What's Wrong With... Planet of the Spiders

The original intention for the final story of Season 11 had been the final defeat of the Master, but the tragic death of Roger Delgado put paid to that.

The story which did round off the season would also bring to a close the tenure of Jon Pertwee as Third Doctor. Terrance Dicks was already handing over to Robert Holmes, and Barry Letts would have only one more story as Producer before he also stood down.

This "end of term" set-up brought mixed blessings.

Over the years, whilst out filming or attending events like the Boat Show on publicity duties, Pertwee and Letts had come across various novel modes of transport (generally small, one-man vehicles). Mental notes were taken to use them in the show at some point. Pertwee was a real petrol-head, who had raced cars and owned a speedboat at his Ibiza holiday home (as well as one of those hydrofoils seen in The Sea Devils).

For his star's last outing, since Letts was directing as well as having co-written the story, an epic chase sequence was set up, taking up most of the second episode. This would involve various methods of transport including Bessie, the new "Whomobile", a small hovercraft and a gyrocopter. 

This is seen by many as an over-indulgent sequence, unnecessary to the overall plot. Lupton could simply have been chased along a road in a jeep for a few minutes.

What particularly annoys those who find this sequence a lengthy irrelevance is that the Spider ends up teleporting Lupton to safety anyway. Why couldn't it have done this in the first place?

Two other indulgences here are Letts'. His Buddhist beliefs are very high in the mix, with all the characters - including the Spiders - embodying Buddhist principles. He knows what it all means, but we aren't blessed with this knowledge.

It's also his last chance to play with CSO for a while, and there are some particularly nasty examples of it. Sarah's arrival on Metebelis III is a prime instance. Seemingly some later in the show was so bad it couldn't be used. This led to some drastic re-editing, which is why the end of Part 5 / beginning of Part 6 is such a mess. As the final episode opens, we seem to have jumped way back into the previous one. We then get totally new scenes before the remainder of the Part 5 cliff-hanger.

There is some dodgy plotting in Part 1, as we never seem to know on what day things are happening. It appears that the theatre show attended by the Doctor and Brigadier must have been first thing in the morning, as it seems to coincide with Sarah first visiting the meditation centre. Events must happen over at least two days, but there is no sense of this.

Of all the places (and times) to make contact with on Earth, the Spiders just happen to pick one which has an ex-member of UNIT staying, as well as the current companion of the very man who used to possess the blue crystal visiting for the day - and the person he gave it to has just decided to return it to him. That's a lot of coincidences.

(An even bigger coincidence is a member of the theatre audience also being an attendee of the meditation centre. And Letts thought we wouldn't notice).

The crystals have made the Spiders bigger and very smart - but how have they been able to give them the ability to time travel?

Metebelis III has been spoken about since Season 10. It has always been the famous Blue Planet. When seen in The Green Death it was indeed very blue looking - but looks just like Earth here. It is now supposed to be famous for its blue moonlight, but we have night scenes here - which don't look particularly blue.

Professor Clegg witnesses Drashigs when he handles the sonic screwdriver. However, the Doctor had the sonic he used in The Carnival of Monsters confiscated when sent to the lunar penal colony in Frontier in Space, and there is no way the Master would have allowed him to retrieve it.

Nicholas Courtney's eyeline does not match the floating tea tray. Why does he continue to look round the room when he has already decided to give Clegg his wristwatch?

The Spiders' ability to sense the crystal varies enormously - with Lupton's spotting it 80 miles away, then failing to spot it in a cupboard in the same building as itself.

For a Buddhist, Barry Letts could be a bit of a snob - especially where country folk are concerned. Here, one indication of Tommy's mind-boost is the loss of his accent, replaced by some BBC Received Pronunciation. We also have the problem of an increased capacity for learning compared with an ability to do things he hasn't had a chance to learn yet. 

Not as bad as the previous story, but there is some quite noticeable use of Terry Walsh in the fight scenes.

Hard to believe, I know, but RADA had an acting prize named in honour of Jenny Laird (Nesca). One of its recipients was Richard Franklin...

What's Wrong With... The Monster of Peladon

 

As this is supposed to be a sequel to an earlier story, then the first place to look for errors would be with continuity between the two stories. Is there anything in this new story which contradicts the earlier?

