The Curse of Peladon is the second story of season nine of Doctor Who, it stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor and Katy Manning as Jo Grant. It was written by Brian Hayles.
It starts on a dark and stormy night in an old castle, where it is quickly established to us there is a king, played by David Troughton (I wonder, did he become king only because of who his father was?), who has two advisors who don't get on with each other. One of them, High Priest Hepesh, threatens the other, Chancellor Torbis, saying Torbis will "bring the curse of Aggedor upon us!"
Cla... no, wait, not quite.
There are shades of Gloucester and Winchester from Shakespeare's Henry vi in the way the two mannys can't get on with each other even when the king mediates. Their disagreement is about their planet Peladon joining the Galactic Federation, with Torbis in favour and Hepesh against.
When he leaves, Torbis gets attacked by a monster and is killed. Hepesh says
"So, the spirit of Aggedor has risen again, the ancient curse of Peladon will be fulfilled!"
Clang! (properly this time)
The TARDIS materialises outside the castle. Inside, Jo says
"I'm all dolled up for a night out on the town with Mike Yates when you talked me into a joyride in this thing."
A night out with Mike Yates or a trip in a time and space machine - tough choice! I think, despite her complaining, we can safely say that Jo made the right choice here. As soon as they leave the TARDIS it falls off a cliff, leaving them to climb up to the castle to look for help.
The king meets with "the delegate from Alpha Centauri" who has one eye, six arms, and looks like a big green willy, lol. I shouldn't make fun of Alpha Centauri (as they all call him) because I know what we long sockcats look like before the Maker of Cats attaches our ears, faces and paws.
Another delegate is from Arcturus. He has a gun. It is Arcturus's gun, although I suspect it may also be Chekhov's.
Now that Torbis is ded, Hepesh can counsel the king without being contradicted. He says of Torbis
"He saw your future as a servant of the Galactic Federation. I see you as an independent ruler of a great and glorious kingdom."
There's more to this scene and their dialogue than that, but this quote lays out the essential dilemma for Peladon - at least as Hepesh claims to see it. But can the king, and we viewers, trust that Hepesh is being honest?
The Doctor and Jo find a secret door taking them into the castle from the tunnels below it. Almost the first thing they see inside is an Ice Warrior! The chances of that happening must be a million to one! The Doctor follows it for a bit, and then Jo asks him what it was.
"That, Jo, was an Ice Warrior, a native of the planet Mars.""You've seen them before?""Yes indeed I have, and believe me, they're not very pleasant company."
Then a bunch of mannys run in and capture them.
In the throne room, the king is meeting with the Ice Warriors, who are also delegates from the Federation. They want to know about "the curse of Peladon" (Clang! again) and Hepesh tells them:
"It concerns the royal beast of Peladon, now extinct. It is written, mighty is Aggedor, fiercest of all the beasts of Peladon. Young men would hunt it to prove their courage. His fur trims our royal garment. His head is our royal emblem. It is also written there will come a day when the spirit of Aggedor will rise again to warn and defend his royal master, King Peladon. For at that day, a stranger will appear in the land, bringing peril to Peladon and great tribulation to his kingdom."
They are interrupted when the guards bring in the Doctor and Jo.
The Ice Warriors advance upon the Doctor menacingly, but they have mistaken him for the "chairman delegate from Earth" who they were expecting to arrive and so they greet him as such. The Ice Warrior leader introduces himself as "delegate Izlyr from Mars" and his friend as "sub-delegate Ssorg."
The Doctor finds himself with no choice but to pretend to be the delegate from Earth, and claims their "space shuttle" crashed as a way to get the TARDIS back. Since the penalty for being present here while not being of royal blood is death, Jo pretends to be "princess Josephine of Tardis." Their bluff is made tremendously easier by the readiness with which the other delegates are prepared to give them exposition about what has happened in the plot so far so that they can join in.
As the delegates, and the Doctor and Jo, are leaving the throne room together, Hepesh's henchmanny Grun tries to topple a big statue of Aggedor onto them - cliffhanger!
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