312 The Sea Devils Episode One

EPISODE: The Sea Devils: Episode One
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 312
STORY NUMBER: 062
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 26 February 1972
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 6.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Beneath the Surface (The Silurians / The Sea Devils / Warriors of the Deep)
EPISODE FORMAT: 525 video RSC

"Why, Doctor! And Miss Grant! What a very pleasant surprise!"

The story opens with a ship radioing that they are attacked and then being cut off..... The Doctor & Jo go to see Master in prison, he's being held in a former castle on an island. Colonel Trenchard, the prison's governor, tells them of ships sinking and demonstrates the anti hypnotic blocks placed on the guards to prevent the Master from controlling them. The Master claims that prison has reformed him but still won't tell the Doctor where his Tardis is. The Doctor admits to Jo that he & the Master were once friends and even went to school together. The Master thinks that The Doctor was more interested in the vanishing ships than him and is angry when Trenchard says he mentioned it. The Doctor visits the local naval base and examines one of the damaged boats before he's apprehended by the Navy and taken to see Captain Hart. Jo is looking for the Doctor while the Master watches the Clangers on television, joking with Trenchard that he thinks they are interesting extraterrestrial life forms. Trenchard has brought the Master some naval charts that he uses to plot the boat attacks finding that there's an old see fort that Captain Hart is using for sonar testing in the middle of the attack sites. The two man maintenance crew aboard are feeling uneasy. The Doctor tells Captain Hart that he thinks the boat was deliberately attacked when Jo Grant arrives with the passes to vouch for his identity. The Sea Fort is attacked and one of the crew is killed with the other encountering a creature. The Doctor takes his borrowed boat to visit the Sea Fort. While inside their boat is destroyed. As they seek a radio to use they realise something is coming towards them.....

Welcome to Doctor Who's big sequel story. Indirectly this is a follow up to three previous stories, although one of them isn't obvious yet and another is more a case of a behind the scenes connection. Obviously this is the continuation of the Master's story and since the Dæmons he's been tried and imprisoned. From the dialogue it would seem this is the first time the Doctor's been to see him and although he claims to be reformed even in this episode you see he's up to no good and has the gullible prison governor under his thumb.

At this stage we know nothing about the monster, who's quite cleverly concealed with just a hand here and there, and a face at the end, but that has a connection to a previous story as we'll see later.

The story is also effectively a Mind of Evil sequel: there the crew were assisted by the Army. Here they sought out the help of the Navy, in which both producer Barry Letts and star Jon Pertwee (and indeed his predecessor Patrick Troughton) had served. The Navy were only too pleased to be involved and after the show was broadcast waved the fee for the rights to some of their training footage that the BBC incorporated into the finished serial because they felt their exposure in the show was so positive.

Declan Mulholland, sea fort crew member Clark returns as Till in The Androids of Tara. He can also be seen in the 1979 Quatermass What Lies Beneath as a Security Guard, Hawk the Slayer as Sped, Time Bandits as a Robber, The Tall Guy as the Rubber face Doorman and the Father Ted episode New Jack City as the Shouting Priest.

But Declan Mulholland is probably best known for not appearing on screen as Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars: his role in the film was cut. The character was later shown in a completely different form in Return of the Jedi, so when the footage featuring Mulholland was reinstated into The Star Wars Special Edition, Mulholland found himself replaced by a computer generated effect. However the footage showing him has been shown in several making of features over the years!

Four cast members only appear in this episode:

Hugh Futcher, here playing Hickman the other sea fort crew member, was later seen for the role of the Seventh Doctor! He can been seen in The Sweeney as the Porter in Stoppo Driver.

Royston Tickner plays Robbins, the boatman who takes the Doctor & Jo to the island, was Steinberger P. Green in The Daleks' Master Plan, which director Michael Briant worked on as a Production Assistant. He appears in the missing third season Out of the Unknown episode Get Off My Cloud as the Taxi Driver. This episode also features the Daleks! He was in Timeslip as George Bradley in The Wrong End of Time and plays Sgt. Norris in the Porridge episode Men Without Women.

Neil Seiler is the Navy Radio Operator who'll reappear as Commander Stewart in Death to the Daleks.

Brian Justice is Castle Guard Wilson who the Master tries to hypnotise. He was an uncredited Guerilla in Day of the Daleks and returns as Yates' Guard in The Green Death. Both The Green Death & Death to the Daleks were directed by Michael Briant who is in charge here and as we'll see he's quite fond of "doing a Camfield" by reusing actors in other stories!