By employing the same director and some of the cast, plus the reuse of citadel designs, there's a lot of similarity.

One obvious inconsistency is the mineral trisilicate. In The Curse of Peladon it is clearly stated that this can only be found on Mars. Here, it is suddenly to be found on Peladon, which is a massive coincidence - considering this story also features Ice Warriors from Mars.

Chancellor Ortron appears to claim that he took over from Hepesh the very day that the old High Priest died - yet there was no sign of him in the earlier story.

Why does he not recognise the Doctor as well? Why does he think that Aggedor will harm the man who knows how to tame and control it? He admits openly that "everyone knows the stories about the Doctor" - then shows complete ignorance of them.

Why is there still a temple to Aggedor, when the Doctor previously revealed that it is an animal of flesh and blood and not a deity?

When Aggedor spares the Doctor and Sarah, why does Ortron persist in trying to undermine him?

After the events of the first story Alpha Centauri would have discovered that the Doctor was not a high-ranking Federation official. In fact, there would have been no record of him whatsoever - so why is it so pleased to see him and to vouch for him?

The locals aren't allowed anywhere near Federation weaponry - so why is there a large armoury of Federation weapons here? Wouldn't Federation troops bring their own, as the Ice Warriors do here?

Eckersley is using the mining control room as a base to employ the Aggedor projection / heat weapon, presumably operated by the Ice Warrior spotted by Sarah. 

The miners have been toiling away for a very long time up to this point - so how is the trisilicate currently being processed? Surely no-one could possibly object to the opening of the mine control area to make their life far easier. Same goes for the miners' refusal to use the Federation equipment. They are simply giving themselves a much harder time - then complaining about having so much hard work to do!

The Federation has been on Peladon for 50 years now. When did they find the trisilicate? If they've known about it for a while, why are they only now exploiting it with technology. Shouldn't the conflict over technology have taken place years ago?

If trisilicate is so essential, what did everyone do before it was found on Peladon? Relying on something which only the Ice Warriors had access to would have been a real risk.

And why is Peladon not better protected, if it's the main source of the mineral in a time of war?

What exactly is the Aggedor projection? In the tunnels it is transparent and looks to be a hologram, yet we see the actual statue dematerialise - so why don't people see the actual statue appear?

It's no wonder the Pels aren't happy with the Federation aliens, if they have security systems that drive people insane then kill them. What's wrong with just double locking doors or adding a padlock?

The Doctor and Sarah have the run of the communications room, even after Azaxyr has arrived. Surely such a vital area ought to have been placed under guard. Azaxyr only has himself to blame for letting Alpha Centauri send out an SOS.

At one point the Doctor is sent by Thalira to meet with Gebek. Ortron has him arrested for trying to leave the citadel - and the Doctor fails to mention that he is on a mission from the Queen. He ends up spending time in prison working out a means of escape, when he didn't need to be there in the first place.

Actor and stunt man Max Faulkner gets killed twice - in the same episode. At least he has form in this area, as he got zapped by The Ambassadors of Death but it didn't stop him doing his duty and he was back on guard soon after.

It's hard to feel sorry for the miners who get massacred when they elect to follow Ettis - who they surely can't fail to notice is bonkers. Why favour him over nice, reasonable Gebek? They only have themselves to blame.

You can see Nick (Aggedor) Hobbs' white socks at one point.

In the big fight scene at the end of the fourth episode Pertwee's stunt double Terry Walsh is all too obvious.

"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the mines" - oh dear... For this to be an old saying on Peladon, the mines must always be very hot - so why do they have a heating system that makes them hotter?

What's Wrong With... Death to the Daleks

 

The title for this story came from the new Script Editor, Robert Holmes. He hated the Daleks - finding them terribly dull - and wished death upon them. This was a view shared by the person playing the Doctor in this story, as well as his successor. Even Terry Nation was realising their deficiencies by now - which is why he introduced Davros in the very next story he wrote.

As the writer is Nation, we have yet another militaristic expedition having a bad time on a hostile planet, which is named after a plot point (before it became a mineral, the expedition had come to the planet Exxilon in search of an elixir). The expedition members squabble amongst themselves over what to do next - one urging caution and the other hot-headed. A mysterious figure stalks the companion - only to turn out to be a friend. A pyramid full of death traps. The Daleks turn up at the end of the first episode, to no-one's surprise.

