3.24: Planet of the Spiders

In which the Pertwee Doctor is punished for his pride. But not for his dress sense.

The first post of the 60th anniversary year and we’re already killing off a Doctor, eh? I don’t know.

Anyway:

Broadcast: May-June 1974

Watched: May 2020

Planet of the Spiders, Part One

“Not just a journalist, but a WOMAN journalist.”

We open on Mike Yates worrying some cows, then cut to the Doctor and the Brig apparently listening to Les Dawson, before an unseen stripper comes out and some strange men start chanting “om”. This shit is going to be messed up. I mean, the look on the Brig’s face alone.

Anyway – I bloody loved this, while simultaneously understanding why certain friends say they really can’t be arsed. With the letter from Jo, and the fact we get all the way to the end of the episode without a clue what it’s about (even though it’s in the title), it really is leaning heavily on the idea we have affection for this cast and this set up... It knows it’s the final instalment of an era, the last chance to hang out with these characters. That works for me because I like this era and these characters, but if you’re not fussed it must be a bit, well, a bit like that annoying book tour.

I do love the twist that the fake clairvoyant is actually real and is trying to hide it.

Oh god, more yellow face – how come this one’s avoided the sh*tstorm that’s hit Weng-Chiang?

Underdiscussed running theme of the Letts/Dicks/Pertwee years – loveable mentally subnormal men. Tommy here, the guy in Mind of Evil, isn’t there another?

DORIS! Sort of strange how much of the post-UNIT stuff – Battlefield, No Future – is drawn from this particular story.

Oh! And there are women in the Buddhist thing, in my memory it was NO GIRLS ALLOWED.

Planet of the Spiders, Part two

“No no Brigadier, you’ll damage my car.” Feels a strange and under discussed fact that there’s an era of Doctor Who in which there were regular car chases.

I also enjoyed, “I’m expendable and you’re not.” Sgt Benton, loyal and yet utterly pointless to the last.

Oh! A real helicopter. As you do. And oh look, a flying car. I wonder if Courtney specifically requested to be allowed to drive Bessie? Aaaaand now it’s a hovercraft race. Okay, this episode is starting to drag, yes.

I can’t believe that Pertwee runs someone over with a hovercraft and the director plays it for laughs.

Anyway... it feels oddly fitting that the last villain of the Pertwee era is a sad middle aged failure: another Little Englander type, only this one wasn’t even part of the establishment, he shat his way through a crap job in media sales. From wiki, I learn that, according to a book James Goss wrote in 2013, Lupton is so angry because he lost his job when the firm merged with Magpie Electricals. Lance, write that down.

Planet of the Spiders, Part Three

“Where is this cellar, Mike?” JFC Doctor, you’ve got a TARDIS which knows exactly where on a planet to land, and which you talk about like she’s alive, and yet you can’t work out where a f***king cellar is.

Anyway, I actually have serious thoughts on this one. I’ve been thinking about this, and... I think Lupton is actually the right villain for the final story.

The entire theme of the Pertwee era has basically been anxiety about Britain’s place in the world. It’s set in a universe in which we’re still a superpower, but there are running themes of imperial overthrow and establishment anxiety. Also, the human villains are all basically leavers – ratty, insecure little middle managers, harking back to a golden age.

So, Lupton is well spoken and smart (he can fight back against the spider’s mind control). But... he was a salesman. He was never management, he’s an insecure B-Ark type. He is basically the embodiment of a certain type of Brexiteer, a golf club bore who secretly knows he’s wasted his life. When he tells his story, he complains about the finance guys screwing everything up for him. The people he’s working against look a lot like the Remain bit of the establishment (UNIT is establishment as hell, but it’s liberal and international).

Also, the plot with the spiders is about anxiety about a lesser race (an all female one!) rising up and overthrowing humanity. Oh, and he’s using the trappings of hippy-dom to advance his goals. Which is very Won’t Get Fooled Again and/or Psychic Circus.

Other things: I do like the joke that Tommy keeps trying to give them the crystal back but everyone thinks he’s a moron so they ignore him.

The council of spiders having an argument is fucking hilarious.

