Notable for being the final serial to feature Jo Grant as a companion, but there is rather a lot more to talk about in this story rather than just that. It also serves two other purposes, in that it is the beginning of a trilogy of tales that centre around a character that until now, has come across (at least to me) as little more than wallpaper; Present, but sort of in the background. I'll explain this in much greater detail during my review of the second part of the trilogy in question. The other purpose is that this story is the beginning of the end for the Third Doctor, and by extension another step towards the close of the UNIT era.
The Green Death is a largely environmentally inclined story, with the main source of antagonism being a chemical company called Global Chemicals who have set up a petroleum factory in what used to be a mining village. Many locals do oppose the factory because of concerns for the effects of the chemicals the factory is dumping, though others still are simply thankful for the chance for employment. The situation is set off by some mysterious deaths which occur in the old mine that appear to validate the concerns of the environmentalists. This is not helped at all by the company's attempts to cover up their involvement by any means. The irony is, UNIT is brought in as security to protect the factory from the protestors.
In another curious turn, The Doctor is not even involved in the main action during the first episode. He starts the story planning a trip to Metebelis III, and is rather uninterested in the mysterious deaths until he returns with a blue crystal from that planet as a souvenir. Instead, Jo and the Brigadier head there without him though for very different reasons. The Brigadier to lead UNIT's role in security at the factory, while Jo intends to join the protestors. The Brigadier has no trouble with this, presumably because it means there's someone on the inside, as it were, that would likely try to inform him if something kicks off, or at least try to prevent it from doing so.
Planet of the Daleks starts off moments after Frontier in Space ended, which is something that hasn't really happened between now and the Sixties where it was much more common. Throughout the Sixties, serials were often very directly connected together with one leading directly into the next, a practise that died out wholesale when Doctor Who went into colour. This was about to change, but only slightly. The Twelfth Season is a particularly good example of serials that are quite obviously directly connected with one another through a single and easily identified chain of events. However, it's not hard to believe that viewers coming in to see Planet of the Daleks that have missed Frontier in Space may be confused by the beginning. Fortunately for this story there's little to connect it to the previous one beyond what I am about to state regarding the single link between the two. Towards the end of Frontier in Space, The Doctor and Jo discover that the Daleks are planning to mount a full scale invasion, and has identified their likeliest base. The story ends with him contacting the Time Lords with an expression of agonised exhertion, and Planet of the Daleks picks up from there.
There really is not anything else in common between the two. The only qualities in common between the two were mentioned in the last portion of the previous paragraph. The only returning characters from the previous story are The Doctor, Jo and the Daleks. There are no Draconians, no humans other than Jo and a whole new cast of characters appear solely for this tale. The pacing is markedly different, as is the tone, the setting, the pacing - everything feels like a completely seperate story from Frontier in Space. Thus I do not believe it to be necessary to view Frontier before Planet. Once the plot is moving, it's completely unnecessary to remember anything at all from the previous story.
And just what is that plot? Well, there's quite a lot going on. The Daleks are preparing in multiple ways for their planned assault, and do so on a planet that is covered with extremely hostile plantlife. One quality that is extremely noteworthy about this story is that The Doctor is assisted in his efforts to stop the Daleks by old friends of his. A group of Thals have arrived on the planet, seeking to disrupt the Dalek's plans. This is the second of three appearances by the Thals in Doctor Who, and each time they come off quite differently.
To begin with, a little bit of backstory for this one. The following spoiler is rather inevitable, because it's something I would have to mention in next week's review anyway. The longest single Doctor Who serial is generally recognised as The Dalek's Master Plan (an argument can be made for the season spanning Trial of a Time Lord, though I think of it as a season arc split into four different stories) at twelve parts. However, Barry Letts (producer at the time) wanted to challenge that record and produce something longer still. Fortunately he was dissuaded by Douglas Camfield (Frontier in Space's director) because retaining an audience's attention weekly over three months was a daunting challenge. Instead there would be two six part adventures which were connected. The first part was this week's focus, Frontier in Space.
Aside from its connection to the following serial Planet of the Daleks, Frontier in Space is known for certain other things as well. It is the final appearance of the original Master as performed by the always wonderful Roger Delgado. As intended, this would have been his penultimate story with the show because people were incorrectly assuming that he was with Doctor Who full time making it difficult for him to get work. A final adventure was intended for the following season that would have been The Master's swansong, but as previously mentioned Roger Delgado's untimely death prevented this from being made.
