OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 376
STORY NUMBER: 074
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 04 May 1974
WRITER: Robert Sloman (and Barry Letts un-credited)
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 10.1 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Planet of the Spiders
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video
"A man must go inside and face his fears and hopes, his hates and his loves, and watch them wither away. Then he will find his true self, which is no self. He will see his true mind, which is no mind. The old man must die and the new man will discover to his inexpressible joy that he has never existed!"
Welcome to the final Third Doctor/Jon Pertwee story.
Mike Yates walks in the peaceful gardens of a rural Buddhist retreat. The Doctor & Brigadier have gone to the theatre to see Professor Hubert Clegg a renowned psychic. Yates finds a group of men chanting in a basement and witnesses something begin to materialise on their prayer mat before he accidentally gives himself away. Clegg comes to UNIT HQ to see the Doctor who has deduced he has real psychic powers and wants some aid into the ESP research he's doing. Mike calls Sarah Jane Smith for help, but Lupton, another resident at the retreat, objects to the journalist's presence to one of the monks, Cho-Je. Returning to his friends in the cellar Lupton they use their powers to force a tractor to nearly collide with Yates' car bringing Sarah to the monastery. Clegg demonstrates his powers using a tea tray, then the Brigadier's watch, a gift from a lady friend and then the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. Finally Clegg hold a package that has just arrived for the Doctor, which contains the Blue Crystal he gave Jo for her wedding present. Sarah meets Lupton and is intimidated by him. Jo has returned the crystal because the locals they have been working with believe it brings bad luck. Sarah befriends the Tommy, a retreat resident with a learning difficulty, allowing her & Mike to spy on Lupton's meditation session in the cellar. As Lupton's group start to chant, the Blue crystal begins to glow killing Clegg and creating a psychic disturbance in the Doctor's lab. Sarah & Mike witness a giant spider materialising on the prayer mat.....
That's a cracking first episode with plenty of mystery and some nice continuity to previous stories: Mike Yates, the last person you'd expect to see again after what he did in Invasion Of The Dinosaurs, has taken himself off somewhere to sort his head out
SARAH: It's a nice day.I do wonder why Mike called Sarah. Yes, as he says, he did pull a gun on the Doctor, Brigadier & Sergeant Benton last time they met but he and Sarah barely know each other.
MIKE: Yes, isn't it.
SARAH: Oh, come on, Mike. Out with it.
MIKE: Hmm?
SARAH: What is it all about?
MIKE: I told you. It's a great story for that magazine of yours.
SARAH: A couple of refugee Tibetan monks setting up a lamasery in darkest mummerset?
MIKE: It's not a lamasery. It's a meditation centre.
SARAH: Okay, so maybe meditation's the in-thing. Maybe I can sell it to Percy. I still want to know what it's all about. Look, you'd better start at the beginning. I mean, what are you doing here anyway?
MIKE: Trying to sort myself out, I suppose, after that golden age mess.
SARAH: Ah.
MIKE: I mean, like you said, everybody's going on about meditation of one sort or another, so I thought I'd have a crack at it. Then I saw in the paper about these two Tibetans.
SARAH: Well, it sounds to me as if these people are just getting on with their meditation. You know, doing a bit of homework.
MIKE: Then why be so secret about it? No, they're up to something. I think they're in touch with some. Oh, I don't know, some power. It's definitely a job for UNIT.
SARAH: Well, then, you must tell the Brig or the Doctor.
MIKE: And you think they'd believe me? Last time we met I pulled a gun on them.
SARAH: Oh, now I get it! So, you want me to have a look round and then tell the Brig for you?
MIKE: That's the general idea.
SARAH: Hmm.
MIKE: Please?
SARAH: Okay.
MIKE: Bless you, Sarah Jane.
SARAH: You'll have to convince me though.
MIKE: Don't you worry.
Surely the Doctor himself, who expressed sympathy with Mike's views, would be a much more suitable person to call?
Then Jo, not knowing what's happened in her absence, has included Mike's name on the package she has sent to UNIT.
BRIGADIER: Benton.
BENTON: Sorry, sir. I didn't see you there.
BRIGADIER: What do you want?
BENTON: Well, this package, sir. It's just arrived by express post. I thought it may be urgent.
BRIGADIER: Well, for the Doctor or for me?
BENTON: Well, that's just it. It's addressed to the Doctor or Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart or Captain Yates or, er, Sergeant Benton. It's from South America, sir.
DOCTOR: What, from Jo?
BENTON: I reckon so.
DOCTOR: Well, let's take a look. Oh, no, wait a minute. I've got a better idea. Er, Mister Clegg, would you like to tell us what's inside this package?
CLEGG: This has come a long way.
BRIGADIER: Yes, of course, from the Amazon. Sergeant Benton just told you.
DOCTOR: Brigadier, please.
CLEGG: From beyond the stars. Could it be a meteorite? Oh, it's beautiful. A gemstone. A blue jewel.
BRIGADIER: Lord, not that stone of yours?
DOCTOR: The crystal from Metebelis Three. Thank you, Mister Clegg. Let's take a look, shall we? Well, well, well.
