People’s impressions of ‘Planet of the Spiders’ seem largely to be dominated by the chase scene in Episode Two, universally (and perhaps somewhat kindly) described as ‘indulgent.’ So, I might as well start with that. There’s no two ways about it, the chase is truly absurd – I mean, Bessie/mini-copter following Whomobile, then Whomobile following mini-copter, then *hovercraft* following *speedboat*? It’s harmless enough, it’s true - even fun if you’ve had a drink or two beforehand. But its sheer goofiness *does* damage the obvious work the production team put into the quiet, rather ominous setup in Episode One.

However, if the story as a whole is undeniably uneven, there’s still much to like about it. The setup, with its mysterious cult operating out of a country house in rural England, is the stuff of classic Pertwee Who. The Tibetan commune is by turns both appealing and eerie, with Lupton’s leading of the chants authentically hypnotic and rather frightening. When the action moves to Metebelis Three, it does look a bit cheap, it’s true, but the planet’s fakey blue skies have a lovely, very ‘seventies fantasy’ quality to them. (The look of the planet reminds me a bit of a Boston album cover.) Some Doctor Who fans, even old ones, complain about the studio-bound limitation of the classic series, and yet I’ve said before that, to me, the theatricality of these productions adds an enjoyable aesthetic that mere realism can’t match. 

And the planet’s ‘Eight Legs’-dominated culture is extremely well defined. A knowledge of Barry Letts’s interest in Buddhism, and his use of it in the earthbound parts of this story, help us to understand his vision of the spiders as the antithesis of the Buddhists’ ‘pure’ Eastern philosophy. The spiders are power-hungry, petty, and obsessed with social rank – and by allying with them, Lupton shows himself to be not just a villain, but a bad *Buddhist* (which is probably worse, in Letts’s book). The individual spider characters are memorable and distinctive – quite a feat, considering they’re identical, expressionless puppets. Of course most of the credit for that must go to the actresses who provide their voices – their vocal timbres are all similar enough to suggest the same species, and yet all three capture their different characters remarkably well.

The ‘Two Legs,’ as many have pointed out, don’t work as well, but they’re more functional than embarrassing. They serve mainly to illustrate the horror of the spider regime, and they actually do that quite effectively. One writer has said that the only thing that makes the Daleks scary is how frightened Doctor Who’s *characters* are of them, and the same principle applies here – when the villagers scramble in fear at the approach of the Queen, we believe in the spiders’ power, simple as that. Many U.K. fans, including ‘The Discontinuity Guide,’ have also criticized the production team for its use of regional accents with these humans. I can understand this annoyance, but as an American, I hear *all* accents on Doctor Who as ‘regional,’ so it didn’t trouble me tremendously. I would even go so far as to say that it annoys me how British fans seem perfectly willing to overlook the English accents in French and Italian locations for ‘City of Death,’ for example, while whining about West-Country ones here. (A much bigger problem is the UNIT haircuts - belief in the ‘militariness’ of this organization has never been so suspended – but that’s another story.)

As for the other characters, Tommy is of course a bit of an embarrassment – an ‘Of Mice and Men’ cliché who doesn’t really seem to fit all that well into this fictional world – but to be fair John Kane plays him with good taste, for the most part. John Dearth sinks his teeth into the ambitious Lupton with much success, and he really sells the scenes with ‘his’ spider, not an easy task for any actor. And the hapless Professor Clegg is used rather cruelly by the script, but he remains probably the most touching figure of the entire story. (Shades of Pigbin Josh.)

When we come to the ‘good’ Buddhists, George Cormack is thoroughly charming as K’Anpo – and yet, the character doesn’t quite work. He’s so obviously there just to set up the Doctor’s regeneration that he never quite engages with the story, or resonates as a full-blooded character of his own. A knowledge of Barry Letts’s personal obsession with Buddhism doesn’t necessarily help our appreciation of Cho-Je, who seems to be scripted entirely from fortune cookies, and Kevin Lindsay’s rather twee performance (speaking of accents, just what exactly is *that* supposed to be?) doesn’t either. Furthermore, it seems odd that a Time Lord would use a projected regeneration for such banal purposes – what does Cho-je actually *do* around the compound anyway? Answer the phone? Catch up on the paperwork? 

Sarah and Yates, on the other hand, are rather well used in this story. I know that Mike Yates is one of the less popular Doctor Who companions, and yet I must say that Richard Franklin’s performance grew on me as I revisited these stories, and I actually quite liked him in this one (flares and all). 