All that's missing is a jungle setting... Oh look - it was set in a jungle, but the director and script editor had it moved to a quarry planet.

The TARDIS interior is supposed to exist in a totally different dimension, so how can the Exxilon beacon possibly affect it? Also, this is the era when the TARDIS was supposed to be of infinite size, so surely the beacon could never have drained all the power without overloading itself. Terry Nation always treats the ship as if it were a conventional spacecraft.

The last time the Doctor had to open the main doors during a power loss, he used his ring and a device in the ship (The Web Planet) - but here we see that he has to use an old-fashioned, very low-tech hand crank to manually open and close them.

Once again Nation comes up with a number which he thinks is really, really big - but isn't at all when you think about it. 10 million people will die on some planets. That's not very many in planetary terms.

If parrinium is so vital, why did Earth send such a small mission?

With a beacon capable of draining every bit of energy from a TARDIS, how did the Earth people find out about the mineral in the first place?

In normal circumstances we can understand why the commander might not want Galloway to take over - but, in their current dire straits, surely he would make for a more effective commander than the wet Hamilton?

Saying that, Galloway attacks the Doctor long after he already knows what Exxilons look like. Did any previous ones have velvet jackets, frilly shirts and bouffant hairstyles?

A couple of very poor cliff-hangers, one due to some drastic reordering of scenes, and another due to the editor not cutting in time.

The latter is the end of Part One. We know that the Dalek guns don't work as we see one firing away far too long with nothing happening.

The third episode ending is regarded by fans as one of the Top 10 worst - "the floor tiles of doom". The Doctor stops Bellal stepping on a patterned bit of flooring for no discernible reason - thanks to this scene being shunted out of sequence and the real cliff-hanger being moved into the body of an episode.

You have to ask why the Exxilons made this bit of floor different in the first place - thus drawing attention to it.

Things aren't helped by the fact that the Doctor's description of the tiles doesn't match what we see. Bellal clearly steps out of the tiles the Doctor tells him to step on, and he doesn't copy the Doctor's steps (no doubt because Bellal actor Arnold Yarrow couldn't see a thing).

The Exxilon city has its ways of stopping people accessing it. We see that to get inside in the first place, you have to touch the wall to light up the hidden symbols. In the first chamber are a load of skeletons. To have got there they must have worked out the technique of touching the wall etc. How then did they fail to find and solve the much simpler maze puzzle?

There are automated defences in the cave system, and in a pool of water - but there don't seem to be any similar defences around the city itself. Anyone can just walk right up to it.

And who was it that lit all the candles in that underground tunnel which is guarded by a lethal defence mechanism?

What's worst about the city defences is that you can simply climb up the exterior and plant a bomb, encountering zero defences.

Inside the city we see an Exxilon who appears to be observing events but turns out to be long dead. It is implied that the Exxilons look like they do because they degenerated - yet this one looks the same.

The Doctor attacks the city via its electronics. The city responds by producing "anti-bodies" - but instead of attacking the person doing the actual damage, they just go after the Daleks.

How have the Daleks ever managed to conquer galaxies and gain the reputation they have when they self-destruct every time they do something wrong? They are always being beaten by the Doctor, so there shouldn't be all that many left by now. And in committing suicide, the Dalek guard actually makes matters far worse, as it allows Sarah and Jill more time to steal back all that parrinium.

The Daleks decide to launch a plague bomb to stop later humans landing on the planet - despite the fact that, with the beacon now destroyed, they could just land robot miners to do the work, or people in biohazard suits.

Not something wrong - just an annoyance. All the Daleks look the same apart from one which has orange dome lights instead of clear ones - yet they don't make something of this like making him the leader.

What's Wrong With... Invasion of the Dinosaurs

 

Well, there's the dinosaurs for a start...

We'd best get these out of the way first. The Drashigs in Carnival of Monsters had proved to be very popular and their realisation had been deemed a success by producer Barry Letts. (The ironic thing is that they were named by Robert Holmes as an anagram of 'dish-rags', as that's what he thought the VFX team would use to make them). Spurred on by this, Letts decided that it might be time to feature prehistoric monsters in the series. No story had featured them prominently due to the issue of how to make them look convincing. One had appeared briefly in The Silurians, when it had been realised using a man in a suit, filmed using CSO to make it look huge. (It was only afterwards that Letts realised that a small puppet or model would have done the trick much more cheaply).

