In the penultimate Jon Pertwee story, this sequel to The Curse of Peladon takes place fifty years after the Doctor's first visit, only this time, he has Sarah Jane in tow. He was meaning to revisit Peladon (both the planet and king), but Thalira, Peladon's daughter, is the monarch. High Priest Hepesh's successor is Ortron, who is chancellor and high priest. And once again, they are in the middle of a crisis with many complications.First off, entry into the Galactic Federation has only benefitted Ortron and his aristocratic lackeys. The miners, led by Gebek, have worked harder and for the same rewards. "It's always been the same. Work and sleep, little else... earn barely enough to feed our families." Gebek is a working class moderate, loyal to the queen, and more patient, but hotheaded radicals like Ettis, keep leading armed rebellions against Ortron. The Doctor saves Gebek's life and gains a friend and ally in the miner.
Ortron, like Hepesh before him, dislikes the Doctor. He thinks the Doctor is a spy for Galaxy Five, a power bloc that Federation are at war with. However, Alpha Centauri, the one-eyed hermaphrodite hexapod, recognizes the Doctor and vouches for the Time Lord.
The crux of the problem is once again the spirit of Aggedor, who this time is vaporizing the miners digging for trisilicate. They refuse to work with sophisticated machinery, like the sonic lance. As for engineer Eckersley, who's in charge of the refinery, he's a non-political professional. All he's concerned with is getting the trisilicate mined for the Federation. Current technology is dependent on trisilicate, and whoever controls it wins the war.
The Doctor tries to be the voice of reason, getting Gebek to voice his grievances to the queen without Ortron's presence, and the queen to give the workers a better deal to cut the grass from under Ettis' feet. At the same time, he thinks that Aggedor's manifestations are technological trickery by saboteurs. However, just when he's cleared himself of some trouble, something else comes up that barely gives him breathing room. Worse, the situation deteriorates to the point that a panicked Alpha Centauri calls in Federation troops under Commander Azaxyr, a ruthless Ice Warrior who immediately places Peladon under martial law and threatens execution of hostages unless the miners get back to work.
Of the guest actors Rex Robinson is solid as Gebek. Nina Thomas (Thalira) plays the queen as another vulnerable, indecisive, but well-meaning ruler just like her father, but those large, deer caught in the headlights eyes really got me.
This time, the basis for the story is the miner's strike, whose poor handling of it led to Prime Minister Edward Heath defeat at the polls. The Conservatives lost and Labour under Harold Wilson returned to office in 1974, the same year this story was broadcast. However, a group of television professionals polled said the story reminded them of Poland in 1970, where a workers' uprising due to rising prices and unfair work incentives led to the resignation of General Secretary Wladyslaw Gomulka. Others saw the miners' situation to that workers in Russian prior to the 1917 revolution, and they saw Ortron as symbolizing bureaucracy today. The Doctor was the voice of reason, the real hero, saying "there is an answer if you will listen to it." That's the problem, getting factions to listen.
A shot at woman's lib is given here, as Thalira, dominated by Ortron, seen as little more than a child, and made queen just because she was the only offspring of the king, tells Sarah of her weak position. "Things would be different if I were a man, but I'm just a girl." To which Sarah flat out tells her, "There's nothing only about being a girl. Never mind why they made you a queen. The fact is, you ARE the queen, so just you jolly well let them know it!"
Though severely panned due to its 6 episode length and the back and forth fighting, defeats, fighting again, it surpasses its predecessor due to the multiple conflicts and politically-charged message, with Marxist sympathies and responsibilities and benefits of being part of a collective union. Underrated and due for some reevaluation.