Finally, there is the matter of the Doctor’s regeneration, which is much praised by fans, but which actually seemed a little abrupt to me. To his credit, Jon Pertwee doesn’t ham it up in the least, but his ultimate change seems a little rushed, especially coming on the heels of such much ‘big’ adventure and exposition. But I suppose a fan could read this as a semi-conscious tribute to Third Doctor endings on the whole, which so often had the UNIT family suddenly having a nice laugh about it all. The Pertwee era always had a fundamental safety and innocence to it; in fact, ‘Planet of the Spiders’ is in many ways representative of the age. It’s overstuffed, slightly clunky, a little too loud, a little too long, but pretty watchable nevertheless. Jon Pertwee gets a gadgety chase, a staged fight, and yet somehow keeps his dignity anyway – he is the Doctor. And while these things sometimes make his stories seem a bit shallow compared to others, there’s much to be said for a ‘pure fun’ approach to Doctor Who . . . and I suppose anyone who fell in love with the show as a child would admit that this not always such a bad thing. 

Is it?

I love the Sontarans and Rutans. The idea of two alien cultures locked in unending conflict across millennia certainly resonates with many political dichotomies in our real world; those real-life dichotomies are usually sad ones, and yet an allegorical reading of the Sontaran/Rutan war is not without its humor too. Sontarans, especially, view everything they encounter *only* as it relates to their holy war – it’s a rather funny way to look at the universe, and how often in life do we see political parties going to extraordinary lengths to tie even the most neutral topics in to their agendas, and fighting as hard as they can *not* to see the other side? This becomes even funnier when we realize that never in classic ‘Doctor Who’ history did the Sontarans and Rutans actually appear onscreen together: we only ever got one side of the story, and we can’t help wondering, considering their insulated approaches to warfare, how often the two races actually met in battle at all. (Some fans have suggested that Russell T. Davies should finally have them meet in his new series, but I hope he doesn’t – I don’t want to see this amusing tradition spoiled.)

‘The Time Warrior’ introduced the Sontarans, and in the context of a refreshingly small-stakes story: Linx isn’t trying to destroy the Earth, or even to take it over – he just wants to fix his spaceship and get back to the front lines. The Sontarans’ fixation on their own private conflict makes them interesting villains in ‘Doctor Who’ history. After all, they couldn’t be further from the megalomaniacal individuals who make up the rank and file of ‘Who’ baddies – their encounters with humans in the series are usually irritating distractions, and here Linx’s annoyance with his situation is amusingly palpable throughout. Linx is humorless and impatient, and as macho as a sexless clone can be, but he is not a megalomaniac – he is simply focused on his mission. And if he can have a little sadistic fun in the process, well, where’s the harm in that? (Personally, I prefer the mask from ‘The Sontaran Experiment,’ but Kevin Lindsay is still marvelous as Linx – even if it is sometimes difficult to hear him as he shouts through his helmet!)

As for the story itself, its plot makes wonderful sense (for once), and events progress very naturally from one scene to another. Robert Holmes’s script may not be as funny as some of his others (specifically, his other [mock-] medieval story, ‘The Ribos Operation’), but it is vividly characterized, and this ‘primitive’ setting inspires the writer to great inventive heights: Irongron’s much-quoted metaphors are just a few examples of his colorful creations here. Some of the ‘medieval’ moments do tend to go a bit Renaissance Faire-y (you certainly wouldn’t accuse the cast of not having fun), but for the most part it doesn’t get in the way of our taking it all seriously. David Daker chews the scenery as Irongron, but likeably so – Holmes always had affection for small people with delusions of grandeur, and despite how hard the writer works to establish the character as a barbaric warlord, we can’t help liking him. (His repeated description of Linx as “Toad Face” gets funnier and funnier too.) Ultimately, Irongron is more like Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirate King than a real villain, and it’s almost a shame Holmes decided to kill him. Donald Pelmear’s take as Rubeish is extremely amusing too, and yet the character isn’t a mere buffoon – he is an absent-minded professor, yes, and yet he accepts the fact that he has traveled in time with a (wonderfully scientific) open mind, and of course it is he who bravely creeps up on the Sontaran and stuns him. And smaller parts like Sheila Fay’s cynical wench Meg and June Brown’s ambitious Lady Eleanor are made just as memorable as the principals.

And then, of course, there’s Sarah. For a generation of ‘Doctor Who’ viewers, Sarah Jane Smith will always be *the* companion, and her meeting with Jon Pertwee’s Doctor here can only be described as historic. The treatment of Sarah would vary from script to script over the years, but here she is everything one could want from a companion. In many ways, Sarah really steals this show – it’s isn’t hard to see why the Doctor is impressed with her, especially when she single-handedly leads a raid on Irongron’s castle! The introduction of a new assistant always presented ‘Doctor Who’s’ writers with an opportunity to reinvent the series, and here, briefly, we certainly get to see the Doctor and the TARDIS with fresh eyes – a rare treat.

