This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.

Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.

Story Information

• Episode: Series 7, Episode 10
• Airdate: 27th April 2013
• Doctor: 11th
• Companion: Clara
• Writer: Steve Thompson
• Director: Mat King
• Showrunner: Steven Moffat

Review

Smart bunch, Time Lords. No dress sense, dreadful hats, but smart. – The Doctor

Having now watched "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" for the fourth time, I can with full confidence say that I feel insulted. This episode is a colossal waste of time, budget, and of its one good idea. I say "its one good idea" as though it has a lot of ideas, most of them bad. Honestly though, this one has maybe two ideas total. The word that describes this episode, more than anything else, is boring. This episode, which is built around the creative team wanting to explore the TARDIS more, to get to know the ship that has been present in nearly every Doctor Who story ever…is boring. And insulting. And awful.

Well at least this should be a shorter review to write (compared to my normal stuff anyway) seeing as basically nothing actually happens in this thing. So…yay?

This episode came about because both showrunner Steven Moffat and eventual writer Steve Thompson remembered being disappointed by the chase through the TARDIS in the final episode in The Invasion of Time as children. Invasion of Time's low budget, especially in its final episode, prevented sets from being constructed for the sequence, meaning that we saw a version of the TARDIS that apparently consisted largely of ordinary rooms filmed in a disused hospital. And so Moffat challenged Thompson to do a better version of that concept.

I think Invasion of Time episode 6 does a far better job at realizing the idea of the TARDIS interior, the infinite living ship than anything in "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS". Obviously, Invasion has its own issues. That final episode…is not good. But there is an imagination in those sequences that is just kind of lacking here, even though Invasion's scenes can feel a bit drawn out. The closest "Journey" comes in hitting at that level of imagination is a sequence where two "echo" versions of the console room, neither of which is the real one, but are linked in such a way that they effect each other. I'll also give credit to the bit the TARDIS console gets pulled apart and we start to hear lines from past episode ranging all the way back to the first episode of the show. Otherwise though, there's not much going on here, and the episode's actual plot is frustratingly straightforwards, given where it's set.

It really doesn't help that this particular version of the TARDIS interior doesn't really lend itself to interesting set design. I don't dislike this version of the console room, but the walls don't have all that much going on in them, just hexagonal patterns. In terms of corridor design this translates to a lot of generic corridors, which isn't exactly fresh and new on Doctor Who. What's frustrating is that this isn't even the first time in the 11th Doctor era that a chase through the TARDIS was used in an episode. And in said prior episode, "The Doctor's Wife", the set design for the TARDIS corridors felt a lot more distinct than they do here.

But okay, so the set design isn't great…and the chase sequence lacks imagination…maybe this can be saved with a good story? Well, no because reimagining the chase sequence was the whole point of doing this episode. The story was always going to be secondary to the exploration of the TARDIS. But even given that…this is rough.

Our secondary cast consists of the Van Baalen brothers, Gregor and Bram, and their android helper Tricky. They run a salvage company (and seem to be the only employees of said company), called Van Baalen Bros. And they are, all three of them, some of the dullest characters I've ever seen in a Doctor Who episode. While technically Gregor and Bram claim to have an "equal partnership", it's very obvious that Gregor is in charge, while Bram is mostly portrayed as dumb muscle. Gregor is pretty mean to Bram but that gives him the tiniest hint of a personality unlike Bram, who is just…nothing. He gets no character whatsoever, except being a bit annoyed that Gregor keeps ordering him around. Which…why does he put up with that in an "equal partnership"? I get that these sort of things do happen, that a stronger personality will often overwhelm others, but Gregor isn't subtle about it. He just orders Bram around.

Oh but then there's Tricky. Tricky the android shows significantly more empathy than the two humans throughout the episode. It's not hard to figure out that Tricky is actually a human, mostly because the episode continually shoves foreshadowing of it down our throats (he's awfully emotional for an android claiming to have no emotion). Tricky isn't an android, he's a human who thinks he's an android. As a twist it's fine, would work better if Tricky weren't as one-note as the other two. He's also a Van Baalen brother, who was made captain by the brothers' father. An accident took away his memory so as a joke his brothers decided to make him believe he was an android. I mean just…wow. Somehow the episode gives us an initially tragic ending for Gregor and Tricky (Bram just kind of dies randomly off-screen) by having them reconcile only to be killed. I feel nothing at the deaths of these characters because Gregor is despicable and both are boring as sin and by this point in the episode I'm desperately hoping for it to be either over or the sweet relief of death, whichever comes first.

