Who Review: The Creature from the Pit
While cleaning out Storage Bay number four in the TARDIS, Romana comes across a Mark Three Emergency Transceiver. Originally a part of the TARDIS, the Doctor removed it because it meant the Time Lords could send him off chasing distress signals. Romana reattaches it and immediately sends the TARDIS off chasing a signal. They end up on the planet Chloris where their attention is drawn to a what the Doctor believes to be a large metallic shell. They soon encounter the local rulers, led by Adrasta, who keep control through her Huntsman and the vicious wolfweeds, balls of plant life that attack upon command. On their way to Adrasta’s palace, their capture party is set upon by bandits who make off with Romana. She learns from her captors that metal of all kinds is a scarce and precious commodity. The Doctor, meanwhile, is concerned for Romana’s welfare, and from Adrasta learns about the pit that is the fate of all who oppose her. It seems there’s a creature at the bottom of this pit that deals with anyone unfortunate enough to drop in. Adrasta wants to learn more about the metallic shell, to know what the Doctor knows. The Doctor is far more interested in the creature, so when she leads the Doctor back out to where the shell and the pit are, rather than face her weapons, he jumps down the pit…
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!
David Fisher returned to write this story, though I detect the strong influence of Douglas Adams, especially in the humor. And there are a lot of one-liners, witty comments, and facetious remarks, which are not uncommon for the Fourth Doctor, but here perhaps too much. The story begins with K-9 reading “Peter Rabbit” to the Doctor, which is a bit odd. Very Douglas Adams (the incongruity of a computer dog reading a children’s story), but not very Doctor Who (at least to me). I don’t have a problem with the Doctor being funny, but there’s seems to be a tongue-in-cheek attitude that pervades the whole story, even to the supporting cast, which undermines the drama.
The premise of the story is that of an alien ambassador, Erato, coming to the planet to trade. The people of Chloris need metal, whereas the people on the ambassador’s planet, Tythonus, are in need of plant life. Adrasta, however, wants to keep control of the planet’s metal supply as a means of maintaining power, so she imprisons the ambassador in a pit. That way, metal remains scarce and valuable, making Adrasta rich and powerful. Adrasta uses fear of the creature in the pit to manipulate people, throwing them in with Erato if they disobey.
This isn’t a bad premise, and creates some interesting conflicts between Adrasta and her followers, the bandits and scavengers who will go to murderous lengths to get metal, and Erato, who simply wants to be set free to return home. Things get a little more complicated when the Tythonians shoot a neutron star at Chloris as retaliation for the capture of their ambassador, but the Doctor helps Erato neutralize the threat. The method he uses (having Erato cover the star with metal, and the Doctor then using a gravity beam from the TARDIS to pull it off course) seems preposterous, even though the basic idea was suggested to David Fisher by members of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University. Of course, that doesn’t automatically make it a good idea. Which it isn’t.
Despite some iffy plot choices, the story isn’t bad, and might be forgiven much if it weren’t for a number of things. First is the overabundance of humor, which I’ve already noted. Second is the failure of many of the effects, particularly Erato himself. The big blob with a huge proboscis was a tall order for an effects team on a small budget, but what they ended up with was not at all frightening, or even intimidating. One of the effects people put a pincer on the end of the proboscis so it didn’t look quite so… um… rude. But it was beyond saving. Erato has to be one of the biggest Who monster fails in the show’s history (along with the dinosaurs in “Invasion of the Dinosaurs”).
The wolfweed perhaps look better than Erato, but move like they are being pulled by string (which they probably are). K-9 blasts one of them, but then is unable to continue blasting them when they start engulfing him. Surely he could have kept shooting at them to keep them off? K-9 is voiced by David Brierley, not John Leeson, who, for whatever reason, was not available this season. Brierley’s K-9 voice is much more animated than Leeson’s, sometimes sounding condescending and impatient. In other words, he sounds too much like a human doing a computer voice. It’s as if Brierley didn’t even try to mimic Leeson’s characterization, which is unfortunate.
I was a little perplexed by the episode three cliffhanger, in that I wasn’t sure exactly what the cliffhanger was. The Doctor puts the communication shield on Erato, which will enable him to talk. Adrasta screams, “NO! NO!” and that’s it. Did I miss something? In the following episode we learn why Adrasta doesn’t want Erato to talk, but at this point we have no clue as to how the Doctor, Romana, K-9, or anyone else is threatened by this shield being placed on Erato. Where’s the danger?
To sum up, if you’re a completist, or a die-hard Whovian, you don’t need my counsel, you’ll watch it anyway. For the rest, feel free to skip “The Creature from the Pit.” It adds nothing to our appreciation of the show, and it doesn’t do either David Fisher or Douglas Adams any favors.
