Doctor Who: The Curse of Peladon

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The Curse of Peladon is the second serial of Doctor Who Season 9, originally broadcast in four episodes from 29 January to 19 February 1972. It was written by Brian Hayles and directed by Lennie Mayne. It stars Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor, Katy Manning as Jo Grant, and David Troughton as King Peladon.

The Doctor and Jo land on the stormy mountain of Peladon and are mistaken for Earth delegates to a key Galactic Federation meeting, where fear and politics mix with legends of a sacred beast. With the nervous Alpha Centauri, the suspicious Ice Warriors, and the scheming Arcturus at the table, accidents and “curses” threaten to wreck the talks.

Although produced during the Third Doctor’s exile to Earth, The Curse of Peladon was one of two stories (alongside Colony in Space) to take him off-world temporarily.

Episode 1

On a storm-lashed mountainside, the TARDIS perches on a ledge and promptly tumbles out of sight, leaving the Doctor and Jo to scramble up to a torchlit citadel. Inside, a nervous court prepares for a great moment: young King Peladon will seek entry to the Galactic Federation. The Doctor and Jo are mistaken for the long-delayed Earth delegation; Jo, in a borrowed gown, is presented as “Princess Josephine.”

High Priest Hepesh bristles at off-worlders and invokes the sacred beast Aggedor, while the King’s champion, the mute Grun, watches everything with wary loyalty. Delegates arrive: trembling Alpha Centauri, the aloof head-in-a-dome Arcturus, and a stern Ice Warrior party whose reputation makes everyone flinch. Even before formal talks begin, disaster strikes: Chancellor Torbis is killed in a tunnel by something unseen, and Hepesh denounces the “curse” of Aggedor.

The Doctor suspects sabotage, not sorcery. As he inspects the throne room, the colossal statue of Aggedor topples toward him in a murderous “accident.” He dives clear, more convinced than ever that someone wants Peladon terrified into rejection. King Peladon, smitten with Jo and desperate to appear strong, balances reform against tradition. In the shadows, Hepesh whispers of destiny, and a pair of faceted eyes blink in a black passage.

Episode 2

The Doctor slips into the tunnels with a torch and a pocket hypnotic, following scuffed tracks and a musky smell. A horned shape lunges from the dark. It is Aggedor: real, powerful, frightened. The Doctor croons a soothing “lullaby,” mirror glinting, and the beast hesitates: until guards crash in and seize him.

Hepesh seizes the moment, accusing the Doctor of sacrilege and engineering a verdict of trial by combat. King Peladon wavers, torn between love for his people, deference to Hepesh, and admiration for Jo’s fearless honesty. In council, nerves fray. Alpha Centauri babbles, Arcturus demands security measures, and the Ice Warriors (unexpectedly calm and professional) urge procedure over panic. Jo pleads with the King to halt the ordeal; he cannot. Grun will fight the intruder in the royal arena.

Meanwhile, someone tampers with Arcturus’s life-support feeds and with the palace communications, turning every mishap into “evidence” of a curse. The Doctor, thrown into a cell, pieces it together: a political frame-up dressed in superstition. Jo vows to find proof before the fight. In a candlelit chapel, Hepesh warns the King that Federation membership will end Peladon’s soul; in a vault below, a cloaked figure adjusts a concealed energy weapon. The drums begin. The Doctor is led to the pit.

Episode 3

The trial is a deadly dance among swinging blades and collapsing platforms. Grun attacks with grim skill; the Doctor parries, slips, and finally gains the upper hand: then refuses to kill. He helps Grun up, and the champion’s certainty cracks. Above, Jo slips past guards to the delegates’ quarters and spots tampered circuits in Arcturus’s unit.

Before she can shout a warning, the throne room fills for a ceremony to steady the court. Arcturus’s dome irises open; a hidden gun extends and spits energy at the Doctor. A shot from an Ice Warrior drops Arcturus where he stands, revealing the treachery. Panic ripples; Alpha Centauri keens; the Ice Warriors declare they acted to save the King. The plot sharpens: someone has been staging “curses” to wreck Peladon’s bid and profit from the chaos.

Grun, ashamed, quietly leads the Doctor to a secret entrance where Aggedor prowls. The Doctor calms the beast again and realises it has been herded into violence by fear and a familiar scent. In the temple, Hepesh moves openly, rallying palace guards with talk of sacred duty and foreign chains. The King pleads for calm and is shoved aside. Jo races for help as Hepesh’s men seize the armoury and the citadel tilts toward civil war.

Episode 4

Hepesh’s coup surges through corridors; doors are barred, and Federation delegates are penned under guard “for their safety.” The Ice Warriors side with the lawful king and coordinate with Jo through hidden passages. Grun challenges the traitorous guards to single combat as a diversion, giving the Doctor time to gamble everything on the truth.

He leads Aggedor, soothed and hooded, into the throne room like a living rebuttal. Panic breaks Hepesh’s ranks. The Doctor proves the beast is not a curse but a frightened native animal, then unveils the rigged statue and the tampered systems. Hepesh will not yield. He lunges; Aggedor reacts and strikes him down. With their high priest dead, the rebels falter. Order returns under Peladon’s seal; Alpha Centauri signals the Federation; the Ice Warriors keep watch at the gates, a comforting reversal of old legends.

Grun kneels, forgiven and free. The true Earth delegate finally arrives (flustered, late, and very official) to find the “Earth representative” already de-masked. The King offers Jo a place at his side; she smiles, fond but firm. The Doctor retrieves the TARDIS from its cliffside indignity. As the Federation ceremony resumes, Peladon steps toward the stars, and a horned shape watches from a safe distance, no longer a curse but part of a future.

Themes

Measured against its neighbours, The Curse of Peladon is a confident shift of gears: a candle-lit political thriller instead of UNIT gunplay. It lacks the immediacy of Day of the Daleks and the maritime spectacle of The Sea Devils, yet its court intrigue, whodunit rhythms, and the Ice Warriors’ surprise restraint give it a distinct, upper-mid-tier sheen.

The gothic castle, Aggedor’s legend, and Alpha Centauri’s fretful diplomacy create a textured world that stands comfortably alongside later diplomatic epics like Frontier in Space. It isn’t as apocalyptic as Inferno or as folkloric as The Dæmons, but it’s assured, atmospheric, and quietly ambitious.

As a hinge between Earthbound adventures and wider galactic stakes, it links past and future with ease. It reframes the Ice Warriors from villains in The Ice Warriors and The Seeds of Death to uneasy allies, paving the way for their later shades in The Monster of Peladon and, much further on, Empress of Mars. The Time Lords’ invisible hand and the TARDIS’s “unauthorised” trip hint at the loosening exile that culminates in The Three Doctors.

The Federation politics rhyme with colonial critiques in The Mutants and the brinkmanship of Frontier in Space. Jo’s poised compassion here foreshadows the convictions that lead to her farewell in The Green Death, making The Curse of Peladon more than a detour: it’s a declaration that the Third Doctor’s world is bigger than UNIT and Earth.

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This is a chapter from Craig Hill’s book “Doctor Who – The Third Doctor”, chronicling every episode featuring the Third Doctor. It is available on Amazon.

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