The curse that haunted Peladon was a menacing and persistent presence that plagued the people of Peladon for generations. It was a dark, shadowy force that cast a gloomy cloud over the once vibrant and prosperous kingdom. The curse was said to be the result of a long-forgotten transgression committed by the ancestors of the royal family. It was believed that their greed and betrayal had angered the gods, leading to the curse that would haunt Peladon for years to come. One of the main manifestations of the curse was the constant state of unrest and turmoil that plagued the kingdom. The people of Peladon lived in fear and uncertainty, as the curse caused a series of tragic events and misfortunes, from deadly plagues to devastating wars.
He has more faith in the inherent innocence of this vicious beast than in the possibility that the Ice Warriors could have changed over hundreds (or thousands) of years. Ever since the end of “The War Games,” the Doctor’s attitude towards his traditional foes has been stuck in a rut, where there’s no room for analysis or question; they’re just evil, an evil that must be removed from the universe. Slightly awkward, then, that here the Ice Warriors save the Doctor from disintegration at the hands (er, liquid-filled servo-arms) of a Dalek wannabe.
The Doctor himself sustains this uncertainty, darkly warning Jo that he s dealt with them before, and he flatly accuses Delegate Izlyr of sabotaging the Federation s efforts at bringing the planet Peladon into the alliance. Its young king, conveniently if confusingly also named Peladon, dreams of joining a Star Trek -style Federation, but he s stuck living in Gormenghast.
The people of Peladon lived in fear and uncertainty, as the curse caused a series of tragic events and misfortunes, from deadly plagues to devastating wars. The curse seemed to amplify the darkest aspects of human nature, breeding greed, corruption, and violence among the rulers and subjects alike. Despite numerous attempts to break free from the curse, the people of Peladon were trapped in a perpetual cycle of suffering.
Doctor Who Project: The Curse of Peladon
The originators of Doctor Who‘s most iconic foes tend to be a bit protective of them (see: Nation, Terry, et al.), making Brian Hayles’ use of his Ice Warriors in “The Curse of Peladon” (Story Production Code MMM) quite refreshing. The Martian militarists’ prior two appearances (“The Ice Warriors” and “The Seeds of Death“) established them as honor-bound but utterly ruthless in their warlike tendencies. Here, in a story set in some vaguely defined far-future where Earth is part of a Galactic Federation, they retain their honorable mores but have committed themselves to…peace?
Just so, and the tension between the audience’s expectations that the Ice Warriors will turn out to be the villains in this piece about court intrigues on a primitive planet and their actual motives drives much of the story’s interest. The Doctor himself sustains this uncertainty, darkly warning Jo that he’s dealt with them before, and he flatly accuses Delegate Izlyr of sabotaging the Federation’s efforts at bringing the planet Peladon into the alliance. It’s unlike the Doctor to be wrong like this, and to his credit Hayles never quite allows the Ice Warriors to escape beyond suspicion even after the real foes have been revealed, keeping this four episode story flowing.
And yet even at the end, the Doctor is never called to task for having mistrusted the Ice Warriors. It’s particularly interesting that the Doctor cannot see past his own admittedly well-earned prejudices where the Martians are concerned in the same story where he seeks to hypnotize and tame a giant beast that has haunted this planet for generations, one that slips out of his control and kills the High Priest of Peladon.
He has more faith in the inherent innocence of this vicious beast than in the possibility that the Ice Warriors could have changed over hundreds (or thousands) of years. Ever since the end of “The War Games,” the Doctor’s attitude towards his traditional foes has been stuck in a rut, where there’s no room for analysis or question; they’re just evil, an evil that must be removed from the universe. Slightly awkward, then, that here the Ice Warriors save the Doctor from disintegration at the hands (er, liquid-filled servo-arms) of a Dalek wannabe.
The Time Lords use one of the Doctor’s incessant tests of the TARDIS to whisk him and Jo to Peladon, at the precise moment the Doctor later regards as the critical juncture of Peladonian history. This marks the second hijacking of the TARDIS to influence events (the first being the confrontation between colonists and the Intergalactic Mining Corporation in “Colony in Space“). At least some faction of the Time Lords, then, has taken the Doctor’s insistence on interfering with history to heart(s), dispatching him as required to interstellar hotspots.
