Four Episodes
Aired between 27th October 1979 and 17th November 1979
Written by David Fisher
Produced by Graham Williams
Directed by Christopher Barry
Synopsis
The Doctor and Romana intercept a distress signal that leads them to a jungle planet.
Once there, they find the remains of a strange stone egg that seems to be the source of the signal. Before they can investigate it fully, they're taken prisoner and hoisted back to the local's ruler: Adrastra. They say that no one is allowed in that region on pain of death.
On their way to Adrastra, the column is attacked and Romana is kidnapped by bandits who are after metal. She quickly gets the better of them with the help of K9 and goes off to find the Doctor.
The Doctor meanwhile meets Adrastra and tells her some of the things he's found out about the egg. Adrastra decides to spare the Doctors life, but takes him to "The Pit" where she throws one of her engineers down for being incompetent.
Romana mounts a rescue attempt but K9 is disabled by Wolf Weeds and the Doctor throws himself down the pit.
Whilst in the darkness, the Doctor finds an old astronomer called Organon, and also finds out there's a great whacking green blob down there too.
Most people (including Adrastra) think that the creature is trying to kill people, but it doesn't kill the Doctor.
Adrastra takes Romana to interrogate her about the secrets of the egg, and comes to realise that she can use her and K9 to destroy the creature. She heads off into the tunnels of the pit to find it and kill it.
The bandits meanwhile find out that Adrastra will be gone and they break into her palace to steal her metal. They end up finding a strange plate that takes over their minds and they go into the tunnels with it. It turns out that the disk is a communications device that the creature (really called Erato) needs to talk.
It isn't hostile, it came to the planet to offer a trade agreement vegetation in return for metal. Unfortunately, it met Adrastra who wanted to keep her monopoly of metal and so she stole its communicator and kept it prisoner in the pit for years.
Adrastra is killed as the truth comes out, and the people intend to trade with Erato for metal, but he tells them that the egg was his ship and it was sending out a signal to his people and he expects mass destruction to be close at hand.
Erato and the Doctor soon discover that Erato's people have sent a neutron star to crash into the jungle planet. They come up with a plan to encapsulate the star in a shield and neutralise the threat which they do.
Organon is made ruler and a trade agreement between them and Erato is drawn up.
Trivia
- This was actually the first story produced with Llala Ward taking the role as Romana. You can see that her dress was more akin to Mary Tamm's version of the Character and to a degree, some of her lines too. It didn't take long for Llala to put her stamp on things though
- This was Christopher Barry's final Doctor Who, and in part it was because he found both Tom Baker and Llala Ward difficult to work with (arguing about their lines etc.)
- In 1979, it was an incredibly bold decision to try and do a protoplasm monster and get it right. They'd tried something like it before with the Ogron Eater (see Frontier in Space) with disastrous results, but for some reason it was decided not to use actual slime and CSO, they wanted a practical effect. The creature was made and came on set to roars of laughter as it looked more like a giant *cough* thingy, than Alpha Centauri ever did! The effects team were forced to work into the night to change its appearance and add some more tentacles on before filming resumed
- John Leeson, the immortal voice of K9 who spent his rehersal days scurrying about on all fours, was unavailable for this series. David Brierley stepped into the slot and gave K9 a more human approach to things, like it or not.
The Review
Looking on the Creature from the Pit for the first time, I can see a glimmer of something magical inside it, trying to get out. If you look at the film sequences of the TARDIS landing in the Jungle and Tom Baker, covered in sweat as he moves through the tropical jungle (or under very hot studio lights), or when he falls down the pit and is looking around with only a lit match, there's a very creepy air to it. The scene's promise much in the way that the dark streets of Victorian London did for Talons of Weng-Chiang.
Indeed, there's more than just a bit of good lighting and some jungle scenery. We get the added bonus of the story trying to flip the script and show us a good guy that's made out to be a bad guy. It's been done before but not really enough to say it's cliche. In many ways this story is a serious drama, especially judging by Karela's bid to take the metal for herself at the end, as well as the body count and Adrastra's effective on screen "execution".
The thing that lets the side down is that because it's in the era of Graham Williams and Douglas Adams (and to an extent, in the middle of Tom Baker's disillusionment with the series), it can't fulfil the things it's trying to be. For a lot of it, we get cheap jokes and one liners, which do work at times, but...here's the thing....
For many stories, this unceasing wisecracking has been somewhat of a detraction from the drama and The Creature From the Pit is no exception, but at least this story replaces that lost drama with something. Instead of serious horror, we get quirky characters which is Douglas Adams' forte. I mean, if you remove the Doctor, Romana and K9, this could easily have been written by Terry Pratchett. The characters of Organon the wittering astrologer, or the bumbling primitive's who come up with hair brained plans to raid Adrastra's palace and can easily be talked out of killing Romana are all spectacular in their own way, but they're not in the least bit adding to the drama.
It's not without it's own appeal, but even with the presence of interesting characters, I find myself mourning this story for what it could have been if it had been done in the new series, with actual CGI effects for the creature and a little less silliness.
Rating
7 out of 10
Rewatchability Factor
6 out of 10
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