The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon: The Curse Of Peladon
The Curse Of Peladon: Episode One (29/01/12)
Wow! Okay, so we're on an alien planet (Peladon) this week and I don't think there's ever been a story with so many different aliens! For a start, the Ice Warriors are back (Yay!) along with an Arcturan and an Alpha Centauran (respectively, a head in a jar and a penis in a cape).
The Doctor took the TARDIS for a test run following his experiments at the start of the last story, Jo going along 'all dolled up for a night on the town with Mike Yates' apparently (though what she was thinking they were going to do in that get up is anyone's guess - 'Come Dancing' is about all that springs to mind!).
Anyhow, the aliens are on Peladon as delegates (again - two stories in a row with delegates!) of the Galactic Federation, deciding whether to allow Peladon to join. Only the Earth delegate is missing. The TARDIS landed on a cliff beneath the hugely impressive Peladonian Citadel and fell to its non-destruction, leaving the Doctor and Jo to crawl about and find a tunnel that led into the Citadel's secret passages. Upon entering the Citadel, they were caught by guards and mistaken for the Earth delegate and a royal representative - Jo was very good at this bit.
It turns out that (backtracking) King Peladon's Chancellor, Torbis, was seemingly killed by the spirit of their mythical guardian, Aggedor. Torbis was pro-Federation whilst the High Priest, Hepesh, was not. This has jeopardised the talks and it seems the Doctor has turned up just in time to be intermediary. However, Hepesh sent the King's Champion to loosen a statue of Aggedor to fall on the delegates as they pass beneath (cue cliffhanger).
Utterly fantastic! The episode flew by and really didn't feel like 24 and a half minutes! Most of it was exposition, but the amount! So much background detail, not just for Peladon (King Peladon's mother was Human, for example) but others, too - the Ice Warriors still retain a monarchy and have given up their warrior-like ways! Brilliant, absolutely brilliant! Best non-Earth-based story since the series began!
The Curse Of Peladon: Episode Two (05/02/12)
Lots of intrigue this week, and the plot is rolling along! The Doctor pushed everyone out the way of the falling statue and a debate ensued as to whether the delegates should leave. While this was going on, Jo sneaked off and found the passage Grun (the King's Champion) used to get to the statue, and a sonic key (or something) which she later showed the Doctor leading him to believe the Ice Warriors are behind the murder attempt. Given that it's Hepesh and Grun who are doing it to try and drive the Federation away, it's nice that the Ice Warriors are there as a Red Herring. So far, they've been wonderfully written as good guys and it's a nice twist, although they weren't actually villains in their first story, either!
Anyhow, someone attacked Arcturus and stole a circuit from his life support tank (but not one that would result in fatality) and Jo sneaked off (she does that a lot this week) to look in the Ice Warriors room. She found the circuit, but Ssorg walked in on her and locked her in believing she was planting it. He took it back to Izlyr (while Jo escaped through a window) and while Grun led the Doctor off to be killed by the very real monster, Aggedor, Jo saw said monster by the secret tunnels and ran into Izlyr and Ssorg returning to their room to question her.
Left alone in the tunnels, the Doctor was chased by Aggedor while Jo and the Ice Warriors sorted out their differences. Then the Doctor stumbled through a secret door into Aggedor's Holy Temple and was caught by Hepesh and Grun and taken before the King. Unfortunately, the penalty for desecrating Aggedor's inner sanctum (oo-er) is death!!!
Firstly, this script barely stops for breath and, compared to most other stories over the past few years, is very wordy and adult. It comes across more like an Historical tan anything else and is all the better for it! All the characters are well written and fully rounded, especially Jo, and even with all the running around there's been a couple of quiet scenes (Jo and Peladon, and Jo and the Doctor). Plot-wise, it's very clever, too. Hope it keeps the momentum!
The Curse Of Peladon: Episode Three (12/02/12)
...Death, or a fight with the King's Champion.
So, the Doctor gets locked up 'til his fight at dawn and is visited by Hepesh who gives him a map of the secret tunnels and tells him to leave and never return to Peladon as he doesn't want the planet to join the Federation as they'll only exploit Peladon's mineral wealth. So what does the Doctor do? He builds a hypnotising contraption and goes into the tunnels in search of Aggedor!
Meanwhile, Jo has failed to persuade Arcturus and Alpha Centauri to help free the Doctor, but once out of the throne room finds Izlyr willing to help, returning the favour of a life saved at the end of Episode One! However, Arcturus was eavesdropping! They plan to free the Doctor and head off through the tunnels, so Izlyr goes off to free the Doctor while Jo goes to wait at the entrance to the tunnels. Finding the Doctor gone, Izlyr goes to confront Peladon, but Jo's found the Doctor in the tunnels with a calm and peacefully hypnotised Aggedor, a beast that lives in the mountain! Jo scares Aggedor off and gets herself comedy-hypnotised (the Doctor used a Venusian Lullaby sung to the tune of 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen'!).