The plot itself is kicked off because the Van Baalen Brothers use a magno-grab on the TARDIS while the Doctor put down the shields so that Clara could learn to fly the TARDIS. Considering last episode she negotiated with the TARDIS to take them where they needed to go, it kind of feels like we're doing things backwards but, whatever, Clara learning to fly the TARDIS makes a kind of sense, as a way to get the two of them to actually like each other. I'm not sure why you'd put down the shields so that she could fly the TARDIS but whatever gets this plot going I guess. The mango-grab somehow damages something in the TARDIS engines, and all hell breaks loose. The Doctor somehow ends up on the outside of the TARDIS under some rubble on the Van Baalen Bros' ship (how? no clue), and then recruits the Van Baalens to help find Clara, first with the promise of salvaging the TARDIS interior then with the fake threat of blowing up the TARDIS (he doesn't know it's actually in danger of blowing up at that point).

Okay so part of the problem with this plot is that from this point nothing really happens. We follow around the Doctor as he looks for Clara, the Van Baalens as they both look for Clara and try to tear apart the TARDIS for parts (it doesn't go well for them) and Clara as she tries to avoid the time zombie chasing her. We'll get to the time zombies momentarily but, that aside, it's just a lot of wandering around corridors. And I know that Doctor Who often gets stereotyped as a lot of wandering around corridors, but that's less the case in the Revival era because of increased budget for sets. And even by the standards of the Classic era, a shocking percentage of this episode is spent wandering around in corridors. So not only are the guest characters boring but what both they and the main characters are doing is boring.

You might assume that something called "time zombies" running around the ship might provide relief from the boredom. But honestly, I found these guys really dull too. They're future echoes of the main cast from after they die in the TARDIS. The Doctor really tries to avoid saying what they are, as it seems like the more the cast know what they are, the more real they become. Which all sounds really fascinating. But…it's just not. And the designs don't much help either. They're just not much to look at when you get right down to it. Still, this episode desperately needed some sense of threat, so I guess these guys will do. Honestly, in a better episode, these guys could have been perfectly acceptable as a generic threat, similar to how the Primords functioned in Inferno. Here they're just kind of boring in an episode that is aggressively boring and it's just one more idea that annoys me.

Now this episode does have Clara learn a surprising amount about the Doctor, including, incidentally, his true name. This won't actually matter mind you, but it does happen. Does Clara show any actual personality in this episode, after we got the first glimmers of a personality out of her last time? Not really, no. Jenna Coleman gets a couple moments where her immense talent and charisma as a performer do shine through, but that's kind of it.

Now as for the Doctor, this episode does have an underlying theme of the Doctor keeping secrets. He tries to hide the truth about the time zombies from the others, there's of course the big secret around the Doctor's name which comes up, and, of course the fact he's keeping the Impossible Girls stuff from Clara. As he says at one point "Secrets protect us! Secrets make us safe!" to which Clara naturally points out that they aren't particularly safe in that moment. What's interesting is that all of the secrets that the Doctor is keeping do eventually come out. Clara reads his name and the truth about the time zombies is discovered by Gregor thanks to some scanning equipment he has. And the Doctor does eventually tell Clara about the Impossible Girl stuff in a moment where he thinks that they're going to die.

That sounds like a good thematic center of an episode honestly. The secrets the Doctor is keeping come out, and each with their own devastating consequences (well except for his name). There's two problems with this. The first is the way the episode ends, which I'll get more into later. The second, though, is that none of these scenes are particularly good. Clara finding out the Doctor's name is really a nothing moment, though that has more to do with the fact that the question of the Doctor's name is actually not that interesting. The discovery of what the time zombies are just kind of falls into the sludge of the rest of the plot. The Doctor telling Clara about the Impossible Girl stuff does have some merit to it, mostly because the Doctor is suddenly trying to interrogate her. It's a moment that would work a lot better if we hadn't already established in "Hide" that Clara is completely unaware of whatever makes her special but, whatever, maybe the Doctor doesn't completely trust the word of a psychic he knows is pretty good at being a psychic for whatever reason. It's still the best reveal of the bunch, but the Doctor feels like he pushes the line with Clara a lot in that scene, considering he at least has good reason the think Clara might not be aware of her Impossible Girl-ness.

