Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: Planet of the Piders Part Four

Thinking the Doctor has been pewed to death, the piders leave. Sarah was disguised and hidden by the two-legs while the fight was going on, so the pider queen leaves with only Sabor as a prisoner.

Tuar and the other two-legs think the Doctor is ded, but Sarah got fooled a few too many times by that in the last story so insists he is still alive:

"Look, look, he moved! He moved his hand!"

Back at the meditation centre, Tommy interrupts Barnes and Lupton's other henchmannys trying to decide what they should do without Lupton around. Barnes asks Tommy if he can read, to which Tommy replies:

"Tommy's learning to read. My mum bought me a book."

This seemingly trivial bit of character detail is cleverly being established here before it becomes more significant to the plot later on.

Lupton meets with the pider queen and pretends, along with his pider friend, that they still have the crystal and have it hidden in a safe place.

Tommy tries reading his book but the crystal begins glowing and sends him to sleep (unless it was just a really boring book, mew). When he wakes up he is able to read faster and better.

The Doctor needs a machine from the TARDIS to get better. Sarah fetches it out but is then met by Lupton and captured. Arak fetches the machine from where Sarah dropped it, thus proving to Tuar and the other two-legs that "Arak is not a coward." He gives it to the Doctor who is able to use it to make himself better. This subplot sidelined the Doctor for a few minutes to allow time for a small amount of character development for Arak and Tuar, but the more interesting subplot is developing back at the meditation centre.

Tommy finds more books to read, and as he reads out loud we see his development, as brought on by the crystal:

"Tiger, tiger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

That's pretty. No, no... that's beautiful."

Of course it is about tigers, because cats are best!

On Metebelis 3, the Doctor gets exposition about the colonists and the piders from Arak while, at the same time, Sarah gets it from her fellow prisoner Sabor, with the scene cutting between them to break up what would otherwise be quite a dump of exposition.

Sabor: "An ordinary eight-legs, he must have been blown by the wind out of that crashed ship up in the mountains. There are blue crystals there. They have strange powers."

Sarah: "Oh, you don't have to tell me that."

Sabor: "Ah, then you must know that these crystals can enlarge the mind. Over the years, these spiders became cleverer and cleverer and larger and larger. By the time man found out, it were too late."

Cut to...

Arak: "...And they've ruled us ever since. A few they take and twist their minds until they become their slaves. The rest of us they rule by fear."

Doctor: "I see."

The Doctor already has a plan. He looks for stones that will make his machine do a high-pitched buzz instead of a medium-pitched buzz, explaining

"Why should the blue crystal be the only mineral on Metebelis 3 with an unusual structure? I'm looking for a stone that will absorb the energy of the spider's attacks."

Armed with the machine and a stone, the Doctor goes to the piders' city where the guard tries to pewpewpew him but the machine stops it. Lupton arrives at the same time as some more guards, but they capture Lupton instead of the Doctor. Yet more guards come and the Doctor gives up when he is outnumbered, saying

"Oh dear, this is getting monotonous."

That's a very risky line of dialogue for the fourth episode of a Pertwee Six-Parter, mew.

The Doctor walks into the room where Sarah and Sabor are being held prisoner and Sarah thinks he has come to rescue them, until he points out that he is a prisoner too.

No two ways about it, that's a shit cliffhanger.