Episode #74 : Planet of the Spiders

"The old man must die, and the new man will discover to his

inexpressible joy that he has never existed."

Episode 74:   Planet of the Spiders.
Companions: 3rd Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith.
Air Date:       Six episodes. 4th May to 8th June 1974.

The blue crystal that the Doctor took from Metebelis III in a previous adventure is desperately sought by the Eight Legs, a race of mutated spiders, as the final element in their plan for universal domination. With help from an old mentor, the Doctor realises the only way to foil the plot is to make the ultimate sacrifice. The Doctor must risk death to return to the cave of the Great One and save the universe.

Planet of the Spiders is the final story in the Jon Pertwee era and while it has it's good and bad elements, it is a pretty good ending to one of the best Doctors (in my opinion) of the classic show. The story deals with a race of giant mutant spiders from Metebelis III who seek power to travel to Earth and enslave mankind. They need the crystal that the Doctor took from the planet a long time before their arrival to do so, and must use mantric time travel to achieve their aims.

Firstly, while the story is quite good, I am left with the feeling that the writer probably didn't watch the previous story where the Doctor picked the crystal up from Metebelis III. I say this because the planet as it appears in Planet of the Spiders in no way resembles the planet as it appeared in The Green Death. It now appears bright, earth-like and devoid of the giant monsters that the Doctor encountered before. Secondly, the one element that really lets the story down is the appearance of the giant spiders. I am sure that the BBC special effects department could have done a lot better even back then.

There is a lot of padding to this story and part of it comes from a lengthy James Bond-esqe chase involving cars, gyrocopters, speedboats and a hovercraft. Most of that episode was taken up with the chase and it all ends with a bit of a let down. Jon Pertwee may have liked his stunts and cars but it didn't need to find it's way into the story.

The story also sees the return of Mike Yates, who was discharged from UNIT following the events of Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Having retreated to meditation centre to contemplate what he had done, he becomes embroiled in the plot unfolding, and brings Sarah Jane and the Doctor into the story. Having really come to like the character over the last twenty-odd stories it was nice to give him a final send off.

At the end of the story after defeating the giant spiders, he regenerates into Tom Baker. Going through these stories in order I really do feel that I am going to miss Pertwee. His mannerisms and acting approach really have made him stand out far more than the two actors before him, and he has made his run the most enjoyable.

Episode #71 : Invasion of the Dinosaurs

"Look, I understand your ideals. In many ways I sympathise with them. But this is not the way to go about it, you know. You've got no right to take away the existence of generations of people."

Episode 71:     Invasion of the Dinosaurs.
Companions:   3rd Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith.
Air Date:         Six episodes. 12th January to 16th February 1974.

The Third Doctor and Sarah arrive in 1970s London to find it has been evacuated because dinosaurs have appeared mysteriously. It turns out the dinosaurs are being brought to London via a time machine to further a plan to revert London to a pre-technological level.

Invasion starts with some wonderfully creepy scenes of a deserted London. It seems that our time travellers took a few months to get back from medieval England, and now dinosaurs have started to appear. All of it part of a plot to do away with the the modern world and return to a more primitive Earth, one without technology and pollution. If the entire population of mankind has to never have existed, well, the reward is worth it. Or is it?

We have here a really nicely thought out premise that involves time travel, dinosaurs (about time!) and some wonderful pseudo-science. Shame that the dinosaur models are just down right atrocious, as you can see from the picture above. If the models had been even half way decent this would have been just fantastic.

An odd addition is the surprise that Mike Yates, long time member of UNIT, has become disillusioned and is now a traitor. Maybe it is just me but it seems a bit far fetched considering everything he has seen and done in recent years. Another addition is the introduction to the Whomobile, the Doctor's new UFO looking car. This was a personal vehicle of Jon Pertwee, commissioned by him. Why it was used in the show rather than Bessie, I don't know.

I also feel that there is a lack of continuity in this tale. When using their time scoop technology to pluck dinosaurs out of the past, why do they not see Silurians? After all, they ruled the Earth back then and presumably had great cities. Doesn't help the story I suppose but some reference would have been nice.

