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...

Planet of the Spiders Part Five

The one where the giant spiders begin their invasion of Earth...

There's unrest among the giant spiders of Metebelis III. It's quite frustrating that the spiders don't have individual names because it's hard to identify them when writing about them here! Lupton's spider harbours treasonous thoughts of staging a coup to depose the queen spider, but what's interesting is that there's another arachnid which is even higher than the queen, some kind of deity figure called the Great One. The queen spider agrees to go and speak with the Great One to seek advice, and it's key that we don't actually see this scene, as the next time we see the queen, she is conspiring with Sarah Jane Smith.

The queen tells Sarah that all she wants is peace with the people of Earth, and her crystal back. Suddenly, the queen is a pacifist democrat who is open to the idea of abolishing slavery, but she's only been that way since visiting the Great One. I'm sorry, but I don't believe a word of the queen's supposed capitulations, and Sarah would be more wary than she is too.

Planet of the Spiders Part Four

The one where Sarah becomes food in the spiders' larder...

I'm going to get it out of the way early: Tuar and Arak make for a fine pair of brothers, don't they? Ralph Arliss and Gareth Hunt are well cast by director Barry Letts as they are convincing as siblings, and both are handsome young men with fine facial hair. Arliss would go on to be just as impressive in 1979's Quatermass IV, while Hunt would soon find greater fame as Gambit in The New Avengers. I've always found it rather sobering to see actors I admire in this way captured forever in their prime in TV and film, and then think of what the passage of time has done to them (and us all). Doctor Who fans live in the past, poring over old episodes and analysing them, picking them apart (rather like me and this blog!). To us, these people - these characters and actors - are still as they were back then. Ralph Arliss will forever be a handsome 27-year-old, and Gareth Hunt will forever be thought of as action man Gambit, or shaking those Nescafe coffee beans in his hand in those 1980s adverts. So when the inevitability of time catches up with them - as it did Hunt in 2007 - Doctor Who fans feel the loss that little bit more, and mourn appropriately.

Gareth Hunt may be gone, and Ralph Arliss may be in his 70s now, but for Doctor Who fans, Tuar and Arak will never die.

Planet of the Spiders Part Three

The one where Sarah is transported to Metebelis III...

Tommy has been lurking around the corridors of the meditation centre throughout the story so far with nothing in particular to do. He seems to live under the stairs, collect shiny things and displays the mental age of someone much younger than his physical self. I guess he must be at the meditation centre to try and develop his mental capacity in some way. John Kane does a great job of making Tommy - a quite formidable physical presence - a gentle, sympathetic, sweet soul, although it's hard not to compare his demeanour, speech pattern and love of "pretties" with Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.

What I like about this third episode is the focus on characters such as Tommy, and most particularly on Lupton, who's given a back-story and a reason for being at the meditation centre which is both tragic and slightly unnerving. Lupton was a "bright young salesman, Salesman of the Year, sales manager, sales director". Then the money men came in, and after 25 years of loyal service, a takeover and merger meant Lupton got a golden handshake. And when Lupton tried to set up business on his own, his former employers "deliberately, cold-bloodedly broke me. I'm still looking for some of the bits..."