If I had been a wee bit older when this one was shown I might have
been tempted to ask – does the world really need another Peladon story? To
which the answer would probably have been – no, it doesn’t, since it never got
another one after this.
Now, actually, the basic premise of the Doctor returning to the
scene of a previous adventure is pretty fresh and novel, and it’s remarkable to
think that it hasn’t really happened before. Well, alright, the TARDIS did
return to the Ark at the end of its 600 year voyage, but then that was all part
of the same story. Alright, so the Doctor has been to the Detsen Monastery
before “The Abominable Snowmen” but that’s a plot point, and not a televised
adventure so it doesn’t count. The Doctor’s returns to Gallifrey I suppose will
count when he gets round to them.
After Watching
Last time out was Malcolm Hulke’s last contribution to
the TV series, and this time we saw Brian Hayles’. Brian Hayles has, it’s
probably fair to say, a mixed track record. His first script for Doctor Who was
“The Celestial Toymaker” although it’s only fair to say that what was seen on screen
was Gerry Davis’ rewrite of Donald Tosh’s rewrite of Brian Hayles original
script. The Donald Tosh rewrite was so extensive that it was agreed that he
would receive the screen credit, while Brian Hayles would be credited as having
supplied the original idea. He then went on to write “The Smugglers”, the story
which recast the Historical genre in the mould of historical adventure linked
to a time period, rather than Historical genre linked to a specific event.
Finally, in Season 5, the Monster Season, he hit paydirt with the Ice Warriors.
They debuted in the story which bore their name. In season 6 they returned in
his story “The Seeds of Death”, and then in season 9 in “The Curse of Peladon”,
where the great surprise of the story was that they had actually renounced
their old warrior ways, and were now acting as galactic peacemakers if
anything. So we end with this story, a return to Peladon, and the last story
featuring the Ice Warriors actually to be produced during the classic series.
With the exception of Earth it’s difficult to think of
hardly any planets which the Doctor has already visited more than once. He
visited Skaro in both “The Daleks” and “Evil of the Daleks”, but the Skaro of
the latter is from a much later time period than the Skaro of the former, and
there’s very little that the two have in common. “The Monster of Peladon” on
the other hand takes place a mere fifty years after the events of the earlier
story. There’s even one carry-over character, Alpha Centauri. In functional
terms it is a useful plot device having Alpha Centauri return, since it saves a
great amount of tedious toing and froing in the early episode with the Doctor
having to prove that he is who he says that he is. In a way, Alpha Centauri is
this story’s psychic paper.
There’s one big plus to doing a sequel story like this,
and one big minus. I’ll start with the plus. If you use virtually the same
setting for a story as one from a couple of seasons earlier, than you can reuse
a lot of sets and costumes. (Presumably
you still have them in storage. If you don’t, then it’s a complete waste of
time. ) Theoretically this should make it a cheaper show to produce, and save
you money which you can put into the budget of the other shows in the
production block. On the other hand it does put you under constraints. It
requires a very careful eye to be kept on continuity, because if anything is
said or done that contradicts the earlier story, people are definitely going to
notice, and they’re going to get upset about it. So how well does “Monster” do
as a follow on to “Curse”?
It’s often said that “Curse” was inspired by the UK’s
impending entry to the EEC. By the same token “Monster” seems inspired by the
Government’s industrial relations problems with the Miners which led to the 3
day week. (Me? Miners’ side of course, brother.) So on Peladon it is 50 years
after the end of “Curse” and thus 50 years into Peladon’s membership of the
Federation. The Federation is mired in a long standing war with Galaxy Five.
(They would have picked on Galaxy Four, but the Drahvins and Rills would have
bored them into submission). Peladon is rich in the mineral trisilicate which
is essential to keeping a modern fleet of star cruisers going, or whatever the
Federation called their space warships. The miners on Peladon are getting
bolshie though, and surprisingly it’s nothing to do with the two tone afros
which seem to be part of essential Peladon miner uniform. No, their beef is
that for 50 years the Peladonian nobility have been enjoying the benefits of
Federation membership, and getting fatter and richer on the profits than they
were already, while the poor old miners are having to work harder than before
for no commensurate rise in their standard of living. That’s not just my
opinion, the Doctor actually says this when he’s giving the Queen a few home
truths. I’ll come to her shortly. Now, what makes it even worse for the miners
is that an apparition of their god beast Aggedor has started appearing in the
mines, and when it does, a miner usually gets vaporised in a heat ray.