Then the Doctor returned to the throne room to confront Hepesh and King Peladon with the truth about Aggedor but only got the trial-by-combat brought forward and was taken down to the pit beneath the citadel. Cue lengthy fight sequence between the Doctor and Grun (nonetheless well choreographed and shot, but also nearly five minutes long!) topped, when the Doctor finally defeated Grun and refused to kill him, by Arcturus (seemingly in league with Hepesh) opening fire on the Doctor from the viewing stand!
A bit slower this week as is sometimes the case with Part Threes, but still intriguing and good. Lots of political stuff, and some great film footage of the fight - the overall design for this story is really good!
The Curse Of Peladon: Episode Four (19/02/12)
What a great story! Quite unlike anything the series has given us before with a variety of aliens, lots of political shenanigans, and a rather grown up, interesting plot. Okay, so 'Day Of The Daleks' was fun and exciting, but this story seemed to have much more weight, possibly because the world of Peladon was so interesting and well drawn.
Arcturus didn't kill the Doctor; Ssorg, alerted by Alpha Centauri, shot the Head in a Box first! It seems Arcturus was in league with Hepesh trying to sabotage the conference because they already had a deal - mineral wealth for power over the King and the planet. Hepesh planned to depose King Peladon and keep rule as Head of Church and Government.
While he stormed the throne room with his soldiers, the Doctor went off to prove that Hepesh had faked the ghostly murders. However, Hepesh claimed to control the beast, tried to set it on the Doctor and instead came to a sticky end himself.
So, all ended happily with Peladon's Coronation, although Jo didn't stay to marry him as he'd hoped and the Doctor and Jo had to leg it pretty quick (in the TARDIS which some Peladonians had carted up the mountainside for them) when the real Earth delegate arrived - in order to ask "Doctor who?"!
There was quite a bit of jeopardy earlier in the episode when the need to contact their orbiting ships threatened to reveal the Doctor and Jo as impostors. Fortunately, Hepesh had smashed all the communicators. And it seems the trip wasn't random: the Doctor reckons the Time Lords engineered their arrival at that particularly dodgy political point! Just like on Uxarieus. So I expect we'll be back on Earth for the rest of the series, but it was nice to see another alien planet, and one so well written; plus noble and heroic Ice Warriors!
Next week will have to be pretty good to top this story!
Wow! Okay, so we're on an alien planet (Peladon) this week and I don't think there's ever been a story with so many different aliens! For a start, the Ice Warriors are back (Yay!) along with an Arcturan and an Alpha Centauran (respectively, a head in a jar and a penis in a cape).
The Doctor took the TARDIS for a test run following his experiments at the start of the last story, Jo going along 'all dolled up for a night on the town with Mike Yates' apparently (though what she was thinking they were going to do in that get up is anyone's guess - 'Come Dancing' is about all that springs to mind!).
Anyhow, the aliens are on Peladon as delegates (again - two stories in a row with delegates!) of the Galactic Federation, deciding whether to allow Peladon to join. Only the Earth delegate is missing. The TARDIS landed on a cliff beneath the hugely impressive Peladonian Citadel and fell to its non-destruction, leaving the Doctor and Jo to crawl about and find a tunnel that led into the Citadel's secret passages. Upon entering the Citadel, they were caught by guards and mistaken for the Earth delegate and a royal representative - Jo was very good at this bit.
It turns out that (backtracking) King Peladon's Chancellor, Torbis, was seemingly killed by the spirit of their mythical guardian, Aggedor. Torbis was pro-Federation whilst the High Priest, Hepesh, was not. This has jeopardised the talks and it seems the Doctor has turned up just in time to be intermediary. However, Hepesh sent the King's Champion to loosen a statue of Aggedor to fall on the delegates as they pass beneath (cue cliffhanger).
Utterly fantastic! The episode flew by and really didn't feel like 24 and a half minutes! Most of it was exposition, but the amount! So much background detail, not just for Peladon (King Peladon's mother was Human, for example) but others, too - the Ice Warriors still retain a monarchy and have given up their warrior-like ways! Brilliant, absolutely brilliant! Best non-Earth-based story since the series began!
The Curse Of Peladon: Episode Two (05/02/12)
Lots of intrigue this week, and the plot is rolling along! The Doctor pushed everyone out the way of the falling statue and a debate ensued as to whether the delegates should leave. While this was going on, Jo sneaked off and found the passage Grun (the King's Champion) used to get to the statue, and a sonic key (or something) which she later showed the Doctor leading him to believe the Ice Warriors are behind the murder attempt. Given that it's Hepesh and Grun who are doing it to try and drive the Federation away, it's nice that the Ice Warriors are there as a Red Herring. So far, they've been wonderfully written as good guys and it's a nice twist, although they weren't actually villains in their first story, either!
Anyhow, someone attacked Arcturus and stole a circuit from his life support tank (but not one that would result in fatality) and Jo sneaked off (she does that a lot this week) to look in the Ice Warriors room. She found the circuit, but Ssorg walked in on her and locked her in believing she was planting it. He took it back to Izlyr (while Jo escaped through a window) and while Grun led the Doctor off to be killed by the very real monster, Aggedor, Jo saw said monster by the secret tunnels and ran into Izlyr and Ssorg returning to their room to question her.