There are absolutely no indications that Cho Je is a Time Lord. Referring to him as “the master” is a bit of a twisted joke.

Mike has been forgiven for his betrayal a bit quick hasn’t he.

Planet of the Spiders, Part Four

“But there aren’t any spiders as big as these on Earth.” You see? Chibnall was just sticking to house style.

Actually – doing the exposition by cutting between two scenes in which Doctor and companion both learn about their situation is very much a Pertwee era trick isn’t it?

“What kind of machine can save a man’s life?” I like this as a comment on how backwards this society is.

They really do keep playing the “Sarah is terrified the Doctor is about to die” card. Also, the “Sarah feels dependent on the Doctor to save her life” card.

There’s probably some commentary on imperialism in the way local elites team up with Lupton to attempt to overthrow the government too, if you squint.

Could really do without Tommy learning to read. Or the fact when his IQ goes up, he loses his regional accent too.

I do, however, love how sanguine the old bearded bloke is about getting eaten by a massive spiders. Also, Mike getting whacked by Tom from Reggie Perrin.

The cliffhanger – Sarah thinks the Doctor is rescuing her, actually he’s just being put in the same cell – is quite a funny twist, albeit one that’s relentlessly undramatic

Planet of the Spiders, Part Five

“I’ll do my best to give them all indigestion.”

The third Doctor dies because he nicked an artefact because it’s pretty and refuses to give it back. He dies for the Elgin f***ing Marbles. Oh wait he just said it out loud, I thought I was being clever.

Bloody hell the colonists are boring.

I’ve worked out what’s weird with all the “Sarah weeps for the Doctor” stuff. They’re playing the character arc like they do in the modern series... but it’s not had the set up you’d get in the modern series, it feels like she’s only been in it five minutes. So her getting all emotional feels a bit odd.

Oooh! The idea that the eight legs “twist the minds” of certain humans until they become slaves is also an imperial allegory isn’t it.

“Tommy you’re normal!” you absolute bigot Sarah.

Planet of the Spiders, Part Six

“I don’t think I can take much more.” She’s noticed all the false alarms then.

The actual cliffhanger scene is about five minutes into this – they put a bunch of other scenes first. That’s ... weird. Is is actually unique? 

Mike Yates almost sacrifices himself for someone he barely knows. Redemption, of a sort.

“Stop! Don’t you see what’s happened to you?” No one does, Doctor, the direction’s a bit rubbish. The cause of the regeneration isn’t massively clear either. Another thing riffed on in End of Time. And Parting of the Ways come to that.

After three episodes off the Brigadier shows up to explain the concept of regeneration, just in case we hadn’t got it from K’anpo. Only right he’s there at the end I suppose.

Tom doesn’t get a line as the new Doctor. Huh.

Anyway – thematically that was a really interesting way of ending an era. As a story though it was an absolute mess. Too many villains, not enough of a throughline.

I will miss this cast though.

Hang on, what the hell was the point of the dead clairvoyant in episode 1? He’s never even mentioned again.

A sort of post script

I’ve always liked the Pertwee era – but I’ve realised that what I like has remarkably little to do with Pertwee himself.

Partly it’s because, for the first time, the show is actually about something. Many individual stories have had themes from the start, of course, but this is the first time the show has a set of concerns – environmentalism, the decline of empire, Britain’s place in the world, even a sort of tension between clinging to the past and embracing the future – that it turns over and looks at in different ways in different stories.

I’d guess there are two reasons for that. One is that this is a long-serving production team: in the 60s the creatives are moving on every year or two, this time the two main guys [producer Barry Letts, script editor Terrance Dicks] stay for half a decade.

The other, related, one is that, for the first time, they create a coherent Doctor Who world. There are recurring characters and, in Peladon and Metebelis 3, settings, too. We can see things develop and change.

I think you can see this approach in a lot of later Who, consciously or otherwise. When Peter Darvill-Evans is trying to create a coherent backdrop for the New Adventures novels, he draws on the future history set out in these years. When RTD is trying to work out how to make the show work in 2005, he settles on “one companion, plus two or three recurring guest stars”. 

Basically, I think this is the first bit of the show I’ve come out of with an increased respect for.