Oh but don't worry, none of these reveals matter anyway. Because the near-exploding TARDIS plot is resolved thanks to a literal reset button. It's even labeled "Big Friendly Button". And this is where, frankly, I feel insulted by this episode for wasting my time.

You'd think that, given how bored I was by the episode to this point, I wouldn't mind so much. After all, since I wasn't invested in the ongoing plot, why should I care when it turns out none of it mattered anyway? To the contrary, the fact that in order to get to the end of this episode I sat through forty or so minutes of the most painfully dull material I've ever watched on television and then it didn't even happen somehow makes it worse. Like I was already feeling like the entire episode was a waste of time but things were sort of starting to happen so isn't it nice that none of it matters?

Oh and a quick word on the music. Like with a lot of episodes from around this era I do like the main theme composed for this episode, "A Machine That Makes Machines". It's essentially two pieces of music, the first very industrial as befits an episode set in the TARDIS. The second half is a more mysterious piece of music, which suits what this episode is trying to go for, even if it never succeeds – though this second half is a lot more generic. The problem is, as is increasingly becoming a problem, the use of awkwardly stitched together reused tracks that just end up feeling jarring. It's a criticism I've had of a lot of episodes in the back half of the 11th Doctor era, and, yup, this one has that issue.

I hate this episode so much. At least the events of The Twin Dilemma actually mattered, and the character stuff from that story, as awful as it was, could be seen to carry forwards in later 6th Doctor stories. And had some reasonably memorable characters. This thing is just worthless. Technically there will be a reference to the events of this episode in the finale, but if you remove that reference from the finale, literally nothing changes. This episode does nothing, it has boring characters, the leads aren't all that much better, particularly as Clara continues to struggle to develop an actual personality. And it's just dull. And none of it matters. And it's boring.

Score: 0/10

Stray Observations

• Steve Thompson had originally intended to propose a story about the early years of Taren Capel, the main villain of The Robots of Death. Is this a bit fanwanky, considering that that was a 36 year old story? Perhaps, but I imagine it would have been better than this.
• Thompson was excited by the prospect of this episode. His degree is in pure mathematics, so was naturally interested in writing about multi-dimensional geometry.
• Originally Tricky would have been named Sander. The subplot about his brothers tricking him into thinking he was an android was a later addition.
• Gregor, meanwhile, would have been disfigured with metallic attachments.
• The title was Steven Moffat's idea. The obvious inspiration was the Jules Verne novel, Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
• Jenna Coleman fell ill during filming. As a result, a few planned scenes to be filmed in the console room were set aside for more effects and pick up shots.
• The Doctor claims the TARDIS interior is infinite.
• The Doctor uses a switch to close the TARDIS doors. Of course in the Classic series this was the standard way of opening the doors, since the police box doors weren't actually part of the TARDIS interior. However since the Revival started showing the police box doors in the interior we've not seen a use of the door switch.
• The Doctor's cot makes an appearance. It was first seen in "A Good Man Goes to War". In the same room is the toy model TARDIS that Amy made, first seen in "The Eleventh Hour" and last seen in "The Wedding of River Song".
• Actually of note though is Clara seemingly taking particular interest in an umbrella, which I think is the same one that her Victorian counterpart used to grab the ladder to the TARDIS cloud in "The Snowmen".
• The Doctor explains that the Eye of Harmony is an "exploding star in the process of becoming a black hole". I don't think we've ever actually explained what the Eye of Harmony is. Neat.
• The idea of the TARDIS engines being frozen mid-explosion was the suggestion of Steven Moffat's. He was inspired by Rebecca' Horn's mechanized sculpture, Concert for Anarchy. Concert consists of an upside-down piano suspended in mid-air that periodically has the keyboard and its innards explode outwards before retracting back.