On this occasion his plan is particularly insidious. He intends to provoke a war between humans and the Draconians, an interesting race that makes its only onscreen appearance (to date) in this story. He accomplishes this feat by making both sides believe that the other have sent out ships to behave as pirates that specifically attack them. This results in both sides making accusations of one another that they sincerely believe to be true, while both are insulted by the implication that they would engage in such activities and think that the accusations are being bounced back to them as an attempt to muddy the waters. It is a rather brilliant scheme, especially given that both races had only recently come to peace following a rather terrible war.
Carnival of Monsters may seem like a bit of an odd story - and I suppose it is, in a few ways - to those viewing it to the first time. Here are two seemingly disconnected scenes. One with The Doctor and Jo upon a boat in the middle of the Indian ocean, the other on an alien world populated by blue skinned aliens as three of their officials greet two performers and their mysterious device. On the surface the two seem completely disconnected, but as the first episode continues the connection between the two becomes increasingly apparent until the cliffhanger draws it all into focus with a rather memorable shot, even if it doesn't quite look as impressive today as it did in the 70s. The first episode does a rather good job of maintaining the mystery. First it introduces a seemingly benign situation, then it gives us a little bit of a twist and draws in further intrigue as both The Doctor and Jo make observeations of yet further strange and seemingly inexplicable events. Even if the answer is known in advance, the dialogue, performance and direction does a rather brilliant job of maintaining viewer interest. In particular the aforementioned cliffhanger!
What strikes me about this story is that like last week's The Three Doctors, it's a bit of a comedy. Unlike it, this is entirely intentional. The stiff, dry beaurocratic tribunal, squabbling amongst themselves, each illustrating very different personalities that play marvelously off one another. The bumbling showman desperate to impress those deliberately starchy officials so that they can remain on the planet and his assistant that is quite obviously much smarter than him. Then there are the passengers and crew of the SS Bernice, trapped forever in a cycle of action and reaction. I doubt that it's possible for the performances in each of these roles to be more precisely delivered. This is just how each part ought to have been played, and it all comes off as quite funny, and equal parts charming. In fact, that's probably the word I'd use to describe Carnival of Monsters; Charming. Completely and totally charming.
It's quite impossible to talk (or type) about Carnival of Monsters without bringing up one monster in particular. The Cyberman that briefly appears onscreen is the only new footage of a Cyberman shot during the Pertwee era. Oh, very well. I should really be discussing the Drashig. These giant wormlike predators with razor sharp teeth are the reason for the action sequences that occur throughout this story. One is pictured to the left 
if you were wanting to see just what they look like. A lot of effort is put into building them up and making them seem like the most ferocious, horrifying mindless carnivores, but we don't really get to see a whole lot of that... Up until they reached the SS Bernice, when it all suddenly became a monster movie.
For quite a while fans had been sending requests for multiple Doctor stories, which were dismissed because it was felt that this idea was "too fannish" a notion to seriously entertain. This outlook altered drastically when the tenth season of the show was produced, because how could this milestone possibly pass by without having some sort of special story to commemorate it? Suddenly the fannish notion becomes a lot more appropriate. From this was born The Three Doctors, the first multiple Doctor story. It would go on to serve as a foundation and guidelines by which future similar stories would operate. Combine this with the fact that The Doctor's exile ends at the conclusion of this story and it's easy to see that it is tremendously important to Doctor Who canon... But is it any good on its own merits?
Let's begin by looking at the problem that brings the three Doctors together in the first place. The Time Lords have come under attack from a powerful unknown foe and are reliant upon The Doctor to save both them and the universe. Unfortunately it rapidly transpires that The Third Doctor is unable to carry the threat by himself, and so he is sent assistance from his previous incarnations. The villain turns out to be a childhood hero of The Doctor's gone mad and one of the most important Time Lords in all their history! The implacable force of will known as Omega.
The first thing that most people go looking for in multiple Doctor stories is how the various Doctors interact with one another. This one sets a few standards in place. The First Doctor is deeply respected by both of the other two, though due to William Hartnell's poor health he is only ever able to appear on seperately recorded shots and his role is rather limited to giving advice. Even so, when he does appear and requests an update on the current situation the other two defer to him almost without thinking and their report sounds like it comes from a student to a teacher. In the meantime, The First Doctor doesn't think all too much of his replacements. As is rather well remembered, he refers to them as "a dandy and a clown". Ah, but the truly memorable interaction comes from The Second and The Third. It is so memorable in fact that Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee would keep up the act in character whenever they were at conventions together. For you see, during most of the scenes featuring both characters they bicker incessantly. It's a tremendously fascinating situation to observe because they are effectively the same person(if a regeneration removed), and yet there they are arguing like bitter rivals. This does tremendous service to both of them, highlighting the differences and nuances between their personalities and methods.