A very strong story.

The Time Warrior is remarkably inauspicious given that it’s actually quite important, introducing as it does Sarah Jane Smith and the Sontarans. While Sarah in retrospect came out as probably the best companion ever (once the 1970s were out she hardly faced much competition), I sometimes wonder if the Sontarans deserved to become such comparatively big monsters. I know that the only reason they did was because Barry Letts was playing it safe and brought them back for the following season, thereby opening the floodgates, but even so: they’re not bad monsters, by any means, but I can think of better monsters that deserved more appearances (Zygons anyone?). That said, this is their best story, as all but one of the others didn’t have Robert Holmes (also known by his nickname, Lord and Master) at the helm.

Immediately noticeable with this story is the new title sequence, which is fantastic; in fact, for my money it’s the best after the Hartnell original. I prefer it to the Tom Baker version that followed it closely – it’s aesthetically more daring with its broken lines and swirls, and the way the picture of Jon Pertwee zooms out only to rush forward again and become a vortex is a killer. There are no cheesy two-dimensional TARDISes here, either.

David Daker cannot fail to make an impression early on: he is over-the-top to be sure, but not in a way that disrespects the audience like Anthony Ainley’s master would do. Here his performance is loud and vibrant, but carefully and caringly matched up with the tone of the rest of the production. John J. Carney as Bloodaxe, by contrast, is completely swamped. He does his best and so I won’t tear into him, but he simply doesn’t have the energy of Daker’s manic Irongron. However, his patronising and extremely obvious and clichéd characterisation as a West Country simpleton is very annoying, arr, so it be. The set of Irongron’s castle is poor, which is a shame as when it came to period settings Doctor Who was usually on solid ground: its plastic props and painted-backdrop brickwork perhaps explaining why Sarah initially believes it to be a fairground mock-up. Still, barring comparatively short interludes in the past in Carnival Of Monsters and The Time Monster, this is the first story to really make an effort to create a period setting since The War Games in 1969 so I suppose I can forgive them being a bit rusty.

A small globe is a nice idea for a spaceship, especially two decades before Star Trek gave us the Borg Sphere (and the Borg had ripped off the Cybermen anyway). However, the design of their ships – which have since passed into canonicity – were initially conceived so that Irongron could believe it to be a star, while the only reason this monster is called a Sontaran is so that Holmes can make a cheap pun on ‘Saracen’. Bear that in mind when watching the deadly-serious The Two Doctors, which Holmes also wrote but under the thumb of Eric Saward (oh so easy an excuse for a Holmes fan, but there you are). One thing that annoys me though is fans who moan about subsequent plots involving Sontarans attempting to discover time-travel, “when they had it all the way back in the 12th Century. The answer, I’d have thought, is obvious: Linx is from the future, jackasses! I have to say that Linx is brilliant, with Kevin Lindsay’s brooding sadist portrayal stealing the acting crown from Daker; it is hard to believe that this is the same man who played the affable and somewhat effeminate Cho-je in Planet Of The Spiders. As I said, this is the Sontarans’ best story, with Holmes doing what David Whitaker did so successfully with the Daleks: keeping his monsters in the background, as part of a story rather than the be-all-and-end-all of it. Linx is so much more menacing through not being rubbed in our faces all the time.

Jumping to the future, and the Brigadier’s line of “most of their work's so secret, they don't know what they're doing themselves” is a cunning way to avoid having to give a proper explanation why all these scientists are all bundled together for kidnapping. It’s interesting to see that Pertwee is mucking about like Tom Baker did in his last few seasons, but he may be taking advantage of Holmes’s shamelessly boisterous dialogue.

Although Sarah would be brilliant, a lot of this would be down to the relationship she had with her co-stars. This has yet to develop at this point, and her one-dimensional crusading feminist characterisation sees Barry Letts’s drive to be socially responsible misfire. I was going to do the old “DON’T ASK ME TO MAKE THE COFFEE!” bit, but then she actually said that line or thereabouts (I’d forgotten), which had me lost for words. Thankfully she became much more of a realistic character under Philip Hinchcliffe. Rubeish is also a very irritating character, Holmes tastelessly mocking his lack of vision and creating a character straight out of a dated 70s sitcom. He even mentions a scientist called Dingle, for crying out loud. It surprises me as well why he and the Doctor talk abut Sarah with raised voices even though she’s only in one of those temporary cubicles.

The drama of Rubeish’s disappearance is spoiled since we have already seen what happens to the kidnapped humans, but there is a great effect as the Doctor projects an image of Linx on the stairs (look closely and you can see his feet waiting on the landing beforehand). However, as with much of the season the characterisation of UNIT is dreadful, with the grunts living up to their nicknames and shooting at passing insects and the Brigadier uttering out-of-character lines like “oh my giddy aunt!”. 