Next Time: The Paternoster gang take over for about half an episode, which is just as well because after this one I wouldn't mind spending some time pretending I'm watching something else

Season 17, Episode 3

The Creature from the Pit(4 parts)

-Written by David Fisher

-Directed by Christopher Barry

-Air Dates: October 27th-November 17th, 1979

-Runtime: 97 minutes

Or as I like to call it...

The one with the phallic blob monster

We Begin!!! On Chloris, where Lady Adrasta is having her guards throw a man into the titular pit as punishment. Elsewhere the TARDIS is flying about as Romana is rummaging through The Doctor's variety of things in which she finds an MK3 Emergency transceiver which The Doctor had removed to stop getting missions from the Time Lords. She decides to reattach the device to the TARDIS console at which point the TARDIS immediately picks up a distress call from the planet Chloris. They decide to head over and investigate, not finding anyone when they land, just the pieces of a giant egg, with The Doctor quickly realizing the transmission is coming from the egg. While he's investigating further he's set upon by Wolfweeds who attack him until the Adrata's men arrive who at first say they must be put to death for trespassing, though the Adrata's Vizsier decides to just have them arrested for the time being instead after an interaction with Romana. As they're being taken to Lady Adrata, they get ambushed as a bunch of metal thieves come in and try to steal their metal, which is an incredibly valuable commodity on Chloris due to its lack of it. Romana gets taken in the ambush as The Doctor is brought to Ladry Adrasta who is interested in learning about the egg itself and what the travellers know about it. Though Romana quickly manages to free herself with the help of K9, the danger isn't over for the TARDIS crew yet, as their dealing with the whims of the tyrannical Lady Adrata and if they get on the wrong side of her, they might just have to face the terror of the creature from the pit(eyyy).

Episode Proper

Well that was a fast end to good episodes, real nosedive in quality this is from City of Death. The Creature from the Pit, not an awful episode, but not really that good of one either, it’s an alright watch but definitely one of the more forgettable episodes I’ve come across so far on my watch through of the Tom Baker era. This episode just failed to really grab me all that much, and though I did have fun with some parts of the episode, it was not really one that really captured my imagination or anything like that, which coupled with the flaws that the episode does have, makes it one I wasn’t really all that thrilled by coming out of it. The whole episode sort of washed over me and just didn’t leave much of an impact on me, which makes sense as out of all of The 4th Doctor stories there are, this is one of the ones I’ve heard the least about; now I can see why.

The episode premise itself is pretty simple and not really the most engaging when put simply, basically just being about a tyrannical ruler who holds a monopoly on the planet’s most precious commodity and keeps a monster held in a pit that she uses to execute people, though of course there is more going on than meets the eye. That idea isn’t the most gripping out of the ones we’ve had beforehand like two intelligent races locked in a logical stalemate or an alien trying to steal the Mona Lisa, in comparison it didn’t really grab me as those other two. Not to say it’s a bad story idea of anything, it just wasn’t one that really got me all that invested in what was going on in this story; of course there are interesting things that can be done with the concept as long as it develops in a cool and interesting way from there, which the episode does kind of do.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for really talking about this episode, I feel nothing that strong for it, not love but I don’t particularly dislike it either, there was some stuff I did genuinely enjoy about the episode. The whole idea of a metal shortage on a planet that has advanced to a sort of Middle Ages is pretty interesting and plays well with different planets materials, making it so certain things that are common on Earth become incredibly rare on other worlds with different make up. It’s utilized well with the villain, Lady Adrasta, who holds the monopoly on metal and uses that to hold great power and influence over the rest of the people, informing her motivation over the entire episode as she attempts to maintain this monopoly over all those who would try and infringe on it.

