| Production Code: ZZZ
First Transmitted
Cast
Crew
Following the events of Invasion of the Dinosaurs, Captain Mike Yates was discharged from UNIT and is now attending a Tibetan meditation centre in rural England. He is visited by Sarah Jane Smith and they witness some curious happenings at the centre, seemingly organised by a resident called Lupton, a middle aged former salesman, and his cronies. Mike and Sarah stumble across Lupton performing an incantation which conjures up a giant spider into the middle of the basement room. It jumps on Lupton’s back and then disappears. The spider manifests itself in Lupton’s head, telling him to seek out and locate a certain blue crystal. The Third Doctor has developed an interest in psychic ability, but his testing of a clairvoyant called Professor Clegg backfires when his subject has a heart attack. It is triggered when Clegg comes into contact with a blue crystal from Metebelis Three (sent back from the Amazon by Jo Grant), which caused him to see the image of deadly spiders. Sarah returns from the retreat, having left Mike to watch things there, and they share spider tales. Meanwhile Lupton has also arrived at UNIT HQ and steals the crystal from the Doctor’s laboratory. A multi-vehicle chase ensues which Lupton escapes by teleporting himself back to the monastery. Once there, the spider reveals that it is plotting against some of its sisters back on Metebelis Three. The spiders and the crystal originate from the same blue planet in the Acteon Galaxy which was none too hospitable to the Doctor the last time he visited (during The Green Death). The Doctor and Sarah now make for the monastery and tell the deputy abbot, Cho-Je, that something is very amiss. The crystal now strays again when it is taken by Tommy, the simple-minded handyman of the retreat, whose mind is opened and improved by the power of the crystal. Lupton is teleported to Metebelis Three, unconsciously allowing Sarah to follow him. She soon meets the human slave inhabitants of the planet, a generally dispirited bunch, other than the rebellious Arak, who flees to the mountains. The planet is ruled by the Eight-Legs or giant spiders, and their Queen is the supreme ruler. They govern using guards chosen from amongst the human population and their own phenomenal mental powers, amplified by the blue stones of the planet. The Doctor arrives on the planet and he makes contact with Arak, who explains that the Metebelians are the descendants of the crew of an earth space ship, which crashed hundreds of years before. A spider on board found its way to the Blue Mountains where, through the effect of the crystals, its progeny grew larger and larger and cleverer and cleverer. The Doctor works out that a “negative” stone can absorb and reject the power of the blue crystals and starts a revolt amongst the humans, but this is defeated and the Doctor ventures to the Blue Mountains. There he encounters the Great One, a giant spider which controls the world of Metebelis and desires power over other domains too. She knows the crystal is still on Earth and sends the Doctor there to get it for her. He flees back to Earth with Sarah – not knowing the Queen spider has now implanted itself in her mind. Tommy has given the crystal to the abbot, K’Anpo Rinpoche, who is an elderly Time Lord and the one-time hermit mentor of the Doctor. He now lives in peaceful exile on Earth. He tells the Doctor of Sarah's control and they work together to expel the Queen Spider. A fight breaks in the monastery between Lupton’s cronies and the Abbot’s men. The Abbot advises the Doctor to take the crystal to the Great One: the Doctor started this chain of events by removing the crystal in the first place, and it is up to him to put it back. He departs in the TARDIS with the crystal. On Metebelis Three Lupton has been killed by the spiders after falling out with the Spider Queen. When the TARDIS lands the Doctor heads to the cave of the Great One and gives her the crystal, which she uses to complete a lattice that begins to magnify her mental powers. However, the forces unleashed are too strong for the Great One and the positive feedback kills her and the other spiders. A vast radiation wave from the blue cave spills over the Doctor, destroying his cells and weakening him… Three weeks later, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Sarah are in the Doctor's laboratory when the Doctor returns and promptly collapses. The abbot K’Anpo arrives in his new body, having regenerated into the form of Cho-Je, who was a sort of forward projection of his soul. He tells them that the Doctor will change too and before their eyes the Doctor starts to regenerate.
Yes, there is a fair amount of padding. Yes, the multiple vehicle, Bond-style chase scene in episode two is incredibly over-long and annoying and is only there because Jon Pertwee liked gadgets and vehicles and this was the last chance to show them off. But that aside, this was a classic story. There are complaints by some critics about the CSO effect of the spiders. But actually they don’t look THAT bad. What is a bit unconvincing is Metebelis itself. WHY did they make it a studio based set? They had already used plenty of quarries and sand pits to good effect. But let’s get down to the good points. The use of real Buddhist philosophy which permeates the whole story makes for wonderfully atmospheric scenes within the retreat. The sad thing was that a philosophy intended to be about peace and self awareness was being misused by Luptman and his cronies. The central characters of the story are all very well played. Worthy of note is John Kane playing the retarded man, Tommy, whose intelligence is raised by the Metebelis crystal. The scenes of him learning to read and understand the world around him are a nice subplot to the main story and Tommy proves his worth as a loyal friend to The Doctor and Sarah. Kevin Lindsay as the monk Cho-je is an impressive character. It becomes clear as the story progresses that there is more to him than meets the eye, though there is no doubt at all that he and K’anpo are both good guys. That they are, in fact, of The Doctor’s own people is a great touch in the plot. K’anpo is the first Time Lord we come across in the series who actually has any kind of character to him. Until now they have all been rather shadowy characters using The Doctor for their own ends. Not surprisingly K’anpo is a bit of a renegade himself, who abandoned the Time Lord way of life. Cho-je as the projection of K’anpo’s future regeneration was an indication of just how amazing Time Lords actually are. The let down characters are the smaller ones. Lupton’s co-conspirators are a dreary looking and acting lot. The woman, Neska, on Metebelis is possibly the worst actress I have ever seen in ANY TV programme. Her ‘grief’ at her husband being taken by the followers of the ‘eight legs’ was very lame. But looking at the big picture, this was a very interesting, exciting story with giant spiders that sit on people’s backs that did nothing for my dislike of arachnoids growing up! And to cap it all, The Doctor sacrificing himself in the highly radioactive caves of Metebelis to destroy the ‘great one’ and save the Earth from invasion. His regeneration scene is one of the most poignant of all. Sarah Jane crying as he appears to be dead, is the single most convincing performance in the episode. And the transformation itself was very well done given the technology of the time. Only the regeneration from Doctor #9 to #10 compares in terms of emotional involvement and visual effect.
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