In this story we get more of an impression that there is more to a Time Lord than just time travel. Similarly to events in The Time Monster, the Doctor seems able to see/sense time distortions and even be less effected by them.

If you can look past the awful dinosaurs, then this is a really good story.

Episode #69 : The Green Death

"Stevens, listen to me. You've seen where this efficiency of yours leads. Wholesale pollution of the countryside. Devilish creatures spawned by the filthy by-products of your technology. Men... men walking around like brainless vegetables. Death. Disease. Destruction."

Episode 69:    The Green Death.
Companions:  3rd Doctor and Jo Grant.
Air Date:        Six episodes. 19th May to 23rd June 1973.

A death at an abandoned coal pit brings UNIT and the Doctor to the South Wales town of Llanfairfach when the body is found glowing bright green. Are pollutants from Global Chemicals responsible? Where are the giant maggots coming from? And who is the mysterious BOSS?

The Green Death is an excellent story that deals with issues just as relevant to us now in the 21st century as they were to us forty years ago; pollution and it's effects on the environment. In this story a mining company has closed down and started pumping vast amounts of chemical waste into the tunnels. The resulting mess has created a new form of life... giant, almost invulnerable, maggots that eventually transform into some monstrous fly-like insect. All of it orchestrated by the company's new machine BOSS - Biomorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor - which has achieved a form of sentience.

Throughout the current season of the show the Doctor has made a few references to wanting to visit Metebelis III, an apparently beautiful blue world famed for it's crystals. At long last we get a visit to that planet and it isn't anywhere near how he describes it. In fact it seems to be full of monsters, ranging from giant tentacles to enormous birds. We do come back to this planet in a few episodes time.

There is great chemistry between the characters in this story which has been lacking of late. Jo seems ever more ditzy than usual but it is endearing to see her fall in love with the local hippy scientist. Jo leaves the Doctor in this story to marry her new love and you get a real sense of conflicting happiness and sadness on the part of the Doctor. Even the Brigadier doesn't seem quite so trigger happy in this story.

The effects bring back a lot of memories of watching science fiction as a kid, and I really can't fault them in this story. The maggots seem a bit odd at times but they still give the creeps even now. The only element which I feel doesn't work is the giant fly. I mentioned this way back in the 1st Doctor story "Planet of the Giants". In that story there is a admittedly static model of a giant fly that looked awesome, but here we have something that truly does look like it was a rush job of paper-mache, bits and paint. When the BBC could do something that looked as good as it did in Planet of the Giants, it does beg the question why couldn't they do it here?

It is sad to see Jo leave the show and she is remembered with fondness by many fans. But it is time to get a stronger companion I think and we do that in the next story. Jo does make a re-appearance in the SJA adventure "Death of the Doctor" which I will cover later on.

I suggest The Green Death as one of the better Jon Pertwee era stories and well worth checking out if you haven't seen it.

Episode #64 : The Time Monster

"One moment you're talking about the entire universe blowing up

and the next you're going on about tea."

 

 

Episode 64:    The Time Monster.
Companions:  The 3rd Doctor and Jo Grant.
Air Date:        Six episodes. 20th May to 24th June 1972.

 

The Master, in the guise of Professor Thascalos, has constructed at the Newton Institute in Wootton a device known as TOMTIT - Transmission Of Matter Through Interstitial Time - to gain control over Kronos, a creature from outside time. The creature is summoned but proves to be uncontrollable.

 

Despite a reasonable start, The Time Monster unfortunately is one of the more uninteresting stories of the Jon Pertwee era. The effects, especially those of the bird-form Kronos, are just laughable and the acting is fairly poor, though I put that down more to the script than to the actors themselves. They can only work with what they have after all.

 

The story starts off just outside of Cambridge and deals with the Master trying to access the power of the chronovore Kronos. When the Doctor dreams of disaster, though never explained, he an UNIT descend on a small university to deal with the threat. From there, the story travels back three thousand or more years to the last days of Atlantis, whose destruction is caused by the Master releasing Kronos. Ultimately the Master escapes yet again and everything goes back to normal.