The episode of The Clangers the Master is watching is The Rock Collector. Years later, in the new Doctor Who series, John Simm's Master would pay homage to this scene by watching an episode of In the Night Garden.... The Clangers is probably the earliest thing I can remember watching on TV and can be found on 2 separate DVDs for Series 1 & Series 2.

The locations for this story can all be found in a small area, mainly on the Isle of Wight. The opening of the story is filmed as Bembridge Harbour & Bembridge Sailing Club on the most eastern point of the island.

The prison exteriors are Norris Castle, on the north of the Isle of Wight near Cowes. Is the Number 6 on the exterior door a deliberate homage to The Prisoner?

The impressive No Man's Land Fort, just off the North West of the Isle of Wight is used as the sea fort in this episode.

Governor Trenchard seems to have stocked his office from the BBC props store:

Over by the door he has an anti clockwise spiral staircase - Terror of the Autons, Doomwatch and others....

Then for his wall panels into which he's set his Maser Monitor he's chosen a piece of the Ambassadors of DEATH spaceship, reused many times!

311 The Curse of Peladon Episode Four

EPISODE: The Curse of Peladon: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 311
STORY NUMBER: 061
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 19 February 1972
WRITER: Brian Hayles
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 8.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Peladon Tales: Curse of Peladon & Monster of Peladon
EPISODE FORMAT: 525 video RSC

"Surrender, or the King will die!"

Ssorg shoots Arcturus killing him and saving the Doctor's life. Hepesh leads a revolution against King Peladon to keep his planet out of the federation but is slain by the Royal Beast when the Doctor brings Aggedor to the throne room. Jo refuses an offer of marriage from the King. The Doctor & Jo prepare to stay for the King's coronation but are forced to retreat when the real Earth delegate arrives. The Doctor realises he has been used again as an agent of the Time Lords.

Compared to the rest of the serial this episode falls a little flat. We open with a large amount of exposition:

PELADON: But what about the attack on Arcturus?
DOCTOR: Faked, your Majesty. He told Hepesh what to do.
IZLYR: That is what I suspected.
JO: And the things I found on the balcony and in Izlyr's room?
DOCTOR: Planted by Hepesh, or one of his agents.
PELADON: And the manifestation of Aggedor?
DOCTOR: Well, that's simple, your Majesty. Hepesh found that on a high mountain a few still existed. So he captured one, trained it and kept it hidden in the tunnels beneath the citadel, ready to pop out whenever he needed a bit of haunting.
PELADON: But why did he do all this? What did he hope to gain?
DOCTOR: The entire planet of Peladon, or effective control of it, which comes to the same thing.
PELADON: And Arcturus?
IZLYR: His planet lacks mineral deposits. Peladon has them in abundance.
DOCTOR: That's why he wanted to make sure that Peladon did not enter the Galactic Federation. You see, he'd already made a private secret alliance with Hepesh.
ALPHA: Extremely unethical! Fortunately the scheme has been foiled, so all is well.
DOCTOR: Ah, but is it?
JO: Yes. Arcturus is dead.
DOCTOR: But Hepesh is still very much alive. You see, Hepesh believed everything that Arcturus told him. He still does. He firmly believes that entering the Galactic Federation would mean slavery and he'd go to any lengths to stop you joining.
JO: But what can he do?
DOCTOR: Accuse the Ice Warriors of murdering Arcturus.
IZLYR: Yes, Mars and the world of Arcturus are old enemies. That would mean war.
DOCTOR: Exactly. And then all the rest of the Galactic Federation would take sides and
ALPHA: The Federation will be ripped! There will be interplanetary conflict!
DOCTOR: And Peladon would become the first battlefield. Blasted and sterile.
PELADON: What shall I do, Doctor?
DOCTOR: Replace Hepesh with someone you can trust, your Majesty. Now!

With the traitor amongst the Federation delegates been revealed we're now trusting the Ice Warriors and with Arcturus out the way the threat shifts to Hepesh, who remains at large. It's been obvious from the word go that Hepesh isn't keen on the Federation so his actions here don't remotely come as a surprise. His attempted coup lasts no time at all before he meets his end courtesy of the best he used as a pawn.

