Planet of the Spiders | Doctor Who Marathon From The Beginning | Third Doctor Regenerates!

[@alexhelm2]

I watched the regeneration scene the other day and it still moves me. Partly as those two wonderful actors are no longer with us. They both radiated a lot of warmth. I still missed them both! I think Jon Pertwee does some of his finest acting in a couple of scenes in the confrontation with the Great One and the regeneration.

[@Howtragicforyou]

Really glad I found your videos. After years of taking a break from Doctor who I've started binging again. I have watched plenty of the classic series. But I always shied away from the first and second doctors era. The last time I attempted to watch them was when i was a kid, no surprise i didnt get it, no special effects or big bombastic set pieces. However lately ive grown really fond of the first doctor, especially after watching what might be one of my new absolute favorite episodes, The Romans. So thanks for that recommendation. The only second doctor story I watched as a kid I did enjoy but it was the war games so that's kind of cheating. Watched it again last night after watching your video on it, i cant even to begin to say how much more i appreciate it now. Keep up the good work, and keep on inspiring.

[@chris_stokes]

@@Howtragicforyou thanks very much, that's so kind! Glad you're getting along with the First Doctor!!!

[@RussellShawHiggs]

Thanks I especially enjoyed this review as part of your ongoing viewing marathon. And I find car chases in general, in pretty much all shows & movies, to be little more than pointless tedious filler :) Your sharing of your marathon viewing reminds me of a deep pleasure that I experienced in my teens, in the early 1970s, reading a Doctor Who Special (magazine I think it was) which listed the storylines of every single episode from the very start :)

[@Synthpopper]

I can't believe the Third Doctor's segment of this marathon is over already!

[@johngough2958]

The biggest trauma of my childhood - hearing that Jon Pertwee was leaving Doctor Who. I didn't even know that there were previous Doctors at that stage. When I heard the story that they weren't going to pay himm more I thought (not for the first time) Damn you, BBC! For a seven year old, this had all the great elements: the Metebilis 3 crystal, Sarah-Jane, the Brigadier, Venusian king fu, the Whomobile! Sorry but even the chase gets forgiven for having the Whomobile - it was the 70's after all!

[@HOTD108_]

Crazy to think you'd missed The Three Doctors. I suppose back then you had no way of rewatching stuff unless there were reruns.

[@johngough2958]

@@HOTD108_ plus I reckon I would have been just 5 at the time.

[@HudsonMedia]

I wasn’t immensely fussed by this story on first watch. But with every watch I come to really appreciate how it feels like any old story where The Doctor happens to regenerate. The character work for The Doctor is beautiful, the expansion on Timelords mythology and the themes of the story I love. The Spiders aren’t used to their full potential but it’s not inherently bad.

[@robert_bbiii]

His final scene gets me every time. Saddest. I also loved Brig and the Doctor on a guys night out. That is how I see them on their time off. Usually ending in the pub I do admit I do use the bow down before me planets, bow down before me line when I feel something great

[@MSDOSProject]

The themes and the regeneration focus are definitely the best part of this story. Episode 2 is the definition of Barry Letts/Terrance Dicks era padding and its clear it was done just for Pertwee to get a chase sequence lol. I do think this is the start of a good string of regeneration stories, and each one gets better from here on out in the classic era (too bad Colin didnt get one). Overall decent story but far from my favorite third doctor story. It could be cut in half and basically be fine. John Dearth, Pertwee, and Liz Sladen kill it but the surrounding story is just..ok. Solid 5/10 Also whats up with that cliffhanger reprisal near the end haha

[@stevenmcnicoll5060]

On the money. Again. Nice one.

[@HOTD108_]

Is Cho-Je meant to be Tibetan? Isn't he a Timelord, a thus not of Earth? It's been years since I rewatched this episode, so if I'm forgetting a scene where he's said to be Tibetan somehow then I'll accept that I'm mistaken in my recollection.

[@chris_stokes]

@@HOTD108_ He turns out to be a Time Lord yes but I think we've got to be real here, Lindsay has had make up applied to him and puts on a voice to sound and look East Asian. People at the retreat take him at face value and he's very definitely coded as East Asian before his true reveal. It's definitely therefore in the realm of insensitive casting and it's a bit kind to let them off because he ultimately turns out to be a Time Lord. In my view, it would be like them blacking up an actor to play the Master and shrugging it off by saying it's not a human character so it's ok

[@darkwebonline2124]

He is a Time Lord, absolutely, but the plot certainly intends to mis-direct the viewer into believing he's Tibetan. It's not an insulting portrayal though - Barry Letts was a Buddhist and actually wanted to get across Buddhist values into the era, starting from the speech in The Time Monster. He's often stated how difficult it was back then find appropriate actors for ethnic roles. Personally, I prefer an actor using range (assuming an equally talented but more realistic candidate isn't available) and giving a positive portrayal to characters that, even if played by actors of the correct ethnicity, are steeped in negative racial stereotypes. I think some people don't seem to get their heads around the fact that Britain hasn't always been the wonderfully diverse place it is now, particularly in the acting profession, where, as Christopher Ecclestone will tell you, it was only with his generation that working class people of any ethnicity broke into the industry.

