OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 378
STORY NUMBER: 074
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 18 May 1974
WRITER: Robert Sloman (and Barry Letts uncredited)
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 8.8 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Planet of the Spiders
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video
"We shall return to our rightful home, Earth, as rulers!"
Lupton materialises at the meditation centre where his arrival is witnessed by Tommy. The spider communicates with her sisters and queen on Metebelis 3. Their leader, the Great One, plans the conquest of Earth. The Doctor, Sarah & Mike come to the Monastery accusing Lupton of stealing the crystal. Barnes overhears and warns Lupton. Tommy spots the crystal and steals it while Lupton is distracted and hides it in his collection of pretty things in a shoebox. Sarah follows Lupton to the cellar leaving a message with Tommy to say where she has gone. Sarah see Lupton dematerialise, but following him steps on the prayer mat he was was using and is transported to Metebelis 3.
Sarah is first captured and then sheltered from the spiders by the humans living on Metebelis 3. The Queen is demanding the human Arak be surrendered for attacking a guard but takes his father Sabor instead. As Sarah is found the Doctor arrives in the Tardis and, after a fight, is knocked out by a blast from on of the spider's servants.
Hmmm. I'm not sure we move very far in this episode, it feels a bit like padding. And the humans on Metebelis 3, the descendants of colonists, don't feel terribly realistic to me.
We hear two more spider voices in this episode. Kismet Delgado is of course the widow of Roger Delgado. After her husband was killed in a car crash in Turkey she found herself in impoverished circumstances due to his life insurance refusing to pay up. Barry Lettsobtained her an equity card and got her this job to help tide her over.
The third spider voice is Maureen Morris who was in the second & third episodes of the second series of the Tripods and as Mrs. Macready in the BBC's 1988 version of The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe.
The Spiders are operated by puppeteer Barry Smith.
Onto to the Metebelis colonists:
Arak should be recognisable as Gareth Hunt, shortly to find fame for playing Mike Gambit in The New Avengers. You can see him as an Eagle Pilot in the Space: 1999 episode Guardian of Piri.
Ralph Arliss, playing Tuar, appears to have been in most dramas I've ever watched from the 70s. He was in The Sweeney as Ames in Taste of Fear, Survivors as Jim in Mad Dog and the 1979 Quatermass as Kickalong.
The older Sabor is played by Geoffrey Morris has a TV career stretching back to 1946 but the thing you'll mostly likely have seen him in is the Fawlty Towers episode The Hotel Inspectors where he plays John, one of the two inspectors. (The same episode features Bernard Cribbins as a man Basil thinks is a hotel inspector. And hilarity ensues).
Jenny Laird, playing Neska, was an experienced actress who gave her name to an acting award at RADA won by Richard Franklin (Captain Yates) and Jan Chappel (Cally in Blake's 7). I've seen Laird in the Inspector Morse story Second Time Around where she plays Mrs. Keelan.
Joanna Monro, here playing Rega, has had a somewhat eclectic career including starring in the stage production of Mamma Mia!, appearing as a regular on the That's Life, and winning a celebrity edition of the Weakest Link! You can hear Joanna Monro interviewed in Who's Round 236.
Finally, from the credited cast, playing the guard Captain and making his final Doctor appearance is our old friend Walter Randall who'd been in The Aztecs as Tonila, The Crusade as El Akir, The Daleks' Master Plan as Hyksos, The Invasion as a Patrolman and Inferno as Harry Slocum. His first & last appearances are the only ones *not* directed by Douglas Camfield. Outside of Doctor Who he was a Sightseer / Man in Crowd in three episodes of Quatermass and the Pit and in Out of the Unknown he appears as Thomas Hobbs in To Lay a Ghost, one of the four existing Fourth Season episodes found in the Out of the Unknown DVD Set. In The Professionals he plays President Parsali in Mixed Doubles and in Yes Minister he's a Qumrani man in The Moral Dimension.