Hepesh is assisted in his plot by the Guard Captain played by George Giles: you can see him in Doomwatch as the Policeman in The Inquest. He's assisted/opposed by a number of stunt guards used in this episode mos of whom have worked on the show in other capacities: Peter Brace, Billy Horrigan, Mike Horsburgh, Dinny Powell, Roy Street & Rocky Taylor.

Appearing right at the end of the story for some light comic relief is Amazonia, the real chairman delegate from Earth, played by Wendy Danvers. You can hear her interviewed on Toby Hadoke's Who's Round 188.

Having looked at who IS in the story it's important to mention someone who ISN'T: this is the first Jon Pertwee story not to feature Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart: He's been in every Third Doctor story so far, even the Doctor's previous jaunt off Earth, The Colony in Space, where he's only in the start of episode one and the end of episode 6. Here he doesn't even get that.

But it's not this episode the story will be remembered for: it's the large number of non human species and the way our & the Doctor's experience of the Ice Warriors works against us. Of the four Ice Warrior stories this is probably my favourite and I'm pretty certain it the "using a monster in a completely different way to what the viewer and Doctor are expecting" aspect of the story that makes it.

Alpha Centauri is somewhat memorable too, if a trifle annoying at times, and it comes as no surprise to discover we return to Peladon for a sequel with Alpha Centauri and the Ice Warriors a few years later in Monster of Peladon. Both the Peladon stories are reflective of real life during the 70s: Curse of Peladon is meant to represent British entry into the European Common Market while Monster of Peladon is supposedly inspired by an early 1970s miners strike.

Curse of Peladon was, as we've seen, repeated in July 1982 as the first story in the Doctor Who and The Monsters season. It was novelised by Brian Hayles in 1975, released on video in 1993 and on DVD in 2010, as part of Doctor Who - Peladon Tales, along with it's sequel the Monster of Peladon.

310 The Curse of Peladon: Episode Three

EPISODE: The Curse of Peladon: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 310
STORY NUMBER: 061
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 12 February 1972
WRITER: Brian Hayles
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.8 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Peladon Tales: Curse of Peladon & Monster of Peladon
EPISODE FORMAT: 525 video RSC

"Klokleda partha mennin kletch, haroon, haroon, haroon!"

The Doctor is sentenced to trial by combat fighting Grun. Hepesh helps him escape into the tunnels on the condition that he leaves the planet. Izlyr tells Jo that he is honour bound to help the Doctor because the Doctor saved his life, but their conversation is bugged by Arcturus. The Doctor encounter Aggedor in the tunnels and hypnotically subdues him until Jo interrupts driving Aggedor away. The Doctor is taken to the combat arena and beats Grun, but refuses to kill him. As the delegates watch the contest Arcturus reveals a gun concealed in his life support system and a shot rings out....

This episode provoked some great debate in the Ayres household....

Firstly there's the matter of the Doctor's Venusian lullaby.

Klokleda partha mennin kletch,
Haroon, haroon, haroon.
Klokleda sheena tirra nach,
Haroon, haroon, haroon.

The lyrics were first heard in The Dæmons as the Doctor attempts to sooth Bok, but here they're set to music. It's quite well known that the tune Pertwee uses is "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" but my good lady wife was certain that it wasn't.

Then at the end of the episode I turned to Liz and said "I've never noticed before how obvious it is that it isn't Arcturus shooting" because watching it on DVD I thought it was painstakingly obvious that it was Ssorg standing behind the blast. Liz however was sure from what she could see that it was Arcturus who fired!

This does rather rely on you spotting the gun that Ssorg is carrying about in the run up, I missed it the first few times I saw the story!

Apart from that it's a bit of a runabout episode. Hepesh helps The Doctor escape for reasons of his own...