So essentially what we have is a simple little political
parable, isn’t it? Wrong. Or rather,
there is a political parable there, but it’s not so neat and simple as it
sounds, since there’s quite an ambiguous attitude towards the miners in the
story. For one thing they are shown as not exactly cowardly, but they are very
quick to swear to fight to the death, and then run a mile at the first hint of
trouble soon after. Not only that, but they are shown as rather sheep like, and
I’m not just referring to those hairdos either. They have a leader, Gebek, who
is the voice of reason, talks sense, is calm and brave under fire, and is
dedicated to his fellow miners. Then they also have a meathead called Ettis,
who has a loud voice and a small brain. Ettis has ‘I’ll get you all
slaughtered’ written all over his face, and yet the miners are at times just as
ready to listen to Ettis and follow him as they are with Gebek. So the message
is a rather patronising one of – these miner chappies, salt of the earth and
all that, and yes of course, something should be done for them, but for
Heaven’s sake don’t let them think for themselves since they’re not all that
bright.- Not that the nobility, represented in the person of Chancellor Ortron
come off a great deal better. He is an obstinate patrician, conditioned with
the idea that those who are not of the nobility are inherently inferior to
those who are, yet this position is intellectually undermined by the fact that
he tries to manipulate Queen Thalira, who , as royalty, he should view as being
that much better than he is, unless he is a hypocrite, which he is.
Speaking of Queen Thalira, she is the daughter of King
Peladon from ‘Curse’, whom she says died when she was very young. Apparently
there can only be a ruling queen when there is no male heir of the royal line.
Queen Thalira is played by Nina Thomas, who is rather decorative, but starts so
insipidly that it’s difficult to take her seriously when she later begins to
develop a backbone. I’m not really sure how to view this. The Doctor’s
suggestion that she takes a few lessons from Sarah Jane, and Sarah Jane’s
little speech about Women’s Lib seems dreadfully forced and to be honest
somewhat patronising when I watch it in 2015. But maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe
this was actually quite progressive in 1974. A part of me says that while it is
frankly rather cringe making to watch now (although I still think that ‘there’s
nothing only about being a girl’ is a pretty good line) at least the story is
maybe acknowledging that it has been guilty of some rather rampant chauvinism
in the past. I honestly don’t know.
There is a story here too, mind you, and it isn’t just a
random collection of characters making some rather heavy handed, quite
paternalistic political points. The story, as such, is complicated by the
presence of an Earthling mining engineer called Eckersley, played by Donald
Gee, who was last seen in “The Space Pirates”, and Alpha Centauri, who is now
the ambassador to Peladon. It is the original Egghead here who contacts the
Federation and asks them to send in some ‘peace keeping’ forces. The Ice
Warriors, led by one Azaxyr, turn up almost immediately. The thing is, they
were already there on Peladon, hiding out in the trisilicate refinery, and they
are not Federation Forces at all. In fact they are not even official Ice
Warrior troops. We eventually learn that they are a breakaway Ice Warrior
faction who long to return to the old ways of slaughter, conquest and
bloodshed. The corrupt Earth mining engineer Eckersley has hatched a plot with
them for them to declare Martial Law on Peladon, bully the miners back to work,
then sell the trisilicate to the Galaxy Five forces, thus making Eckersley the
richest and most powerful man in the Galaxy. If he had a waxed moustache he’d
have been twirling it when he announced this. It is Eckersley who created the
Aggedor projector/heat ray machine.
