Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...
Day 536: The Creature from the Pit, Episode Two
Dear diary,
Despite my mountain of praise yesterday for the jungle set in this story, I haven’t really missed it all that much in today’s episode. It certainly appears a lot less (I’m not sure we actually see much new footage there after the first few minutes), but everything else is being shot in such a way that I’m distracted by lots of other nice sets! Let’s start with the obvious - the titular ‘pit’. It’s shot on both film and video at various stages throughout the episode, but I’m pleased to say that it fares well under both formats. Obviously, the film sequences have a depth and texture to them that’s lacking later on, but all the parts of the episode set in this area are lit beautifully, which bridges the gap somewhat nicely. It’s another one of those instances where you get the feeling that it really is dark here, and that simply adds to the mood of the whole piece.
While I’m at it, I feel as though I should also mention the creature that lives in this pit. All I’ve previously seen of this story is the infamous scene where Tom Baker tries to communicate with the creature by talking into one of its appendages. From that sequence, I’d drawn the conclusion that it was a large creature, but nothing quite in line with, say, Kroll. I found myself rolling my eyes, therefore, when it starts being described as being ‘huge’. Then, we get to the final scene, and it turns out that the creature really is huge! How brilliant! I love that even after all these years, there’s still things about Doctor Who that can surprise me. I’ve managed to make it this far assuming that the creature wasn’t overly large, so I really got the full impact of the reveal. Every time something like this happens during the marathon, I worry that it will be the last time - but I always hope it isn’t!
Out of the pit, and up on the surface of the planet (for most of the running time, anyway), Romana is holding a lot of the action. I don’t think you’d necessarily realise that this is Lalla Ward’s first stab at playing Romana if you didn’t already know. There’s one or two little moments where she doesn’t seem to have quite worked out what she’s doing with the part, but I’m wondering if these are simply standing out to me because - subconsciously, at least - I’m looking out for them? On the whole, she’s really hit the ground running, and the character doesn’t feel out of place with anything we’ve seen in the previous two stories. I’m also loving the way that she gets to interact with K9 - picking him up to use as a gun is a great moment, and it’s always nice to see them finding new things to do with him. We’ve settled, lately, into a pattern of him sitting in the TARDIS until the Doctor or Romana get someone to blow the dog whistle and summon him. That exact formula comes into play during the first episode of this story, but he seems to be getting a bit more to do now that he’s joined the action. There’s another thing I can hope to continue.
I think on the whole, I’m mostly enjoying the humour of this story. Geoffrey Bayldon as Organon has to be chief of the supporting characters who are bringing comedy to proceedings, and I laughed heartily at his introduction (‘The future foretold, the past explained, the present… apologised for’). He seems to be filling the companion to the Doctor role in this one, while Romana is off doing her own thing, and I’m not really looking forward to his inevitable death as the story progresses! It’s another thing we seem to be seeing a trend forming for - supporting comedy characters who really help to make the story for me!
