by the Doctor in The Curse of Peladon!).

It's hilarious watching feminist Sarah Jane react to the backward beliefs of Peladon society, which forbids females speaking out of turn, and sees males as their masters ("He is not my master!"). After everything's been cleared up, and the Doctor and Sarah are released into Alpha Centauri's custody, Sarah pushes a bit more and demands an apology from the Queen. She needs to brush up on her diplomacy skills, I think!

But there is a nice little moment between Sarah and Alpha Centauri when they're left alone, and the hexapod meekly admits that some humans find his appearance frightening, and Sarah apologises and says she's just "a bit jumpy"! On the face of things, Alpha Centauri is quite an arresting sight - after all he's, to all intents and purposes, a walking penis with a giant eye! Nice fella, though.

The Doctor and the Queen's Champion, Blor, go to the location of the last sighting of the spirit of Aggedor and are trapped in the cave by an explosion set up by rebel miner Ettis. When they come round, they are faced by the spirit of Aggedor, which promptly destroys the terrified Blor. "What the... blazes is that?" mutters the Doctor. Well, it's Aggedor, Doctor, and you really ought to recognise it!

First broadcast: March 23rd, 1974

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: In an oasis of brown and mauve, Jon Pertwee's verdant ensemble is magnificent!
The Bad: Badger wigs and skew-whiff masks.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 33
Neck-rub tally: 15

NEXT TIME: Part Two...

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