What's this? Did we step back in time a few weeks to the beginning of season nine? Well, no obviously not. This is a little bit different from my usual between season reviews, as I will be looking over a re-edited version of Day of the Daleks made available on the DVD release, with the original on the first disc and the new version on the second. It features new special effects, new sequences and replacement Dalek voices that are performed by the current Dalek voice actor, Nicholas Briggs. Given that the story is exactly the same as Day of the Daleks, I shall not be discussing any element of that and instead will focus on whether or not I feel this is an improved version over the original.
The first major improvement is the Dalek voices. Mr Briggs has a perfect understanding of the Dalek personality, and his voice work here is impeccable. I would go so far as to state that it was so good, so spot on and so utterly perfect that there were times I completely forgot just how bad the original voices happened to be. This was resolved when I watched the original version with the commentary, and it made me appreciate the rise in quality all the more. Where the original voices did not appreciate or express the Dalek personality correctly, this new version does. Of course, no voice work in the world is good enough to hide the fact that the Daleks weren't really needed for this story to work, but this is a mere digression.
There were a few redone special effects throughout the story, which does help to highlight just how far we've come since the early 70s. Not only are the special effects this much better, this much easier to implement, but we can also add those vastly improved special effects to decades old work and have it seem as though it had always been there. Anyone watching this version of the story as their first experience with special effects of the time would probably find themselves highly impressed that this was possible back then. The most obvious effect replacement that I saw was the futuristic gun. In the original version those struck by it would be consumed by a rather poor lighting effect, then simply vanish. In the new version, they are struck and replaced with a cloud of dust as though they had simply disintegrated on the spot. This effect looks so much better, and adds a great deal of menace to the guns where they had seemed a little bit silly previously.
The ninth season is rounded off with the second last story to feature the original Master, and his final onscreen confrontation with UNIT. The Time Monster is one of those stories which makes a lot of use out of time travel, though the title may have already given this fact away. It bears some superficial similarities to the previous season closer, in part because much as in the case of The Daemons the major inspiration for this story was mythology. In this case, Greek mythology.
The Time Monster touches on a lot of material but largely plays out as an ongoing battle of wits between The Doctor and The Master. In fact I would go so far as to say that this is the most enjoyable aspect of the story; watching the two attempt to one up each other. The sequence in the TARDIS is my personal favourite moment of the story, and brings out the rivalry between the two in a magnificent manner. The performances of both Pertwee and Delgado are exactly where they should be. As is usually the case Pertwee's comedic past shines through, and Delgado is so smooth, charismatic, intimidating and dominant that it is remarkably easy to forget that he is playing a role.
Of course, it's got more to it than the interactions between these two. For example by this point UNIT is much more aware of who The Master is and what he's capable of, thus have adapted themselves accordingly. I feel this helps legitimise the organisation, illustrating that they are continually learning from each experience. I only wish that other episodes would show this as well but it is certainly true in the case of The Time Monster. Sgt Benton in particular has a very good moment where he manages to get the drop on The Master quite excellently. Of course, that small victory does not last long. Even so it is rather necessary to ensure that the audience does not perceive the UNIT cast as unnecessary. Small victories like this, however transient are thus essential to justifying their presence.
It is rather something of a trend for the Time Lords to deliberately send The Doctor to a given location to resolve some problem without telling him what the nature of the problem is. This unusual policy extends into mild absurdity during the course of The Mutants, where they send The Doctor a special message capsule that can only be opened by the one it is intended for, and then do not tell him who that happens to be. The only other thing they do is direct his TARDIS to the approximate time and place of the individual, and leave it at that. Not bad, except for one small matter. The TARDIS arrives at a meeting between humans and Solonians, on board a Skybase in orbit around the planet Solos. This makes it difficult to tell who precisely the pod is intended for, and then of course there is also the matter of security to deal with.
But these are the very least of the problems set in front of Jo and The Doctor. The political situation surrounding Solos is about to become tremendously difficult, particularly pertaining matters of survival. To best understand this, let us say that where Colony in Space was rather based upon the struggle between Native Americans and European settlers, The Mutants was similarly inspired by events regarding South Africa and Apertheid (which had also previously been touched upon in The Savages). While this element was de-emphasised in favour of more science fiction elements, it's not hard to see the remnants of the inspiration.
