OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 380
STORY NUMBER: 074
TRANSMITTED: 01 June 1974
WRITER: Robert Sloman (and Barry Letts - Uncredited)
DIRECTOR: Barry Letts
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Planet of the Spiders
Episode Format: 625 video
Sarah is taken to the spiders. The villagers commence their attack on the spiders. The Doctor escapes using techniques taught to him by Houdini. The Queen wants Sarah to return to Earth and retrieve the crystal. Mike offers to help Barnes re-establish the link to Metebelis 3 to retrieve Lupton & Sarah. Tommy begins to question what has happened to him and, recalling seeing Lupton materialise, seeks out Cho-Je. The Doctor is drawn into radioactive caves by the Great One and ordered to return the crystal needed to complete the Great One's plans. The Spiders establish contact with Barnes and his group. Several spiders materialise in the room. Cho-Je finds what they are doing causing he & Mike to be attacked by Spiders. Sarah teleports the Doctor to the Tardis and it leaves for Earth. All of Barnes' group have been joined with Spiders when the Tardis materialises in the cellar. Tommy saves the Doctor & Sarah from the group and takes them to the Abbot K'anpo who the Doctor greats in Tibetan language and manner. The Doctor starts to tell the Abbott the story of the crystal but is convinced he has met the Abbot before. Barnes' group attack Tommy, guarding the Abbot's room, with lightening bolts.
Struggled with this one a bit. Can't get any interest up for the humans on Metebelis 3. Jenny Laird's acting in particular is standing out for all the wrong reasons: she evidentially believes she's in some Shakespeare production on the stage. We're back on Earth though by the end of the episode as the spider's plans advance there and we finally get to meet the Abbot.
For some reason Arak's line to his mother "you have nothing to fear, the Doctor has given us protection." cracked me up.....
This episode features, uncredited George Cormack as Abbot K'anpo Rimpoche. he was previously King Dallios in the Time Monster. The reason he's uncredited is that he originally shouldn't have appeared until the next episode. The scripted episode ending is the point where the Tardis materialises in the cellar and the Doctor & Sarah are assaulted with lightening bolts but this episode badly under ran necessitating the pull forward of some of the material from episode 6, including some, but not all, material up to about 5 minutes into that episode.
Join us tomorrow for the final Third Doctor/Jon Pertwee episode.
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