The Doc's Tardis is working again in the never ending saga from the BBC. The 61st serial has 4 parts and the first of them aired January 29 1972. We find the Doctor and Jo Grant on the planet Peladon. They find the somewhat primitive planet in the middle of negotiations to join the Galactic Federation. The Doctor and Jo are caught and brought to the King. David Troughton, son of the Second Doctor Patrick Troughton, plays the King. He's on the left of that picture with Grun, the king's champion, and Hepesh the High Priest. The King thinks the Doctor and Jo are the delegates from Earth. Of course the Doctor plays along. The High Priest has a secret agenda. He wants to keep the old ways and he'll kill to get his way. When the delagates are attacked they band together and try to figure out what's up. Eventually the Doctor dopes it out and after nearly dying several times he beats down the baddies, captures the legendary monster and saves the planet all. What a guy!
There are some nice models of the desolate planet. The poor Tardis falls off a cliff but the Doc and Jo have just stepped out. You'd think if the Tardis was as good as the Doctor is always claiming it would have some fancy named bit that would keep it from tipping over. Lucky it's indestructible and the fall isn't fatal for the ship. It's retrieved by the King's guards. The three other planets representatives come from Mars, Alpha Centauri and Arcturus. The Doctor is worried that the Martian Ice Warriors are evil and some planted evidence makes it seem so. Here's a couple of shots of the delegates.
That's Hepish, Jo, the alien from Alpha Centuri and the head of the Martian delegation. I read in the Wikipedia entry for the serial that the Alpha Centurian was thought to look to much like a penis with arms so they put a yellow cape on it. They have some nice sets for the palace and there's plenty of scenes done on film at Elstree Studios. The story is nice and compact and makes a change from the alien invasion theme. The dvd has the usual making-of featurettes, photo's and a commentary.
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