The Creature from the Pit (TV story): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:27, 15 May 2011

Synopsis

The Doctor and Romana receive a distress signal and arrive on Chloris, a lush and verdant world that has only small quantities of metals, all of which are controlled by its ruler, Lady Adrasta. Adrasta keeps order with the aid of her Huntsman and his wolfweeds - mobile balls of vegetation - while a band of scruffy thieves, led by Torvin, organize raids on her palace to steal whatever metal they can.

The Doctor identifies the distress signal's source as a large eggshell-like structure in the forest. He is taken prisoner by Adrasta's guards and, in order to escape, leaps into the Pit - the entrance to a cave system into which all those who incur Adrasta's wrath are consigned to be devoured by an immense green globular creature living within. The Doctor, with the aid of the elderly soothsayer Organon, discovers that the creature is not an unthinking killer but an ambassador from the planet Tythonus, which has a lack of chlorophyll but an abundance of metal.

The Tythonians had hoped to trade with Chloris, but the first person their ambassador Erato encountered on arriving in his eggshell-like ship was Adrasta, who took his communicator device and trapped him in the Pit so as to preserve her monopoly on metal. Erato retrieves his communicator and kills Adrasta.

He then warns the Doctor that the Tythonians have set a neutron star on a collision course with Chloris in retaliation for his imprisonment. With the Doctor's help he is freed from the Pit and, out in space, spins an aluminium shell around the star, allowing for it to be pulled off course by the TARDIS's gravitational tractor beam and thus saving Chloris.

Plot

Part one

The use of an MK3 Emergency transceiver on the TARDIS identifies a distress signal and brings the craft to the lush jungle world of Chloris, where metal in all forms is a rare and prized commodity. The Doctor, Romana and K9 venture out to discover the remains of an enormous egg in the jungle, and when they meet the inhabitants they find a matriarchy ruled through fear by the icy and callous Lady Adrasta. Without metal to make the tools needed to keep the jungle under control, lush plant life dominates. The Lady Adrasta controls the planet's very last metal mine, holding on to power through the Huntsmen and the Wolfweeds. Her throne room contains an array of metal including a plate patterned in the same way as the remnants of the shell. She mentions the Creature which dwells in a deep pit on Chloris.

Romana has meanwhile been captured by a party of scavengers, even keen to find and horde more metal, and they are particularly impressed by the possibilities of K9. The robot enables her escape and she is briefly reunited with the Doctor before he leaps into the Pit himself.

Part two

Romana notices that the Doctor is alive, clinging to the side of the pit. He beckons her to keep silent as to his survival. Adrasta decides that Romana may be of use as will K9 as he is made of metal. The Doctor loses his grip and falls into the pit.

Meanwhile, Lady Adrasta began trying to get information out of Romana. To do this, she had her guards slowly hammer away at K9. Eventually Romana told her that only K9 new what Adrasta wanted. In the woods, the bandits decide to attack the palace, believing that the guards will be searching for them.

Within the Pit, the Doctor encounters Organon, an astrologer thrown there by Adrasta some time earlier. They escape from the creatures tentacle and then burn it to deter it from attacking again. Together they begin exploring the caverns.

K9 tells Adrasta about the TARDIS. With such a machine, Adrasta no longer sees a need for the creature. She decides that K9 will kill it for her. They venture through a passage into the caverns of the pit.

The Doctor, Organon and a number of Adrasta's guards come across the creature. The guards attack it, to no effect and the creature squashes the Doctor.

Part three

The guards and Organon retreat and the creature forms a barrier to prevent them returning to it. Within the cavern, the Doctor awakes, seemingly unharmed. Outside the palace, the bandits make their attack and quickly gain access to the throne room. In the pit, Adrasta decides that K9 will destroy the barrier.

The Doctor tries to befriend the creature but realises that it has no way to communicate with him. In response, the creature draws a picture of the plate that the Doctor noticed in Adrasta's throne room. At that moment, the bandits are stealing the plate. They are disturbed by the guards and so they retreat into the caverns of the pit. The plate activates and Torvin and Edu fall under its hypnotic effect.

K9 is unable to break down the barrier. It simply gets stronger with each hit he gives it. From the other side, the Doctor bursts through. Adrasta questions how the Doctor did this he replies that he asked very nicely. Adrasta lets out that she knows more about the creature than she lets off, revealing it to be a Tythonian. They continue forwards at Adrasta's wish to kill the creature.

