Hogan Reviews

Normally I don’t do two very similar stories together like I’m going to here with the two Peladon stories, but when choosing the Third Doctor TV serials for this mini-marathon the Peladon stories were the ones I’d watched the least in their respective seasons, so… why not? “The Curse of Peladon” is a rare off-Earth story for the Third Doctor and Jo and also a rather unsubtle look at Britain entering the European Union, which was all the talk at the time (… That ended well…) but all that being said, is it still entertaining?! Let’s have a look…

Ignoring the on-the-nose political message the story is still enjoyable, for the most part. Peladon is still a relatively medieval society that has been selected by the Galactic Federation to join its ranks, though mainly for its planet’s rich mineral resources. In order to okay the planet and convince King Peladon (David Troughton) of his decision several delegates have arrived from the Federation to discuss adding Peladon to the group, including large green penis in a cape Alpha Centauri from… Alpha Centauri (Ysanne Churchman), weird skull in a glass case Arcturus from… Arcturus (Murphy Grumbar) and Ice Warrior Izlyr (Alan Bennion) from the Mars, or rather the new planet a bunch of Martians settled on. While waiting for the Earth delegate King Peladon’s pro-science advisor Torbis (Henry Gilbert) is mysteriously killed, his super-religious brother and fellow advisor Hepesh (Geoffrey Gilbert) claims it’s all due to the curse of Aggedor, the beast that’s at the centre of Peladon’s religion. The Doctor and Jo arrive and of course The Doctor is mistaken for the Earth delegate and decides to go along with it, with Jo claiming to be a Princess from Earth in order to be allowed to be in the King’s court.

“They say you look like a what, dear fellow?” “A penis.” “Ah yes…. that makes sense, actually. Sorry.”

Soon Arcturus is attacked and so the blame for the murders and attacks start to swing around between everyone, with The Doctor frequently blaming the Ice Warriors due to his past dealings with them and Hepesh constantly claiming it’s Aggedor’s will. The Doctor would actually find a living creature that the Aggedor mythos is based on and befriend it via hypnotism, not that this helps when The Doctor stumbles into Hepesh’s religious sanctum by mistake, an act punishable by death…

There are two things that always bring the two Peladon stories down in my eyes and sadly they’re both budget-based. First Alpha Centauri, who as much as his/her character can be funny given how crap it looks the super-high-pitched voice sounds far too much like a children’s puppet voice for me to take seriously, especially when coupled with the aforementioned penis-like costume. Luckily Centauri is a comedy character and treated as such, but still… it can grate on the nerves.

*Gasp!* Ice Warriors… in colour! … A single colour, as it turns out…

The other is the sets. I don’t normally talk about set dressing because it takes a lot to damage my ability to sink into a story no matter the budget but it’s not that the sets are bad per say it’s that they’re all so bland. Nothing but grey stone walls, grey mining caves and occasionally a torch-lit brown rocky passageway. It gives the story a sense of boredom I don’t think it deserves but it’s just so visually uninteresting that I think it effects things. Also the fight between The Doctor and Grun switches back and forth between first and third person, leading to moments where someone has to jab a weapon at the camera in awkward fashion. I hate that, and I’m sure I’m not alone as its very rarely done, thankfully…

The Continuity:

The Doctor calms down the monstrous Aggedor with a spinning… thing and a tune.

Obviously this kicks off a whole run of Peladon stories, but most of note is the follow up Third Doctor TV story “The Monster of Peladon” and the partially narrated audio story “The Prisoner of Peladon” along with the recently released (when this was written… that’ll give you a tip off of how long this has been sitting on my PC…) audio drama “The Ordeal of Peladon”, both of which see David Troughton resume his role as King Peladon. Also the Fifth Doctor audio drama “The Bride of Peladon” sees his companion Erimem stay behind to marry into the Peladon royal family, much like Jo was offered here.

Beyond a few more “of Peladons” and obviously the many, many stories involving Ice Warriors there isn’t anything else to mention here, but that’s plenty really!

Overall Thoughts:

Round 1: Fight!

The Curse of Peladon is a fun story, with a good central mystery and some enjoyable special effects / alien ideas (not including the talking green penis) and at only four episodes it doesn’t really drag. That being said the sets and lighting really bring the atmosphere down, Alpha Centauri can cross over from funny-annoying to just annoying, and the weirdly shot fight scene to cap off Episode 3 was … well, weirdly shot. A mixed bag then!

The Doctor’s sentence of death leads to the previously mentioned awkward cage fight between The Doctor and the King’s champion Grun, which ends with mysterious gunfire that turns out to be Izlyr’s bodyguard Ssorg shooting Arcturus dead before the alien could shoot The Doctor. It’s soon revealed that Arcturus’s attempted assassination was staged and he was actually one of the people to blame for the killings, wanting to secure a separate and solo mining treaty with Peladon because his planet was so poor in mineral wealth.

Um… spoiler for the next sentence, I guess…

Unsurprisingly Hepesh was the other conspirator, wanting to make sure Peladon doesn’t join the Galactic Federation and therefore lose their old ways and practices due to the influx of technology and such. He’s killed when he tries to take the King himself hostage but before The Doctor could talk him down the Aggedor beast bursts into the court room and mauls him, which while horrible for all involved (especially Hepesh) it does tie a neat bow around everything. Jo is offered to stay on Peladon by King Peladon, who has grown attached to her, but she declines and leaves back home with The Doctor just as the real Earth delegate arrives, confusing everyone.