The Creature from the Pit Part Three

The one where the Doctor tries (and fails) to communicate with the creature...

The creature from the pit looks like a giant plastic carrier bag. There are actually endless amusing ways to describe what the creature prop looks like - many have done so, many more have yet to try - but what it essentially boils down to is that it looks absolutely appalling. It's one of the biggest design flops in Doctor Who history. It's not as if designers haven't managed to come up with similar monsters convincingly in the past (the Axons, Krynoid and Rutans spring to mind), but visual effects designer Mat Irvine really does drop the ball here, producing something that makes the programme a laughing stock.

Pity poor Tom Baker who has to spend half the episode in a one-way conversation with the thing. It's a testament to Baker's ability to hold a scene by sheer personality alone that he gets through it at all, but you can see him failing to suppress his mirth at one point. It's inadvisable that he should gently tap the creature's skin, as that merely emphasises the fact it's made of polythene. But it's absolutely the wrong choice to make when he lifts the creature's waggly appendage and blows into it. We're supposed to see the Doctor investigating whether it is a voicepipe, but what we actually see is Doctor Who wandering dangerously close to adult entertainment (a word I use loosely).

The creature prop utterly ruins any attempt writer David Fisher is making to weave a good story, with Irvine's design undermining the running narrative. It's at its worst when director Christopher Barry unwisely shows the creature in long shot as it trundles its way about like an effeminate elephant. I imagine this is how silly the Macra, but at least that story had the good fortune to be made in black and white, and then thrown away.

This third episode takes a terrible tumble in my estimation as the story degenerates into an uninspiring runaround. Romana is reduced to becoming a bearer for K-9, whose power packs seem so fragile in this story that he can do very little for very long before he starts to close down. Still, that allows the wonderful moment when K-9, sitting atop a table, says: "Guard! Lift me down!" primly. There's a definite superiority about David Brierley's interpretation of K-9's dialogue which seems to work hand in hand with the new Romana!

Adrasta seems hell bent on rescuing/ capturing the Doctor when she really doesn't need him at all. She's got Romana and K-9, I don't see why she also needs the Doctor in order to execute her plan to travel through time and space in the TARDIS gathering metallic ores for her treasury. It's merely Fisher's requirement that the Doctor is rescued and reunited with the others, but I cannot see how it is a requirement of Adrasta to do so. And why does she want the creature from the pit destroyed all of a sudden? She's been throwing dissenters into the pit to their doom as a form of punishment and execution, and nothing's changed in that regard.

Fisher's writing has dipped now that people aren't talking to one another properly. The Doctor's saddled with a mute blob, while Romana has little to do other than carry K-9 about and occasionally use him as a very bulky laser gun. Poor Eileen Way has next to nothing to do or say as Karela, who started off so strongly in part 1, while Geoffrey Bayldon's mercurial Organon has gone from one of the best things in part 2 to a mere aside in part 3. It's a shameful waste of two good actors in two good roles, but Fisher seems to have lost focus on his characters somewhat, and as a result the story is becoming bland.

I mean, what purpose do the annoying bandits actually serve? They abducted Romana in part 1, but she managed to escape. They had one paltry scene in part 2, and here they raid Adrasta's castle for her metal trinkets while she's out, completely separate and superfluous to the main action. They serve a practical purpose by fetching the creature's shield device under some form of hypnosis, but that could have been done by anyone, such as a couple of Adrasta's guards. The bandits are just annoying, and should have been removed in a redraft.

Adrasta is very afraid of the creature, which she accidentally identifies as a Tythonian, so she definitely knows more than she is letting on. The end of the episode degenerates into one of those awful hammy 1930s Saturday serial moments where the baddie gives the hero "six seconds" to comply - why six seconds? - but Myra Frances is giving her all as the villainess begins to unravel through both fear and frustration. The pantomime heights she was keeping in check earlier in the story begin to push their way into her performance, but it kind of fits as Adrasta becomes more and more unhinged, and so very, very afraid of the green monster. As the Tythonian blob moves in on her, Adrasta screams in horror, her terrified face lit in a putrid mossy emerald. Lighting designer Warwick Fielding had it handed to him on a plate with this story, didn't he?

First broadcast: November 10th, 1979

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Myra Frances makes for a wonderful villainess.
The Bad: The realisation of the creature is laughable and undermines the story, while the loss of Organon as an active character is a real shame.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 20

NEXT TIME: Part Four...

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

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: https://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-creature-from-pit.html

The Creature from the Pit is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Creature-Pit-DVD/dp/B003DA60C6