Day 157 — June 6th 2021
The Curse of Peladon Episodes One and Two
The Curse of Peladon — Episode One
Having spent the last two days moaning about not being able to watch the original version of Day of the Daleks, I’ve made a conscious decision to skip out on the original version of The Curse of Peladon — I’ve been listening to the Narrated Soundtrack today. I’ve been thinking about it for a while; when I did an episode of Doctor Who and the Silurians via the soundtrack I spent an Audible Credit to buy a collection of them, and the two Peladon stories were included. The Narrated Soundtracks feel totally right for the 1960s stories (largely because so much of that era had to be done that way), and Season Seven doesn’t feel too out of place, but anything later that that feels somewhat strange in that format to me.
So I’m pleased to say that I’ve really enjoyed listening to this one! I’ve said before that I don’t have much recollection of my thoughts on the 70s stories from my last marathon, and that’s true. Something I do remember is reaching the second Peladon story and dreading that it was two episodes longer than this one, so I suspect I might have found it a bit of a slog. Not so today — there’s lots to enjoy, and I feel like it’s only enhanced by the narration (which is nicely provided by Katy Manning).
Take the opening sequence, for example. It looks pretty good on screen with some nice model work of the Peladon citadel perched aside the mountain, but the narration gives it a scale which they couldn’t hope to capture on screen;
‘Lighting tears across the night sky, illuminating the ancient citadel of Peladon. A many turreted edifice, built precipitously into a sheer mountainside. Within the fortress walls, an old man walks through gloomy passages lit by fligkering torches. His flowing cloak, trimmed with dark fur, is worn over purple robes of state. A pair of heavy doors, decorated with the design of a beast’s head, swing open before him and he passes through into the castle’s throne room, where he bows before the young king.’
And then there’s the introduction of the various delegates from the Federation. On screen the costumes are an odd assortment — Director Lennie Mayne famously described Alpha Centauri as looking like ‘a dick in a cape’ — but their descriptions on the soundtrack make them all seem endlessly fascinating. Alpha is introduced thus;
‘There is an atmosphere of unease as an alien delegate approaches the king.Green skinned and single footed like a mollusc, it has an upright body with six pincered tentacles, and an octopus-like head with one huge eye.’
Now I rather love the design we got on screen. There’s something charming and silly about it which feels totally right for Doctor Who. But this description conjures up a totally different image for me — making the character almost more insectoid, with lots of little legs moving away underneath them. In my mind now it’s the kind of creature they’d only be able to achieve with CGI these days.
Even Arcturus, who’s probably the weakest of the designs in the televised episodes, gets given a great description here which really bulks up the character;
‘The alien, little more than a skull-like, tendril head with bulbous eyes sits beneath a clear, helium-filled dome where it is regularly washed with nutrient fluids which bubble from the large rectangular life support and traction unit beneath it.’
And then there’s the Ice Warriors. We all know what they look like — we’ve encountered them twice before, so they’re the only element in here which isn’t new to us — but there’s something fresh about hearing them introduced on the narration;
‘The lumbering figure of a massive reptilian biped passes by. Clad in green armour with protective helmet, it has huge clamp-like hands. It’s skin bumped, ridged and scaled like that of an alligator.’
I wouldn’t want to do every Doctor Who story in this format. It’s such a visual show, and often the direction of a story can boost it up in my estimations. On top of that, there’s so much of the series that we can’t see that it would be a shame to skip out on too much of the stuff we can still watch. I’ve really enjoyed doing this one in a different format, though, and I’m going to be carrying on for the resat of the story. If nothing else, it’ll stop the filmic views of Peladon I’ve got in my head from being wiped out by the BBC’s production values of 1972…!
A 7/10.
The Curse of Peladon — Episode Two
Doctor Who has gone very spooky all of a sudden, hasn’t it? This is the third story in a row where characters believe they’ve seen a ghost. I rather like Doctor Who continuing to cut down the superstitions with logic, though (‘It must have been a pretty substantial type of ghost to have shifted a solid granite statue…’).
Something I’ve been keen on in Brian Hayles’ last couple of scripts for the series is the characterisation he gives the guest cast. Both The Ice Warriors and The Seeds of Death were filled with rich — and very human — characters, and the same is pleasingly true of this story so far. Where the scripts can fail slightly is in adding this characterisation at the expense of the regulars.
The Ice Warriors was perhaps the ultimate example — relegating Victoria from the pro-active and gutsy character she’d been in the previous two serials to a generic screaming child. Thankfully that doesn’t seem to be an issue carried into the 1970s. Jo is given perhaps her best episode to date here, with plenty for her to do and making sure that she’s present at all the key moments in the story. Indeed, while Doctor Who himself is hardly sidelined, this feels much more like Jo’s story than his. She gets to sneak away and discover the footprints on the balcony, and Jo gets the big action sequence shimmying across a narrow ledge on the outside of the castle.
It’s also telling that Jo is the one present when the Ice Warriors reveal that they’ve changed their ways, and I’m hoping that this is going to lead to some conflict between her and Doctor Who as the story goes on. He’s shown himself to be unusually prejudiced against the Ice Warriors here;
Jo: ‘They say they’re here for the same reason as the other delegates. Peace.’
Doctor Who: ‘Do they. Well, believe me, I know the Ice Warriors, Jo. They’re a savage and a warlike race. No, among the delegates, only Ssorg’s strength could have shifted that statue.’
Jo: ‘I still think you’re jumping to conclusions.’
Doctor Who: ‘Well, who else could be responsible?’
In some ways this feels totally at odds with the character we saw in Doctor Who and the Silurians, who was so quick to offer a hand of friendship to something ‘alien’. In other ways it feels totally fitting for this incarnation, who’s seemingly becoming a bit more bullish and less tolerant as his time goes on. Certainly the way he’s been treating Jo lately isn’t as nice as he would have been earlier on.
I’m pleased to say that this story is something of a turning point for their relationship — they’re far more chummy and likeable here than we’ve seen in a long time. I really love the sequence of them ribbing each other for having a little too much fun in their assumed roles;
Jo: ‘Look, why don’t we just organise someone to dig out the Tardis and get out here? Did you have to get us involved in all this?’
Doctor Who: ‘I didn’t really have any choice, did I?’
Jo ‘Oh, come on. You love all that chairman delegate stuff. Admit it.’
Doctor Who: ‘Well, how do you like being a princess, Princess?’
Jo: ‘Like you said, I didn’t really have much choice.’
I’m really enjoying this, when I wasn’t perhaps expecting much. An 8/10.
