July 6: The Monster of Peladon Parts Three & Four

Gebek and the Doctor plan their next move. (The Monster of
Peladon Part Three) ©BBC

Oh good.  These two episodes are a bit better than the first two (or maybe I'm just in a better mood; I'm willing to allow for that possibility), even if Ortron is still insufferably xenophobic.  I thought maybe the Doctor and Sarah surviving the trial of Aggedor at the start of part three would be enough to bring him around, but alas, it's not to be.  "You may have deceived the Queen but you have not deceived me," Ortron tells the Doctor, and then has him locked up at the first hint of disobedience.  Of course, Sarah's also taking initiative by trying to convince Queen Thalira to be stronger as a ruler and not let the patriarchal society that Peladon possesses handicap her.  It's a rather topical speech, to be sure, but Elizabeth Sladen does a good job with it, and it also has that lovely line about how "There's nothing 'only' about being a girl."

But there are more important things happening.  These two episodes are concerned with advancing the plot, rather than screwing around mistrusting the Doctor and locking him up.  This is, in general, a good thing, and a welcome change from parts one and two.  Acting on Eckersley's suggestion, Alpha Centauri calls for Federation security troops to come to Peladon -- which is the last thing both the nobles and the miners want.  So while they're hatching a plan to convince the troops that things are proceeding smoothly on Peladon, Gebek breaks the Doctor out of prison and then takes him to the currently disused refinery, where Sarah said she saw someone moving inside.  Reasoning that that would make a good base to stage the Aggedor attacks from, the Doctor breaks in -- only to find an Ice Warrior inside...

It seems, we learn in part four, that the Ice Warriors are there as the Federation security troops -- although the question remains: if the troops had just landed, how and why did they enter the refinery?  But they're only causing trouble; while Izlyr had distinguished himself in The Curse of Peladon by being open-minded, fair, and just, his successor here, Azaxyr, is brutal and callous, declaring that if the miners don't get back to work he'll kill them all and bring in Federation miners -- justifying his actions by observing that the Federation is in a state of war with Galaxy Five and thus the trisilicate being mined in Peladon is desperately needed.  The nice thing about Azaxyr is that it ends up uniting both Ortron's side and Gebek's side -- they may not like each other, but they dislike the Federation occupation even more.  So they carry out their plan to make the Ice Warriors think everything's okay, only to attack when their guard is down.  But Ettis, who's clearly gone mad by this point, will have none of this plan; he's going to use the sonic lance that's been showing up periodically since part one to destroy the Citadel and everyone inside, including the Queen.  So it's up to the Doctor to stop him, which results in a swordfight that gives us our best ever look of Terry Walsh as Pertwee's stunt double, with more than one full-on view of his face.  (And they still haven't made Walsh's wig as white as Pertwee's hair has become.)

And so Ettis ends up with the upper hand and activates the sonic lance -- only Azaxyr has remotely rigged it to explode when used, and so there's a colossal explosion which appears to kill both Ettis and the Doctor...