The Creature from the Pit (TV story)

The Creature from the Pit was the third story in season seventeen of Doctor Who.

This story was one of season seventeen's many "downsized" stories. This meant that the Doctor would be working on a smaller scale rather than saving the universe as he had been throughout the past season.

The serial made use of complicated model work to achieve the space scenes with the original scene having to be filmed again. The Erato prop was also a major problem. A puppet version was unavailable for rehearsals and there wasn't time for a rethinking.

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, organise raids on her palace to steal whatever metal they can. But in the mines of Chloris is something huge, a creature thrown into the pit to be forgotten, and the Doctor's about to join him.

Plot

Part one

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. The Doctor is immediately beset by Wolfweeds under the control of the Huntsman. He releases the Doctor and orders his death. Karela countermands him and has the Doctor and Romana taken prisoner.

The Doctor is paraded in stocks.

As they travel through the jungle, bandits attack them, Romana is taken prisoner. The Doctor is taken to the palace of the Lady Adrasta, who rules the planet by controlling all the metal.

The Doctor examines the throne room and takes particular interest in a plate upon the wall. Romana uses a dog whistle to summon K9. With his help, she escapes the bandits. The Doctor is taken to a pit to witness the execution of one of Adrasta's men. He is thrown to a creature that lives within the vast caverns below Romana arrives and tries to help the Doctor escape as K9 attacks the guards. However, the Wolfweeds quickly surround and disable K9. The Doctor jumps into the pit.

Part two

Romana notices that the Doctor is alive, clinging to the side of the pit. He beckons to keep silent as to his survival. Adrasta decides that Romana may be of use, as will the metal K9l. The Doctor loses his grip and falls into the pit.

Meanwhile, Lady Adrasta tries to get information out of Romana. Her guards slowly hammer away at K9. Eventually Romana tells her that only K9 knows what Adrasta wants. In the woods, the bandits decide to attack the palace, believing that the guards will be searching for them.

Adrasta threatens K9.

Within the Pit, the Doctor encounters Organon, an astrologer thrown there by Adrasta. They escape from the creature's tentacle and then burn it to deter it from attacking again. They begin exploring the caverns.

K9 tells Adrasta about the TARDIS. With such a machine, Adrasta no longer needs 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. The creature forms a barrier to prevent their return. 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 it has no way to communicate with him. 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 interrupted by the guards and retreat into the cavern. The plate activates and Torvin and Edu fall under its hypnotic effect.

Torvin and Edu fall under the plate's hypnosis.

K9 is unable to break down the barrier. It gets stronger with each blow. From the other side, the Doctor bursts through. Adrasta questions how the Doctor did this. he replies that he asked very nicely. Adrasta admits she knows more about the creature than she aadmitted. It is a Tythonian. The Doctor uses a mirror to reflect K9's attacks, killing Adrasta's guards and scaring off Karela. The Doctor hold Adrasta despite her pleas. She orders Romana to have K9 kill the creature. The hypnotised Torvin and Edu approach still carrying the plate, which they place on the creature.

Part four

With the plate, the creature is able to speak through the person touching it. The Doctor uses the plate. The creature's name is Erato. It is the Tythonian ambassador to Chloris. It came fifteen years earlier to negotiate a treaty exchanging metal for chlorophyll. Its craft was the vast egg in the jungle. However, Adrasta, knowing her power depended on control of the planet’s metal supply, imprisoned Erato.

Knowing the truth, her people turn on her. The creature exacts its revenge by crushing Adrasta to death. In the woods, Karela meets 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 to lose, the bandits and Karela give up.

The TARDIS holds the neutron star as Erato weaves a web around it.

The Doctor has rescued the Tythonian just in time. 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 will collide within the next twenty-four hours. Working desperately, the Doctor uses the TARDIS to stabilise the star while Erato weaves a metal covering around it. 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.
The thieves operate as a democracy.

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.
A Tythonian's 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 spaceship 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 in the role of Organon. Bayldon had been a candidate for the roles of both the First and Second Doctors, and later voiced an alternate version of the Doctor in BFDWU: Auld Mortality and BFDWU: A Storm of Angels. He 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.

Lalla Ward disliked how her dress echoed Mary Tamm's (from The Ribos Operation) and felt that the story was tailored for that incarnation.

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 also used one. (DW: The Stolen Earth)
A number of the Doctor's old costumes appear on the TARDIS hatstand. His coats from The Seeds of Doom and The Talons of Weng-Chiang are two of these.

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 3 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
US DVD 2010 cover
AUS 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.
In April 2008 an audiobook of David Fisher's Doctor Who and the Creature from the Pit was released, read by Tom Baker
The Creature from the Pitcd.jpg

Audiobook release

External links

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