Letts asked around and was informed that it would be possible to make some dinosaur models for the money he was offering, and they would would look okay on screen. The person who told him this was Clifford Culley, whose VFX company had worked on major movies such as the James Bond franchise, and who had also provided the FX for Planet of the Daleks. His company - Westbury Design & Optical - were being paid to store the Dalek props and refurbish them as necessary.

The problem was, however, that his expertise lay in optical effects such as mattes (he became the head of Pinewood's matte painting department) rather than miniatures and other models.

Culley took on the work for this story by subcontracting out the dinosaur models to someone else - Rodney Fuller - and he's the one responsible for the substandard work which unfortunately made it to the screen.

To be honest, it is only really the Tyrannosaurus Rex which lets the side down. Trouble is, it lets the side down very badly indeed - and features more than any other other monster, even getting three of the five cliffhangers. The other dinosaurs - Triceratops, Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus in old money), Stegosaurus and Pterodactyl - are not that bad. The latter is realised using a glove puppet as well as being swung about on a wire, whilst the others appear as fairly static models. It's the lack of movement that is their saving grace.

One of the problems is that the models are controlled via a cable running up through the foot, which is why the T-Rex isn't terribly mobile. Another problem is with the mix of CSO (on video) superimposed onto film backgrounds. This makes the CSO artefacts appear to float and not really integrate with the surroundings. Again, when they are seen in a model landscape they aren't quite so bad.

On being shown the CGI explosion which DVD viewers could select for the end of The Time Warrior, Letts is said to have turned round and asked "Well, what about these dinosaurs then?".

For some reason the opening episode was wiped in isolation from the other five instalments. Some think that this is because it had the name changed to just "Invasion", and the people doing the wiping mistook it for part of the 1968 Patrick Troughton Cyberman story. Others are convinced Letts intended the entire story to be wiped... Whatever, the first episode is only available in B&W. 

The colourisation process for the DVD did not make use of a US television PAL copy, as with other recolourisations. Instead the colour information was taken from hidden data on the film print, and as such renders it grainy and washed out.

Hopefully this will be improved when it comes to a future Season 11 Blu-ray box set release. If you are at all familiar with this story you will know that there are actually very few scenes in which the cast interact with the dinosaurs in the same picture frame. It is therefore perfectly feasible to remake the dinosaur scenes using CGI, losing only a handful of inessential shots.

Before we move on to the actual plot, since we're looking at behind-the-scenes matters, we should mention the controversy over that Part One renaming. Writer Malcolm Hulke thought that the full title would provide a big audience draw, as dinosaurs were as popular with children in 1974 as they are today. It was director Paddy Russell who thought it a smart idea to drop the "of the Dinosaurs" so that it would come as a big surprise to viewers. The first episode sets up the mystery of why London is seemingly empty, and why there are dead bodies and crashed cars on the streets.

Letts took Russell's side in the argument, and Hulke was furious, believing they had just damaged his story's ratings. In the end Letts had to concede he was right and he did write an apology, as did Terrance Dicks. This was the only serious argument the two men had ever had - and Hulke had once been Dicks' landlord as well as writing partner. Russell's whole plan to keep the dinosaurs a secret had been thoroughly spoiled anyway - first in a season preview published in the Radio Times 10th Anniversary Special, and then in the actual Radio Times for the week of broadcast, which featured artwork of the Doctor under attack by the Pterosaur.

Hulke and Dicks did patch things up, but the writer decided never to work on Doctor Who again - a great loss to the series.

On to the actual story itself.

The TARDIS always returns to UNIT HQ after it's been off on its travels, even when the Time Lords weren't in control, so why does it land in the middle of a London park here?

It's a big coincidence that UNIT just happen to have also moved to London for this crisis, but the TARDIS can't know that otherwise it would surely have landed at their temporary school HQ.

The city is supposed to be deserted, and yet we can clearly hear traffic noise in the background.

And we see a film camera crew apparently shadowing the Doctor and Sarah as they walk past all those reflective windows... They're still stalking him in Part Six, as you can see from their shadow on the ground when the Brigadier and General Finch confront each other.

