4 Episodes
Aired between 29th January 1972 and 19th February 1972
Written by Brian Hayles
Produced by Barry Letts
Directed by Lennie Mayne
Synopsis
Peladon is a distant planet with ancient medieval like customs. One dark and stormy night, the King of Peladon summons his Chancellor, Torbis, and his High Priest, Hepesh to discuss with them the impending meeting to discuss whether Peladon should be allowed to enter the Galactic Federation.
Torbis is forward thinking and openly welcomes the chance to be in the Federation, but Hepesh is cynical, warning the King that the Federation will see them as little more than savages and will seek to exploit Peladon and mine it's minerals for their own good. He emphasises his view by warning the King that his actions might just bring the curse of Peladon around them.
The King, who has been brought up to adulthood by both Torbis and Hepesh following the deaths of his father (the previous King) and his earth mother, is clearly torn between the two views. He ultimately chooses to side with Torbis.
The old Torbis grows tired of listening to Hepesh's negative ranting and storms out, only to be killed in the darkened hallway by some strange bear-like beast.
Thinking he might have finally fixed the TARDIS and wrestled it from under Time Lord control, the Doctor takes Jo out for a spin, despite her protests that she was all ready to go for a night out with Captain Yates.
They materialise on the side of a mountain, just below the castle of Peladon.
As the Doctor and Jo step out of the TARDIS, the balance of weight shifts, sending it crashing down the mountainside. Jo is distraught at the thought of it, but the Doctor reassures her that it's indestructible; the only problem is how to get to it.
He notices the castle above them and decides that they need to go there to ask for help retrieving the time machine. They climb for a good while up the perilous cliff face, braving the storm and eventually find a tunnel.
In the castle, the Federation delegates arrive: the giant eyeballed Alpha Centauri,
the head in a bowl known as Arcturus,
and the Ice Warriors, namely the Ice Lord Izlyr and his guard Ssorg.
They quickly learn of Torbis' strange death and become concerned. King Peladon assures them that the matter is an internal affair and they're doing everything they can to look into it.
The Doctor and Jo travel through the cavernous tunnels, mindful of the roaring echos of some beast in there with them, until they pass a strange shrine and emerge in the castle.
The Doctor sees Ssorg and assumes the Ice Warriors are up to no good. They are captured shortly afterwards by the castle guards.
In the throne room, Hepesh begins ranting about the curse of Peladon again, saying that the King's actions will anger their deity - Aggedor, and bring his fury upon them. There is even a prophecy starting with the arrival of a stranger... at that point the Doctor and Jo are shown into the throne room.
Izlyr mistakes them for the Earth delegates, also members of the Federation. The Doctor thinks quick and confirms that he's a delegate and Jo is a princess sent as an observer (because only females of royal blood are allowed into the throne room).
King Peladon welcomes them and brings them up to speed. The Doctor quickly learns that Hepesh believes that Torbis was killed by the spirit of Aggedor. This sparks a lot of debate, which allows the King's mute bodyguard, Grun, to sneak away and loosen a statue of Aggedor outside the throne room.
The Doctor calls the squabbling delegates to order and suggests they retire from the throne room and discuss elsewhere. On their way out, Grun drops the statue on them, nearly killing Izlyr if it wasn't for the Doctor's lightning reactions. Hepesh blames the spirit of Aggedor again. The delegates clearly see that their own lives are in danger and want to call off the conference, but King Peladon pleads with them to reconsider.
Whilst everyone else is distracted, Jo takes her leave and sneaks up to where the statue fell, finding a large set of footprints and a small device lying on the floor. She sneaks back just as the decision is reached for the delegates to retire and talk.
As everyone leaves, King Peladon asks Jo to stay behind. He tells her about his human mother and highlights the struggles he's had growing up alone and trying to bring Peladon out of the dark ages.
He asks her to carry his favour to the other delegates which gets Jo really annoyed, probably because he came on a bit strong and she thought he was after something else.
In the shrine of Aggedor, Grun secretly comes to meet with Hepesh, who tells the mute to kill the Doctor because he's getting in the way.
