Day 191 — July 10th 2021
Planet of the Spiders Parts One and Two
Planet of the Spiders — Part One
I remember when The End of Time aired there were complaints from some corners of fandom that it wasn’t so much a regeneration story as a chance for the outgoing production team to pat themselves on the back for five years of good work. Perhaps there’s some merit in that (although I have to admit to loving Tennant’s Doctor Who getting his ‘reward’), but even so I think we’ve got a precedent for it here in Planet of the Spiders.
This one is written by Robert Sloman with uncredited input from Barry Letts, who’s also on directing duties. We get a letter from Jo letting us know what she’s been up to for the last year (it’s lovely to hear from her, but I wish we’d gotten to see her and Cliff traipsing through the jungle!), Yates is back after his dismissal earlier in the series, and we even have an extended sequence repeated from Carnival of Monsters when Clegg uses his psychic powers to ‘read’ the Sonic Screwdriver. I’m also pretty sure that the fancy headgear used for the experiment is the same prop used for BOSS last season.
Perhaps most obviously, though, this guest cast here is made up almost exclusively by actors who’ve already appeared in a Pertwee-era episode of Doctor Who. Kevin Lindsay is here as Cho Je (having been Linx at the start of the season), Lupton is an on-screen appearance for John Dearth (The voice of BOSS in The Green Death), Clegg is Cyril Shaps (The Ambassadors of Death). And then there’s the likes of Christopher Burgess (Terror of the Autons), Terence Lodge (Carnival of Monsters) and Andrew Staines (who’s been in both of those previous two!).
I’m not complaining about that at all, it’s just that on this marathon I’ve been more aware of actors appearing in different stories, where that largely went over my head last time I watched through. This episode was a long list of me saying ‘Oh, they were in…’.
I’ll admit that I’m going into this one with a bit of trepidation. I remember very little about it from last time around — least of all what score I gave — but the writing partnership hasn’t been one of my favourites over the last few seasons, and this feels very much like it’s trying to recapture the cosy feel of The Dæmons, complete with lots of chanting and devil imagery. It’s not my favourite type of tale, and it feels like a real throwback after a season which started off so fresh.
I’m reserving judgement for now, but opening with a 5/10.
Planet of the Spiders — Part Two
The Pertwee Era celebration continues today with an homage to the varied chase sequences we’ve had in the last five years. They really make the most of it — this one lasts for just a shade under twelve minutes, which accounts for the entire second half of the episode, and takes in a varied array of vehicles for both Doctor Who and Lupton. Between them they go through;
- The Whomobile. Both of them get to drive this, Lupton stealing it from UNIT HQ and later Doctor Who revealing that it can fly, and taking to the skies in pursuit. We’ve gained a lift-up cover for the vehicle this time around, which probably came in useful considering how miserable the weather looks. I think this might be the last time the Whomobile shows up in the series, and if that’s the case I’m surprised how little it appears. We only got the one episode in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, and then the same here. Maybe there’s a reason it’s not as well remembered as…
- Bessie. Lupton never gets his hands on this one, but Benton gets to have a turn at driving her, and the Brigadier remains his passenger even after Doctor Who and Sarah have upgraded to their next mode of transport. Bessie gains a rain cover here, too, so they were definitely preparing for the weather.
- An Autogyro. Once again this gets used by both the chaser and the chased — Doctor Who initially uses it to relay Lupton’s movements on the ground to his UNIT colleagues, but the man later steals it and flies off himself. Amusingly when Lupton initially expresses doubt about the controls the Spider Queen reveals that she can figure it out — a scene reminiscent of Rory admitting he’ll be able to ride a motorbike in Let’s Kill Hitler because the plot requires him to.
- A boat. Lupton steals this one and sets out across the waves, with Doctor Who following in…
- A Hovercraft. They’ve flirted with the idea that the Whomobile might be a hovercraft itself (a policeman in this episode even suggests as much) but when you see Doctor Who cruising around in this one you realise that his own vehicle really is just a regular car with outlandish bodywork. At one point he drives over a tramp, who looks generally unconcerned. Of all the things I expected them to reference in Pertwee’s final story, Pigbin Josh from The Claws of Axos wasn’t one…!
If you’re a fan of Doctor Who utilising different vehicles in his adventures then this might be a fun way to spend half an episode, but I’ll confess that I was a bit bored throughout. I’d manages to forget about this extended chase until it started today, at which point it all came flooding back and I sort of mentally switched off from the rest of the episode. It’s quite possibly the more egregious example of padding the series has ever given us.
Lupton’s initial break in to UNIT HQ is also a bit annoying, because it makes our soldiers look incredibly useless in the process. The first person he encounters is a mechanic working on the Whomobile (which does open up the amusing possibility that UNIT are having to pay this man simply because Doctor Who can’t keep up with the repairs on his hobby), and we get mention of the Main Gate… but we never get to see it! I want to watch Lupton electrocuting the guards and having to sneak in, not just cut to him already wandering around inside.
And I can’t forgive them for making Benton look useless, either. The first time he encounters Lupton he gets a shock of the blue lightning but the second time he’s simply kneed in the stomach and keels over. Benton got some great material earlier in the season (and a brilliant moment in Part One of this story, where he suggests that he’s expendable while Doctor Who isn’t) and I want to see him shine in his final outing with the ‘UNIT Doctor Who’.
Ooh, on the subject of UNIT Doctors, we get a nice little bit of foreshadowing in this episode, when the Brigadier thinks Doctor Who requires some medical assistance, and puts a call through to ‘Sullivan’ to come and have a look. I’d forgotten that Pertwee leaving in this story means we get harry along in the next one, so this was a fun little tease, and it’s nice to see a story that’s doing so much looking back take a glance forwards too. I only wish Harry had shown up, that would have been fun.
We do get another look back to the past in this episode, but in a sort of roundabout way. The voice of the Spider Queen is provided by Kismet Delgado, widow of Roger Delgado. I think the original plan for the end of this season was to have Doctor Who and the Master go face-to-face one last time, but it’s nice to think that they’ve honoured the memory by casting Delgado’s wife in this final outing.
And the Spider Queen is by far the best thing in this episode. I sort of feel like the creature hopping up and down on the floor before jumping onto Lupton’s back should look ridiculous, but it actually manages to be quite terrifying. The spiders in this story might not be the most realistic things in the world, but this one is totally effective, and the voice is brilliant — a proper hybrid of innocent and terrifying.
Although… does she not get squished every time Lupton sits in a new vehicle? No wonder the spiders are so angry.
3/10