I liked how the episode utilized the whole metal shortage aspect of it, with there also being a bunch of metal bandits who steal the metal from roaming guards in order to try and pilfer whatever they can to make a fortune, eventually teaming up with one of Lady Adrasta’s people to try and pilfer a metal shortage for themselves. The episode does well to touch on themes of greed and corruption and how people will often hurt their own people and even the future prospects of their society just to maintain power and control; something which is still frighteningly relevant to today. This is especially well done with the reveal of the trade deal and the attempts by two different parties to stop it and keep the monopoly on metal before it becomes worthless, with that scene of K9 destroying the precious metal of the bandits being pretty impactful as otherwise they were willing to risk the destruction of their world for this power and wealth; definitely some of the most effective stuff in this episode which I did really enjoy.

The mystery of the egg was also pretty good, with it giving some nice intrigue which I enjoyed as there are questions about the origins of the egg and what its purpose was for, especially as The Doctor and Romana picked up a strange signal from it that adds to that mystery of just what is going on with it. The desire of Lady Adrasta to know the secret also helped the mystery, especially when she changed her tune to wanting to destroy the creature, making it clear there is a connection between them. I liked the scenes in the pit dealing with the creature with it doing well to add to the episode’s intrigue, with some good tense moments dealing with the titular creature and trying to figure out just what its deal actually is as we begin to learn more about which I found pretty interesting.

I really loved the reveal of what the creature from the pit(eyyy) actually is and its connection with all the other pieces that this episode has built up, like the strange piece of metal in Lady Adrasta’s office, the pieces of egg, and the metal shortage. It makes for a solid finale as the truth of the situation is laid bare in an excellent confrontation scene between everyone in the story up to this point where we learn who the creature really is, a delegate named Erato who had been imprisoned by Lady Adratsa because the trading agreement he proposed would threaten her monopoly and control over the rest of the populace, which is why she desperately wanted to kill him before the truth got out. This portion of the story was so good and served to tie up a lot of the plot threads in a cool and satisfying way which I really enjoyed.

For some reason though the episode still keeps going after this really good ending point though. Lady Adratsa literally died and Erato is freed so it really feels like the episode is over, but somehow it still keeps going for like 13 minutes on from that point, introducing a second climax involving Erato’s species having launched a destructive star to blow up the planet in retaliation for the capture and presumed death of Erato, which leads to a whole bunch of running to different places and technobabble to stop the star that can’t help but feel so incredibly tacked on. While there were some good scenes in this last portion of the story, the one with K9 destroying the metal was excellent, it can’t help but feel so unnecessary and like it was just included to drag part 4 out into a full runtime instead of leaving half a part down. It was tedious and it very much did help in dragging this episode down for me, as I was left waiting for it to end; they really should’ve stopped while they were ahead. 

Pacing, Sets, and Special Effects

The pacing for this episode was fairly good, it flowed well enough even if it was a bit slow at parts, doing a decent job until the ending portion. By that point the pacing takes a real downturn and makes this episode feel like a slog with a whole second climax that feels unnecessary and unearned, feeling like it’s just there to fill up space so the episode can make it to the necessary runtime. It feels like the same problem at the end of The Power of Kroll, though the pacing here was much better than it was there, even if this second climax does drag the episode out more than the former. I sincerely believe that this could’ve and should’ve been a 3 parter, trim a couple of the slow moments and cut out a bit of filler and you could easily cut this episode down one part into a nice and much better 3 parter. The pacing for the entire episode isn’t the worst, just a little slow which leads to the major problem of the ending portion dragging it on for time; it’s not great.

The sets for this episode were pretty good, I liked the jungle location for the outside shots with that stuff looking nice, with the indoor shots of the palace and the underground caves looking fairly good as well. The special effects for this episode were your usual fare of cheap effects, nothing much of note to them, though I did like the little brussel sprout looking creatures that Lady Adratsa commands. The most infamous special effect in this episode is of course, the titular Creature from the pit, which looks pretty bad. The design lives up to its reputation of being incredibly phallic looking, with the tentacle-like thing of Erato being the worst offender, don’t even get me started when The Doctor puts his mouth on the damn thing; it does give this episode a hilarious so bad it’s good quality which I liked, helped to liven things up. The rest of Erato looks pretty bad, the size is impressive but at the end of the day Erato looks like a deflated green balloon with lights on it more than anything; definitely one of the silliest costumes we’ve seen so far.  