A problem that we can blame Hulke for - every single guest character happens to be in on the conspiracy. It's like a whodunnit where everyone dunnit and we know this from the outset. A couple of red herring characters might have been nice, just to get the audience guessing. What should have been a big surprise is that UNIT regular Captain Yates is a member of Operation Golden Age - but we are told this far too early. Again, raising suspicion about a possible traitor within UNIT would have worked so much better dramatically. It's as if they just wanted to get to the dinosaurs as frequently as possible.

Letts and Dicks were better than most at adding some continuity to the series, yet there was no mention of Professor Whitaker when it came to the scientists rounded up by the Brigadier during The Time Warrior. If temporal mechanics were his speciality, shouldn't he have been prime suspect for the vanishing scientists and equipment in that earlier story?

OGA has its base in an underground command centre which was built beneath London during the Cold War. Why does the Brigadier not twig this sooner, considering he has form when it comes to top secret bases built under London, accessed via the Tube network?

The base has one entrance in Whitehall, and another in Moorgate. That is one hell of a size. The Underground runs throughout this area at its densest, operating on different levels, so the shelter must be very deep indeed. Much deeper than the length of rope brought by the Doctor.

Despite its apparently enormous size, when we see a plan of it, it isn't very big at all.

Mr Robinson, one of the OGA people, claims that he looked into the operation very closely, like he was getting stock market advice from his bank manager. Where exactly would he have been able to research a top secret scheme to plant colonists on an Earth-like planet which must lie well beyond the Solar System? Was there an article in the Guardian newspaper, or an advert in House & Home? If they are all like him, how on earth does Grover hope to build a new society without recourse to technology? He looks like he would fall to pieces if denied a Waitrose home delivery.

Sarah somehow recalls off the top of her head the distance achieved by athlete Mark to three decimal places, despite her just having been concussed and woken up on a spaceship going to an alien planet (and the fact that no sport ever measured anything to that degree in those days).

It's pretty obvious why UNIT are floundering without the Doctor. They have elected to base themselves in the far west of London, when all the action is happening in the centre. No wonder the dinosaurs have always vanished by the time they get there. If Grover can base himself in Whitehall, why can't the Brigadier do the same? Benton mentions that there is some radio interference every time a dinosaur appears. Way back in The Ambassadors of Death the Brigadier was quick to triangulate the alien signals - so why doesn't he do something similar here? The OGA base would have been identified long before the Doctor even got back from Merrie England.

And when the Doctor does arrive, why does he not use the handy little device he used to trace the TOMTIT temporal anomalies, back in The Time Monster?

UNIT were set up to deal with the weird, the alien and the unexplained, yet it is the regular army which has been placed in charge of the government response. The government have shifted to Harrogate. That's way up in Yorkshire. The crisis is confined to central London. Why could the government not move to Brighton or Luton and been a lot closer? And just what day job does Grover have that he is the one to be put in charge from their end? Home Secretary or Minister of Defence are the most obvious roles to lead, but there's no hint he is either of these.

Yates sabotages the Doctor's stun-gun, but we clearly see his device attached to the weapon long before we see him actually placing it there. We also note the Doctor staring right at it but failing to notice the shiny new component he never built.

When Sarah gets attacked in the hangar by the waking T-Rex, no-one questions why she was there alone, and why there were no guards present - yet Finch easily blames the whole thing on the Doctor without a shred of evidence. And even after all this, Sarah still trusts him.

When it comes to journalism Sarah is clearly a Lois Lane, rather than a Jimmy Olsen, as she uses a flash to take pictures through a glass window.

On escaping from the OGA base the first time, she neglects to leave word for the Doctor or Brigadier of where she's been and what she's seen. No wonder she walks straight into another trap within the hour.

Luckily for her she gets locked in rooms that have handy ventilation shafts for ease of escape.

Why put her on the fake spaceship at all? They know she'll kick up trouble. Why not simply kill her and dump the body where a T-Rex will eat the evidence.

Yates isn't much smarter. What did he think would happen when he put the Doctor into the custody of Sergeant Benton?

