OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 372
STORY NUMBER: 073
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 06 April 1974
WRITER: Brian Hayles
DIRECTOR: Lennie Mayne
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Peladon Tales: Curse of Peladon & Monster of Peladon
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video
"Well, as we were shoved down here to receive the verdict of Aggedor, I would say that the result is very much in our favour, wouldn't you?"
The Doctor once again calms his old friend Aggedor using a Venusian lullaby and they are released. Eckersley advises Alpha Centauri to summon Federation troops which he does. The Doctor advises Queen Thalira to negotiate with Gebek to help appease the miners and spread the benefits of Federation membership wider than the royal court. The Doctor isn't pleased that troops are coming and is interested in what Sarah saw in the refinery. Ortron arrests the Doctor when he tries to leave the citadel. Gebek & Ettis capture the sonic lance. Gebek helps free the Doctor. Ettis has taken the sonic lance to a nearby mountain top and aimed it at the citadel. Alpha Centauri receives a transmission that the Federation troops are coming. Finding their way to the refinery, the Doctor deactivates the alarm. Eckersley spots them and Sarah confesses that they think the Aggedor trickery is being run from the refinery. Ortron persuades the miners back to work, but as soon as they return they are attacked by the Aggedor apparition. Opening the refinery door the Doctor & Gebek find an Ice Warrior inside!
Ortron hasn't thought this through properly at all: The Doctor is the man that led Aggedor into the throne room 50 years ago so chances are they're going to get on ok in a pit together. Then, having submitted him to the judgement of Aggedor he finds he doesn't like the verdict so has him banged up again anyway. Deary me. Still the Ice Warriors are here now so things will get better won't they?
We've seen both main Peladon miners in Doctor Who before:
Ettis is played by Ralph Watson who was the Generator Scientist, also in The Underwater Menace, Captain Knight in The Web of Fear and will be Ben in Horror of Fang Rock. Porridge he plays the Pub Landlord in A Day Out. You can hear him interviewed in Who's Round 154
Rex Robinson, playing Gebek, was previously Doctor Tyler in the Three Doctors and will return as Dr. Carter in The Hand of Fear. All 3 of his appearances are directed by Lennie Mayne who evidently takes the Camfield/Letts approach to casting actors he knows and is comfortable working with! He was also in The Professionals as the Superintendent in Cry Wolf and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace as the Subway Engineer. You can hear Rex Robinson interviewed in Who's Round 45.
One of the miners, Rima, is played by the distinctive looking Roy Evans who was Trantis in The Daleks' Master Plan and Bert Pritchard in The Green Death. He was in Out of the Unknown as the Postman in the 1971 episode Deathday: that is one of four from the last series of that show which exists and it can be found on the Out of the Unknown DVD Set. He appears in Blake's 7 as a Slave in Redemption. In the 1980s he was in th original The Black Adder as Abel, A Blind Beggar / Dumb Peasant in The Archbishop, Witchsmeller Pursuivant and The Black Seal. Evans has credits on IMDB through to 2004 by which point he would have been 74 when he appeared on The Green Death DVD.
Preba is played by Graeme Eton who you can also see in The Professionals as the CI5 Mechanic in You'll Be All Right.
Onto the unnamed Miners:
On Doctor Who debut is John Cannon. He returns as the speaking part of Elgin in Hand of Fear, which gives us a clear look at him and makes him easy to identify elsewhere. He's then a Passerby and Audience/Stagehands/Doorman in Talons of Weng Chiang, a Trog in Underworld, a Technician in Pirate Planet, a Guard in Armageddon Factor, a Guard in Creature from the Pit, should have been the Executioner Prisoner in Shada, a Security Guard in Time-Flight, the Police Sergeant in Mawdryn Undead, The Shadow's Helmsman in Enlightenment and a Retainer in King's Demons. He was a Moonbase 3 Technician in Castor and Pollux and is a Prison Inmate in the Porridge episode A Night In. He was in The Sweeney twice as a Constable in Supersnout and a Policeman in Thou Shalt Not Kill, in which he's directed by Doctor Who director Douglas Camfield. In I, Claudius he's a Cake Ship slave in A Touch of Murder. His Blake's 7 are a Federation Trooper in Project Avalon, Cevedic's Heavy in Gambit, a Labourer in The Harvest of Kairos and a Federation Trooper in Children of Auron. He's in The Professionals as Huey in It's Only a Beautiful Picture and the same year plays a Holographic Imperial Officer in The Empire Strikes Back. Camfield uses him again as a Legionnaire in Beau Geste.
Christopher Holmes was a UNIT Soldier in Day of the Daleks, a Guard in The Time Monster, a Miner in The Monster of Peladon, a Muto in Genesis of the Daleks, a Traveller/Brother in The Masque of Mandragora, a Citizen in Full Circle, a Plasmaton in Time Flight, Ambril's attendant in Snakedance and a Genius in Time and the Rani. In Blake's 7 he was a Federation Trooper in The Way Back, a Prisoner in Space Fall, a Prisoner in Cygnus Alpha, a Mutoid in Duel & Project Avalon, a Star One Technician in Star One and a Hi-tech Patient in Powerplay.
Paul Phillips was an Egyptian Slave in Dalek Masterplan, a Scotsman in The Highlanders, a Scientist at Hospital in the Macra Terror, a Prison Guard & Prisoner in War Games, a Lab Tech Claws of Axos and a captured scientist in The Time Warrior. In Porridge he's a Prisoner in No Way Out, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin he's a Commuter in Hippopotamus and in I, Claudius he plays a Senator in Zeus, by Jove!
Roy Brent was a Firing Squad Member & Prison Sentry in The War Games, an Auton Hospital Porter in Spearhead from Space, a Control Room Assistant & UNIT Soldier in The Ambassadors of Death and a UNIT Soldier in The Claws of Axos He returns as one of the Collector’s Escort in The Sunmakers, a Shrieve in The Ribos Operation, a Guard in Creature from the Pit, a Skonnan Elder in Horns of the Nimon and a Resistance Fighter in Trial of a Timelord 5-8: Mindwarp. In Monty Python's Flying Circus he's an Armoured Knight in Njorl's Saga.
Bill Hayden also appears in Doomwatch as Mr. Duffy in The Inquest.
Tom O'Leary had been a Firing Squad Member, Prison Sergeant, a German Soldier, a Roman Soldiers and an Austro-Hungarian Officer in The War Games, a Gatekeeper & Military Policeman in Ambassadors of Death, and an Auton in Terror of the Autons. He returns as Albert Einstein in Time and the Rani.
One new Guard: Tony Lord returns as a Dead Crewman and Cyberman in Revenge of the Cybermen.
Queen Thalira's Handmaiden is Frances Pidgeon who returns as Miss Jackson in the Hand of Fear. She'd been in Doomwatch as a secretary in Public Enemy and High Mountain. Both her Doctor Who appearances and both her Doomwatch appearances are directed by Lennie Mayne, her husband.
Another returning actor from Curse of Peladon is Nick Hobbs, once again playing Aggedor. 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, a U.N.I.T. Soldier in Day of the Daleks and a Guard in The Time Monster. He returns as 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.
There's no location work at all in this story, something Monster of Peladon shares with only one of the other 23 Third Doctor tales: it's antecedent Curse of Peladon.
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