Ssorg wins the shootout at the Peladon Corral and he pewpewpews Arcturus. The truth comes out - Arcturus was in league with Hepesh to take over Peladon, and the attack on Arcturus in part two was faked. Hepesh escapes, and the Doctor worries that he will start a civil war in the Federation by accusing the Ice Warriors of murdering Arcturus. This raises the stakes beyond Peladon to the Galactic Federation beyond, but it doesn't feel all that dramatic because we haven't seen anything of that Federation beyond three seasons of Star Trek the delegates themselves.
Grun, having been spared by the Doctor, has changed sides. He chases Hepesh and fights with his guards, but despite his strength he is overwhelmed by their numbers. The Doctor follows Grun's trail and finds him wounded, but he is able to tell the Doctor that Hepesh has "many" soldiers on his side and is about to try and take over the castle.
Fighting breaks out in the throne room and Hepesh captures the king - checkmate! He then tells Jo and the delegates to surrender or he will kill the king, and so that way he captures them too.
The Doctor takes Grun with him to look for Aggedor.
Grun is still scared even as the Doctor once again tries his hypno-eyes plan on Aggedor. This time he succeeds (because Jo isn't there to interrupt him) and he leads the pacified Aggedor away with him.
In the throne room, Hepesh demands the delegates leave Peladon. It looks like he has won, but then the Doctor bursts in and says:
"Who dares challenge Peladon! Kneel and pay homage to his sacred guardian!"
Hepesh knows about Aggedor, and had been secretly using him for his evil ends, such as when he got Aggedor to attack Torbis in part one. Now he grabs a torch from the wall and tries to use it to make Aggedor kill the Doctor, but Aggedor pauses for a moment, looks at the Doctor, and then pounces on Hepesh and tries to nom him. Only the Doctor can calm Aggedor, and he leads him out of the throne room with his hypno-eyes device.
Hepesh makes a final speech to the king and then goes
With the plot now resolved happily, the Doctor shows Jo that the TARDIS has been brought into the castle. He thinks that the Time Lords permitted or even sent them to Peladon "at this precise crisis in their history" and that his exile is not over yet, which is a somewhat cheaty way for the writers to allow the Doctor and Jo to leave Earth whenever they want.
Aggedor comes in and the Doctor says
"The trouble is he seems to have grown rather fond of me. He keeps following me about. Hello Aggedor."
I really hope this means Aggedor will become a new Companion, that would be great!
The Doctor leads Aggedor away so that the king can have one final doomed attempt to persuade Jo to stay and marry him. Jo confesses she isn't a real princess and the king says "that doesn't matter" which shows he has undergone character growth since the beginning of the story.
The Doctor and Jo are about to attend the king's formal coronation when a manny arrives claiming to be the real delegate from Earth. Alpha Centauri says the Doctor is the "accredited" Earth delegate, to which the newcomer replies
"Doctor? What Doctor? Doctor who?"
Lol. This forces a change of plan, and the Doctor and Jo head back to the TARDIS, just before the delegates enter the room in time to see it dematerialise.
What's so good about The Curse of Peladon?
Obviously Aggedor is the main attraction, one of the cutest monsters in Doctor Who history. Sadly he didn't become a Companion but he's so cute that he at the very least deserved his own spinoff show. More so than K9 or Torchwood at any rate.
Beyond Aggedor, the Ice Warriors being really on the side of the goodys makes for a good twist and an interesting way to show the Doctor being wrong for a change. The story itself is a decent one, and tightly paced across its four episodes, filling them well - although I shudder to think what this would have been like had it been padded out to a six-parter, so that was a narrow escape, and a good thing that never happened, mew.
The only real shortcomings are the at times ponderous, cod-medieval dialogue, something pseudo-historical settings have a reputation for defaulting to in BBC sci-fi shows (Blakes 7 is just as guilty, such as in The Keeper) and is definitely in evidence here, especially some of Hepesh's speeches and occasionally with the king.
Also, the cliffhanger ending to part two was unjustifiably contrived, and if I won't let Terry Nation get away with things like that then I'm certainly not letting this story get away with it either.
Apparently, according to Wikipedia, this story is supposed to be a "political allegory." To which I respond: Allegory?
What allegory?
Allegory mew.
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