| THE CREATURE FROM THE PIT by David Fisher |
| Story 106 Synopsis: The TARDIS briefly intercepts a distress signal, landing on Chloris. The Doctor and Romana become separated, he taken by guards to Lady Adrasta. Romana is captured by bandits, but uses K-9 to escape. The Doctor is sentenced to death, and rather than co-operate with Adrasta, throws himself into a Pit. There, he meets Organon, an astrologer, condemned for making an unwelcome prediction. Also in the Pit is a huge green creature that tends to squash people to death. The Doctor finds it can't communicate, but that it's not hostile. On the surface, Adrasta tries to force Romana and K-9 to solve her problem, and they all head into her Mine to solve it. The mine leads into the pit. Adrasta has a monopoly of metal, and thus Chloris struggles to cultivate crops, hence starvation. Once the creature's communicator is restored to it, it reveals that it is Erato, a Tythonian Ambassador, come to trade metals for chlorophyll. When Erato arrived, Adrasta realised the threat to her monopoly, removed the communicator, and trapped him in the Pit, where he has been for 15 years. Erato kills Adrasta, and Chloris faces a better future. But the angry Tythonians send a neutron star towards Chloris. The Doctor traps the star with a tractor beam from the TARDIS, whilst Erato spins an aluminium shell around it. Chloris is ready to trade with the Tythonians, and the Doctor and co depart. |
| Review:- From Paris to Chloris, and a simple tale of greed. This is a curious story, with a lot to discuss. Unusually for me, I was impressed with some of the sets. The Pit must be an enormous space, although as an abandoned Mine, that might make sense. The surface entrance looks more exciting than the similar situation in The Mark Of The Rani, for example, and the scenes with the Doctor near the top of the Pit show an imagination not always on show. Sadly, this fades when he falls down, but it was nice while it lasted. Beyond this, we have fairly impressive jungles, not quite up to the standard of Planet Of Evil, but better than Kinda. And after that... Adrasta's two-room house, and Torvin's one-room place rather point up a lack of money, and/or ideas. The crux of the story is Adrasta's mistreatment of Erato, an event which happened 15 years before events seen here, which nevertheless still seems as fresh as before. It seems a little bit far-fetched that nobody has cottoned on to the truth in 15 years. But then, with such a curious attitude about metal, perhaps anything goes. On the one hand, we have Wolf Weeds, ferocious fuzzballs who render K-9 senseless. Against that, the hopeless bandits who represent the lower classes, and who are adept at sneak attacks, but possessed about the threat of recrimination. Karela is the raw rage to show that at least Adrasta is more rational. Organon gives a chance to have a solid go at the "business" of prediction, making plain that superstition has no credible place, although as he is one of the few characters to survive the story, perhaps there's a message there. The Doctor is bold, daring, yet also reckless. He jumps into the Pit without warning, he shows no fear of being squashed by Erato, he repeats people for strange effect. This is a weird performance. Then again, alongside a rather wet and wobbly Romana, again, maybe anything goes. It's mildly bizarre to think that this was Lalla Ward's first recorded story as Romana, and also the first proper appearance in the season for K-9. The machine at least gets a lot to do, becoming an object of desire for its composition, and as a bargaining counter for Romana. So, to sum up, it's not that bad a story, nor is it that good. For every positive action I can see, there's almost an equal and opposite reaction. I'm sure the influence of Isaac Newton wasn't intended to work this way, but it does. I'd recommend seeing it, if only to make a judgement on it. |
| Disclaimer: I have now seen the video. |