It’s actually quite effective not letting us see Sarah’s reaction to the TARDIS (doesn’t the prop look tatty here?), instead just showing her wandering around. Her acting as she is captured is excellent, and it is easy to see why she would be so popular once the writers had got the hang of her.

There is some great location shooting (always a strength of the programme), which in part makes up for the tackiness of the studio sets. We see the Sontaran make-up for the first time, and it’s fantastic, much better than it would be in later years. I know it was uncomfortable and severely restricted Lindsay’s breathing, but even so I was sad to see it go in subsequent stories. However, my copy of The Time Warrior is the extremely old BBC video release from 1989 9still in good nick, mind) where the episodes are all edited together into one feature, and it becomes very obvious that Linx only removes his helmet to set up the cliffhanger. It’s slightly strange and not very dramatically satisfying to see him take off his helmet, pose dramatically for a second, then replace his helmet and walk off.

You only get lines like “narrow-hipped vixen!” with Robert Holmes. Sarah’s comment that the castle contains “no lights or cameras” could possibly be metafiction, but really it’s just Holmes having a massive laugh at everyone else’s expense, taking his revenge when Terrance Dicks made him write a period piece against his will (in fairness he turned the tables later with Horror Of Fang Rock). Linx’s comment about human reproduction is very funny, although his genuine interest in the more violent aspects of medieval society turns him into far more than just an average ‘evil’ monster. The robot knight is quite creepy, with its zombie-like gait and distended, out-of-proportion features. The Doctor knocks Irongron’s control unit out of his hand with a crack shot from a crossbow; Russell T. Davies wants a return to the non-gun bearing Doctor. All I can say is, he has a lot of contrary evidence to make up for.

Rubeish takes the idea of time-travel in his stride, babbling like an idiot; is he Holmes’s most annoying character ever? The music here is so rare that there isn’t really a place to discuss it, so I’ll just say quickly that Dudley Simpson, having passed his near-unlistenable electronic phase, is on good form.

Amazingly, Gallifrey is casually namedropped for the first time here as if its name had been known already (another important contribution Holmes (presumably) made to the show). Pertwee’s constant fighting with extras is getting tiresome at this stage, especially as it drives his character into the ground, although it’s not as annoying as him yelling “hai!” with every stuntman that goes down.

Linx’s description of Pertwee as “a longshanked rascal with a mighty nose” is hilarious, but in fairness Holmes chose a description that could equally apply to himself. The plot here is simple without being patronising, allowing for Holmes to avoid clumsy exposition while still keeping the story going. There is a bit of padding, I should say, in part one where the Doctor doesn’t arrive in medieval England until the very end.

The siege scene is fun, being nice and simple (which is not how Holmes had wanted it; his revenge again). The location scenes are very well directed by Alan Bromly, and even in the studio the very mobile cameras are nice to see. However, his handling of action scenes does tend to fall a bit flat. The castle sentry, I should add, is appalling. 

The cliffhanger is spoiled by my clumsily-edited tape, which just shows Linx shooting the Doctor and his subsequent fall to be possibly the slowest action scene outside The Aztecs. In the fourth episode, the Doctor masquerading as Linx to fool Bloodaxe is silly and pantomimic, but by contrast Sarah’s terrified bluff to the serving woman is excellently played. However, her feminist tirade is so clumsily written that I feel the need to point it out even though I went on about it earlier. There is a poor, shaky piece of action as the Doctor swings on a chandelier, and there is a horrible boom mike shadow on Linx at the end.

Holmes’s real weakness was his penchant for anticlimaxes; his endings range from deus ex machina overload (Spearhead From Space, Pyramids Of Mars) to the too lame for words (Terror Of The Autons). This isn’t one of his worst, but writing his monsters to have inbuilt weaknesses like Power Rangers’ enemies makes me cringe a bit. The final explosion is also a bit too simple, although no one can claim it’s not within the show’s limits.

Despite not being the best-realised period piece the show ever did, this is still a great fun story. It’s no classic, but given how most non-classic Holmes scripts get unfairly ripped apart (The Krotons, The Power Of Kroll), this is a story that actually tends to get quite fairly treated – maybe because Holmes’s unwillingness to write to specifications provides his advocates with a scapegoat. I’m only giving this an average rating, which spells bad things as it’s probably the best story of the season, which wasn’t Pertwee’s best. Taken story by story though, The Time Warrior is fairly representative: it has few pretensions (OK so it’s not representative of Planet Of The Spiders), but it’s just good clean fun.

