Who Review: The Monster of Peladon
The Doctor wants to pay Peladon a return visit, so he takes Sarah Jane back there, with the intention of dropping in on his old friend, the king. However, it is now fifty years after the events of “The Curse of Peladon,” and there’s a new monarch: Queen Thalira, King Peladon’s daughter. And there’s trouble brewing. The miners don’t like the conditions under which they are forced to work. And yet the precious trisilicate they are mining is essential in the Galactic Federation’s war with Galaxy Five. Now that Peladon is a member of the Galactic Federation, it is obliged to help, but the miners are resentful of the Federation since it’s because of them, and the new tools and weapons they want to introduce, that they are suffering. Alpha Centuri, now a Federation Ambassador, is on Peladon to help settle the dispute. Then visions of Aggador, the beast worshiped by the Peladonians, start appearing, killing miners. Chancellor Ortron is convinced it’s a sign of Aggedor’s displeasure with the aliens on Peladon. The Queen isn’t sure, so she calls on the Doctor to help find out what’s going on, and bring peace to the planet. But there’s more to the situation than disgruntled miners. It seems Aggedor may not be the only monster on Peladon…
SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen this serial. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!
This six part story is one of the few times in Doctor Who when the Doctor makes a return trip to a planet he visited in a previous serial. Last time he was on Peladon, he took Jo Grant, who ended up getting a marriage proposal from the king. This time, he takes Sarah Jane, who tries to instill some feminist values into the young queen.
While “Monster of Peladon” harks back to “The Curse of Peladon” from two years previously, it works as a stand-alone. If you’ve never seen “Curse” you can follow “Monster” without any problem. If you have seen “Curse,” though, there are some things you’ll pick up on. The opening shot, for example, looks identical to the opening shot of “Curse.” You’ll also pick up on the references to the Doctor’s last visit, as well as the Doctor’s way of dealing with the physical Aggedor (which takes a bit of the punch away from one of the cliff hangers). As with the last visit, we have visions of Aggedor being used to scare people toward a certain point of view. But this time, there’s more to the plot, with a hidden enemy attempting to control the war with Galaxy Five through the supply of trisilicate, and a double agent on the scene trying to get rich from the precious mineral.
The double agent was a good twist to the plot, and, I think, necessary given one could quite easily figure out the main monster reveal. Brian Hayles wrote the story, as he did “The Curse of Peladon.” In “Curse,” the Ice Warriors played a prominent role. Brian Hayles created the Ice Warriors, and wrote the stories that introduced them in the Second Doctor era. It only makes sense that the Ice Warriors would play a part in “Monster,” too. While the Ice Warriors in “Curse” were trying to play nice with everyone, the ones in “Monster” are from a faction that want to return to the glory days, when the martians were a fearful military force.
On the whole, this is a good story, with an interesting plot. As I said, the double agent was a good plot twist, and one that wasn’t revealed until late into the story. You get hints that this person might be up to no good, but nothing overt, especially at first. The costume people did a great job with Azaxyr, the main Ice Warrior. The scaly mouth works well, and holds up even today, I think, with our high special effects expectations. Another special effects win (I think) is the scene where the Doctor and Sarah are thrown down a pit. The director achieves this by showing them being pushed, then cutting away to them flailing around against a black backdrop, and then cutting to them falling on the ground. It sounds a bit cheesy when described, but it’s actually quite effective.
On the negative side, we have the badger-headed miners. Okay, so it’s not their heads so much as their stripy hair. It just looks odd, like they’re wearing close-fitting fur hats. Which they probably are. And then there’s a scene where a guard sits sharpening his sword. A few moments later, he holds it by the blade. Ouch! A bit of a continuity oversight, methinks. 🙂
“The Monster of Peladon” is the penultimate story of Jon Pertwee’s final season as Doctor Who, and it seems that for this season, Jon wanted to get as much fighting, sword play, and other action hero kind of stuff in as possible. In “Invasion of the Dinosaurs,” the Doctor got his new car. In this story, as with “The Time Warrior,” the Doctor gets into some sword fights, as well as an epic fist fight.
Looking ahead, there are a couple of lines in this story that will reappear in the next. In one scene, Sarah quotes the Doctor as saying, “Where there’s life…” In another scene, Sarah weeps over the Doctor, thinking he’s dead. The Doctor’s eyes flicker open and he says, “Tears…?” There’s a poignancy to where these lines crop up in the Third Doctor’s last story.
To sum up, I’d say “The Monster of Peladon” is worth watching. The plot is twisty enough to stay interesting, even if it does repeat some themes from the previous Peladon story. Yet there’s enough that’s different to make it worthwhile. And despite the miners’ hair disaster, is not bad visually.