Jo returns to the Doctor, and tells him what she found at the statue. She says she wants to get off Peladon, but the Doctor is still suspicious of the Ice Warriors. They suddenly hear alarm bells ringing and rush off to find the cause, ultimately discovering Arcturus in his room dying as an element of his intensive care machinery has been removed. The Doctor works fast and bypasses the missing component, stabilizing Arcturus just as the Ice Warriors and Alpha Centauri turn up.
Hepesh once more blames the curse of Peladon, saying it was Aggedor, but the Doctor dismisses it as mumbo jumbo, instead accusing Izlyr of the sabotage. The Ice Lord gets offended and counter accuses the Doctor. All this arguing allows Jo to once again slip away. She heads to the Ice Warrior's room and searches it, easily finding the missing component but gets discovered by Ssorg. The Ice Warrior denies any involvement and keeps her prisoner until Izlyr returns.
Unfortunately, as Arcturus returns to normal, he says he didn't see who was responsible. As they all retire once more, Grun motions to the Doctor, asking him to follow. He leads the Doctor into the tunnels and abandons him to the approaching roars of Aggedor.
Jo climbs out of her window and tries to find the Doctor, but instead runs into Aggedor! She flees and encounters the Ice Warriors again, who don't believe her story. It turns out that the Ice Warriors really aren't bad guys at all.
They've rejected their violent history and left Mars to become proud members of the Galactic Federation. Izlyr is also trying to figure out who the saboteur is. He says it's interesting that Arcturus was never in danger. He's discovered that there was a fail safe switch on his machine.
Back in the tunnels, the Doctor makes his way through until he gets back to the shrine, where Hepesh arrives and has him arrested for trespassing.
The Doctor is taken to the throne room and everyone is summoned back. Once gathered, Hepesh tells them that no one but the High Priest is allowed in the shrine of Aggedor under penalty of death therefore the Doctor must die.
The Doctor protests, explaining about the tunnel system that led him there. It's clear that King Peladon is unaware of them, but Hepesh tells them all that the Doctor is lying. King Peladon says he's no option but to pass sentence, but Jo convinces him to take the only other alternative: trial by combat to the death. The Doctor accepts only to find that he'll be fighting Grun.
The Doctor is taken away and everyone but Jo leaves. She begs King Peladon to overturn the rule but he cannot. She's amazed and disgusted that he follows up this conversation by proposing to her, seemingly for mutual benefit and helping bring Peladon out of the dark ages.
Whilst the Doctor is held prisoner, Hepesh gives him one final chance to leave the planet, he will leave the cell door open along with a map of the tunnels to escape back to his TARDIS that Hepesh has had recovered. The Doctor has figured out by now that the Ice Warriors have nothing to do with the sabotage and asks Hepesh why he's done all this. Hepesh admits that he's afraid of the Federation's influence. The Doctor tries to reason with him, pointing out that he can't possibly take on the whole Federation alone. Hepesh becomes passionate and lets it slip that he does have powerful allies ready to help him.
Jo meets with Alpha Centauri, Arcturus and Izlyr to ask them to stop the trial.
They point out that as delegates, they must remain neutral to local customs and practices. Jo storms off and Izlyr goes after her, telling her that despite this, he is willing the help the Doctor as a return for him saving his life from the statue falling. Arcturus overhears this conversation and skulks away.
That night, the Doctor decides to take Hepesh up on the offer and sneaks out of his cell, going through the tunnels where he encounters Aggedor. He uses a spinning mirror and a light to hypnotize the beast, singing a Venusian lullaby as he does so.
Jo goes to see the Doctor and finds him gone. She goes into the tunnels and sees Aggedor. Panicking, she scares the beast away, drawing admonishment from the Doctor who says that he was just starting to get through to it. Despite Jo's protests, the Doctor returns the castle and tries to tell everyone again about the tunnels and the real Aggedor hiding in them. Hepesh rants and raves, demanding that the Doctor be taken straight to the pit.