DOCTOR: Yes, you're a wily old bird, aren't old you, Hepesh? But you do realise, don't you, that my death would cause a major interplanetary scandal? Consider the consequences, Hepesh.
HEPESH: The door of your room will be left open. There will be no one there to stand in your way.
DOCTOR: I see. Killed while trying to escape, is that it?
HEPESH: I don't want your death. Trust me.
HEPESH: There lies your route to freedom. Take it, leave our planet and live.
DOCTOR: I'm afraid I can't. Well, not without my space shuttle.
HEPESH: A large blue box was found on the lower slope of the mountain.
DOCTOR: Yes, that's it. Where is it now?
HEPESH: It is being brought to the citadel.
DOCTOR: Well, that's splendid. And what about Princess Josephine?
HEPESH: She will be allowed to leave with you.
DOCTOR: Hepesh, why do you go to so much trouble? You could simply have me killed.
HEPESH: I do not mean to have this planet destroyed in retaliation by the spaceships of the Federation.
DOCTOR: Yet you slap the Federation in the face by sabotaging the commission. Why?
HEPESH: Because I'm afraid.
DOCTOR: Afraid? Afraid of what? The Federation is your safeguard.
HEPESH: That is not true! I know the Federation's real intent.
DOCTOR: The Federation's real intent is to help you.
HEPESH: No! They'll exploit us for our minerals, enslave us with their machines, corrupt us with their technology. The face of Peladon will be changed, the past swept away, and everything that I know and value will have gone.
DOCTOR: The progress that they offer, that we offer, isn't like that.
HEPESH: I would rather be a cave dweller and free.
DOCTOR: Free? With your people imprisoned by ritual and superstition?
HEPESH: We need Aggedor.
DOCTOR: You can hardly expect your pet ghost to take on the whole Federation single-handed, can you?
HEPESH: We do not stand alone.
DOCTOR: Oh? Who stands with you?
HEPESH: Take your chance while you still can. It will soon be dawn.

And then dispatches the guards after him anyway!

HEPESH: Gather all our men, Captain. Search the catacombs and the dungeons, and remember, the alien is dangerous. If he resists, kill him!

The Doctor manages to evade the guards and then gets thrown into the pit to fight the King's Champion Grun:

Gordon St. Clair, playing Grun, appeared for many years to not have appeared in anything else at all but it recently emerged, thanks to Toby Hadoke's observations in Running Through Corridors, that he's actually Gordon Stothard who played a Robot Yeti in The Web of Fear and a Cyberman in The Wheel in Space, and was an extra in the Invasion & Mind of Evil.

Nick Hobbs, plays the royal beast Aggedor in both Curse of Peladon and it's sequel Monster of Peladon. He'd previously been a Technician in The Ambassadors of Death, an RSF Sentry in Inferno, an Auton Daffodil Man in Terror of the Autons, an American Aide in The Mind of Evil, the Nuton Driver in The Claws of Axos and a U.N.I.T. Soldier in Day of the Daleks He returns as a Guard in The Time Monster, and a Wirrn Operator in The Ark in Space. In Space: 1999 he's a Security Guard in Space Warp while in Blake's 7 he plays a Hooded Figure in Cygnus Alpha before returning in New Doctor Who as Mr Nainby in Amy's Choice.

Curse of Peladon was the third Pertwee story I saw and the first story featuring the Ice Warriors. I'd seen The Carnival of Monsters and the Three Doctors in late 1981 as part of The Five Faces of Doctor Who repeat season. In 1982 the BBC found themselves with a sudden 50 minute hole in their Monday night BBC1 schedules. My memory of the situation was a James Garner series, either The Rockford Files or Brett Maverick, had finished early. A repeat of three older Doctor Who stories was scheduled with each story spotlighting one of the three main monsters in Doctor Who & shown as 2 fifty minute episodes. The stories shown were The Curse of Peladon on 12 & 19th July featuring The Ice Warriors, Genesis of the Daleks on 26th July & 2nd August featuring the Daleks & Earthshock on 9 to 16 August 1982 featuring the Cybermen. As we said during episode 1, 525 line colour copies of Curse of Peladon, which only existed in black & white films in the BBC archives, were returned from BBC Toronto in the previous year 1981. The first two episodes played with no problems but episode 3 turned out to be a nightmare with the tape sticking & breaking necessitating it's playback & copying in sections with the sections being assembled into a complete episode. The BBC retained the copy, which was a PAL recording converted to NTSC and then converted using 1981 techniques back to what was a poorer quality PAL copy. The BBC deemed the original tape unbroadcastable and decided to junk it but Ian Levene, who'd gone to a lot of trouble to retrieve the episodes in the first place, retained the tape. In the early 2000s the Reverse Standards Conversion was developed to produce high quality conversions back to PAL by unpicking the original conversion. The original 525 line was "baked", to reduce it's moisture content, and then played back in sections, assembled and converted resulting in the good quality copy we have today which we have today. For more details on the process used see The Restoration Team Website article. The episode itself is a bit dark, but all the episodes of this serial are, but the quality of this episode is probably better than the others now! This is helped by the film sequence of the fight in the pit being returned to the BBC by the son of stuntman Terry Walsh who was doubling for Jon Pertwee during large parts of it.