Our time travellers find themselves mistaken as the Federation delegates from Earth, part of a team sent to integrate this backwards and unsophisticated planet into the Galactic Federation. Joining them are the previously mentioned Ice Warriors, who apparently have little knowledge of Earth’s diplomatic leadership despite being from one planet over in the Solar System; Delegate Arcturus, looking for all the world like a cross between a Dalek, a Quark, and an IMC mining robot (and possibly cobbled together by the effects team from bits of all three); and Delegate Alpha Centauri, a mono-eyed hexapod with a cautious manner.
The High Priest of Peladon, Hepesh, has been convinced by Arcturus that Federation membership will spell slavery for Peladon and the end of its ancestral ways, driving the tradition-bound royal adviser to plot against his own king, the young (and eponymous) Peladon. In turn, Arcturus hopes to gain the planet’s prodigious mineral resources for his own planet’s use. The two of them conspire to frame the Ice Warriors, whose reputation certainly preceeds them and who have previously been at war with the Arcturians, with an attempt on Arcturus’ life.
The Doctor quickly becomes the greater threat, though, by uncovering hidden passages under the royal castle that Hepesh has been using to hide the Aggedor, a beast of legend from Peladon’s past. Hepesh brings the Aggedor out of hiding in order to scare the king and his retinue into believing that the ancient (and titular) Curse of Peladon has roused the spirit of Aggedor. The proposed alliance with the Federation represents an abandoment of the old ways, and Aggedor will not allow such sacrilege. Hepesh accuses the Doctor of trespassing in sacred areas, the penalty for which is death by combat.
All of this skullduggery leads to the action portion of our proceedings, involving a stuntperson in an unconvincing Jon Pertwee wig in a cage fight with the exceedingly tall Royal Champion, Grun. When, after several minutes of dancing around a roped-in pit, the Doctor bests Grun without once resorting to Venusian Akido, Arcturus decides to eliminate the Doctor himself, but the Ice Warrior aide-de-camp, Sorg, shoots the rogue delegate with a weapon he just happened to bring with him to the trial by combat.
Jo questions the Ice Warriors as to why they have gone to such lengths to save the Doctor, and Delegate Izlyr seems surprised, noting that he owes his life to the Doctor for previously saving him from a falling statue (one of Hepesh’s early attempts to sabotage the Federation delegation). As an Ice Warrior, he simply could not let that debt go unpaid.
Unlike with the Daleks or Cybermen, there’s no collective memory of a foe named “the Doctor,” apparently, despite the Second Doctor having condemned an entire fleet of Ice Warriors to a fiery death in the sun (and possibly having condemned the species to extinction on a dying Mars). It’s a convenient elision in canon, explicable via the uncertain time that has elapsed between “The Seeds of Death” and “The Curse of Peladon,” perhaps, but nevertheless, the Doctor’s last encounter with the Ice Warriors ranks up there with his more ruthless actions. You’d think the Ice Warriors would at least remember the guy’s nom de guerre.
Regardless, I’m pleased that they have either forgiven or forgotten, because the ability of the series to change the attitude of a quasi-iconic foe bodes well for more nuanced “villains” in the future. In part, credit must go to Brian Hayles, whose original Ice Warrior story similarly avoided stark black and white delineations. And, as he demonstrated in his second Ice Warrior story with the figure of Gia Kelly, he has a deft touch with writing strong roles for women actors.
Here, he gives Katy Manning her finest opportunity to date, with Jo Grant firmly central to the plot. She only gets captured once, even!
From the beginning of the story, Jo’s quick thinking keeps her and the Doctor safe. Upon being warned that the penalty for women of non-royal blood being in the throne room is death, she insists that the Doctor immediately introduce her to the king. The Doctor takes her lead, and thus “Princess Josephine of TARDIS” is christened on the spot. Luckily she was going out on a date with Mike Yates prior to being caught up in the quick test flight of the TARDIS that led them here, as she looks the part of a princess in a long flowing pink dress.
The Doctor, usually sparing with compliments, calls her “brave,” as she charges at an almost-tamed Aggedor. Though it ruins what the Doctor was attempting, he sees her willingness to risk her own life to save him; even the mighty Grun cowers at the sight of this beast. Further, he entrusts her with significant responsibilities throughout the course of the story. At one crucial juncture, where the Federation delegates must agree unanimously to intervene in a potential civil war on Peladon, he says:
Doctor: Jo, I want you to go ahead and take charge of the conference. Work on Centauri. Once you’ve got an unanimous decision, act.