The King reluctantly nods in agreement and he is taken away to the combat pit and lower down into it with Grun. The two fight for a good while with all manner of weapons and unarmed.
Eventually, the Doctor comes out victorious but refuses to kill Grun. At that instant Arcturus and Ssorg draw their weapons and fire.
Ssorg is faster on the trigger and kills Arcturus, causing Hepesh to flee into the tunnels.
It comes to light that Hepesh was working with Arcturus, being the one who sabotaged his intensive care machine to throw them off the scent. It seems that Arcturus is a planet of low mineral wealth whilst Peladon is rich in it, so they came to a deal to keep the corrupt and exploitative Federation at bay and his own planet would make a separate treaty. King Peladon asks the delegates to help him convince the rest of his people and avoid civil war, as his men track down Hepesh.
Grun takes his manipulation personally and goes into the tunnels to find the High Priest. He does indeed find Hepesh in there, gathering a group of loyal guards. Grun attacks them but is overpowered and left for Aggedor to deal with whilst they stage a coup.
Because Arcturus is dead, this matter is still internal to Peladon and the other delegates have a hard time convincing Alpha Centauri to back a motion to bend galactic law and interfere. When they finally achieve this, they go to radio their respective fleets only to find that the radio's been sabotaged by Arcturus prior to his death.
The Doctor goes back into the tunnels to find Aggedor and discovers Grun. He teams up with the mute guard and together they go off to find the creature.
Back in the castle, Hepesh sneaks in his force of soldiers and overpowers the rest, staging a successful coup and putting King Peladon under arrest.
The Doctor and Grun find Aggedor once more. This time, the Doctor is able to successfully hypnotise Aggedor and he leads the beast back into the castle.
In the throne room, Hepesh puts the King under the threat of death unless the Federation delegates agree to leave immediately. The Doctor arrives with Aggedor and tells Hepesh it's over. Hepesh tries to command the beast to kill the Doctor, but Aggedor turns on him instead, killing him and leaving King Peladon without any mentors.
The traitorous guards all become terrified at the embodiment of their deity and drop their weapons.
Kind Peladon is devastated at the deaths of those who raised him, and it looks like he might slaughter the traitors in retribution but he tells them that they will go unpunished and the events will be struck from their histories as they finally move forward to become part of the Galactic Federation.
Perhaps a couple of days later, the Doctor and Jo have the TARDIS brought up into the castle. The Doctor explains to her that he doesn't think they came here by accident after all and that the Time Lords still have control over his ship. They joke that Aggedor has grown too fond of the Doctor and won't leave his side now.
As the Doctor leaves to take Aggedor back to his cage, Jo is visited by King Peladon on the eve of his official coronation. He asks Jo to stay and marry him, but she says she can't and anyway, she's not even a real princess.
He smiles and says it doesn't even matter. They kiss but are interrupted by the Doctor. Peladon leaves to take his place among his people and the Doctor and Jo intend to watch the ceremony, but luckily see the true Earth Delegate arriving, having awkward conversations with Izlyr and Alpha Centauri.
The Doctor and Jo make themselves scarce and run into the TARDIS as the delegates come to find them. They all watch in stunned silence as the TARDIS dematerialises in front of their very eyes.
Trivia
- It is pretty well known that this story was made as a parody on the UK entering the common market, It was a debate of considerable importance around that time.
- This story marks the welcome return of Patrick Troughton's son, David. See The War Games and Enemy of the World for his other appearances.
- This story also sees the arrival of wet behind the ears visual effects technician Matt Irvine. He would go on to do much loved work on the show for decades to come. His first job here was to make the tiny TARDIS model with the flashing light.
- When Director Lennie Mayne first set eyes on Alpha Centauri, supposedly he looked astonished at the visual effects team and yelled that it looked like a f****ng pr**k! They scurried away and tried to develop the creature a little more, bringing it back with a shower curtain around it. Mayne shook his head and said "now it lucks like a pr**k in a cape!