Erato

Erato was a fun creature for this episode, despite his incredibly shitty and phallic looking design, which admittedly made him a lot funnier. The intrigue surrounding Erato was pretty neat with it being interesting seeing us learn more about the creature that dwells in the pit, especially with each part we do learn about it answering some questions while raising other, as we learn the creature moving about is only part of a much larger creature that doesn’t really seem to be that hostile or even acknowledge them all that much. I loved how alien of a creature Erato is, being this ginormous blob that feels so unlike a lot of creatures that came before, with the way he can separate chunks of himself to move around or weave cocoon space ships and barriers pretty easily being incredibly interesting to me, with it being nice that they were having fun with what this really alien creature can do.

I really liked how Erato can communicate, having the device that allows it to essentially use other people’s voices in order to talk for them, depending on whoever is touching the device, since these beings normally lack the ability for vocal communication due to lack of those structures to do so. This means Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, and the Lady Adrastas actress Mya Francis get in on the fray of each individually voicing Erato during the scenes in which he needs to talk. I liked the reveal with him not being a harmful creature actually being pretty intelligent being, a Tythonian, who genuinely wanted to help both his people and the people of Chloris by proposing the trade agreement that would benefit both as their planet has a lot of metal and Chloris has a lot of chlorophyll which is what they seek, with it actually being Lady Adrasta's selfishness that caused him to be imprisoned; which he does still hold a bit of a grudge against even after being free before The Doctor assures him the rest of the people aren’t like her. Erato was a solid monster for this episode with a neat twist and fun alien feel which I really liked.

Lady Adrasta

Lady Adrasta was an excellent villain for this episode, being a good bit of fun as she tries to maintain her control over her people and the monopoly on the metal supply. Lady Adrasta is a character who could’ve easily been forgettable to me but her actress, Mya Francis, does such a good job in the part that I couldn’t help but enjoy her character as a delightfully wicked villain who wants to keep all the power and control to herself and doesn’t care what she has to do to get it. She is a good threat and powerful figure, owning the monopoly of all metal which she uses to rule with an iron(heh) first and makes sure people won’t act out of line with her rule, throwing whoever does into the pit. I like the intrigue with Lady Adrasta as it’s quick to see something is up with her, from her desperation to figure out what the egg exactly is, to her immediate switch to trying to destroy the creature after learning K9 has the capability to do so, it makes her incredibly suspicious.

It’s clear she does know a lot more than she cares to let on with her dropping some slips of the tongue by accident that confirm that she has information on the creature she honestly shouldn’t know, which builds up well to the reveal that the being was diplomat sent to make a trade agreement who she locked up to maintain her monopoly on metal, not wanting it it be threatened by the prospect of trade. It does such a great job at showing how she would do anything to keep her rule, even if it means holding her people back from something that would genuinely be beneficial to them just because it allows her to maintain power and status; something that is very much not unheard of even in the modern day. The whole confrontation with her was great, seeing her fairly cool demeanor give way as she screams and panics to not let the truth be let out before being forced to let Erato use her voice and telling the honest truth, who then kills her in revenge for her horrid treatment of him for several years; a satisfying end to her. Mya Francis did an excellent job as Lady Adrasta being a lot of fun and bringing some real life into this character who would otherwise feel dull I think, she did really well in the role.

Supporting Cast

The rest of the supporting cast for this episode was fairly good, fulfilling their roles well even if they're not the most memorable of characters. I liked the metal bandits, they were good fun, with some funny banter that helped to liven up the story, especially with the instance of the rest to do things democratically much to the annoyance of the one who clearly thinks of himself as their leader. I also enjoyed the character of Organon, an astrologist who is clearly a phony that was thrown in the pit and found by The Doctor when he goes down there, with him being a lot of fun, getting some good banter with Tom Baker as the two traverse the pit. He had some funny lines which I enjoyed, like when Lady Adrasta sees him and asks why he isn’t dead to which he replies he did certainly try to die. Organon is played pretty well by Geofferey Bayldon who did well to bring the humor to the part which I enjoyed.