Left alone in the tunnels, the Doctor was chased by Aggedor while Jo and the Ice Warriors sorted out their differences. Then the Doctor stumbled through a secret door into Aggedor's Holy Temple and was caught by Hepesh and Grun and taken before the King. Unfortunately, the penalty for desecrating Aggedor's inner sanctum (oo-er) is death!!!
Firstly, this script barely stops for breath and, compared to most other stories over the past few years, is very wordy and adult. It comes across more like an Historical tan anything else and is all the better for it! All the characters are well written and fully rounded, especially Jo, and even with all the running around there's been a couple of quiet scenes (Jo and Peladon, and Jo and the Doctor). Plot-wise, it's very clever, too. Hope it keeps the momentum!
The Curse Of Peladon: Episode Three (12/02/12)
...Death, or a fight with the King's Champion.
So, the Doctor gets locked up 'til his fight at dawn and is visited by Hepesh who gives him a map of the secret tunnels and tells him to leave and never return to Peladon as he doesn't want the planet to join the Federation as they'll only exploit Peladon's mineral wealth. So what does the Doctor do? He builds a hypnotising contraption and goes into the tunnels in search of Aggedor!
Meanwhile, Jo has failed to persuade Arcturus and Alpha Centauri to help free the Doctor, but once out of the throne room finds Izlyr willing to help, returning the favour of a life saved at the end of Episode One! However, Arcturus was eavesdropping! They plan to free the Doctor and head off through the tunnels, so Izlyr goes off to free the Doctor while Jo goes to wait at the entrance to the tunnels. Finding the Doctor gone, Izlyr goes to confront Peladon, but Jo's found the Doctor in the tunnels with a calm and peacefully hypnotised Aggedor, a beast that lives in the mountain! Jo scares Aggedor off and gets herself comedy-hypnotised (the Doctor used a Venusian Lullaby sung to the tune of 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen'!).
Then the Doctor returned to the throne room to confront Hepesh and King Peladon with the truth about Aggedor but only got the trial-by-combat brought forward and was taken down to the pit beneath the citadel. Cue lengthy fight sequence between the Doctor and Grun (nonetheless well choreographed and shot, but also nearly five minutes long!) topped, when the Doctor finally defeated Grun and refused to kill him, by Arcturus (seemingly in league with Hepesh) opening fire on the Doctor from the viewing stand!
A bit slower this week as is sometimes the case with Part Threes, but still intriguing and good. Lots of political stuff, and some great film footage of the fight - the overall design for this story is really good!
The Curse Of Peladon: Episode Four (19/02/12)
What a great story! Quite unlike anything the series has given us before with a variety of aliens, lots of political shenanigans, and a rather grown up, interesting plot. Okay, so 'Day Of The Daleks' was fun and exciting, but this story seemed to have much more weight, possibly because the world of Peladon was so interesting and well drawn.
Arcturus didn't kill the Doctor; Ssorg, alerted by Alpha Centauri, shot the Head in a Box first! It seems Arcturus was in league with Hepesh trying to sabotage the conference because they already had a deal - mineral wealth for power over the King and the planet. Hepesh planned to depose King Peladon and keep rule as Head of Church and Government.
While he stormed the throne room with his soldiers, the Doctor went off to prove that Hepesh had faked the ghostly murders. However, Hepesh claimed to control the beast, tried to set it on the Doctor and instead came to a sticky end himself.
So, all ended happily with Peladon's Coronation, although Jo didn't stay to marry him as he'd hoped and the Doctor and Jo had to leg it pretty quick (in the TARDIS which some Peladonians had carted up the mountainside for them) when the real Earth delegate arrived - in order to ask "Doctor who?"!
There was quite a bit of jeopardy earlier in the episode when the need to contact their orbiting ships threatened to reveal the Doctor and Jo as impostors. Fortunately, Hepesh had smashed all the communicators. And it seems the trip wasn't random: the Doctor reckons the Time Lords engineered their arrival at that particularly dodgy political point! Just like on Uxarieus. So I expect we'll be back on Earth for the rest of the series, but it was nice to see another alien planet, and one so well written; plus noble and heroic Ice Warriors!
Next week will have to be pretty good to top this story!
I fully agree with you. I love this story and feel it's rather underrated. Turning the Ice Warriors into noble heroes rather than villains is a masterstroke in what is essentially a whodunit in space. Peladon's infatuation with Jo is a bit quick to happen but nicely played and set up, and gives Katy Manning more material to work with than usual. (And already starts to hint towards her ultimate departure.) The designs of the aliens aren't the most sophisticated but everyone treats it all with such sincerity - which it deserves - that it works regardless.
ReplyDeleteCertainly among the best Pertwee stories, and a real highlight of the series overall.
I think Curse was one of the first Pertwee stories I saw, so I didn't really appreciate how novel it is. It's by far the best off-Earth story from the era, and so densely written it doesn't surprise me in the least that the sequel was allotted 6 episodes! I think people writing for the show today should be given it as a benchmark. Moffat clearly hadn't watched anything pre-1975 when he took over as Producer!
Delete