The Doctor uses a mirror to reflect K9's attacks, killing Adrasta's guards and scaring Karela away. The Doctor hold Adrasta despite her pleas that the creature must not near her. She orders Romana to have K9 kill the creature. The hypnotised Torvin and Edu approach still carrying the plate, which the place on the creature.

Part four

Through the plate, the creature is able to talk as the person touching it has their larynx used by the creature. The Doctor uses the plate, and the creature reveals its name to be Erato, the Tythonian ambassador to Chloris and came to negotiate a treaty exchanging metal for chlorophyll fifteen years earlier. Its craft was the vast egg found in the jungle. However, Adrasta realised her power was dependent on the control of the planet’s metal supply and so imprisoned Erato to maintain her status.

At the revelation of this truth, her people turn against her. The creature exacts its revenge by crushing Adrasta to death. In the woods, Karela meets up with the bandits and kills Torvin. She tries to convince the bandits to join her in taking the metal. The Doctor arrives and has K9 destroy the metal the bandits stole. With nothing left to lose, the bandits and Karela give up.

The Doctor has rescued the Tythonian just in time as Tythonus has declared war on Chloris over the missing ambassador, and has despatched a neutron star to collide with Chloris’ star and destroy the system. It is due to collide within the next twenty-four hours. Working against the odds, the Doctor uses the TARDIS to stabilise the star while Erato weaves a metal covering around it and the danger is neutralised. The Doctor’s last act on Chloris is to push Organon, now one of the de facto rulers, toward a mutually beneficial trade agreement with Erato and the Tythonians.

Cast

Crew

Film Editor - M A C Adams
Production Assistant - Romey Allison
Film Cameraman - David Feig
Studio Lighting - Warwick Fielding
Title Music - Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Theme arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
Costumes - June Hudson
Visual Effects - Mat Irvine
Special Sounds - Dick Mills
Studio Sound - Anthony Philpott
Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
Make-Up - Gillian Thomas
Assistant Floor Manager - Kate Osborne, David Tilley
Designer - Valerie Warrender
Production Unit Manager - John Nathan-Turner
Script Editor - Douglas Adams
Writer - David Fisher
Director - Christopher Barry
Producer - Graham Williams

References

The Doctor

The Doctor says that his lucky number is 74,384,338.

Culture

The Doctor and K9 are reading Peter Rabbit.
The Doctor claims a ball of string Romana finds in the TARDIS helped Theseus and Ariadne out of the Minotaur's maze. This may have been foreshadowing The Horns of Nimon.

Races and species

Erato is an ambassador from the planet Tythonus: a world rich in metal, but rapidly depleting its vegetation.
Tythonians consume chlorophyll and mineral salts.
Tythonians' life span is anything up to 40,000 years.
Tythonians can only communicate via a pentagonal device which allows them to utilise another being's larynx.

Spacecraft

Erato travelled to Chloris in a starship that was an egg woven of living metal.

TARDIS

The TARDIS has a tractor beam.
Mark Three Emergency transceiver can be plugged into the TARDIS console.

Weapons

A neutron star is propelled towards Chloris by the Tythonians after the treatment of their ambassador.

Story notes

This story guest stars Geoffrey Bayldon. Bayldon had been a candidate on previous occasions for the role of the Doctor, and later voiced an alternate version of the Doctor for the Auld Mortality and A Storm of Angels in the Doctor Who Unbound audio series. Bayldon was also a close personal friend of Jon Pertwee.

This was the first story for Season 17 to be produced, though it was the third to be broadcast. This technically makes it the first story to feature Lalla Ward as Romana II, replacing Mary Tamm, and to have David Brierley providing the voice for K9, replacing John Leeson.

In David Fisher's original script, Lady Adrasta was Queen Adastra, whose name meant "to the stars" in Latin. This was changed by Douglas Adams.

Christopher Barry is said to have had differences of opinion with both Tom Baker and Lalla Ward regarding their characters and dialogue during filming of this story. These plus frequent technical problems led to his departure from directing on Doctor Who.

Morris Barry, who played Tollund, had directed Doctor Who stories in the 1960s.

A clip of this story was used in the documentary "Synth Britannia", first broadcast on BBC 4 on Friday 16th October 2009. (The clip seems to be from episode 2 or 3.)

The Doctor jokingly claims that Time Lords have ninety lives (and that he has used one hundred and thirty of his).