The Doctor acquired the Blue Crystal on his brief visit to Metebelis 3, at the start of the Green Death, the story where Jo Grant departs to marry Professor Jones and go up the Amazon with him hunting for toadstools.
DOCTOR: "And we're at our twenty eighth native village. No, hang about, twenty ninth." Switch on the light for me, Sergeant, will you?Awwwww! We miss you too Jo, though we're rather fond of your replacement.
BENTON: All right.
DOCTOR: "We haven't found our toadstool yet, and we're not likely to if I don't get rid of this crystal. You see, the Indian porters say it's bad magic. Like it goes or they go. So, Doctor, if you're away on a cheap day trip to Mars, perhaps you could look after it for me, Brigadier? Or if you're away in Geneva, how about it, Mike? Or my lovely Sergeant Benton? I must say I miss you all very much."
Nicholas Courtney has a cracking episode, mainly playing the comedy relief to the Doctor!
HOST: And now, ladies and gentlemen, the management takes great pleasure in presenting to you that exotic Turkish delight of the east, Sherezadi!It's fab to see the two friends out on a night out together, albeit for a work related reason, and the Brigadier's interest in the belly dancer, with Courtney suddenly sitting up straighter and paying attention, is rather reminiscent of his turn as a licentious thug in the superb Randall and Hopkirk The Ghost Who Broke The Bank At Monte Christo, coincidentally alongside his frequent Doctor Who co-star Roger Delgado and with a surprisingly restrained performance from future Doctor Who guest star Brian Blessed!
DOCTOR: Well, you enjoyed that.
BRIGADIER: Extraordinary muscular control. Very fit, that girl. I must adapt some of those movements as exercises for the men.
DOCTOR: They'd take some adapting.
Then we come onto the watch.....
DOCTOR: You see, Brigadier, the electrocephalograph will show us his brainwaves on here as we carry out the tests. Right, let's try a little simple psycholotry, shall we? Er, Lethbridge Stewart, my dear fellow, would you like to give Mister Clegg some little article of yours?Oh my goodness, is that the first time we find out the Brigadier's first name? I had that down as being slightly later in Robot! He's been a regular, near constant, presence in the show for years now but we've seen little of the Brigadier's life outside of UNIT save for one trip to a regimental do and a brief glimpse of him, presumably at home, in bed during the Daemons. That scene was planned to feature a female hand passing the phone to The Brigadier leading many fans to wonder if perhaps that's the Doris mentioned here. The Brigadier appears to be on his own by the time of Mawdryn Undead, when we see him post UNIT teaching, but is happily married to a lady named Doris, presumably the Doris that gave him the watch, by the time of Battlefield.
BRIGADIER: What? Oh. Yes, yes, rather. Here.
DOCTOR: Right. Ready when you are, Mister Clegg.
CLEGG: This watch was given to you eleven years ago. You received it in a hotel. A hotel by the sea. Brighton, was it? From a young lady called Doris. She said it was to mark her gratitude to you
BRIGADIER: Yes, all true, absolutely spot on. Surely you've got enough, Doctor?
DOCTOR: A little too much perhaps, eh, Alastair?
Professor's Clegg's powers are further tested with the Sonic Screwdriver, which produces images of the Drashigs from Carnival of Monsters,the last story Barry Letts directed.
DOCTOR: Right, this is what we call the IRIS machine, or Image Reproduction Integrating System. It translates your thoughts into pictures on this monitor here. Try this, will you?The fork bending line is a joke at the expense of Yuri Geller who was just coming to prominence with a stage trick of bending cutlery with the power of his mind!
CLEGG: I'm sorry. I, I saw, well, just fantasies.
BRIGADIER: Don't worry, Professor. You're doing very well.
DOCTOR: Indeed you are, Professor. Indeed you are. Now, er, do you feel up to bending the odd fork?
Doctor Who hasn't done a lot with telepaths and psychic powers till now. We hinted that Susan might have powers a few times, most prominently in the Sensorites. I think this is one of the last times the subject is approached in the series but the Doctor's hints that it's a latent gift in all mankind were picked up and expanded on by the Doctor Who New Adventures authors especially in the Psi Powers storyline. It's amusing here watching the Brigadier squirm as Doris gets mentioned. We know not what service he performed for her in Brighton but many years later, in Battlefield, we find he's married to a Doris who I think we can assume is the same person.
More than anything else this story is one man's vision. All of the tales credited to Robert Sloman are co-written with Producer Barry Letts, but Letts is also in the director's chair this time as well as producing. For this story he places his Buddhist beliefs to the forefront both in the Earth setting of a Buddhist monastry and the overall theme of the tale.
So his natural tendency to cast actors he's familiar with, and given that it's Pertwee's last story, Barry Letts raids the credits list for the last five years of Doctor Who when selecting actors for this story.
Kevin Lindsay, playing Monk Cho Je, had got on very well with Pertwee when he played the Sontaran Linx in The Time Warrior and was an obvious choice for a return invite. He'll be back shortly as Styre/The Marshal in The Sontaran Experiment.