In my review of 'The Monster of Peladon', I stated that after that exercise in tedium, things did not improve for Pertwee's final story. In fact, I found that on this occasion I enjoyed 'Planet of the Spiders' more than on previous viewings, and it is certainly an improvement on its immediate predecessor. Nevertheless, although it has enjoyable aspects, it still falls down on many levels and is horrendously padded. 

First of all the plot is stretched rather thin. Everyone chases around after the crystal for five episodes, then the Doctor surrenders it in Episode Six and everything blows up. Unlike Malcolm Hulke's six part stories, the padding on display here is not of sufficient quality to carry this wafer-thin plot, resulting in blatant filler. The most obvious example is of course the notoriously indulgent chase sequence in Episode Two, in which the Doctor and UNIT pursue a fleeing Lupton, only for him to teleport to safety after ten minutes of self-indulgent vehicle swapping. As many people have noted, he might just as well have teleported back to the monastery immediately, and as The Discontinuity Guide points out, the spider on his back should have been squashed whenever Lupton sits in a vehicle. A further example of dull padding is in Episode Four, in which the Doctor spends over half of the episode virtually unconscious until a gimmick from the TARDIS cures him. By the end of Episode Five, the plot has become so badly stretched out to fill the episode allocation that the cliffhanger involves a threat to a supporting character. 

Fortunately, some of the guest cast manage to make 'Planet of the Spiders' reasonably interesting. John Dearth makes for an interesting villain, due to decent motivation; a former salesman who has fallen on hard times, Lupton is motivated by a desire for revenge, from which his urge for power originates. Dearth puts in an excellent performance as the world-weary Lupton, and the script allows for an interesting twist in the shape of his relationship with his eight-legged ally. It would have been all too easy for Lupton to be in thrall to the spider, but instead when the spider mentally attacks him, he turns the tables on it and delivers a similar attack in return. This results in a genuine alliance between the two for a time, as Lupton seeks power on Earth and the spider seeks power on Metebelis Three. Unfortunately, by Episode Four, the writers seem to have lost interest in Lupton or simply don't know what else to do with him; he stands around arguing impotently for two episodes, until his spider ally gets tired of him and the spiders kill him. Bit of a waste, really. The other villains, the spiders themselves, are surprisingly effective, especially when clinging to backs, and their voices are chillingly effective. We also get inter-spider politics as "Lupton's" spider vies with the Queen for power, which adds to the plot somewhat. Most effective of all is the Great One, an utterly insane vast spider sitting at the heart of the crystal mountain that proves to be a match for the Doctor. The scene in which she forces the Doctor to march in a circle is strikingly effective. 

The other guest cast members worthy of note are Cyril Shaps, Kevin Lindsay, George Cormack, and John Kane. Shaps' ill-fated Professor Clegg works well as a tortured soul nursing a terrifying secret and his tragic death caused inadvertently by the Doctor's hunger for knowledge precursors K'anpo's lecture to the Doctor in Episode Six; all of the events depicted are indirectly his fault, due to his "theft" of the crystal; had he never removed it from Metebelis Three, the Great One would have completed her web long ago and destroyed herself then, thus sparing generations of humans on Metebelis Three from the spiders' tyranny. Cormack is excellent as K'anpo, conveying an air of gentle wisdom throughout his scenes. His gentle urging of the Doctor to sacrifice his third life for the sake of all is rather effective and of course resolves the plot, since otherwise the Doctor would have continued trying to stop the spiders from gaining the crystal. Lindsay's performance is also excellent in Episodes Five and Six, as he challenges the group in the cellar before his true nature is revealed and he becomes K'anpo. Unfortunately, he's rather less effective in earlier episodes, as he does little but spout Buddhist sayings constantly, which quickly becomes irritating. Finally, John Kane is very good as the slow Tommy, whose gradual transformation by the crystal is the one example of good padding in 'Planet of the Spiders'. He still doesn't merit a cliffhanger though. 

Unfortunately, 'Planet of the Spiders' is marred by rather less impressive supporting characters and guest cast in addition to those mentioned above. Lupton's cronies are all acted well enough, but are utterly forgettable and more filler. A particularly blatant example is when Yates is knocked out before getting his chance to suggest that they join forces, thus turning one scene into two, since he has to regain consciousness. The characters on Metebelis Three are far worse; they are apathetic at best and their costumes make them resemble a cross between hippies and porn stars (it's the moustaches, of course). They also have West Country accents, for reasons known only to Barry Letts. It doesn't help that several of them, including Gareth Hunt, are rather wooden, on top of which Jenny Laird's Neska is dreadfully acted. Production wise, the story is variable. As noted, the spiders look OK, but the costumes on Metebelis Three are terrible. Barry Letts gives in to his tendency to make too much use of CSO, as a result of which Metebelis Three looks diabolical, and there are annoying minor details which bother, me for example the spiders' surprisingly generous decision to provide nice comfy pillows for the humans cocooned in their larder. 