When exactly is it that the OGA are planning to resettle. It surely can't be the dinosaur era - not with the likes of Mr Robinson in their midst. (Though at least Mark can run away from them). Pick almost any period of history and you are going to end up facing wars or plague or both, so I hope they've chosen very carefully.

And where does the medieval peasant in Part One fit in? Why did Prof. Whitaker bring him into the 20th Century, just to lurk about a garage then give the Doctor a big clue as to what might be going on? 

Last, but by no means least, if the Operation Golden Age people do go back in time and completely alter history, surely they can't then have existed to go back in time to completely alter history...

What's Wrong With... The Time Warrior

Some of the issues with this story can be laid squarely at the door of its director. Alan Bromly, who would later be lambasted by Tom Baker and sacked from Nightmare of Eden, was old-fashioned and uncomfortable with technicalities such as VFX. He refused to accept ideas from others on how to achieve such effects.

You have to wonder why Barry Letts hired him in the first place...

The main effects shots Bromly refused to accept concerned the explosion of the castle at the conclusion. The director used stock footage of a quarry blast - and this is exactly what it looks like.

The arrival of Linx's spaceship is far from impressive as well.

We see Hal the archer encourage Bloodaxe and the rest of the soldiers to flee the castle - but not Meg and the rest of the women in the kitchens.

Linx obtains the scientists from the late 20th Century - so why does he not obtain weapons from that time period as well?

Why would an alien, who has never been to Earth, select weapons which fit neither the period he's in, nor the period he has visited, and yet they are exactly of a known human weapon design? Why get his scientists to build them when he could have stolen them ready built? Just because they are expert in one field, it doesn't mean that the scientists would have the skills needed to make firearms.

Where did the gunpowder come from so quickly?

The scientists act like zombies, so did he really need them to begin with? Couldn't hypnotised locals have been used instead, or those from a closer future time period?

The biggest question about his scheme - how does he know where and when to even begin looking for what he needs? He's clearly only at the castle for a short time before he's off plundering equipment and scientists from more than one location in his future. How could he possibly know about these, and then know that the Brig had moved everyone?

If Sontarans have such time travel in the 12th Century (assuming it is the time of the Crusades, but that's only a guess) why have they not won their war against the Rutans by the time we get to Fang Rock?

Long before we had this story on VHS, fandom was convinced that an anachronistic potato featured in the kitchen scene between Sarah and Meg. We now know this isn't the case - but there is an anachronistic apple variety in the scene where one is used as target practice. The Cox's Orange Pippin dates to the 1820's.

It doesn't say much for the Brigadier's security measures that no-one else picks up that Sarah is half the age of the person she is purporting to be. Rubeish notices fairly quickly, and he's blind as a bat.

How can the Doctor and Brigadier not spot that Sarah has gone into the TARDIS in search of Rubeish? They're standing only a couple of feet away, and Sarah even calls into the ship within earshot.

How likely is it that she would have proceeded inside once she saw the console room beyond? Wouldn't she be more likely to pull back? Not only has she gone on into the console room, but she must have then headed beyond and through the internal door for the Doctor not to see her once he entered to travel back to medieval times.

Sarah is convinced the Doctor is up to no good - but for absolutely no good reason. Later she'll convince Sir Edward and Lady Eleanor of his guilt, but after he's captured he simply says it's someone else, and they automatically accept this. Sarah seems surprised that the Doctor knows about UNIT, despite the pair of them spending the whole first episode in a UNIT run facility with the Brigadier.

It seems almost sacrilegious to criticise one of the best cliff-hangers of the classic era, but Linx didn't do a great job in checking no-one was around to see him take his helmet off in the castle courtyard, did he? He's as observant as the Doctor and the Brig.

For him, his physiognomy is standard, so why does he want to keep his appearance hidden in the first place? He considers humans primitive, so why should he care what they think about his looks? And why does he suddenly not care about hiding his appearance in the later episodes?

The guard at the gate, joking with his colleague after the Doctor and Sarah have entered in their monk outfits: one of the worst acting performances ever.

Rubeish addresses one scientist as Morrison - and then a totally different scientist as Morrison...

The Doctor gets shot in the face by Linx, so later fetches a photographer's light reflector to prevent a second attack. Why does Linx not simply aim lower when the Doctor shields his face?

Last - but by no means least - how on Sontar did they get Linx's spaceship into that chamber?