Professor Clegg is Cyril Shaps who we saw in The Tomb of the Cybermen as the nervous John Viner and The Ambassadors of Death as the nervous Dr. Lennox. He's got one more Who role to come as the Archimandrite in The Androids of Tara. He has an Out of the Unknown to his name appearing as Dr. Duval in the missing second season episode Too Many Cooks. He plays the convict Jackdaw in the Porridge episode The Harder They Fall and Turner in The Sweeney episode May. He's briefly on-screen in the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me as Dr. Bechmann, one of the two scientists killed in the helicopter explosion near the start. He was in the fondly remembered children's series Into the Labyrinth as Kadru in Cave of Diamonds and famed early 80s comedy The Young Ones as the Old Man Next Door in Demolition. I saw him in the cinema in Erik the Viking as Gisli the Chiseller. One of his later roles is in Dark Season, the future Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies Children's series, as Mr. Polzinski in the first three episodes.
Lead human villain Lupton is played by John Dearth, who was the voice of BOSS in the Green Death. You can see him in The Day the Earth Caught Fire as Dick.
Lupton's little gang is almost all Letts favourite actors: lead henchman Barnes is Christopher Burgess who was Swann in The Enemy of the World and Professor George Philips in Terror of the Autons, both directed by Barry Letts. They had appeared together, while Letts was still acting, in This Man Craig: The Good Chemist during 1966.
Terence Lodge plays Moss, with the beard and glasses on the left of the group shots. He was previously Medok in The Macra Terror and recently Orum in Barry Lett's previous Doctor Who directing job, Carnival of Monsters. He was in several episodes of An Age of Kings, the BBC series of William Shakespeare history plays and Barry Letts later uses him again as Mr. Spenlow in the Classic Serial version of David Copperfield
Andrew Staines, Keaver with the beard, bald head and cymbals, has a full house of Letts productions so far to his name having appeared in The Enemy of the World as Sergeant to Benik, Terror of the Autons as Goodge, and Carnival of Monsters as the Captain. Indeed 4 of his 6 acting credits on imdb.com are Doctor Who roles with Barry Letts directing! While listening to the Who Talk commentary for Enemy of the World I was surprised to discover that he is the son of actress Pauline Letts, Barry's sister! (who in turn I'd seen in the BBC version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) Toby Hadoke interviews him for Who's Round 160 where he reveals that his uncle usually used him as a late replacement when someone dropped out!
The exception to the rule here is Land, played by Carl Forgione making his first Who appearance. He'll memorably return as Nimrod in Ghost Light. He also appears in Blake's 7 as Grovane in Mission to Destiny and Star Cops as the Tour Guide in This Case to Be Opened in a Million Years.
There's a number of supporting artists employed in this episode as Audience Members at the show or those meditating at the meditation centre. The problem is we don't know which is which!
Patsy White, Sarah Jane Steer, Leslie Glenroy, Tony Kilbane and Elaine Banham also appear in these scenes but I can't any other Doctor Who appearances on their CVs
According to the DWAS Production File Geoff Brighty is the actor should have been in Spearhead from Space as the car park attendant but was fired and replaced by producer Derrick Sherwin! He later appeared in Ambassadors of Death as a UNIT soldier, The Time Monster as a Roundhead and Invasion of the Dinosaurs as an Operation Golden Age Man. He returns as an SRS audience member in Robot and a body in pallet in Ark in Space. IMDB thinks he was in Moonbase 3 as a Technician in Outsiders.
Jack Baker was a Time Lord in Colony in Space and returns as Ralph in The Visitation. I'm not sure the Guard in Dragonfire and Paramilitary in Silver Nemesis on his IMDB listing are the same Jack/John Baker given his age and that these would appear to be younger roles! He was also in Blake's 7 as a Scientist in Project Avalon.
Julian Hudson returns as a Soldier in Genesis of the Daleks, an Astronaut in Planet of Evil, a Vardan in Invasion of Time and a Marine Guard in Warriors of the Deep.
Roger Salter return as a Muto in Genesis of the Daleks & one of the Complex Personnel in The Android Invasion.
Pat Travis returns as a Genesis of the Daleks Scientist.
David Nicholl also plays the 1st Assassin in Face of Evil
Freddie White plays the Android Village Doctor in the Android Invasion. He was a man in the Doomwatch episodes Burial at Sea, Spectre at the Feast & Hear No Evil and appeared as a Platoon Member in several episodes of Dad's Army
The railway station Sarah arrives at is Motimer Station, in Berkshire near Reading.
Filming had to be timed around the two trains per hour that served the station, situated on the line from Reading to Basingstoke.
Both Tidmarsh Lane, where the Tractor incident was staged, and Tidmarsh Manor, serving as the meditation centre, are found in Tilehurst about eight miles away to the north east of Reading.
This episode was broadcast on my first birthday. One previous episode was shown on my birthday: Wheel in Space episode 2 in 1968. No other classic series episode is ever broadcast on this date and just one new series episode: The Crimson Horror which aired on my 40th in 2013.
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