Season 17, Episode 3 | 4 parts | First broadcast: 27 October – 17 November 1979 | Writer: David Fisher | Director: Christopher Barry
Cast
- Tom Baker as the Doctor
- Lalla Ward as Romana
- Myra Frances as Lady Adrasta
- Geoffrey Bayldon as Organon
Summary
Landing on the jungle world of Chloris, where metal is scarce and jealously hoarded by the tyrannical Lady Adrasta, the Doctor and Romana investigate a mysterious pit into which victims are regularly thrown to appease a monstrous, unseen creature. Discovering the creature is not the mindless horror the locals believe but a stranded, intelligent alien desperate to communicate, the Doctor must broker an unlikely alliance to expose Adrasta’s true motives for keeping Chloris starved of metal.
Interesting Facts
- The creature’s ambitious, unconventional design led to well-documented production and puppeteering difficulties that limited how convincingly it could be portrayed on screen.
- The story explores communication and misunderstanding between species as a central theme, with the “monster” ultimately revealed as sympathetic rather than villainous.
- Astrologer character Organon provided an unusually comic supporting role, poking gentle fun at pseudoscience within the story’s plot.
- Its lush, alien jungle sets were built using an extensive variety of real and artificial foliage to sell Chloris’s metal-starved, plant-dominated ecology.
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