Planet of the Spiders | Sophisticated Idiots

We’ve never been enormous fans of spiders. Nor of Jon Pertwee, frankly.

Plus, we’d been tipped off that this story was a tiresome all-action farewell for everyone’s favourite Van Damme wannabe.

So it’s fair to say the bar was set pretty low for Planet of the Spiders.

But against all the odds, it turns out that the Edwardian scarecrow's final story is a mature, thoughtful and, at times, moving piece of work that tempts us to reconsider our position on this Doctor’s patchy era.

Granted, there’s frippery aplenty in Planet of the Spiders – and don’t worry, we’ll scuttle our way over there in a while: we’ve trussed it in webbing to save for later.

For now, though, let’s dwell on the lashings of real heart on display.

In a way, it’s a shame Spiders is Jonny P’s finale, for this version of his Doctor is one we can get on board with.

The shouty, abrasive Third Doctor who balled his way through his early seasons has been replaced by a calmer, intelligent older gentleman.

The transformation is best demonstrated through the mind-blowing moment in Spiders when the Doctor refers to the Brigadier by his first name. Suck out our innards – after years of these two squabbling like they’re on the Parliament Channel, Sophisticated Idiots can rest in peace now they're besties.

Now, we’re not so besotted with Pertwee’s victory lap performance that we’re blind to the glue holding much of it together. And that glue is Jon’s stuntmen.

The entirety of Episode Two is devoted to the brave dudes’ driving/flying/hovering exploits in the, ahem, car crash that constitutes the Doctor Who Wacky Races.

That’s before good old Terry Walsh takes over for a terrible Part Three scrap, capped off by the enormous physical exertion of lifting his arm out of a web plaster cast (Houdini style, apparently).

Not even Roger Moore in A View to a Kill granted his stuntmen such a generous leaving gift.

Still, Terry’s dreadful punch-up leads to the excellent regeneration fake-out when the Doctor’s seemingly killed. And only brought back by a hearty zap from his weird stone-testing device.

This sub-plot neatly sets up the Regeneration Proper. Which also happens to be the series’ first proper regeneration.

Hartnell’s was sudden and unexplained. Troughton’s was foisted on him by the Time Lords.

This is the first time the audience has witnessed the events of a story directly knock off the Doctor, making him morph into the next chap who’ll be obliged to endure the Radio Times press calls.

The overblown flurry of lore leading up to the Big Moment is wunderbar.

We went all gushy for the Doc's tale of his childhood hermit pal in The Time Monster, so reuniting them at the (literal – ha!) death is a lovely touch.

We also applaud the heady sense of foreboding. It’s signposted early that Doc Three knows where this is leading; he's fully aware he’s met his match in the Great One.

The regeneration itself is an effect worthy of celebration. In fact, we reckon the fade from one face into the next is the best of the lot.

Being in colour certainly helps, making the old switcheroo unequivocally obvious (see our Tenth Planet whingeing).

However, there’s plenty more to Planet of the Spiders than Jon Pertwee and his Tommy transition.

Notably, it was sheer genius on the producers' part to turn their spider-carrying backs on the obvious.

Sure, the decision to mainly tether the eight-legs to the spot is partly due to paltry budgets, but crucially, it achieves the twin benefit of not frightening the life out of an entire generation of kids.

Imagine if they’d gone for the easy approach, with our heroes chased by arachnids through dark caves... the Beeb would still be paying out trauma compensation.

And therein lies the joy of Doctor Who. The capacity to surprise remains – even in an era that's hobbled by being heavily Earth-bound.

Speaking of yawn-inducing Pertwee era clichés, this story is, obviously, a Jon Best Of – as close as 1970s Who gets to the schmaltzy victory lap that’s served up for outgoing lead actors these days.

Among the Pertwee fan service, we get a message from Jo (whose reckless posting of a crystal effectively kills the Doctor, but let's not dwell on that too much), the rehabilitation of poor Yates, and the Brigadier even gets to fire a gun.

Crikey, though, how those years behind a desk have blunted the Brig's marksmanship. If not his capacity for sordid Brighton weekends with Doris.

And yet, following the lead of the equally not-as-dreadful-as-expected Time Monster, Planet of the Spiders smothers the Pertwee era tropes with a deluge of inventive ideas:

We love the clairvoyancy stuff. And the death – entirely the Doc’s fault – of the psychic professor (a Who regular and Bond veteran) hits hard.
The Buddhism themes: clunky but great.
Suspicion of new-fangled meditation.
Sarah Jane is doing some proper journalism.

Tommy is an absolute delight. The producers’ attempt to be inclusive in 1974 just about outweighs the ham-fisted treatment of a guy with learning disabilities (especially Sarah’s horrid reference to him turning “normal”).
The Doctor runs over a sleeping farmer. Lol.
Why do all the two-legs on the spider planet have Yorkshire accents?
Sarah Jane speaking with the spider voice is unsettling to the max.

This overwhelm of creativity smacks of a production team who know changes are about to be rung in and are furiously crossing off the leftover ideas in their notebooks while they can.

One consequence of these myriad story beats crammed into the narrative is that the timings are handled with about as much care as the Doctor' hovercraft driving.

There are some laughably abrupt cliffhangers, balanced out by the baffling repetition of the corridor scene with Tommy in Episodes Five and Six.

Nice attempt at covering it, guys, but we know a balls-up when we see it.

Thankfully for Pertwee, such flaws don’t hold his swansong back too much.

For a Doctor we didn’t really warm to until his fifth season, Jon goes out on a real high.

In fact, overlooking the Monstrous (ha!) dud of Peladon 2, he enjoys a heck of a final season.

The presence of Elisabeth Best Companion Ever Sladen undoubtedly helps, but credit where it’s due – with Planet of the Spiders, producers reluctantly agree to give Big Jon his self-congratulatory lap of honour but just about manage to bring the audience along for the ride.

Crucially, without terrifying them into Mike Yates-esque levels of suffering.

Job done, Jon. One could argue that everything’s in place for the new guy to take the show to the next level.

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