This being the last story of the Pertwee era, UNIT is rolled out for a bit of a reunion. This is at best indulgent, since both the Brigadier and Benton get nothing useful to do. Admittedly however, I do like the first scene between the Doctor and the Brigadier as they watch the show featuring Professor Clegg. The Brigadier's admiration for a belly dancer's muscular control is quite amusing and the scene is a pleasant reminder of the strength of the friendship that has developed between the Doctor and the Brigadier. After this however, the Brigadier reverts back to the status of a buffoon, bringing back unpleasant memories of 'The Three Doctors'. Using a one intelligent military leader as a means of explaining things to the audience is a mistake when it makes it painfully obvious that said military leader fails to understand the blindingly obvious. On the other hand, his presence at the Doctor's regeneration is more welcome, nicely rounding off the era that he helped to launch. Mind you, would a Brigadier really have such long hair? Benton gets even less to do, although his rather noble offer to look into the crystal for the Doctor since he is expendable and the Doctor isn't nicely demonstrates the high regard he has for UNIT's scientific advisor. More annoyingly for me personally, the mini-UNIT reunion results in the unwelcome return of Mike Yates. I've made no secret of my dislike for both Yates' character and Franklin's performance, but as I noted previously, 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' benefited both and it made a fine departure for the character. His return here is seemingly born out of a desire to redeem the character, but as I stated when I reviewed 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs', I'm uncomfortable that a man who was nearly a party to genocide is so easily forgiven by the Doctor. He adds almost nothing to the story here and his return is as pointless and indulgent as the chase sequence. 

Finally, there are the two regulars. Liz Sladen puts in a great performance as Sarah, especially when possessed by the Queen and when surrendering herself in Episode Three to protect Arak. Sarah works very well here, and gets some nice moments, including her scenes with Tommy (she is both kind and tolerant to the childlike Tommy for example, whereas Yates is not, and it beautifully highlights her compassionate side). Her distress over the Doctor's seeming death at the end of Episode Six demonstrates just how close they have become during Season Eleven, and she clearly pushed to her limit by the time Cho-je cheerfully materialises in the Doctor's lab. However, 'Planet of the Spiders' is Jon Pertwee's story. Putting in one last enthusiastic performance after his return to autopilot in 'The Monster of Peladon', Pertwee is at his best here. His obvious guilt over Clegg's death is well conveyed; his quiet, indeed awed, respect for K'anpo is tangible; and his scenes with the Great One are excellent. When the huge spider forces him to march in circle, Pertwee makes the Doctor seem genuinely afraid, which is a crucial aspect of the story. His final sacrifice is entirely fitting, as this most sanctimonious of the Doctors to date accepts the responsibility for his actions and ends the threat posed by the spiders at the cost of his own life. His regeneration scene is marvellous, as he tells Sarah "while there's life there's… hope…" before expiring. 

Watching Doctor Who in order from the start for the first time, I've been rather disappointed that after the highly consistent quality of the black and white stories, the Pertwee era represents, for me, the first weak era in the show's history. After the magnificent Season Seven, the percentage of poor stories increases once Letts and Dicks take over and whilst there are many fine Pertwee stories, there are no consistently fine Seasons from Season Eight onwards. Luckily however things soon improve considerably, as Jon Pertwee regenerates into Tom Baker and one of the series' finest producer/script-editor teams makes the show its own…

The Time Warrior' is one of my favourite Pertwee stories, succeeding as it does on many levels. It's funny and well scripted, well acted, and serves as a superb debut story both for one of Doctor Who's most popular monsters and also new companion Sarah-Jane Smith. 

First of all, the script is great. Faced (apparently reluctantly) with a story set in the middle ages, Robert Holmes adopts a cod-Shakespearean style for his characters' dialogue, but takes the opportunity to derive great humour from this. The best lines all go to Irongron, who gets to describe the Doctor as "a longshanked rascal with a mighty nose" and later shouts at his men, "With poltroons like this it would ill work to lay siege to a chicken coop!" Then there's "the wench is crazed", "He is a toad. Who knows what a toad thinks?", "that narrow-hipped vixen", and many, many more. Bloodaxe also gets to say to Irongron, "Yours is indeed a towering intelligence". Even the non-comedic dialogue works well, sounding convincingly suited to the period, even though it probably isn't. 