Let’s consider the way that the Ice Warriors come across
in this, their last appearance in the classic series. In a way, Brian Hayles
was always onto a loser bringing them back in this story. In “The Ice Warriors”
the warriors themselves had a kind of motivation for what they did. In “The
Seeds of Death” this had developed into out and out evil malevolence and desire
for conquest, which was accompanied by the usual incompetence we’ve come to
expect from evil malevolent aliens bent on conquest. Then in ‘Curse’ they had
developed as a species, renouncing conquest, taking their place within the
Federation and showing that they were clearly some way along the road to
Enlightenment. There was nowhere left to go with them for Brian Hayles, short
of making them bad again. OK, so we get the tacked on explanation that this is
a breakaway faction, but there’s no getting away from the fact that this seems
like a renunciation of the bold and effective step that he took with them in the
previous story. Which is a mistake.
So, when the Ice Warriors’ brutality and their ultimate
aims of domination of Peladon become clear, we see the Monarchy, the bourgeois nobility,
the guards (military) and the proletariat all throwing in their lot with each
other to defend the Peladonian way of life, a way of life with which a lot of
them are by no means satisfied, by the way. Now, I’d be charitable and say that
this is a clever comment by Brian Hayles on the way that throughout History
rulers and politicians have used war and conflict to distract people’s
attention from the issues at home which they are failing to deal with and thus
cling on to power. But the way the Doctor comments approvingly on this
development rather makes me think it isn’t meant to be viewed ironically like
this. The Ice Warriors and Eckersley are defeated by a combination of the
Doctor’s superhuman ability to resist Eckersley’s security systems to use the
Aggedor projector and the heat ray against the Ice Warriors, and the determination
of the people of Peladon to fight together and defeat the Ice Warriors. As a
bonus, once the Ice Warriors are defeated Galaxy Five immediately opens
negotiations for peace, since they know they can’t possibly win without the
trisilicate that Eckersley was going to send them.
Let’s examine the end of the story immediately prior to
the Doctor’s departure. Queen Thalira virtually begs him to stay on as her
advisor and Chancellor. He refuses, saying that she doesn’t need anyone to tell
her what to do now. Right, if this story was serious about making a point about
feminism, or showing any feminist credentials, then it should have been Sarah
to say this, and not the Doctor. Even more so, once it had been said, then that
was the time to leave. However they don’t. The script compounds this by having
the Doctor suggest the miner Gebek as the next Chancellor. On the surface this
looks like the dawn of a new era of class equality and opportunity on Peladon.
It is nothing of the sort. Queen Thalira pays a patronising tribute to Gebek’s
excellent qualities , then says there has never been a chancellor who has not been a member of the
nobility before. Firstly the Doctor tells her not to worry about old fashioned
thinking like that. This is the second point at which he needs to stop talking
and leave immediately. But he doesn’t. He ruins the whole thing by saying
‘anyway, you can always give him some sort of title.’ It’s a throwaway line,
but it illustrates so much of what is wrong about ‘The Monster’ of Peladon as a
political parable. For essentially the Doctor has just given Thalira carte
blanche to maintain the whole unjust system. By giving Gebek a title, she would
reinforce the idea that the top jobs are only for the nobility, since she has
to make Gebek one. Where this old class system survives, for example in the UK,
it does so because it allows the exceptional individual to arise from among the
proletariat, but absorbs them into the elite before they have a chance to
effect any real change. Yes, there is no reason why a politician who has not
attended Oxford or Cambridge University should not become Prime Minister.
Precious few of them ever have done so, though. Just my opinion, of course, and feel free to
disagree.
If you are totally apolitical, and view this just as an
adventure story about aliens fighting, some with future weapons, some with
swords, then frankly it’s a bit of a tired old slog at 6 episodes long. If you
try to view it as a political text it’s a lot more interesting. Albeit rather
more muddled. You see, while it makes noises about political change, about
giving the poor old miners a fair deal, it is actually far more conservative,
in fact far more reactionary than that. It is never really a criticism of the
semi feudal/semi proto-capitalist society that Peladon actually is, and in fact
the only solution to the class conflict in the story that is offered is to take
the one effective member of the proletariat, and graft him into the reactionary
and ineffective nobility, thus making them more effective and as a result, more
powerful. Interesting, and frankly, rather indefensible. Feel free to disagree.
What Have We
Learned?
Get a few miners
to stop striking, kill a few Ice Warriors, and you too could find yourself in
the House of Lords.
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