- That wasn't the end of his crude outbursts. When filming the end sequence of Aggedor arriving in the throne room, he wasn't happy with the cast's reactions. He told them they should be surprised to the point where they would yell Holy F****ng Cow! As they got ready for the next take, Pertwee conspired with the cast and as Aggedor turned up, they all in unison cheekily cried out "Holy F****g Cow!
- Although the torches and low lights were great effects, the production team did get their hands slapped for it because the soot smeared all over the lighting rigs in the studio and they had to be taken down and cleaned at considerable cost to the show
- And speaking of darkness, the continuity announcers had to give recaps of the shows previous episodes at the beginning of each transmission because there were scheduled power cuts going on across Britain in response to miners strikes. (See The Green Death for more on this.)
- Finally, if you watch the beginning interior TARDIS scene, you'll notice that the Doctor is rather fixated on the console. That's because the crew as a joke put a pornographic picture on the console to try and put him off his lines!
What worked
- This is one of the few classic Who stories that had its dark tones lit perfectly. The production team often battled with lighting engineers to make sets "dark and gloomy" but this one definitely worked
- The film sequence of climbing the cliff and the fighting pit worked really well
- The chance that Katy Manning was given for some real dialogue
- The Ice Warriors were also quite good and it's nice to finally see them in colour
- I liked the political overtones of the episode, with complex reasons to stay out of stuff needing to be overcome
- I also liked the true relationship you can see that's been formed between Jo and the Doctor. She really would do anything for him
- The return of "Klokleda Partha Menin Klatch, Naroon, Naroon, Naroon"
What didn't work
- Alpha Centauri
- Arcturus (although I really liked him in a naff but lovable sort of way)
- Peladon's ignorance of the tunnels
- The reasoning behind Hepesh's plans
- Arcturus' suicidal attempt to kill the Doctor
- Aggedor
- The fact that it's called Curse of Peladon when there's not really a curse
Overall Feelings
The thing that I take away from the Curse of Peladon is that it comes across as a far better episode than it deserves to be. You don't have to look far to find things wrong with it, starting most obviously with a certain one eyed alien. But remember, this was the 1970's so I'm not going to just judge it on visual effects alone. The problems do run deeper.
Throughout the first episode, Hepesh makes a big deal of the curse of Peladon, but when they explain it, they make it out like the curse is Aggedor coming to protect the King....how's that a curse? Going on from that, Hepesh suffers from Dalekitis where one scene he wants to kill the Doctor, and the next he doesn't. Some of the aliens are suspect too, I mean, was Arcturus so arrogant that he thought he could easily kill the Doctor in one shot, turn, and take care of the Ice Warriors before anyone could stop him? How would he explain it all to the Federation?
Perhaps the biggest faux pas this story shows is the argument between the Doctor and Hepesh about the existence of hidden tunnels beneath the castle. Why not just say, come with me and I'll show you them, right now. Not that Peladon needs to. I mean, how does he know about the shrine at all if it's within the tunnels, and come to think of it, how can you grow up in that castle and not discover those tunnels?
Rant aside, I think there are things this story does that push boundaries in a way that has been missing for some time. We get a myriad of aliens in the mix, even the natives of Peladon have different hairstyles to denote that they're not quite human. Alpha Centauri isn't male or female and yet no one in this 1972 time is encouraged to be repulsed by it, much the opposite in fact. And obviously, the expectations of the Ice Warriors are totally subverted.
The lighting is great too as we discussed, the film sequences of the cliff side are great too.
But perhaps the best part about this story is that it isn't really about the Doctor. Jo comes into her own and gets some juicy dialogue to go at. The bits where the Doctor would tell her she's being stupid and explain everything are in part taken over by Izlyr, but he encourages her to come around to his way of thinking.
In summary, this is a decent story not because of the plot or the visuals, but because it catches us off guard with a fairly adult approach to plot and character development.
Rating
8 out of 10
Rewatchability Factor
6 out of 10
Watch this if you liked...
- The Hound of the Baskerville's
- Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo
Consulting the Matrix
Which was your favourite delegate?
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