Ratings

Part 1 - 9.3 million viewers
Part 2 - 10.8 million viewers
Part 3 - 10.2 million viewers
Part 4 - 9.6 million viewers

Myths

to be added

Filming locations

BBC Television Centre (TC6), Shepherd's Bush, London

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

to be added

Continuity

EDA: The Taking of Planet 5 features a vague reference to this story, in the form of the TARDIS tractor beam.
The Doctor uses a stethoscope to listen to the metal egg. The Tenth Doctor is also known to have used a stethoscope when investigating strange goings-on.

Timeline

This story occurs after ST: The End of Now
This story occurs before MA: The Romance of Crime

Home video and audio releases

DVD releases

This story was first released on DVD in the UK on 3rd May 2010. The one disc set includes a restored version of the story, as well as the following special features:

Commentary by Lalla Ward (Romana), Myra Frances (Lady Adrasta), Christopher Barry (Director) and Mat Irvine (Visual Effects Designer).
Christopher Barry: Director
Team Erato
Animal Magic
Extended Scene
Coming Soon Trailer
Radio Times Billings
Production Subtitles
Photo Gallery

Editing for DVD release completed by Doctor Who Restoration Team.

UK DVD 2010 Cover

Video releases

VHS UK cover
VHS Australian cover
VHS US cover

Novelisation and its audiobook

Main article: Doctor Who and the Creature from the Pit

Novelised as Doctor Who and the Creature from the Pit by David Fisher.