A good point to focus upon is the main antagonist, known only as the Marshal of Solos. The very first scene of the story illustrates his character perfectly, as he dashes through the mists of Solos, wide eyed, all but foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog as he chases down and murders what he repeatedly calls a "Mutt". To leap to the point: The character is utterly insane. He is obsessed with Solos, and with murdering the Mutts. Upon learning that Earth has ordered them to leave the planet, his immediate reaction is to instigate an assassination that will put him in command and place the blame squarely upon the Solonians. He will do anything to accomplish his goal, including the murder of his own men. He takes manic glee in tormenting those that stand against him, and on two seperate occasions points out that history won't believe him mad "if he wins". If he sounds like a cartoonish villain, it's largely because he is. This may not be to everyone's taste, but I rather enjoyed the performance. It was over the top, and I felt like the character was really enjoying what he was doing and believed what he believed.
I pointed to last week's Curse of Peladon as the very beginning of the slow death of the UNIT era, but this particular story is much more obvious about the matter when inspected. Much like Curse of Peladon, it is a story in which UNIT is mentioned, but never appears onscreen. Not too unusual since the next story didn't either, but in the cases for the stories before and after this one it's quite understandable. Both take place during visits to alien worlds in the future. Of course UNIT isn't likely to appear in such a location! Now contrast this to the setting for this one, which is set in the exotic science fiction location of England, located at some period within the mid to late twentieth century, presumably some months following the events of The Daemons. In short UNIT could have easily appeared in this story given the time and place it was set, but they did not.
Don't get me wrong, they're still mentioned fairly often. The Doctor uses his UNIT credentials to meet with people and visit places he would never be able to otherwise. Even so, the absence of The Brigadier is rather noticable, particularly since The Doctor has to interact with military during the story though in this case, it's the navy.
The Sea Devils sees the welcome return of Roger Delgado to the role of The Master. When last he had appeared, he had been apprehended and arrested as a terrorist. The first half of the story largely focuses on him seizing control over the prison he was incarcerated in, illustrating quite brilliantly that despite the setup installed to keep him in place (including training guards to resist hypnosis) the slightest vulnerability is enough for him to exploit until he gets what he wants. Despite appearances, he is much less a prisoner and more a houseguest. Why should he escape when the prison makes for a highly effective base of operations? By its nature, it is difficult to break into, his adversaries believe him harmless when in truth he can easily get what he wants and can come and go as he pleases.
The UNIT era of Doctor Who died a slow, lingering death that lasted many years as the organisation increasingly faded into the background. It is my opinion that The Curse of Peladon was the very beginning of that demise, for one simple reason. For the first time in Doctor Who, we had a colour story which did not feature the Brigadier or any UNIT employee save Jo Grant. Unlike Colony in Space - which was also set on an alien world - the TARDIS is not shown leaving the earth in any capacity, and instead arrives on Peladon in much the same manner as it would in any non-UNIT tale.
The Curse of Peladon is many things at the same time. It is a political thriller, and a mystery story that blends science fiction with medieval tendencies. It is an analysis of the dangers of allowing religion too much power over government (even if that government is a monarchy), it is about the inevitable resistance to change that society must undergo if it is to improve. It is about xenophobia and prejudice. Quite honestly it handles all these topics, themes and genres quite well.
Peladon is, if I may be quite upfront about it, a rather backwards planet ruled largely by religion, superstition and their deeply rooted traditions. For example, it is an offence punishable by death should a woman that is not of royal blood step within the throne room. However, Peladon's young king - portrayed by David Troughton, son of Patrick Troughton - wishes to change all of that. He is portrayed as an enlightened king that wishes to drag his people out of the dark ages and into the light. He wishes to transform their society, make life better for his people. The first stage of which is to join a Galactic Federation. It cannot be of any surprise that there would be those deeply opposed to such a plan. For every person such as King Peladon, there will always be another that feels threatened by The Outsiders. They will see their society as it is as pure, and will cling to the old ways with the tenacity of a pitbull. This is the kind of person that views foreigners as exploitative, all to eager to sneak in and take over. The kind of person that would fear beyond even death itself the very notion of permitting a camel's nose to enter the tent. Though this kind of person sees themself as loyal to their people, they often believe that those willing to permit alliances with outsiders are naive or complicit in the wicked plans intended for their people and traditions. To that end, they shall fight their own neighbours and in this instance, the king to whom they have sworn fealty. In the mind of such a person, it is not treason. It is the protection of the king from himself.
