The scene of the Doctor banging and shouting for Jamie and Zoe to let him in goes on for what seems like ages as the Ice Warrior ponderously moves to answer the door. Eventually, Jamie distracts it so Zoe can let the Doctor in. The Ice Warrior then chases them for a bit until they can close a "radiation door" between it and them.
It then has to do a classic slow cutting through the door (more like a slow pewpewpewing, mew), but is distracted by the arrival of some mannys with guns that are completely ineffective against an Ice Warrior, so it goes off to pewpewpew them for the lols. The Doctor makes a device similar to Phipps's from part two and it is his turn to hunt the Ice Warrior until he can pewpewpew it.
Radnor, Kelly and Eldred (must live) launch a satellite to lure the Ice Warrior invasion fleet off course. Zoe somehow knows the name of the Ice Warrior leader is Slar
Sorry, I mean "knows the name of the Ice Warrior leader is Slaar," despite it not having been used on screen before she uses it. Maybe she read it in the credits of one of the earlier episodes?
The Doctor makes his pewpewpew device "portable" and teleports to the Moon with it, where he pewpewpews an Ice Warrior before it can pewpewpew him, but then he gets captured by Slaar, who needs his thumbs to operate the teleporter.
Jamie is worried about how long the Doctor is taking so he gets Zoe to teleport him to the Moon too.
The invasion fleet is drawn off course by the fake signal. Slaar finally realises what has happened and knows the Doctor is responsible for unplugging the real signal. Confronting him with this, he says
"You have destroyed our entire fleet!"
"You tried to destroy an entire world."
Slaar orders the Doctor killed, but when the Ice Warrior tries to do it the Doctor grabs his arm and makes him pewpewpew Slaar instead. Then Jamie arrives and helps the Doctor to electrocute the last remaining Ice Warrior.
Back on Earth the foam OF DEATH is being destroyed by rain from the repaired Weather Control Station, so with everything all right again now the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe head back to the TARDIS, leaving Radnor, Kelly and Eldred (who lived) to immediately start arguing about which is better, spaceships or teleports?
The Seeds OF DEATH has its moments, but as a six-parter it is way, way too long for what plot it has, which progresses onwards at a seemingly glacial pace. It is no wonder that the Doctor was able to slip away for a holiday in the middle of the story without making much difference to it.
I don't understand why this is Longdog's favourite Doctor Who story, when I wouldn't even put it in my top three for its season (that would be The War Games, The Invasion and The Mind Robber, if you're interested - and two of those are longer than The Seeds OF DEATH so it is not that being long is intrinsically bad). The best I can say for it is that the Doctor has some nice scenes interacting with the Ice Warriors, and there are some interesting directorial touches such as when the lone Ice Warrior goes on location. Also Jamie is in it, but then you can say that about almost all the Patrick Troughton-era stories.
Still, the Ice Warriors were pretty evil here, with their plan to wipe out all the mannys using foam OF DEATH and then take over the Earth, so we can see why the Doctor wouldn't like them very much after all that.
Back on Peladon, Jo asks if they can just get the TARDIS back and leave, but the Doctor thinks they're stuck here and says they "didn't really have any choice" but to get involved. Jo replies with
"Oh, come on. You love all that 'chairman delegate' stuff. Admit it."
and she's got him bang to rights there.
They hear an alarm going off and follow the sound to discover Arcturus is in trouble. The Doctor says
"Someone has disconnected a vital part of his life support system."
but he is able to do some wiring so that the missing "vital" part isn't "vital" any more. Izlyr, Alpha Centauri and Hepesh come in and Hepesh immediately claims this as "the [W-word] of Aggedor."
The Doctor accuses Izlyr, but Izlyr then counter-accuses the Doctor.
Jo sneaks to the Ice Warriors' room and finds another clue - the missing piece of Arcturus's life support.
Ssorg comes in and finds her hiding - the Ice Warriors have obviously improved their perception skill since The Seeds OF DEATH. He takes the clue from her and goes to inform Izlyr - hang on, is Ssorg Izlyr's Companion? This is like Doctor Who has crossed over with the Martian equivalent.
Grun finds the Doctor and gets him to come with him to the castle's tunnels.
Jo meets Aggedor, who goes "Rar!" trying to be all big and scary, so Jo runs away. We viewers only catch glimpses of Aggedor for now, to keep the reveal that he is a super cute monster and not scary at all really as a surprise twist for later on.
Grun hears Aggedor's rar and he also runs away, leaving the Doctor on his own.
Jo runs into the Ice Warriors and they don't believe her story about meeting Aggedor. She puts to them what the Doctor said earlier about them being "a race of warriors" and Izlyr replies by saying
"We were once, but now we reject violence except in self-defence.""What about Ssorg's gun? This is supposed to be a peaceful mission.""Unfortunately, in order to preserve peace, it is necessary to survive."
The Doctor finds his way to a secret door that leads to another* statue of Aggedor, but it is a trap, because behind it (the trap, I mean, not the statue) Hepesh and Grun are waiting to accuse the Doctor of "extreme sacrilege." He is taken to the king, who tells the Doctor "the laws of Peladon allow for no defence."
Similar to the laws in The Keys of Marinus, this is all very convenient for getting our heroes into trouble, but in the case of Peladon doesn't leave them much in the way of defence against the accusations of being a "primitive" and "barbarous" planet with fucking stupid laws.
Obviously there is "only one punishment... death" so that is the end of the episode. The Doctor makes a nonplussed face, as though disappointed by the incredibly poor quality of this particular cliffhanger. In this he echoes the faces made by us cats watching at home.
* With the number of statues of Aggedor there seem to be on Peladon, I am surprised the new series of Doctor Who hasn't set a story there and had the statues turn into Weeping Angels... Weeping Aggedors?
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