After the fiasco some members of UNIT (stands for UNified Intelligence Taskforce) took part of in Invasion of the Dinosaurs a couple arcs back, Michael Yates, having left UNIT due to his participation in bringing back “The Golden Age”, seeks refuge in a Tibetan meditation centre. However, things appear fishy when he stumbles on a secret group meditating in the cellar, chanting something that doesn’t revolve around Tibetan beliefs. Too afraid to call on UNIT, he turns to Sarah Jane to get to the bottom of the matter. Yates and Sarah hide away in the cellar and watch the next secret meeting, where, after a string of incantations, a giant spider appears in the middle of the cellar, leaps on a man named Lupton’s back, and disappears. Fearing something of the alien kind, Sarah Jane returns to UNIT to inform the Doctor. Of course, while she’s been investigating away, the Doctor and the Brig are conducting experiments of their own back at UNIT HQ. The Doctor discovers Professor Clegg (no, not Nick Clegg, you numpties), a man with powerful psychic abilities. Clegg, having the ability to move objects without touching them and the ability to see into the future, is put to the test by the Doctor. However, upon looking into an alien blue crystal sent by post from the Amazon by the Doctor’s previous companion, Jo Grant, Clegg envisioned deadly spiders and met his unprecedented demise. The Doctor, wondering what the psychic message of spiders could mean, is enlightened by Sarah Jane of the events in the cellar. Seeing a connection with Clegg’s last vision and Sarah’s tale, the Doctor decides to look into the peculiar situation.
Of course, before the Doctor can do any such thing, Lupton, having his mind shared with the giant spider, is forced by the spider to go to UNIT to retrieve the blue crystal in order to attain insurmountable power. Lupton steals the crystal with telepathic assistance from the spider in his head, and the Doctor, Sarah, and the Brigadier go off on a multi-vehicle chase to get the crystal back. All is lost when Lupton makes a miraculous escape and is persuaded by the spider to take the crystal to its home planet, where they can thwart the other spiders and rule the planet and many others to come. Little did Lupton know that the retreat’s simpleton handyman, Tommy, has a fixed fascination for “pretty, shiny things”, and secretly takes the blue crystal. Lupton, fearing the loss of his power, assures the spider they can bluff their part of the bargain, and so teleports to the planet, Metebelis III, anyways. Sarah, hot on his tracks after seeing him run off to the cellar, unexpectedly gets teleported as well. The Doctor, arriving at the scene too late, must return to Metebelis (a planet he visited once before) in the TARDIS and resolve the ever-growing dilemma before it is too late.
Before watching this arc, I’ve heard nothing but great things about Planet of the Spiders, but in truth, after I watched it, I was a bit disappointed. Other than one trip in the TARDIS to collect Sarah from Metebelis, there’s hardly any time travel to confuse us. The special effects are great for the 1970’s, but the spiders aren’t. I don’t know how it could have been better, but the spiders just weren’t working for me. I mean, they’re very frightening, obviously – come on, giant spiders! They’re probably even more dangerous than the acromantulas in the second Harry Potter book! Perhaps it was the voices of the spiders that were a bit of a turn-off. Yes, they were loud, but also high-pitched; it made them appear even less frightening. However, when they are capable of possessing other bodies and bending their minds to their own will, they are capable of doing more than their eight legs can handle.
One question I had, and that was raised in the middle of the story, was how the spiders came to Metebelis III. Some history for you: In the planet’s past, a space ship carrying humans from Earth crashed, and the people have lived on the planet for generations. However, a spider on board the space ship found its way to the Blue Mountains, home of the blue crystals, like the one the Doctor was in possession of. The spider basked in the effect of the crystals and grew smarter and larger, and its descendants have evolved into the giant spiders seen in this story.
I’ve noticed that there are many references to the Doctor’s past in this season of Doctor Who. In Planet of the Spiders, we are comforted by the letter Jo Grant sent to the Doctor with the blue crystal from The Green Death, we return to Metebelis III, and although we haven’t seen him before, the Doctor is reunited with his old mentor from Gallifrey, who also aids him with his regeneration, of which this arc is famous for. Is it that the writers are feeling nostalgic, or have they just run out of ideas for Jon Pertwee now that this is his final season on the show?
Might I say that it’s been trying to accept Sarah Jane’s red-and-white striped getup. The other two outfits used in this episode aren’t that bad, though. I once visited the Sarah Jane Smith Fashionista Fever website, and I noticed that whenever Sarah Jane is time-space travelling in the TARDIS with the Doctor, her outfits appear to be outrageous, yet bitingly loveable, but when she’s on Earth, her style dwindles to the styles of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s.
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| While on Earth, Sarah displays a toned-down style, quite different from her spacey outfits. |
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| Just before her trip to Metebelis III, she dons a stripey shirt and matching sweater. |
I also noted that this is the story in which Sarah Jane gets possessed by an alien for the first time on Doctor Who.
I think that one of the best performances by anyone in this episode is of the character Tommy. He is the handyman at the Tibetan retreat, and although he’s a bit simple-minded, he is so adorable, and I’ve grown to love him since he first came on screen. What’s also incredible is how he actually plays a part in the fight for the possession of the blue crystal. Because of his obsession with “pretty, shiny things”, he takes the crystal from an unknowing Lupton. Of course, the crystal has the power to show a person his own mind, and when Tommy looks into the crystal, his mind becomes improved by the crystal’s power. He is able to read and speak and think coherently when before, he couldn’t. Because of his brand-new knowledge, those who’ve been involved in the secret group in the cellar are not aware of his transformation and underestimate him, making him the hero of the day.
So, what is the theme of this story? Because there is one; it’s subconsciously dominant. Why did Tommy take the blue crystal? What convinced Lupton to aid the spider? Why did the Doctor even take the blue crystal from Metebelis III to begin with, causing this entire problem? Greed. It’s a perfectly common human fault that even the Doctor has, and he’s not even human. Even the spider, digging into Lupton’s mind, felt nothing but greed. It may not be so dominant in all of us, but it’s there.
When I first got into Doctor Who, I watched a YouTube video chronicling every Doctor’s regeneration. So when Sarah and the Brigadier are in the Doctor’s room in UNIT fretting over his whereabouts, and they suddenly hear the TARDIS materialising, I was struck by the familiarity of this scene. I’m glad that the Brig and Sarah were there to witness his regeneration, for it symbolises the Doctor Who audience itself: there are those who have witnessed the Doctor regenerate before, having stuck with the show since the beginning, and there are newbies who saw this series first on transmission who didn’t know the Doctor could even do that. The latter resembles Sarah Jane, who’s only known the Third Doctor, and the former resembles the Brig, who’s been with the Doctor since the Patrick Troughton years (aka Second Doctor, for those who aren’t in the know). And to regenerate into Tom Baker, the infamous Fourth Doctor with the ridiculously long scarf and worn-out catchphrase regarding jelly babies, it makes me look forward to watching the Tom Baker years.
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