Doctor Who: The Curse of Peladon: Episode Four starts as the Ice Warrior Ssorg (Sonny Caldinez) shoots Arcturus (Murphy Grumbar) & saves the Doctors (Jon Pertwee) life. High Priest Hepesh (Geoffrey Toone) now intends to accuse the Ice Warriors of murder & destabilise the conference while the Galactic Federation may destroy Peladon if it feels one of it's committee members has been killed, Hepesh recruits the Guard Captain (George Giles) & some soldiers with which to storm the throne room & seize control. As the situation spirals the Doctor must find a solution & stop the opposing parties from killing each other & starting a war...
Episode 8 from season 9 this Doctor Who adventure originally aired here in the UK during February 1972, directed by Lennie Mayne I have enjoyed all four episodes of The Curse of Peladon although one has to say that if I was pushed I would have to say Episode Four is probably the worst out of three but we are talking fractions. As a four part story it's moved along at a nice pace & it has even had a moral message too. The script by Brian Hayles has ended rather abruptly & has been a bit messy in it's conclusion trying to wrap things up quite quickly as not to overrun the twenty five minute time slot, the convenient recruitment of soldiers by Hepesh, the slightly childish scenes between Aggedor & the Doctor, the tacky romantic subplot between Jo & King Peladon comes to a mushy end & everything is resolved a bit too easily & cleanly for my liking. The actual ending is quite amusing though as the real Earth delegate turns up & ask's 'Doctor? What Doctor? Doctor who?' after being told what has happened. A nice little unobtrusive self referential gag there for the fan-boys. Writer Brian Hayles would script a return to the planet Peladon fifty years in the planets future from this point for Jon Pertwee's third Doctor in The Monster of Peladon (1974) during season eleven.
Here the furry horned beast Aggedor is shown many times for too long & once you start showing these poor monster costumes for any length of screen time they really do start to distract from the story. There hasn't been anything too scary in this one. The sets look alright (at least on fuzzy low resolution VHS, I am pretty sure they will look worse because of the better resolution & increased detail on DVD) & the costumes have been decent as well. The staged & somewhat stilted fight scenes in Episode Four really do show up just how good the fight at the end of Episode Three actually was.
The Curse of Peladon: Episode Four is a great end to a great story despite some slightly poor fights & an all too quickly resolved happy ending. Overall I will give The Curse of Peladon an impressive seven stars out of ten across it's four episodes, well worth watching & a fine example of classic Doctor Who warts & all.
Episode 8 from season 9 this Doctor Who adventure originally aired here in the UK during February 1972, directed by Lennie Mayne I have enjoyed all four episodes of The Curse of Peladon although one has to say that if I was pushed I would have to say Episode Four is probably the worst out of three but we are talking fractions. As a four part story it's moved along at a nice pace & it has even had a moral message too. The script by Brian Hayles has ended rather abruptly & has been a bit messy in it's conclusion trying to wrap things up quite quickly as not to overrun the twenty five minute time slot, the convenient recruitment of soldiers by Hepesh, the slightly childish scenes between Aggedor & the Doctor, the tacky romantic subplot between Jo & King Peladon comes to a mushy end & everything is resolved a bit too easily & cleanly for my liking. The actual ending is quite amusing though as the real Earth delegate turns up & ask's 'Doctor? What Doctor? Doctor who?' after being told what has happened. A nice little unobtrusive self referential gag there for the fan-boys. Writer Brian Hayles would script a return to the planet Peladon fifty years in the planets future from this point for Jon Pertwee's third Doctor in The Monster of Peladon (1974) during season eleven.
Here the furry horned beast Aggedor is shown many times for too long & once you start showing these poor monster costumes for any length of screen time they really do start to distract from the story. There hasn't been anything too scary in this one. The sets look alright (at least on fuzzy low resolution VHS, I am pretty sure they will look worse because of the better resolution & increased detail on DVD) & the costumes have been decent as well. The staged & somewhat stilted fight scenes in Episode Four really do show up just how good the fight at the end of Episode Three actually was.
The Curse of Peladon: Episode Four is a great end to a great story despite some slightly poor fights & an all too quickly resolved happy ending. Overall I will give The Curse of Peladon an impressive seven stars out of ten across it's four episodes, well worth watching & a fine example of classic Doctor Who warts & all.