Doctor Who And The Curse Of Peladon
First Broadcast: 29th January 1972 – 19th February 1972
First Published: 16th January 1975
One of the more interesting developments in Doctor Who in recent years has been the reaction by some fans to stories that try to explore modern issues.
By interesting, I of course mean “stupidly reactionary” because what these fans apparently dislike about the modern era of Doctor Who is something that they hate about a lot of modern entertainment.
They seem to have this idea that modern television exists only to parrot a message of diversity and inclusiveness that – apparently – excludes them.
The idea of modern entertainment being partly educational is of course true.
And it’s a theme in television that goes back to the 1970s and 80s with the rather dated and emotive label of “after-school special” or “very special episode” that we would frequently get when a show decided that they had a wagon to push about a particular issue. But even earlier, in the 1950s and 60s there would be scenes tacked into programs that highlighted the message, just in case bone-headed viewers hadn’t taken the point. Masters Of The Universe, a cartoon show based on an 80s toy range would always have He-Man delivering a homily in the Coda about the message of that week’s episode. Given how upset some fans got about the potential “woke” quotient of the recently released movie – before they’d even seen it, mind you – you’d almost think they didn’t really understand the format or structure of the show they professed to adore.
Of course, it goes back even further, to the literary genre known as “literature of improvement” which told tales with the message that piety, hard work and moderation in all things was a good thing and could lead to success in later life.
And there’s also the idea of “fables,” a type of story that exists only to highlight a message, a moral, if you will. These date back at least as far as a fellow writing in Ancient Greece named Aesop.
And if you’re religious we can give you some even older examples.
The idea that entertainment promoting a moral/educational message is exclusively linked to modern television is almost as stupid as some of the folks who get angry about it.
Which leads us in a very roundabout way to The Curse of Peladon.
This was a story written by Brian Hayles. Hayles had a longish history with Doctor Who, having written several stories for it in the past, notably The Celestial Toymaker and The Ice Warriors. He was also the screenwriter for several films and television serials, including The Moon Stallion which would star future Doctor Who companion, Sarah Sutton.
But Peladon is where we are headed this time around.
In this story, the Doctor (as played by Jon Pertwee) thinks he has gotten the TARDIS working again and, in an attempt to escape from his exile on Earth, invites his assistant Jo Grant (Katy Manning) on a quick trip with him. They wind up on a technologically medieval planet in the future that is awaiting a cadre of delegates who are trying to convince them to join a galactic federation. The Doctor and Jo are mistaken for the delegates of Earth and hijinks ensue.
At the time of writing, Great Britain was contemplating whether or not to join what was then known as the European Economic Community.
Of course, television in the 1970s would never try to talk about current issues in a way that involved the main characters becoming embroiled in a situation that mirrored something that was already happening in contemporary society.
So, I’ll leave that particular idea here and just talk about this book.
The idea of a society trying to join a larger union of planets in order to better themselves and improve life for its inhabitants is something that had already been explored several times in televised Star Trek, so to see it here in Doctor Who was quite the novelty. But Trek would usually tell the story from the perspective of Captain Kirk, so we normally only saw a fairly one-sided version of events. Here we have Jo and the Doctor trying not to get involved in a power struggle but being forced to take sides as the story progresses. And as the plot unfolds, we learn that life in the Galactic federation might not be as wonderful as you might expect: King Peladon wants to join to give his world a future, and also because of his memories of his human mother, while his opponents feel that their individuality as a culture will be wiped out – a not unrealistic expectation given the history of colonialism on Earth.
But as the story moves on and we see the different sides of the debate reveal their true colours, it becomes even more complicated. Hayles’s own creations, the Ice Warriors – refugees from a dead Mars, who had antagonised the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) several times – were exposed as being relatively benign for once. This is a fairly unique twist for Doctor Who monsters of the time, giving them layers and nuances that we rarely saw in the alien monocultures presented on screen.
Then there’s Aggedor, the sacred beast worshipped as a god by the Peladonians… and kept as a prisoner by Hepesh, the leader of the “Stay Out” side. He’s using Aggedor – or a projection of it at least, to cow the population into staying where and how they are. It’s a shame that this side of the debate resorts to this because it would have been great to have seen a debate to stay isolated surviving on its own merits rather than using fear and intimidation to avoid defeat.
There’s also the other aliens in the story: Arcturus, the “monster in a box” who resides in a mobile life-support system in order to survive in Peladon’s atmosphere; and the hermaphroditic hexapod Alpha Centauri.
So, a character that spends its time in what is basically a wheelchair; and another character that requires Jo to be lectured on pronouns by the Doctor…
… yeah, those folks complaining about modern Doctor Who totally have a point about the Classic series never dealing with “woke” issues…
Look, I’m not even going to mention the Earth diplomat finally turning up and being revealed as a woman… oh, damn…
Anyway, I always enjoyed the novelised version of the story. It raced along and properly explored a lot of the ideas about the story, giving us more details about life on Peladon, and what young King Peladon (played by David Troughton, son of Patrick) really wanted for his people.
It reads like a proper historical epic, with plots and counterplots, corrupt officials misleading the public while behaving badly under a cloak of officialdom and piety… Hayles crams a lot of detail into four episodes of television (not adequately served by the production crew, if I’m honest) and doubles down on it for this version of the story without it feeling as though it has been crammed into the economical page-count. As a first effort in the growing novel range, he did terrifically. Just try not to think about this being written over fifty years ago.
Coming Up Next: Doctor Who And the Cybermen