External links

Template:Season 17

Template:Wikipedia

@@ Line 31: / Line 31: @@
 ==Plot==
-The use of an [[MK3 Emergency transceiver]] on the [[the Doctor's TARDIS|TARDIS]] identifies a distress signal and brings the craft to the lush jungle world of [[Chloris]], where metal in all forms is a rare and prized commodity. [[Fourth Doctor|The Doctor]], [[Romana II|Romana]] and [[K9]] venture out to discover the remains of an enormous egg in the jungle, and when they meet the inhabitants they find a matriarchy ruled through fear by the icy and callous Lady [[Adrasta]]. Without metal to make the tools needed to keep the jungle under control, lush plant life dominates. The Lady Adrasta controls the planet's very last metal mine, holding on to power through the Huntsmen and the [[Wolfweed]]s. Her throne room contains an array of metal including a shield patterned in the same way as the remnants of the shell. She mentions the Creature which dwells in a deep pit on Chloris.
+===Part one===
+The use of an [[MK3 Emergency transceiver]] on the [[the Doctor's TARDIS|TARDIS]] identifies a distress signal and brings the craft to the lush jungle world of [[Chloris]], where metal in all forms is a rare and prized commodity. [[Fourth Doctor|The Doctor]], [[Romana II|Romana]] and [[K9 Mark II|K9]] venture out to discover the remains of an enormous egg in the jungle, and when they meet the inhabitants they find a matriarchy ruled through fear by the icy and callous Lady [[Adrasta]]. Without metal to make the tools needed to keep the jungle under control, lush plant life dominates. The Lady Adrasta controls the planet's very last metal mine, holding on to power through the Huntsmen and the [[Wolfweed]]s. Her throne room contains an array of metal including a plate patterned in the same way as the remnants of the shell. She mentions the Creature which dwells in a deep pit on Chloris.
-Romana has meanwhile been captured by a party of scavengers, even keen to find and horde more metal, and they are particularly impressed by the possibilities of K9. The robot enables her escape and she is briefly reunited with the Doctor before he leaps into the Pit himself, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery and the Pit. Within the Pit he encounters [[Organon]], an astrologer thrown there by Adrasta some time earlier, and then comes face to face with the Creature: indeed, the vast shapeless blob rolls over him. The Doctor calculates it is not, however, dangerous, and is fascinated to note the Creature produces metal from within itself. It also forms a tentacle and draws a picture which the Doctor recognises as the shield from Adrasta’s throne room. The Doctor, Organon and the Creature now find a way out of the Pit.
+Romana has meanwhile been captured by a party of scavengers, even keen to find and horde more metal, and they are particularly impressed by the possibilities of K9. The robot enables her escape and she is briefly reunited with the Doctor before he leaps into the Pit himself.
-The scavengers have meanwhile raided the throne room for booty, including the alien shield. It comes in useful when the Creature is freed from the Pit as the shield is indeed a communication device. [[Erato]], as the Creature is named, is the [[Tythonian]] ambassador to Chloris and came to negotiate a treaty exchanging metal for [[chlorophyll]] fifteen years earlier. Its craft was the vast egg found in the jungle. However, Adrasta realised her power was dependent on the control of the planet’s metal supply and so imprisoned Erato to maintain her status. It exacts its revenge by crushing her to death. The attempts by Adrasta’s sidekick, [[Karela]], to capitalise on the situation and seize power herself are aborted.
+===Part two===
+Romana notices that the Doctor is alive, clinging to the side of the pit. He beckons her to keep silent as to his survival. Adrasta decides that Romana may be of use as will K9 as he is made of metal. The Doctor loses his grip and falls into the pit.
-The Doctor has rescued the Tythonian just in time – it seems [[Tythonus]] has declared war on Chloris over the missing ambassador, and has despatched a [[neutron star]] to collide with Chloris’ star and destroy the system. It is due to collide within the next twenty-four hours. Working against the odds, the Doctor uses the TARDIS to stabilise the star while Erato weaves a metal covering around it and the danger is neutralised. The Doctor’s last act on Chloris is to push Organon, now one of the de facto rulers, toward a mutually beneficial trade agreement with Erato and the Tythonians.
+Meanwhile, Lady Adrasta began trying to get information out of Romana. To do this, she had her guards slowly hammer away at K9. Eventually Romana told her that only K9 new what Adrasta wanted. In the woods, the bandits decide to attack the palace, believing that the guards will be searching for them.
+Within the Pit, the Doctor encounters [[Organon]], an astrologer thrown there by Adrasta some time earlier. They escape from the creatures tentacle and then burn it to deter it from attacking again. Together they begin exploring the caverns.
+K9 tells Adrasta about the TARDIS. With such a machine, Adrasta no longer sees a need for the creature. She decides that K9 will kill it for her. They venture through a passage into the caverns of the pit.
+The Doctor, Organon and a number of Adrasta's guards come across the creature. The guards attack it, to no effect and the creature squashes the Doctor.
+===Part three===
+The guards and Organon retreat and the creature forms a barrier to prevent them returning to it. Within the cavern, the Doctor awakes, seemingly unharmed. Outside the palace, the bandits make their attack and quickly gain access to the throne room. In the pit, Adrasta decides that K9 will destroy the barrier.
+The Doctor tries to befriend the creature but realises that it has no way to communicate with him. In response, the creature draws a picture of the plate that the Doctor noticed in Adrasta's throne room. At that moment, the bandits are stealing the plate. They are disturbed by the guards and so they retreat into the caverns of the pit. The plate activates and [[Torvin]] and [[Edu]] fall under its [[Hypnosis|hypnotic]] effect.
+K9 is unable to break down the barrier. It simply gets stronger with each hit he gives it. From the other side, the Doctor bursts through. Adrasta questions how the Doctor did this he replies that he asked very nicely. Adrasta lets out that she knows more about the creature than she lets off, revealing it to be a [[Tythonian]]. They continue forwards at Adrasta's wish to kill the creature.
+The Doctor uses a mirror to reflect K9's attacks, killing Adrasta's guards and scaring [[Karela]] away. The Doctor hold Adrasta despite her pleas that the creature must not near her. She orders Romana to have K9 kill the creature. The hypnotised Torvin and Edu approach still carrying the plate, which the place on the creature.
+===Part four===
+Through the plate, the creature is able to talk as the person touching it has their larynx used by the creature. The Doctor uses the plate, and the creature reveals its name to be [[Erato]], the [[Tythonian]] ambassador to Chloris and came to negotiate a treaty exchanging metal for [[chlorophyll]] fifteen years earlier. Its craft was the vast egg found in the jungle. However, Adrasta realised her power was dependent on the control of the planet’s metal supply and so imprisoned Erato to maintain her status.
+At the revelation of this truth, her people turn against her. The creature exacts its revenge by crushing Adrasta to death. In the woods, [[Karela]] meets up with the bandits and kills Torvin. She tries to convince the bandits to join her in taking the metal. The Doctor arrives and has K9 destroy the metal the bandits stole. With nothing left to lose, the bandits and Karela give up.
+The Doctor has rescued the Tythonian just in time as [[Tythonus]] has declared war on Chloris over the missing ambassador, and has despatched a [[neutron star]] to collide with Chloris’ star and destroy the system. It is due to collide within the next twenty-four hours. Working against the odds, the Doctor uses the TARDIS to stabilise the star while Erato weaves a metal covering around it and the danger is neutralised. The Doctor’s last act on Chloris is to push Organon, now one of the de facto rulers, toward a mutually beneficial trade agreement with Erato and the Tythonians.
 ==Cast==

Anonymous

Search