 

In the past we have had mention of the destruction of Atlantis, in The Underwater Menace and referenced in The Daemons. In the latter story, Azal claims to have been the one to destroy the greatest civilisation of the ancient world but we now know that story to be a lie. We never see the actual destruction but seems more of a whimper than a bang.

 

There have been a lot of stories featuring the Master of late and I think the ideas for plots involving him have begun to wind down. Sometimes less is more and in this case, I think he has been used to much. Roger Delgardo was a great actor and it is his acting that at least keeps you interested when pondering why he keeps returning to UNIT's backyard all the time.

 

 

Episode #60 : Day of the Daleks

"There are many sorts of ghosts, Jo. Ghosts from the past, and ghosts from the future."

Episode 60:    Day of the Daleks.
Companions: The 3rd Doctor and Jo Grant.
Air Date:        Four episodes. 1st to 22nd January 1972.

Freedom fighters from the future attempt to thwart a Dalek invasion by coming back in time to assassinate a delegate at the second World Peace Conference.

After a lengthy absence, the Daleks have returned to the show. It's a shame that it isn't a great story. The concept is fine and it starts off well but bleeds out the further in you go. The story deals with a temporal paradox where the death of numerous world leaders in a single moment sparks the third world war, and leads to the Daleks being able to take over the weakened peoples of Earth. A group of freedom fighters accidentally cause the paradox by being the ones who come back to the kill one of the delegates before he can cause the war. Hence a paradox of their own making.

As for the Dalek element of the story, it isn't made too clear but it would appear that these events in the alternate future time line replace the Dalek invasion that the 1st Doctor stopped. Already it seems that time can be rewritten.

The story also introduces the Ogrons, a servant race who only make a couple further appearances. How and why they are working for the Daleks is not really explained. After all, we know that the Daleks want to eradicate any life that isn't Dalek so why have they enslaved (or hired) them as soldiers? Doesn't make much sense to me.

This story also features one of the very few times that we see the Doctor actively using a firearm to kill an adversary, as he shoots Ogrons when they try to stop him.

Sadly, this is one story that could easily be overlooked. Bringing the Daleks back is a good move, but the story works out weak and just not very good.

Episode #59: The Daemons

"Jenkins...chap with wings there, five rounds, rapid!"

Episode 59:   The Daemons.
Companions: The 3rd Doctor and Jo Grant.
Air Date:        Five episodes. 22nd May to 19th June 1971.

The Master, posing as a rural vicar, summons a cloven-hoofed demon in a church basement.

The Daemons is perhaps my most favourite story of the Jon Pertwee era. Everything about it is so well written, acted and portrayed on screen. Whoever wrote it did their homework, because although it has been given a spin for the television show, a good amount of the Wiccan/Pagan dialogue almost spot on.

The story deals with the Master's attempt to gain ultimate power by summoning up Azal, the last of the Daemons. The Daemons (pronounced demon - daemon is just the old English spelling) were an ancient race who manipulated other younger races as part of some vast experiment, including early humans which explains legends of demons and of the Devil himself. Once again however, the Master hasn't fully thought his schemes through very well. At the end of the story, the Master is captured and taken away by UNIT at last.

There is a moment in the story when the model of a church explodes in flames. Apparently for the 70's audience, it seemed all to real and the BBC received complaints for them destroying a real church just for television. It does make you wonder I think.

The Daemons is also perhaps the first time that we see the show really do a horror themed episode. I find that some of the better episodes have been those which have the freakier or more scary approaches.

Even as I sit here writing this, I can't help but think that The Daemons is possibly the best story from the Jon Pertwee era. If you haven't seen it, I recommend checking it out.

Episode #57 : The Claws of Axos

"Obviously the Time Lords have programmed the TARDIS always to return to Earth. It seems that I am some kind of a galactic yo-yo!"

Episode 57:   The Claws of Axos.
Companions: The 3rd Doctor and Jo Grant.
Air Date:        Four episodes. 13th March to 3rd April 1971.

A group of gold-skinned aliens land on Earth and offer wondrous technology in exchange for fuel. The Doctor, however, isn't fooled, uncovering the Axons' true nature and once again facing his arch enemy the Master.

