The Curse of Peladon

Dear Gary—

What I love about The Curse of Peladon is that we have some absolutely unbelievable, almost absurd aliens assembled together and yet everyone plays it straight. No one laughs, for example, in the face of Alpha Centauri, the hermaphroditic hexapod with one huge eye in its not so vaguely phallic shaped body and an irritatingly cartoonish high-pitched voice. Alpha Centauri is treated with all of the respect and dignity you would expect for a delegate at a galactic peace conference. And because the actors believe in what they are doing we believe it too.

I also love that the Doctor is once again traveling in time and space with his beloved blue box. The Doctor takes Jo on a test flight in his newly operational TARDIS (with a little navigational help from the Time Lords) and they land on Peladon, a rather medieval planet rich in superstition and minerals that is seeking to join the Galactic Federation; hence the assemblage of various delegates from alien worlds.

The Doctor and Jo step out of the TARDIS to find themselves perched precariously on the side of a steep mountain. The TARDIS topples over the edge, but not to worry, “The TARDIS may have its faults, but it is indestructible.”

This leads me to the third element that I love about The Curse of Peladon: the Doctor and Jo. While still in the TARDIS the Doctor says of it, “Must be on the blink,” to which Jo replies, “I might have expected it; the TARDIS always is.” The Doctor, ever defensive, comes back with, “I hope you’re as in good condition when you’re as old as she is.” I have missed these TARDIS squabbles; they are a crucial component in the Doctor/companion dynamic.

And as the Doctor and Jo emerge from the TARDIS to scale the mountainside, this easy-going rapport remains with them. I had never really thought much of Jo Grant as a companion before, but in this story the relationship that has been steadily growing since her introduction in Terror ofthe Autons becomes firmly established as one of the classic pairings in Doctor Who. Jo is more than a test tube passer; she is a friend, a confidant, an ally, a true companion.

Reaching the summit, the Doctor and Jo run into an Ice Warrior who turns out to be one of the foreign diplomats. I have to say that the Ice Warrior costume was more effective in black and white, but it is passable in color, and when a startled Doctor reacts with the appropriate amount of caution and wariness we accept these Ice Warriors as the potential menace they are.

The Doctor is mistaken for the late-arriving delegate from Earth and he plays along, introducing Jo as Princess Josephine of TARDIS. Jo dons the mantle of royalty with aplomb (taking me back to Barbara in The Aztecs) and wins the heart of an obviously smitten King Peladon (played by Patrick Troughton’s son David).

This is where everything gels: an alien world, rubber suited monsters, a Doctor/companion duo in perfect form, and a gripping story that is acted out in all seriousness as though it were a political intrigue/murder thriller taking place on Earth with nothing but human characters involved.

What makes it fun, of course, is that it is on an alien world with rubber suited monsters.

“Your legend seems violent and unpleasant and rather too convenient.” This insightful bit of dialogue comes to us courtesy of the hilariously outfitted Alpha Centauri, and the rather too convenient legend is that of Aggedor, the Royal Beast of Peladon.

Peladon’s court is beset by dissension and doubt. The King, supported by Councilor Torbis, seeks to join in the Galactic Federation. The High Priest Hepesh, however, fears this will lead to their subjugation and “the past swept away.” When Torbis is killed, Hepesh declares this to be Aggedor’s curse upon the people for turning their backs on the old ways. When further attempts are made upon the delegates, the seeds of discord are sown.

The Doctor suspects the Ice Warriors; the Ice Warriors accuse the Doctor. Alpha Centauri is thrown into a panic. Jo looks for evidence while the Doctor explores the network of secret tunnels running throughout the castle that everyone seems to know about except the clueless King.

“Did you have to get us involved in all this?”

Stumbling upon the sacred shrine of Aggedor, the Doctor is seized by Hepesh for a blasphemer, the sentence for which is death. The most that the ineffectual King Peladon can do, despite the threat of intergalactic repercussions, is to commute his sentence to trial by combat with the King’s Champion.  This leads to an ambitious hand-to-hand combat sequence with the athletic third Doctor. The Doctor is of course victorious and elects to spare the life of his opponent Grun (thus winning him over as a valuable ally for the rest of the story).

In a nice little twist, the Ice Warriors turn out to be on the side of peace and justice, and a rubber suited Izlyr eloquently explains to Jo how they have given up on their violent ways. A grudging respect is growing between the two; however the edge remains in these warriors: “In order to preserve peace it is necessary to survive.”

Meanwhile the delegate Arcturus is revealed to be in league with Hepesh to undermine the conference and keep Peladon out of the Federation. And again King Peladon demonstrates his ineptitude. Faced with clear evidence against his High Priest the King refuses to act against him, thus giving Hepesh time to organize his men for revolt.

The delegates, too, seem inadequate to the task as they argue amongst themselves whether or not to come to the aid of Peladon during this time of civil uprising.

“Centauri, stop it,” an exasperated Jo calmly but firmly states as Alpha Centauri becomes increasingly hysterical in the background while Jo and Izlyr attempt to discuss the situation in the foreground.

“Centauri, stop it,” she emphasizes.

But only the Doctor can put an end to this tangled web he has gotten them involved with.

“Haroon, haroon, haroon.”

With a bit of Venusian lullaby and a spinning mirror the Doctor tames the not-so-mythical Aggedor with a “kind of technical hypnosis;” and in a ‘hoisted on your own petard’ moment, Aggedor turns on his former master/tormentor Hepesh.

“Haroon, haroon, haroon.”

The legend is no longer violent or unpleasant, but still rather too convenient.

“What Doctor? Doctor who?” an angry Earth delegate late to the action demands as the Doctor and Jo slip away, leaving this alien world of rubber-suited monsters behind them.

And so, ‘haroon, haroon, haroon’ to you, Gary. I hope this Venusian lullaby makes its way to you somewhere in that time swirl . . .