In addition to the excellent script, there is some fine characterisation. I'll discuss Linx and Sarah below, but Irongron and Bloodaxe almost steal the show. David Daker is outstanding as the former, a brash, almost piratical brigand, who took his castle by force and thinks of nothing but violence. And wine. The character is almost OTT, but remains just the right side to be believable, swinging unpredictably between vicious humour, anger and, on several occasions, complete bafflement. In addition to Daker's spot-on delivery of his lines, demonstrating perfect comic timing, his facial acting adds a great deal more to the role, especially when Linx confuses him with talk of primary and secondary reproductive cycles, and interstellar travel. Bloodaxe, his sidekick, gets less to do, but crucially provides a comic foil, since he's far more stupid than his would-be cunning Captain and John J. Carney's facial expressions find several different ways to express confusion. In addition to his double-act with Bloodaxe, Irongron also has an ongoing double-act with Linx. His relationship with Linx is a key factor in the success of 'The Time Warrior', as the pair of them constantly bicker, both having "much that the other wants", Irongron frequently attempting to bully his "star warrior", which on most occasions doesn't work and on one occasion earns him a humiliating trouncing. 

Linx is a superb villain, easily cementing the success of the Sontarans. He works well for several reasons, not least of which is Kevin Lindsay's great performance, complemented by one of the best monster costumes of the era, with a very convincing latex mask. Linx is not just a great villain, he's a great character; he isn't some stock megalomaniac who wants to rule or destroy the world, he's a stranded warrior whose sole motivation is to return to his war, which we quickly learn is what Sontarans live for. To achieve this end, he is ruthless, showing a callous disregard for the scientists who he has kidnapped, and refusing the Doctor's (genuine) offer of help if he'll just bugger off and leave human history alone, preferring instead to escape on his own terms rather than bargaining with the Time Lord. He's also sadistic at times, especially in Episode Four when he decides to let the Doctor witness Sarah's death before the Doctor is killed in turn. However, he's also a more complex character than that; although he considers humans to be primitive, he seems genuinely concerned with honouring his alliance with Irongron. The construction of the robot warrior is unnecessary given that Linx is also working on the rifles, but he builds it anyway. This is partly because of his fondness for weapons, but he also seems keen to impress his host. He also delivers a full consignment of rifles to Irongron after the abortive raid on Wessex castle, which utterly disgusts him, and at the end he makes several attempts to convince Irongron to leave the castle before it is destroyed, before giving up in disgust. This all suggests a certain warped nobility to Linx, which might boil down to honour between warriors, hence his complete lack of tolerance for the Doctor from the start, given that he considers the Time Lords to lack morale. It is also worth noting that we get a considerable amount of detail from the script about Sontarans in general, all of it fitting naturally into the dialogue without feeling like a forced infodump, another credit to Holmes' talents. 

The story also marks the debut of Sarah-Jane Smith, who makes an immediate impression. Liz Sladen takes to the role with ease, and helps make the character work. It is a good opening story for the character, as she gets to rescue the Doctor several times, leads a handful of Wessex's men into Irongron's castle on a raid, and plays a key role in defeating Irongron and his men by spiking their dinner. I especially like the fact that she initially distrusts the Doctor, which hasn't happened with a new companion since Ian and Barbara first got abducted way back in '100,000BC'. This works well because when she finally starts to trust him, it gives the Doctor an opportunity to explain that he is a Time Lord and generally point out what a splendid fellow he is without it feeling forced; it arises naturally out of the situation and also out of Sarah's inquisitive journalistic nature. The fact that she stows away in the TARDIS and thus becomes embroiled in events by accident also provides a useful mechanism for her becoming the new companion, which makes a refreshing change from Liz and Jo, who became companions as a result of working for UNIT at the same time as the Doctor. Her objection to the Doctor's occasional sexism (which he plays up here in order to wind Sarah up as soon as he notices her angry reaction to his make a "making coffee" joke) also makes her relationship with the Doctor different to Jo's, since she comes across as more independent. Whilst she grows to like the Doctor, she has a more adult relationship with him than Jo, who often seemed to idolize him. Oh, and the scene with Meg, where Sarah tells her she sounds like she's living in the middle ages and then quickly shuts up, is priceless. 

The other characters all work well, from the rough and ready Meg (Sheila Fay), to the dashingly heroic Hal (Jeremy Bulloch), the weary Edward (Alan Rowe), and his devoted wife Eleanor (June Brown), who strives to protect her ineffectual husband by sending Hal to slay Irongron. I also like Donald Pelmear's Professor Rubeish, a stereotypical eccentric scientist who proves of great help to the Doctor (he rescues him from Linx twice) and also provides further comedy (his response to the Doctor's line about going to find a young girl is "Young girl? I would have thought he's a bit old for that sort of thing"). Pertwee is also great here, as the Doctor gets to outfight Irongron and Bloodaxe at the same time, swing to safety on a chandelier, and generally swash his buckle. 'The Time Warrior' shows the Third Doctor at his best, courteously dealing with Edward and Eleanor and supping wine in their castle, cheerfully throwing smoke bombs at Irongron's men with great relish, making quips as they try to shoot him with rifles, and fighting Linx hand-to-hand (unsuccessfully, as it happens). 

