Planet of the Spiders - Episode 4

It’s over two minutes before the cliffhanger ends and the episode starts. As much fun as it is to see Pertwee doing his thing it’s too long. Thankfully once that is over I can start to enjoy the episode. Now that I have reached the second half of the story it seems that the plot has picked up and it feels like the ending has been prepared for and now that this is clear on screen you can feel the tension ramped up during certain scenes.

Lupton has become quite brave in this episode when he confronts the Queen Spider and over the course of the episode, he seems to have become a sort of lieutenant though this doesn’t last for long as the power struggle seems to have taken control between the spider on Lupton’s back and the Queen.  

This is the episode where Tommy goes from being child-like to an adult. The scene where he realises that he can read and starts to read his children’s book is one of the nicest moments in Doctor Who. John Kane is arguably the best thing about this episode as his development is one of the few positive things in this serial.

It’s good that there is a bit of backstory about what happened on Metebelis 3 and how the spiders got to be the size they are. The spiders (or eight legs) came from Earth on the ship with the colonists and the spiders came across the blue crystal and they became bigger and cleverer. I think that is a reasonable explanation and I like how the explanation is split so that the Doctor is being told and a part of it and Sarah Jane is told the other half. As much as I have tried I just cant get worked up about the humans. It’s the only real aspect of this story that doesn’t quite work.

The cliffhanger was rather poor. It’s simply the Doctor walking into the cell that Sarah is in and that’s it. The most disappointing end to an episode for quite sometimes and it’s a shame that after what was a rather interesting episode. I think apart from this minor blip the final story for Jon Pertwee has been just as I have thought of it in the past. Even the spiders haven’t been able to dampen my enjoyment of this serial and apart from the humans on Metebelis 3 I still I still think that this is a strong story and hopefully that continues for another two episodes.