Onto the Guards..... and here we have a small problem: I can see hardly any of the guards that the DWAS Production File says are in this episode and the only ones I can see clearly and identify are ones the Production File says are in episode 4! For example the photo on the left clearly contains Alan Chuntz on the left of the picture and Stuart Fell between Sarah & Rega. Reading around I discover that episode 3 originally ran short so their listing as being only in episode four is almost certainly down to material being pulled forward from the intended episode four. Fell was in the last episode as the Tramp but we've not seen Chuntz for a bit:
Regular stuntman Alan Chuntz was previously a UNIT Soldier in The Invasion, Technician Harvey & a Security Guard in The Seeds of Death, one of Collinson’s Men & a UNIT Soldier in the Ambassadors of Death, a Technician, UNIT solider and RSF Soldier in Inferno, during which he was injured when Jon Pertwee ran him over in Bessie, an Auton in Terror of the Autons, a Prisoner in Mind of Evil a Sea Devil & Sailor in The Sea Devils, Omega's Champion in The Three Doctors and a Security Guard in The Green Death. He returns as a soldier in Genesis of the Daleks, a Vogan in Revenge of the Cybermen, the Doctor's stunt double in Planet of Evil, the Chauffeur in Seeds of Doom, a Horda Pit Guard in Face of Evil, a Coolie in Talons of Weng-Chiang, a guard in State of Decay and a Masked Villager in The Visitation. He also did stunt work on the Sean Connery James Bond film You Only Live Twice and on The Italian Job.
Since those two stuntmen are here and The Doctor, or rather his stunt double Terry Walsh, gets a bit physical with several guards, it's likely that the other guard stuntman listed for episode four, Billy Horrigan, is also present - and I'm about 90% certain he's one of the guards in the second picture! Horrigan was a UNIT Soldier in The Invasion, the Man on Bike Killed by Auton in Spearhead from Space, one of Collinson's men in Ambassadors of Death, a Technician and UNIT & RSF Soldiers in Inferno, a U.N.I.T. soldier, Auton Policeman & other stunts in Terror of the Autons, a UNIT Corporal & Prisoner in The Mind of Evil, a colonist in Colony in Space, a guard in The Curse of Peladon, a Sea Devil & Sailor Stuntman in The Sea Devils and a security guard in The Green Death. He returns as a soldier/guard in Masque of Mandragora. He was also in Blake's 7 as a Scavenger in Deliverance. In the world of films he acts or does stunt work in Jabberwocky, The Spy Who Loved Me, Superman, Superman II, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, Superman III, Krull, Never Say Never Again, 1984 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
There's two guards down as only being in this episode: Derek Hunt was an Atlantean Guards Underwater Menace, a British Soldier in The War Games, a Soldier in Spearhead from Space, a UNIT Solider in Doctor Who and the Silurians, a Technician in Inferno, a U.N.I.T. Soldier in Day of the Daleks and a Prison Guard in Frontier in Space. He returns as an Android Mechanic/Soldier in Android Invasion, a Bi-Al member in Invisible Enemy, a Time Lord in Invasion of Time a Technicians/Guards/Citizen in Pirate Planet, a Passenger in Nightmare of Eden, James the footman in Black Orchid, a Worthy in Snakedance, a Guard in Planet of Fire and Time Lord in Mysterious Planet, Mindwipe & Terror of the Vervoids, during which he's wearing orange robes!
The other guard is a first appearance with Third Doctor Jon Pertwee for our friend Harry Fielder! 'Aitch first appeared in The Enemy of the World as a guard after which he was back as a Wheel Crewmember in The Wheel in Space. He returns as a Vogan in Revenge of the Cybermen, a Guard in The Seeds of Doom for which he gets a credit, a Guard in The Deadly Assassin, the Second Assassin in The Face of Evil part one (he gets on the commentary for that DVD!), a Titan Base Crewman in The Invisible Enemy part one, a Levithian Guard in The Ribos Operation, a Guard in The Armageddon Factor part two (another credited role!), the Krarg Commander in Shada, a Tigellan in Meglos part one and a Security Guard in Castrovalva part one. His Blake's 7 appearances include an Armed Crewman in Space Fall and Cygnus Alpha, a Scavenger in Deliverance a Federation Trooper in Weapon, Trial, Voice from the Past (where he's also a rebel), Children of Auron, Games, Warlord and Blake meaning he was present at the final climatic scene! I first knew him as Harry the Security Guard in CBTV but he's been in everything from when I was growing up! Aitch was on Facebook, has a website recalling the many productions he's been in and has adapted it into a rather good book. He died 6th February 2021 aged 80.
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