309 The Curse of Peladon: Episode Two

EPISODE: The Curse of Peladon: Episode Two
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 309
STORY NUMBER: 061
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 05 February 1972
WRITER: Brian Hayles
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 11 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Peladon Tales: Curse of Peladon & Monster of Peladon
EPISODE FORMAT: 525 video RSC

"It is written, his coming shall be full or terror and darkness. His cry shall be heard in the night, and death shall walk in the land of Peladon!"

The Doctor spots the falling statue and saves the delegates with Hepesh blaming the incident on the spirit of Aggedor, the royal beast. Jo sneaks away during a throne room conference and discovers evidence that the Ice Warriors may have been responsible for the incident. Arcturus is attacked in his quarters and is found by the Doctor with a vital component of his life support system missing. After the Doctor saves his life the component is recovered by Jo from the Ice Warriors' quarters. Grun, the King's champion, leads the Doctor into the tunnels where he wanders into the shrine to Aggedor and is sentenced to death for trespassing on holy ground.

This episode is really about pointing the finger of suspicion at The Ice Warriors as being behind events playing very much on our, and the Doctor's, previous experience of them.

JO: Well? What is it?
DOCTOR: It's an electronic key. Used for opening doors by identifying the bearer electronically. Probably used for their spaceship.
JO: Whose spaceship?
DOCTOR: Well, the Ice Warriors of course. It's made from trisilicate, which can only be found on the planet Mars.
JO: So you think that it was Ssorg who made those footprints on the balcony?
DOCTOR: Yes, I think it's highly likely.
JO: Wasn't he in the throne room with us?
DOCTOR: I'm not sure. Well, you managed to slip away without anybody noticing, remember?
JO: Yes. But what would they be after?
DOCTOR: Well, the last time that I encountered them, Jo, they were trying to colonise the planet Earth, and Peladon is very like Earth.
JO: Hmm. But they say they're here for the same reason as the other delegates. Peace.
DOCTOR: Do they. Well, believe me, I know the Ice Warriors, Jo. They're a savage and a warlike race. No, among the delegates, only Ssorg's strength could have shifted that statue.

Despite this they plead their innocence to Jo, who they have caught searching their quarters:

IZLYR: Sit down, Princess. Why did you try to escape?
JO: I was frightened. Can you blame me?
IZLYR: So, Princess, you believe that we tried to kill Arcturus.
JO: Well if you didn't, why was the missing servo-unit in your room?
IZLYR: Perhaps you brought it here as part of your scheme to trap us.
JO: But that's just not true! I. One of you must have tried to kill Arcturus.
IZLYR: Nobody tried to kill him.
JO: What?
IZLYR: To destroy Arcturus, the helium regenerator must be deactivated.
JO: What about the unit?
IZLYR: Merely sensor equipment. Disconnecting that only produces metabolic coma.
JO: So it couldn't be fatal?
IZLYR: Only uncomfortable.
JO: I'm sorry if I might have misjudged you, but the Doctor did say you were a race of warriors.
IZLYR: We were once, but now we reject violence except in self-defence.
JO: What about Ssorg's gun? This is supposed to be a peaceful mission.
IZLYR: Unfortunately, in order to preserve peace, it is necessary to survive.
JO: Well, if you didn't do it, who did? Who could benefit by it?
IZLYR: Perhaps the Doctor will be able to explain.

But do we believe them?

Both Izlyr and Ssorg are played by actors who have been in previous Ice Warrior stories and return for Monster of Peladon.

Alan Bennion made his Doctor Who debut in Seeds of Death as the Ice Lord Slaar. He's back every time the show needs an Ice Lord appearing as Izlyr here in The Curse of Peladon and Azaxyr in The Monster of Peladon.

Sonny Caldinez started in Doctor Who playing Kemel in Evil of the Daleks and then Turoc in The Ice Warriors returning as an unnamed warrior in Seeds of Death, Ssorg in Curse of Peladon and Sskel in Monster of Peladon. You can also see him in Roger Moore James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun as Kra, Hawaii Five-O as Code #42 in Nine Dragons, Raiders of the Lost Ark as the Mean Mongolian, Neverwhere as the Market man in Knightsbridge and The Fifth Element as Emperor Kodar Japhet.

Ssorg's voice is provided, uncredited, by series producer and equity card holder Barry Letts.