The Doctor

The Doctor was good here, with some fun moments here and there, though really nothing to write home about. I do really like the opening of this story with The Doctor dealing with Romana who's going through a bunch of his old things and wondering what he's doing with all the junk. It's pretty funny to see how many random things The Doctor has collected and hoarded over his travels, especially when he dismisses the distress signal receiver which he unplugged to stop getting missions from the Time Lords which feels very much in character for this incarnation. I enjoyed the sequence in part 1 where they're cornered by Lady Adrasta's men, with us getting to see Tom Baker running around in a stock and beating up some men while in the middle of an ambush. I did like when he meets up with Lady Adratra with it being funny seeing him surprised at the fact that the villain actually respects and compliments him, acting offended at first but then realizing what she's saying. This attempt at respect is of course to try and get him to give her some information she wants, which The Doctor doesn't and leads to a really funny cliffhanger of The Doctor willingly jumping inside the pit; which he also in a funny line admitted was an unoriginal name for it.

There isn't too much in the rest of the story that's too memorable for me with The Doctor outside of the opening part, and that's probably due to the fact I watched it twice after my first attempt to watch the story was interrupted by personal reasons, though there are a few moments I did enjoy. I found the moment really amusing following the cliffhanger with him hanging on and trying to pull out a book as he puts in a pike to make sure he's doing it right before pulling out another book to help him read the first one since it was in Tibetan; good comedy scene. I already mentioned I liked Organon with his interactions with The Doctor being pretty good and welcome given how little of note the wandering around the titular pit actually is. I do enjoy seeing The Doctor trying to figure out more about the titular creature and communicate with it, if not just because it leads to that really funny moment of The Doctor putting his mouth on the creature's thing. Finally there's the confrontation scene with Lady Adrasta and giving the creature their voice disk back was excellent, having some good fun action and solid lines from The 4th Doctor as he lays into her and the plot she's been covering up; though it's the last good bit before the episode goes into the slog like I mentioned. Tom Baker was pretty good in this story, giving a fun performance and doing well getting more serious during that confrontation sequence, with his acting once more helping to bring life into a bit of a slow story.

K9

K9 is actually in this story for a change after barely being in the last two, though even here he is rather left to the backburner for a fair bit of the story, being on low power. The most notable thing about K9 in this story, and probably this story in general, is the fact that it's the first story sporting K9's new voice David Brierley, who would voice K9 for the rest of the season. I'm not too familiar with the BTS to understand why they couldn't get John Leeson this season, but it was certainly rather a shock hearing the different voice and I don't really like it. No disrespect to Brierley who does a good job in the role but Leeson's voice was just perfect for K9 and anyone would struggle to match it in any way as his voice really is just what you'd think of when you think K9, fitting the design and character of the tin dog so well. I also personally don't like how human his take on K9's voice is compared to Leeson's, with it feeling much less like a machine or animal and feeling a bit too pompous for K9, if that's possible. It just doesn't match up with K9 for me and feels like it should be to a different character; again Brierley isn't bad, he actually does a good job, but I just can't help but compare to the original, and in my opinion more fitting voice of K9.

To speak on his actual part in the story itself, K9 is also just good, getting some decent bits and participation in the story, primarily in the form of laser blasts. I do find it funny seeing K9 get surrounded by the balls of weeds and overwhelmed, being wrapped in webbing; a rather amusing sight for sure. I also did like the detail, similarly to The Armageddon Factor of K9 almost being taken apart for scraps, though here saved by Romana saying he information about the egg is in his data banks and can't be damaged. K9 spends a fair bit of this story unable to move and on low power, not having much energy for blasts after the attack, though even then he gets some decent snark like assuring Lady Adrasta that he's not made of tin. It is fun seeing K9 get these interactions one on one with the villain and having this agency here that he really didn't in the last two stores, even getting some fun moment like ordering the guards where to go as they're moving him around or him saying the shell is unbreakable followed by The Doctor immediately breaking through it with ease; that and some fun action for the final confrontation were some good bits from K9. Though it'll take a bit for me to get used to the new voice, David Brierley still does a good job as K9 here, playing the tin dog quite well; the puppeteers for him are good here, especially given he stays still for most of this story.