In this excellent story the Master is up to his old tricks again, only this time he has messed it up before the start of the episode. He is attempting to use the Axons, in fact a single being in multiple forms, to destroy the Earth only they have taken him captive.

The Claws of Axos follows a typical science fiction trope of an extraterrestrial race coming to Earth, offering advanced technology in exchange for something reasonable, but being in fact evil invaders. In this case it plays out quite well starting with the arrival and turning into a base under siege type story as the Doctor and the Master try desperately to find a way to defeat the Axos entity.

The Master is supposed to be this uber genius villain yet, as I have mentioned before, his plans never seem to work out mainly because of his own incompetence. Although it is some what annoying, in a good way, it does diminish him somewhat as a major villain.

At the end, the two time lords succeed in getting the Doctor's TARDIS to take flight and they are able to look the Axon's ship into a permanent time loop. However the Doctor is not free of his exile yet for the Time Lords have made sure that whatever happens he would always return to Earth.

The Claws of Axos is one of the better stories of this period and well worth a watch.

Episode #56 : The Mind of Evil

"Do you think for once in your life you could manage to arrive before the nick of time!"

Episode 56:   The Mind of Evil.
Companions: The 3rd Doctor and Jo Grant.
Air Date:        Six episodes. 30th January to 6th March 1971.

The Master plots to plunge the world into war through a complex scheme involving an alien entity that feeds on evil and fear, a prison riot, and a stolen nerve gas missile.

Lets see if this makes any sense to anyone else. The Master uses an alien parasite to drain the evil from men's minds (turning them into innocent child-like individuals) so that he can take over a prison, free the inmates and get them to steal a nuclear missile so that he can start the third world war. It sounds rather far fetched and unusual, and doesn't make much more sense on screen.

We also see the Master for all his evil brilliance is really not as sharp as all that. In most of the stories in this time of the show the Master sets up some dastardly scheme only to have the Doctor point out an obvious flaw that we, the viewers, picked up on ages ago and he has to switch sides to stop his own defeat.

UNIT is shown as performing duties other than hunting for aliens and monsters. In this story their job is protect delegates from governments across the globe as they talk to avert war. The soldiers still get to amass a small body count however against the inmates of the prison.

I have to be honest and say that this isn't a great story by any means. It tries to do the James Bond thing again and fails to pull it off properly. The BBC are trying to give the show a different feel under Jon Pertwee but the political intrigue and world domineering isn't very well done.

Episode #55 : Terror of the Autons

"I am usually referred to as The Master!"

Episode 55:    Terror of the Autons.
Companions:  The 3rd Doctor and Jo Grant.
Air Date:        Four episodes. 2nd to 23rd January 1971.

The Earth is in terrible danger when an evil renegade Time Lord known as the Master arrives at a circus run by a man named Luigi Rossini and steals a dormant Nestene energy unit from a museum. He reactivates it using a radio telescope and uses his hypnotic abilities to take control of a small plastics firm run by the Farrel family, where he organises the production of deadly Auton dolls, chairs and daffodils.

This story features the return of the Autons and the introduction of a villainous time lord calling himself The Master! The Autons are more of a secondary villain in this tale as it focuses more on the introduction of the Master as a major recurring bad guy for this season of the show. The Master is played exceedingly well by the actor Roger Delgardo. His appearance with goatee, mad staring eyes and his voice immediately make the character a hit.

Elements of this story, mainly an Auton plastic troll doll and a killer inflatable plastic chair, were part of a campaign by Mary Whitehouse and others, who claimed that the show was too frightening for children. Of course the hype only served to make the show more popular. The show would get many such complaints in the 70s and early 80s.

We get an introduction of two new characters starting with this story; Mike Yates - a new addition to the UNIT team, and Jo Grant, a rather ditzy young girl would replaces Liz Shaw as the Doctor's companion. Although Jo and the Doctor don't hit it off immediately, the two of them have great chemistry. Jo will go on to be one of the memorable companions of the classic show.

Terror of the Autons isn't a bad story but it could have been better I feel. It mainly serves to introduce the Master and Jo Grant.