"Clever Lupton!"
Tommy sees Lupton teleport into the meditation centre, and presumably concludes he has a teleport bracelet, although when he sees Lupton has the crystal he says
"...Pretty."
We get our first look at the planet of the piders (cla... no, wait, that was me) where there is a room full of piders all chatting exposition at each other:
"This is the secret purpose of the Great One.""All praise to the Great One!""That is why she requires the crystal. We shall return to our rightful home, Earth, as rulers."
So the planet of the piders is really Earth all along? That sounds like it could be a great twist, somebody should use it one day. The piders let Lupton listen in for a bit, but they don't think he is their "friend" because he is a "two-leg," which is their name for mannys. Piders call themselves "eight-legs" because they have eight legs. No doubt they would call cats "four-legs" (which is the best number of legs to have because cats are best), but in that case what would they call doggys?
Lupton has sleeps, and then the pider becomes visible again and goes for a wander. It's lucky Lupton fell asleep lying on his front, otherwise the pider would have been squished.
The Doctor, Sarah and Yates arrive at the meditation centre and ask Cho-Je about Lupton. Cho-Je says
"You cannot believe he was transported here in the winking of an eye."
even though that is exactly what happened, lol. Cho-Je goes on to say
"As we both know, such things are child's play to a master of sorcery, but you cannot believe that Mr Lupton is a sorcerer. We have no magicians here, I do assure you."
The Doctor probably takes issue with this, in much the same way he took issue with Miss Hawthorne claiming everything was done by magic in The Dæmons, but we don't get to see it because the scene cuts to show Barnes waking up Lupton to warn him about the Doctor's arrival. Lupton decides to tell Barnes his backstory and motivation, which is one of the pettiest of all Doctor Who baddys:
Lupton: "Picture me, bright young salesman: salesman of the year; sales manager; sales director. I gave them 25 years of my life, are you with me so far? Then the finance boys moved in: merger; takeover; golden handshake; me out on the streets. I could even have taken that, but when I tried to set up on my own they deliberately, cold bloodedly broke me. I'm still looking for some of the bits."Barnes: "So you came here to get peace of mind?"Lupton: "Ha! I came here to get power! Do you think I'm going to let go now when it's in sight: when I can see myself taking over that firm; taking over the country; the entire stinking world. I want to see them grovel; I want to see them breaking their hearts; I want to see them eating dirt."
Unknown to Lupton and Barnes, while they are talking Tommy reaches in through the open window and nicks off with the Metebelis 3 crystal. He takes it to his secret stash of "all Tommy's pretties" in a cupboard.
The pider comes back and forces Lupton to go along with its plan by giving him a sore hed until he agrees, but Lupton soon discovers he can turn the tables on the pider and inflict the same pain on it. The swiftness with which Lupton masters (if you'll pardon the expression) this ability hints at this being left over from the earliest version of the story, where the baddy was meant to be the Master. Planned before Roger Delgado's death to be a final story for the Master, it is easy to imagine him forming an alliance with the piders to get power and so Lupton is the closest thing to the Master in the version of the story that was eventually made.
However, for all that they share the same basic role in the plot, Lupton is quite different from the Master in terms of his character and motivation, and it is hard to imagine a bitter ex-salesmanny being the Doctor's "best enemy." I do think it worth noting that John Dearth also played a Master-like hypno-eyesing baddy who wanted to take over the world when he played the BOSS in the previous season's finale, so he may have been unconsciously filling a Delgado-shaped hole in the show. Lupton and the pider make a truce and agree to help each other seize the power each one wants. Then Lupton realises the crystal is gone.
Tommy tries to give the crystal to Sarah as a "present," but in a classic use of dramatic irony Sarah is more interested in spying on Lupton as he heads back to the cellar, and so doesn't have the time to receive Tommy's present or even to find out that it is the crystal that they've come here to recover. Tommy tells the Doctor and Yates that Sarah and Lupton have gone to the cellar, as Sarah hides and watches Lupton teleport himself away with the power of an Om Mani Padme Hum.
Sarah steps on Lupton's mat, and the Doctor arrives in the cellar just in time to see her get teleported away - this teleporting is shown from Sarah's point of view, so we see the cellar instantaneously transition to Metebelis 3 around her. A similar effect would later be used in Sapphire & Steel, only with less CSO fringing than is visible here, which very much gives the game away as to how the effect was accomplished (although since Barry Letts was the director, CSO is always a safe bet for how any of the SFX was done).
The Doctor decides to go after Sarah in the TARDIS. Yates wants to know how he will be able to find Sarah when he gets there.
Yates: "Yes but, Doctor, a planet's a big place."Doctor: "Yes, well, I always leave the actual landing to the TARDIS herself. She's no fool, you know."Yates: "You speak as if she were alive."Doctor: "Yes. Yes I do, don't I? Goodbye Mike."
Not even for a moment considering taking Yates with him, lol. (Is this the closest the original series of Doctor Who ever got to the 'I only take the best' attitude that pervades the new series' mischaracterisation of the Doctor?)
On Metebelis 3 Sarah is immediately captured by a two-leg who thinks she is "a spy" and taken to a village to get involved in the next bit of plot. The two-legs there are about as far from the grounded, down-to-earth backstory of Lupton as can be, and fit the exact stereotype of studio-bound BBC sci-fi colony-gone-wrong characters, probably the best example of such to be found between Colony in Space and Face of Evil. They divide into two groups - those who think Sarah is a spy W-wording for the piders, and those who don't think that because why the fuck would they?
Sarah: "Who am I supposed to be spying for, the spiders?"Tuar: "You see? Who but a spy would dare use the forbidden word?"
It's tough to know what is worse in this scene, the acting of some of the villagers or the gratuitous use of CSO for the 'exterior' background. Both are dreadful.
Before they can reach a collective decision about Sarah, she and Arak, one of the two-legs (played by Mike Gambit), have to hide from "the queen of the eight-legs" who has come to get involved in the plot arrest Arak.
A two-leg called Sabor, who is Arak's father, gives himself up in Arak's place. This whole scene is incredibly melodramatic and theatrical (or, to use another word, stagy), and very different in style to all the scenes set on Earth that preceded it. It is also played totally in earnest, which has the effect of making likes like this unintentionally funny:
Sarah: "What's going to happen to him?"Tuar: "The eight-legs will eat him, of course."
The queen detects Sarah's presence, and Sarah gives herself up so that they do not find Arak as well. The TARDIS materialises in the middle of this scene. The Doctor comes out and talks to the queen:
Doctor: "Greetings, oh most noble queen. May I ask what you intend to do with this young lady?"Queen: "You do not speak like a two-leg. Where have you come from?"Doctor: "Both Miss Smith and I come from Earth, your majesty."Queen: "From Earth? Then you are the one who... No, no, that cannot be."
The queen decides to capture the Doctor as well as Sarah, so sets her guards on him. This results in a fight scene where the Doctor uses Venusian Oojah on the guards until one of them has had enough and pewpewpews him with lightning.
Cliffhanger!
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