Finally, here, Jo and the Doctor are working as effective co-equals, for the first time in her seven stories to date, and Jo receives a great deal of independent screen time. When she has to leave King Peladon, who has taken quite a fancy to her (and, sorry, Mike Yates, but it seems mutual), the parting has weight. For all the romantic attachments that companions have been shoehorned into, usually as a pretext for getting them off the show, this one, not taken, resonates most strongly thanks to Manning’s acting and Hayles’ writing.
Jon Pertwee, by contrast, sort of floats through this story, possibly because of the extra focus given to Jo Grant. He’s adept and competent, but there are no real stand-out moments for him in this story, aside, perhaps, from the Venusian lullabies he sings to the Aggedor to make it docile. It’s a restrained performance, and given the losses at the end of the story, partially his fault, the restraint feels appropriate.
Hayles also manages to use the term “companion” to describe Jo Grant, marking a continued resurgence of the word in the series:
King Peladon: Present the Chairman Delegate from Earth, and his companion.
Eventually such usage will cease to be noteworthy, but even at this relatively late date, it has not become the established term of art yet.
By subverting the expectations the audience has when seeing the Ice Warriors on the screen, turning them from monomaniacal villains to nuanced players on the galactic stage, Brian Hayles neatly transforms what would have been a relatively by-the-numbers story of sabotage and subterfuge into a fairly taut and intriguing tale. “The Curse of Peladon” fully benefits from existing within the established Doctor Who canon, indeed is a story that can only be told via Doctor Who—precisely because he turns that canonicity on its head by changing the nature of the Ice Warriors.
It’s the same sort of visceral shock you would expect from finding the Silurians, whom the Doctor has eulogized as an essentially peaceful and advanced species, teaming up with the Master to conquer the Earth. Oh, wait, that’s next story…
They would see glimpses of hope and progress, only to be crushed by the weight of the curse once again. Many believed that their only salvation lay in appeasing the gods and finding a way to lift the curse that had gripped their land for centuries. However, as time went on, a glimmer of hope emerged with the arrival of a wise and benevolent leader. This leader, known as the Doctor, recognized the deep-rooted nature of the curse and vowed to find a way to break its hold on Peladon. Through his courage, intelligence, and determination, the Doctor was able to uncover the truth behind the curse and reveal a way to free the kingdom from its grip. In the end, the curse that haunted Peladon was finally lifted, bringing about a new era of peace and prosperity for the once-doomed kingdom. The people of Peladon were able to rebuild their lives and restore their faith in the future, no longer shackled by the curse that had plagued them for so long. This tale serves as a reminder of the power of perseverance and the strength of the human spirit. It is a testament to the belief that even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges, there is always hope for a brighter tomorrow..
Reviews for "The Curse's Grip on Peladon: Unraveling its Origins"
1. John - 2/5
"The Curse that Haunted Peladon" was a complete disappointment for me. The story was slow-paced and lacked any real excitement. The plot was weak, and the characters felt flat and uninteresting. The special effects were also quite dated and did little to enhance the overall viewing experience. Overall, I was left feeling unsatisfied and unengaged by this episode.
2. Emily - 1/5
I found "The Curse that Haunted Peladon" to be an absolute bore. The storyline dragged on and I struggled to stay interested until the very end. The acting was mediocre at best, and I couldn't connect with any of the characters. Additionally, the special effects were laughably bad and did nothing to elevate the episode. I wouldn't recommend wasting your time on this one.
3. Mark - 2/5
I was really disappointed with "The Curse that Haunted Peladon". The script felt uninspired and the dialogue was dull and often forced. The pacing was off, with long stretches of nothing happening. The plot twist was predictable and did little to salvage the episode. The lackluster performances from the cast only added to my disappointment. Overall, this episode failed to capture my attention and I found myself counting down the minutes until it was over.
4. Sarah - 1/5
"The Curse that Haunted Peladon" was a forgettable episode. The plot was confusing and convoluted, making it difficult to follow or care about what was happening. The acting was lackluster, with no standout performances to hold my interest. The special effects were also extremely dated and took away from any potential excitement. This episode was a letdown and I wouldn't recommend it to any Doctor Who fans.
5. Tom - 3/5
While "The Curse that Haunted Peladon" may not have been the best episode of Doctor Who, it had some redeeming qualities. The concept was intriguing and had potential, but unfortunately, the execution fell short. The pacing was uneven, with some scenes dragging on for too long. The acting was decent, but nothing exceptional. Overall, this episode had its flaws, but it still managed to hold my attention to some extent.