Inside the Alpha Centauri costume is regular stunt man Stuart Fell. This is his first credited appearance having previous been a UNIT soldier & Auton in Terror of the Autons, UNIT staff member & a photographer in The Mind of Evil and a UNIT Soldier & Axon in The Claws of Axos. He returns as a Guard, Sailor & Sea Devil in The Sea Devils, filmed before this story, a Functionary in Carnival of Monsters, Alpha Centauri in The Monster of Peladon, the Tramp in Planet of the Spiders part two who the Doctor drives the hovercraft over, a Guard in Planet of the Spiders, a Wirrn Larvae in The Ark in Space part two & Wirrn Operator in The Ark in Space, Double for Styre in The Sontaran Experiment part one, The Kraal in The Android Invasion part three, the Monster in The Brain of Morbius, Forking peasant / Guard / Acolyte in The Masque of Mandragora, a Policeman, Coolie & the Giant Rat in Talons of Weng Chiang, a Guard in The Sun Makers, a Sontaran in The Invasion of Time, a Shrivenzale in the Ribos Operation, Roga in State of Decay, a Castrovalvan Warrior in Castrovalva, a masked villager in The Visitation and a Cyberman in The Five Doctors plus he did stunts in Terror of the Autons, was fight arranger in The Talons of Weng-Chiang, more stunts in The Ribos Operation & Full Circle and served as fight arranger again in State of Decay. In Blake's 7 he was Dortmunn in Mission to Destiny, a Subterron in Project Avalon, a Goth Warrior in The Keeper, a Sarran in Aftermath, a Labourer in The Harvest of Kyros, a Guard in City at the Edge of the World, a Federation Trooper in Rumours of Death, a Guard in Moloch, a Gunman in Death-Watch, a Link in Terminal & Rescue and a Hommik Warrior in Power plus he was the stunt coordinator for Project Avalon, The Keeper, Aftermath, Volcano, The Harvest of Kyros, City at the Edge of the World, Rumours of Death, Moloch, Death-Watch, Terminal, Rescue & Power. He plays a man in the Doomwatch episode Spectre at the Feast. He's in The Empire Strikes Back as a Snowtrooper and does stunts in Return of the Jedi. He also does stunt work on the Roger Moore James Bond films For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy & A View to a Kill. And so much more.

Meanwhile the voice of Alpha Centauri is provided by Ysanne Churchman who also returns in the same role in The Monster of Peladon then voices some of the eponymous monsters in the Planet of the Spiders before returning in the new series episode Empress of Mars as Alpha Centauri's voice after a 40 year absence!. She's most famous for voicing Grace Archer, the character killed off in the Radio Soap Opera the night ITV was launched.

The only members of the cast playing non humans not to return for Monster of Peladon are those involved with Arcturus:

Inside Arcturus is experienced Dalek Operator Murphy Grumbar. He was first a Dalek, credited as Peter Murphy, in The Daleks & The Dalek Invasion of Earth, then as Murphy Grumbar he's Dalek in The Space Museum, Mechanoid in The Chase, a Dalek in The Evil of the Daleks and a Dalek in Day of the Daleks, He returns as a Gell Guard in The Three Doctors, a functionary in Carnival of Monsters, a Dalek in Frontier in Space, Planet of the Daleks and, as Murphy Grunbar, in Death to the Daleks.

Terry Bale, providing Arcturus' voice who'd previously been a Soldier in the Reign of Terror. He was in Doomwatch as Tom Walsh in Public Enemy and The Sweeney as the Minicab Operator in Hit and Run.

Curse of Peladon has two notable technical achievements. It's the first studio bound Pertwee story with no location filming: In fact the only previous studio bound Pertwee episode is the Silurians episode 4. There's only one other studio bound Pertwee, this story's sequel Monster of Peladon. Beyond the two Peladon stories and the aforementioned Silurians episode 4, the following Pertwee episodes are the only other ones confined to the studio:

The Mutants 6
Time Monster 5
Frontier in Space 1, 2 & 4
Planet of the Daleks 1-4 & 6
Death to the Daleks 4
Planet of the Daleks 3-6

Conversely the first Pertwee story features 100% location filming due to a strike at the BBC.

Curse of Peladon is also notable for being the first Doctor Who story shown out of it's filming order. After the first story of the season, Day of the Daleks, was completed the Sea Devils was made, which is broadcast next, followed by this story, then the Mutants, the Time Monster and finally Carnival of Monsters, which would be held over as the second story of the show's tenth anniversary season.