Third Doctor Revisited: "Planet of the Spiders"

It’s time to round off the Third Doctor content, as TJ and I are already on our way into the Fourth Doctor era. We’ve still got three podcast episodes to go about the Third Doctor, but this will be my last blog post dedicated to Jon Pertwee episodes of Classic Doctor Who. So please enjoy some of my random musings from watching the Third Doctor’s final story: “Planet of the Spiders”

Doctor Who did a great job rounding off the Third Doctor with a proper finale, just like they did with the Second Doctor. We had the return of Jo Grant (sort of) and Mike Yates. They even found a wonderful use of Sarah Jane being a reporter. All these pieces came together with an alien plot and the preparation for our formal regeneration-centric story.

“Why spiders?” Ron Weasley would say. There’s something somewhat universal about spiders making for a good villain. These spiders reminded me of “Turn Left” and “Runaway Bride”. What is it with Doctor Who and monster spiders? In addition to Donna’s two encounters with eight-legged aliens, we also had “Arachnids in the UK” with the Thirteenth Doctor. It should go without saying to not watch this story if you have arachnophobia. But that much should be clear from the title.

I had a little chuckle on the inside as our characters seemingly chased the crystal around like a comedy. It reminded me of watching “What’s Up, Doc?” when I was in college. I’ll have to watch it again sometime but I feel like to some extent you could put some Scooby Doo music synced to all the times the crystal changed hands. But in seriousness, I liked that they brought the crystal back with Jo’s letter, bringing the Third Doctor’s tenure full circle.

And of course we had the leading up to the Doctor regenerating, Our first proper regeneration since “The Tenth Planet”. But this time we had a name for the process and context for the change. Demonstrated by the example of the Doctor’s old mentor, known at the time as K'anpo, regeneration became a staple part of the Doctor Who lore. Now we can have regenerations of not only the Doctor, but also the Monk, the Master, the Rani, etc… or just the Master.

Speaking of regeneration, this was also the first of many times the Doctor sacrificed himself for a friend. Just like the Third Doctor sacrificed himself for Sarah Jane, we’d later see him sacrifice himself and trigger regeneration for the sake of Peri, Rose, and Wilf. A tragic ending for the Doctor each time.

Now on our way into the Fourth Doctor era. I wanted to say something about the portrayal of Tommy in this story and his becoming “normal” but I couldn’t articulate it–I’ll save it for another time. Overall I really enjoyed this story and we’ll discuss it more during our Third Doctor podcast series. I would just love to have the Hermit return. Can we please? Please?