“Planet of the Spiders” is an adventure of the eleventh season of “Doctor Who” classic series, which aired in 1974. It follows “The Monster of Peladon” and it’s a six parts adventure written by Robert Sloman and directed by Barry Letts.

The story

The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) brings Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) to see the exhibition of Professor Clegg, who has a real clairvoyant and telekinetic abilities. While he’s checking him in his laboratory at UNIT headquarters, he receives an envelope sent by Jo Grant, who returned the crystal from Metebelis 3. When Clegg looks into the crystal something strange happens to him, causing his death.

After being discharged from UNIT, Mike Yates started attending a Tibetan monastery in the country where he can practice meditation. However, he noted that one Lupton, another visitor to the monastery, seems to be at the center of rather strange events. For this reason he contacted Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), who goes to investigate with the excuse of interviewing the people who attend the center and possibly its mysterious abbot K’anpo. She finds herself dealing with giant spiders.

Extras

This DVD contains a good amount of extras. There are typical contents such as production subtitles, a gallery of pictures from this adventure, the Radio Times Billings and a promo of the “Doctor Who” DVDs soon to be published.

There are various comments in the adventure alternative audio track by protagonists Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney, actor Richard Franklin, producer and director Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks.

The Final Curtain. A documentary about 38 minutes long about the changes in “Doctor Who” at the end of the Third Doctor era.

John Kane Remembers… Actor John Kane recalls his experience in playing the character of Tommy in this adventure.

Directing Who: Barry Letts. Although Barry Letts is best remembered for his influence as a “Doctor Who” producer, he also directed various adventures of the classic series. In this mini-documentary about 15 minutes long he recalls his experience, not only in the series.

Now & Then. Some places where scenes for this adventure were filmed as they are today and as they were at the time.

Planet of the Spiders Omnibus Edition. This adventure in its omnibus edition, meaning a re-version edited as if it were a movie instead of being split into episodes. It wasn’t restored so the quality of the images is lower than the version in episodes.

Omnibus Trailer. A promo for the omnibus edition of this adventure.

The production staff of “Doctor Who” was about to leave the series and this was added to Jo Grant’s exit at the end of the tenth season and the tragic death of actor Roger Delgado, who played the Master. Jon Pertwee felt that the time had come for him to leave the series too, so it was necessary to write an adventure in which the Third Doctor regenerated.

Producer Barry Letts had in his contract the possibility to direct an adventure for each season and decided that “Planet of the Spiders” had to be his “creature”. In fact, the screenplay is credited to Robert Sloman but Letts gave a big contribution, especially for the elements related to Buddhism.

In a show where the serial element was generally limited to the episodes of an adventure or at most to the season, “Planet of the Spiders” has some of its roots in previous adventures, including some from the previous season. The Doctor had tried to bring Jo to Metebelis 3 in “Carnival of Monsters” and some pictures from that adventure are shown in the first episode. The crystal and some other items had appeared in “The Green Death” and Mike Yates had appeared for the last time in “Invasion of the Dinosaurs“.

“Planet of the Spiders” is an ambitious adventure for the way it puts those elements into an story where the Doctor must face his fallibility. Script editor Terrance Dicks saw the Doctor as a spotless hero but this adventure was the brainchild of Barry Letts, who decided otherwise.

When the Doctor went to Metebelis 3 to take the crystal he didn’t do it with malice but he hadn’t considered the consequences of his act. In the course of the show, the Doctor generally acted then left without seeing what the consequences of his interventions. In “Planet of the Spiders” there are long-term consequences and the Doctor has to make up for what he did.

From this point of view, “Planet of the Spiders” has a depth rarely attained in “Doctor Who”, the problem is that it’s an excellent part in a story stretched too long even by the standards of the time. That’s why in the second episode there’s a long chase that ends up being a comic interlude.

The padding with characters ranging from one place to another were normal in the classic “Doctor Who” series, at least in this case it’s fast paced, much better than many other fillers. There’s another appearance of the Whomobile, the special car owned by Jon Pertwee, which is also one of the elements from the past, having appeared for the first time in “Invasion of the Dinosaurs”.

The story has some flaws and the special effects in some cases have shown the limits of the CSO technology of that era. However, I think that the ending, with the resolution of the mystery around the character of K’anpo and especially the regeneration, is really good.

In my opinion, Jon Pertwee was amazing in playing the Doctor helping to bring the show back to its highest levels. Of course, other factors contributed to bring the audience back to levels that hadn’t seen for years but the actor really had the charisma need for the role.

Overall, I find that “Planet of the Spiders” is a good adventure and the average quality of the extras in the second DVD is good too. Also due to its importance in the show I recommend buying it.