[@Mark-nh2hs]

Planet isn't my fav and I agree on the chase sequence lol. The thing which still gets me is how grey and death like Pertwee looks and dies so convincingly. I just wished they didn't put the Abbot in with his exposition dump and we just cut to Brig going "Here we go again" after some interaction with Sarah about something the Doctor said earlier.

[@ksay7649]

i remember watching the omnibus edition of that as a very tiny child, my decade older sisters hiding behind me from the spiders as we sat in the still Christmas decorated house , a few days later the 4th Doctor would appear in all his glory and my life as a fan was secured, the omnibus is actually better than the 6 part version as it does not need the massive reprises in the latter episodes

[@stuartwho]

@@ksay7649 The massive reprise in episode six is with retrospect very interesting as it included extra shots.

[@jameswhitaker12]

Such an insanely hard story to judge, the sublime and the ridiculous in one package. The chase itself isn't the problem - the issue is that as soon as we reach Metebelis 3 the whole thing grinds to a halt, we get some dodgy acting, a whole planet constructed out of CSO, and Lupton is reduced to shouting at spiders. Cho-je is almost unwatchable, the story is bizarrely paced, we have half an episode of the Doctor unconscious to stop the plot from moving... And yet at the same time the emotional beats are mostly handled very well, John Dearth is great as Lupton, the spiders are extremely effective and creepy, and Pertwee getting tortured and dying is really well handled by him. And Sladen is great as always. It's like everything good and bad about the whole era in one package, so it is an appropriate send off!

[@stuartwho]

I have a great deal of love for this story. Because this is when I became a fan of Doctor Who. I really enjoyed the Pertwee years, was loving Sarah and the iconic spider on the back but was excited for Tom Baker so the six months wait seemed longer than the wilderness years. I adore the personalities given to the main spiders by Ysanne Churchman (RIP😢), Kismet Delgado (a nice link to Roger) and Maureen Morris. The demented rant of the Great One is one of my all time highlights from the show. We unknowingly see the departure of Mike Yates who has had one of the strongest arcs in classic who and his compassion saves him. Sad to see him go but the unit family is steadily unravelling. And now we head into my favourite golden era of Who - the Hinchcliffe years (ok we get a false start as Letts disappears with Baker in a traditional Pertwee story written by Dicks first but then the golden age will begin, 😂

[@Harry75]

It's a shame that Cho-Je was intended to be Tibetan (or, at least, an incarnation of a Time Lord coded as Tibetan, but the character is assumed to be a human until the end), because otherwise he's wonderfully impish, enigmatic and empathetic. Maybe if Lindsay played him with his natural accent as an Australian Buddhist convert instead, with everything else unchanged?

[@stuartwho]

So we have an Australian actor playing a projection of a Time Lord who’s been to Tibet. The script never says he’s Tibetan.

[@akshaytrayner1960]

My fave story

[@juleshammond5652]

In 1974 this was a landmark moment and a source of sorrow to those of us who loved the third Doctor. A lot of us never recovered. But the fourth Doctor and Sarah went on to be magnificent!

[@markwalko7418]

always wondered if the cut footage, because of CSO, was there and the cliffhangers weren't shifted I'd like it better.

[@martinharris5017]

6:27 Yeah but also, Tibetan Nationals were not common in the UK back then. Tibetan actors? errr...hello, I think not! Remember the Beeb were a cash-strapped outfit and worked to schedules as tight as their budgets. If they had a decent actor on hand with a good range who could play a make-do Tibetan monk good enough for Saturday night family entertainment, that was what we got. At this time a British fellow calling himself "T. Lobsang Rampa" wrote a successful series of books (allegedly factual) about life in a Tibetan monastery. He conned thousands of people as this was pre-internet and most people had little knowledge of such remote locations. Context, Chris! So while as a modern Liberal Progressive it is very easy to feel uncomfortable about having white guys playing Far-East characters, context is important. They did their best with what they had to work with. No offence, arrogance, or racism was intended.

[@lukethomas216]

Yates had the best character arc of anyone in this era, except Jo. And that’s probably just cause she’s much more likeable.

[@neilmcdonald9164]

There was also a big chase in Dinosaurs.Lupton is NOT the Master,but he does what the character would have done had RD lived and NOT done The Final Game🎩

[@neilmcdonald9164]

Sesska or Nesska is worse🎩

[@chrise7359]

Isacc Newton on the other hand is a totally respectful portrayal. Glad we've progressed.