Production wise the story is generally OK, although the corridors and "wooden" doors in Irongron's castle are obviously plastic. Fortunately, the location work compensates. In addition, mention must be made of Linx' spacecraft, which is one of the more memorable spaceship designs that the series came up with. 

In summary then, 'The Time Warrior' is a great debut for the Sonatarans, a great debut for the new companion, and generally a hugely entertaining story. And if even takes the time to name the Doctor's home planet.

I rather like 'The Curse of Peladon'. Well-scripted, acted and directed, it forms an effective story for one of the Third Doctor's comparatively uncommon forays into space during his exile. With this in mind, 'The Monster of Peladon' might be expected to be a similar success, reuniting the same writer, director and designer and featuring the return of the Ice Warriors. The fact that it is both weak and tedious therefore comes as a considerable disappointment. 

'The Monster of Peladon' is, at best, a pedestrian runaround. The plot is recycled directly from 'The Curse of Peladon', the only differences being that the Ice Warriors are the villains this time and that the discontent amongst the Pels stems from the poor treatment of the Miners rather than from the unwillingness to join to the Federation represented previously by Hepesh. We have the return of Alpha Centauri, an indecisive leader needing guidance from the Doctor and his companion, a traitor in the midst of things, a series of deaths seemingly caused by the spirit of Aggedor, and the return of the real Aggedor himself. On top of which the Doctor is sentenced to death and thrown into a pit to face his fate again! As though this were not bad enough, a plot which previously nicely filled four episodes is here stretched out to fill six, resulting a story that it bloated and dull. It is a cliché to describe a Doctor Who story as a series of captures and escapes with numerous chases through corridors and tunnels, but this is exactly what we have here. Very little happens before the Ice Warriors make an appearance, resulting in three episodes of derivative swill, in which the Doctor is alternately branded a traitor and forced to prove his innocence, in which Sarah is held captive several times, and in which miners run around tunnels bickering. 

Once the Ice Warriors enter the picture, things become mildly interesting, but any weight lent to the story by this new (if wholly predictable) development is undermined by the absurd plot contrivance of the mines of Peladon having a) central heating and b) air conditioning. To add insult to injury, the latter of these we are told is essential to the survival of the miners, which rather raises the question of how the non-technological Pels managed to mine the (apparently very old) tunnels prior to joining the Federation. 

Mercifully, we are gifted with two decent villains. Alan Bennion is an old hand at playing Martian warlords by now, and Azaxyr is a commanding presence. He also boasts, in my opinion, the best "Ice Lord" costume to appear in the series and makes great use of his billowing cloak. The return of the Ice Warriors as villains is welcome, and despite their increasingly knackered costumes, they still look pretty effective, as they trudge slowly but menacingly about. Eckersley is also rather effective up to a point, well acted by Donald Gee (making amends for his dodgy accent in 'The Space Pirates'), who gives a laid back but striking performance. Unfortunately, he is rather undermined by the script in Episode Five when the question of his motivation arises. I can buy the idea that he is motivated by greed and seeks to become rich through his dealings with Galaxy Five, but he suddenly gets a horrible line about wanting to rule the world which just doesn't sit very well with his general demeanour and is utterly cringe-worthy.

The other characters are generally rather forgettable, although all of the guest cast are, to be fair, at the very least competent. Nina Thomas' Thalira is so vacuous as to be a non-entity, but this is more a shortcoming of the script rather than her rather endearing wide-eyed portrayal. The return of the likeable Alpha Centauri is also welcome, if somewhat unnecessary. Sadly, the two regulars fare surprisingly poorly. Pertwee is back on autopilot and delivers a muted and unenthusiastic performance. Sladen is fine, but the script gives Sarah very little to do except play the hostage and deliver a woefully feeble monologue on women's lib to Thalira. 

Production wise, the story is very sloppy. The notorious close-up shot of Terry Walsh in a silvery wig at the end of Episode Four is diabolical, but isn't the only problem. When the Doctor gains control of "Aggedor" in Episode Six, the first time he uses the weapon the footage of the statue vanishing is recycled from Episode Five, resulting in the hole in the refinery door mysteriously vanishing. And Vega Nexus, a budget-priced Azal, looks terrible. In short, after the excellent 'The Time Warrior' and 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs', and the entertaining 'Death to the Daleks', 'The Monster of Peladon' heralds the down-turn in quality that blights every Pertwee season since the sublime Season Seven. Sadly, for Pertwee's swansong, things don't get any better…