Romana

Romana is alright here, having some decent snark but otherwise feeling very underutilized here. I liked the start of this story with Romana going through The Doctor's things and criticizing the amount of stuff he's piled up over the years unorganized, with the following moment of her plugging in the transmitter that's supposed to be on the TARDIS being pretty amusing and nice show of the different ways the two Time Lords go about things. After getting a brief bit of investigating with The Doctor, she spends a good portion of this story captured, first by the bandits and then by Lady Adrasta for the rest of the episode. Still I do like how she doesn't remain still while she is captured and is fairly able to stand on her own, using the dog whistle to call K9 to help her escape or being able to stop K9 from being dismantled and trying to find ways out of her situation.

I really enjoyed Romana's snark in this story, with it helping to keep her fun even if she isn't given much to do, with her getting some good lines in here such as introducing herself as the commander and The Doctor as her subordinate for a change. Still there remains the main issue I have with Romana here, where she feels too reliant on K9 here, doesn't really feel she gets much of her own thing to do here after the opening. Romana's only role here feels like just to tell K9 to do certain things and feels unable to do much without him here. It feels like we went right back to Destiny in how little impact there actually is for her in this story, you could really take her out and have K9 fill in the rest and it doesn't feel like much would change honestly. Lalla Ward still does a good job here as Romana, playing her snark quite well, and definitely tries her best to breathe some more life into what is otherwise a rather lackluster appearance for her character

Closing Thoughts/TLDR

As a whole this was such a disappointing dive after the phenomenal City of Death, with The Creature from the Pit, while not being the worst episode, only being an alright watch at best and a rather forgettable story at that. The actual story proper is decent but nothing too notable that grabbed me either, I like the metal shortage aspect of the plot as well as mystery of the egg, with both leading to a solid confrontation at the end, but still doesn't help that a good part of the plot just isn't memorable and just sort of washed over me. The pacing is alright but slow for most of the story before having The Power of Kroll problem but even worse this time as after the good confrontation with Lady Adrasta part 4 spends like 15 minutes adding another threat just to pass out the runtime in one of the worst cases I've seen thus far in my watch through; really should've just been a 3 parter. The sets are good here, with the jungle planet looking nice, and special effects are alright to rather phallic looking with the infamous props used for Erato, the creature, looking like a phallic deflated green balloon. Erato was a fun creature for the story though, I liked the intrigue surrounding him and learning the truth behind him being trapped there and that he's not hostile with his way of communication being really novel and interesting. Lady Adrata was an excellent villain for this story being good fun as we see her attempts to maintain her power and cover her tracks; Mya Francis helps bring some life into what could've been a dull character. The rest of the supporting cast was alright, though I did quite like Organon, finding him quite fun actually. The Doctor was good here with some fun moments though still one of the weaker outings with him. K9 is back in action with some good bits even if I'm struggling a bit to accept the new voice he has; again the actor is not bad but it personally doesn't feel like K9 to me. Romana is alright, with her feeling rather underutilized here and being too tied to K9 which is a shame after a strong appearance last time. Overall this was a story I hold no strong feelings for whatsoever, outside of the tedium of an ending, the whole thing came in and after this review I'll probably forget most stuff about it; could be worse but could be a lot better.

Next time: The TARDIS crew end up finding out what it's like to get in the middle of a fenderbender between two spaceships traveling in Hyperspace. Though they try to help the situation, it becomes clear there's more at work here, as this story makes it clear that they're doing what no Doctor Who story in the show had done before, tackle the topic of drugs; get ready for a very special episode of Doctor Who, tonight at 8:00.

Final Rating: 4/10

"Well, to be fair, I did have a couple of gadgets which he probably didn't, like a teaspoon and an open mind."

-The Doctor, delivering a funny line and one that is a bit iconic for me from him, though from having heard it in Babbelcolor's every Doctor Who story video and not this story specifically

My favourite dr who actors are Tom baker. Sylvester McCoy. David tenant. Matt smith Peter. And my less actors are Whittaker and Ncuti Gatwa I think thare sessions seem cheep compared to the others

Recently rewatched the Five Doctors, the Dalek in the death zone had a notch on top of its dome.
Any reasons (both prop wise or Dalek law?)
I did check it’s on the previous Peter Davidson story too.. but not on the character options models..