Doctor Who (1963) 11.04.01

The Monster of Peladon - Part One

The Doctor and Sarah Jane arrive on Peladon a place he has visited before. Peladon joined the Galactic Federation since he was last there, about 50 years prior to this visit. The Federation is in the midst of a war with Galaxy Five. The Federation is starting to mine trisilicate, a valuable mineral which would be very useful in the war. A couple miners have died under mysterious circumstances.

The Doctor and Sarah are accused of being the source of the trouble by Ortron, Queen Thalira's advisor. Ortron is ready to have them executed when Alpha Centauri, a one-eyed alien who was also there the last time the Doctor visited, shows up to vouch for him.

The miners blame the deaths of their coworkers on the Spirit of Aggedor. They want to shut down the mining operation by any means necessary. They try appealing to the Queen but when that doesn't work they take matters into their own hands.

The Doctor goes with the Queen's champion to investigate the area where the miners where killed. The angry miners detonate some explosives nearby in an attempt to close off the area where they were working. The Doctor and the Queen's Champion are caught in the blast radius. They survive but then the Spirit of Aggedor appears and kills the champion.

Thoughts

This isn't great but it is a decent start. The supporting cast haven't done anything that really impresses me so far. I know some of the twists in the story that have yet to occur even though I have never seen this one before. My hopes aren't real high that this will be a super memorable story but maybe is will be a good but unremarkable story.

The commentary track for this episode includes Tody Hadoke (moderator), Terrence Dicks (script editor), Barry Letts (producer), Nina Thomas (Queen Thalira), Donald Gee (Eckersley), and Ralph Watson (Ettis). Liz Sladen was still alive at the time this commentary track was recorded. She died about a year after Monster of Peladon was first released on DVD.

Lennie Mayne directed this story. He also directed Hand of Fear, Sarah Jane's last appearance with the Fourth Doctor, and a couple of stories that preceded Monster of Peladon by a few years.