Planet of the Spiders

] [cite web
url= http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/zzz.html
title= Planet of the Spiders
publisher = A Brief History of Time Travel
last = Sullivan
first = Shannon
date = 2007-08-07
accessdate = 2008-08-30]

The final story of Season 11 (to have been titled "The Final Game") was originally intended to write out the character of the Master, with the villainous Time Lord sacrificing his life to save the Doctor's. Due to the death of actor Roger Delgado, script editor Terrance Dicks abandoned the project in favour of a new story, which eventually evolved into "Planet of the Spiders". Coincidentally, Kismit Delgado, Roger's widow provided her voice to one of the spiders.

Continuity

*This story was the second and last appearance of the "Whomobile".
*The character of Harry Sullivan, the UNIT medical officer, is referred to by the Brigadier who calls for him when the Doctor falls into a daze after staring into the crystal. Sullivan would not actually appear on screen until "Robot", where he was played by Ian Marter.
*The Spiders of Metebelis Three make further appearances in the short story "Return of the Spiders" by Gareth Roberts (in the collection "More Short Trips") and a brief appearance in the Eight Doctor Adventure "The Eight Doctors" by Terrance Dicks.
*The Eighth Doctor Adventures novels ' and ' by Lawrence Miles has the time-travelling voodoo cult Faction Paradox changing history so that the events of this story never happen and instead having the Third Doctor regenerating on a planet named Dust after being shot. A later novel in the series, "The Ancestor Cell" by Peter Anghelides and Stephen Cole, resolves this paradox and restores the Doctor's timeline to its previous state. The canonicity of the novels is unclear.

Regeneration

The concept of regeneration is named in this serial. Fan speculation about whether Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor was a regeneration or merely a "change of appearance" continued until "The Five Doctors".

This story introduces the character of K'anpo Rimpoche, the previously unnamed Time Lord hermit from the Doctor's childhood, first mentioned in "The Time Monster". K'anpo has the power to travel through time without the use of a TARDIS, to make a corporeal projection of a potential future incarnation (Cho-Je) of himself, and to stimulate the regeneration process of another Time Lord. Whereas a Time Lord was seen to travel without a TARDIS in "Terror of the Autons" and the Doctor has met two future potential incarnations of himself: the Watcher in "Logopolis" (1981) and the Valeyard in "The Trial of a Time Lord" (1986), no other Time Lord has been shown to stimulate the regeneration process (although it can be argued that the Time Lords stimulated the Doctor's regeneration in "The War Games"; and that the Doctor's companion Romana may have stimulated her own regeneration or projected possible future incarnations for the Doctor to choose from in "Destiny of the Daleks"). K'anpo was referenced again in the Fourth Doctor serial "State of Decay" as the man who told the Doctor about the legends of the Great Vampires.

This is the first story to feature a Time Lord (other than the Doctor) regenerating on screen. To date, only two other Time Lords have had a regeneration take place in a television story. The first is Romana in "Destiny of the Daleks" (1979), although even in her case, the regeneration was actually not seen, as she was in a different room when it transpired. Although the Master was also shown changing appearance on two occasions (in "The Keeper of Traken" and the 1996 TV film), neither was an actual regeneration. The Master was finally seen to regenerate in the 2007 episode "Utopia."

In print

Doctorwhobook
title=Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders
series=Target novelisations
number=48
featuring=


writer=Terrance Dicks
publisher=Target Books
coverartist=Peter Brookes
isbn=ISBN 0 426 10655 5
set_between=
pages=
date=16 October 1975
preceding=Doctor Who and the Green Death
following=The Three Doctors|A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in October 1975 as "Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders".

Broadcast, VHS release

*This story was released on VHS in April 1991 as a double pack.
*A commentary with Elizabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney, Richard Franklin, Barry Letts, and Terrance Dicks was recorded on 19 February 2007 for a future DVD release.
*As of August 5, 2008, this serial has, along with a number of other selected Third Doctor serials (and the Second Doctor story "The Krotons") been offered for sale on iTunes.

References

External links

*BBCCDW | id=planetofspiders | title=Planet of the Spiders
*Brief | id=zzz | title=Planet of the Spiders
*Doctor Who RG | id=who_3z | title=Planet of the Spiders
* [http://www.thatchickensite.com/letters/hovercraft That Doctor Who Episode with the Hovercraft Chase: A Retrospective] — A tongue-in-cheek analysis of "Planet of the Spiders" Part Two.

Reviews

*OG review | id=3z | title=Planet of the Spiders
*DWRG | id=plans | title=Planet of the Spiders

Target novelisation

*DWRG | id=plansnov | title=Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders
* [http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~ecl6nb/OnTarget/1975/planet/75planet.htm On Target — "Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders"]