Doctor Who - the Creature from the Pit [VHS]

 

 

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A four part Doctor Who story from 1979, featuring Tom Baker as the Doctor and Lalla Ward as his travelling companion Romana. The TARDIS crew - and K9 - visit a planet rich in vegetation, and where rebels fight a nasty ruler. The Doctor helps the rebels, defeats the ruler, and deals with an alien who has been imprisoned on the planet and who has set plans for vengeance in motion.

It's all very standard stuff plot wise. Not that there's essentially anything wrong with that.

But this comes from a time when the show was accused of going a bit over the top, and this isn't entirely restrained from time to time. Added to which, there are three big faults with it.

1. The script doesn't really come together, jumping all over the place and rather wasting a potentially excellent villainess.

2. Romana. The first story Lalla Ward recorded in the part, and she spends all of it trying to find the character. Thankfully she did get very good indeed in later stories.

3. Erato. The alien. Meant to be a huge blob like creature. Not the kind of thing bbc visual effects of the 70's on a tight budget were ever going to be able to realise wholly convincingly. It just does not work.

Doctor who back then was always made, as one of the script editors once said, with the aim of preventing there being twenty five minutes of blank tv screen on a saturday night. This achieved that aim. But whilst it can offer occasional delights along the way, not least some good supporting performances and an excellent set for the surface of the world, it's not the best the show has to offer.

The dvd has the following audio options:

Language track: english

Subtitles: english

Adult navigation.

The usual extras for the range:

commentary from selected members of cast and crew.

Production information subtitles.

Coming soon trailer for upcoming release in this dvd range.

Photo gallery of shots from the story and it's production.

Radio times billings as PDF Files.

Plus a handful of extras exclusive to this release:

A twenty five second long extended version of one scene.

A three minute long clip from the bbc children's show of the time animal magic, with the Doctor telling viewers about fierce animals he's met during his time. An odd item, recorded seemingly during the production of the creature from the pit, because Tom Baker never seems to be entirely in character and you can hear people talking in the background which distracts. But it's an interesting curio and a good piece of nostalgia for those who remember animal magic.

Plus two decent documentaries:

Team Erato runs for fifteen minutes and has the visual effects team of the time talking about what went into making the creature and the end result. A full, frank, and very watchable piece.

Christopher Barry: Director: runs for nineteen minutes and is an interview with the director of this and a fair few other Doctor who stories. Filmed in the beautiful looking village where he lives, he is an excellent interviewee with lots of interesting stories to tell. This doesn't get up to this Doctor Who time till halfway through, but you might be absorbed enough not to notice or worry.

The latter two extras do life the whole package up somewhat. But all in all, despite not being terrible, it's not the best one in this range.

I am often astonished how quick Doctor Who fans are to put down this story, while praising its immediate predecessor, City of Death, to the skies. To me they are two sides of the same coin: zany plots, outsize characters, witty scripting (and script-editing) by the incomparable Douglas Adams, and a stellar performance from Tom Baker. And the effects? Well, if one were to believe everything said about the awfulness of the production, one would probably be pleasantly surprised to find that it isn't as ghastly as all that (rather like Weng-Chiang's much-maligned rat). Yes, there are some sub-par shots, but as a whole there is quite a bit of clever artfulness at work - no different from elsewhere in 70s Doctor Who.

On the whole though, I find that the charm and inventiveness of the story wins out over all objections. Lady Adastra is a deliciously arch villainess, and the character of Organon, the canny fraud of an astrologer, is a sheer delight. And what to my 10-year-old self was an excellent primer in economics, remains a superb cautionary tale about corrupt dictatorships that willingly impoverish their people by manipulating scarcity and holding onto lucrative monopolies. Doctor Who at its very best.

I have read with interest the reviews posted for this serial, from Mr Iredale's loathing of it to the most recent reviewer's gushing praise. Me, well I stand somewhere between the two; I can certainly see the story's flaws (I hadn't watched it since it was first broadcast in 1979 when I was six until I recently acquired it on VHS), the titular creature 'Erato' is embarrassingly awful, and as much as I love Uncle Tom he is rather eaten up with his own importance to the show by this time and the programme is definitely ready for a new lead. On the other hand, the script is pretty fun, and David Fisher creates some good characters, notably the cowardly astronomer Organon and murderous sexegenarian Karela - I think that fans are generally split between love and loathing when it comes to season 17, and to be honest I have mixed feelings about the late great Douglas Adams' script editing myself.
What does influence me is that I loved Fisher's 1981 Target novelisation of this story, which definitely benefits from Erato and co being left to the imagination, and even better is the recent audio version read by Tom Baker, in which Fisher embellishes Erato's background and injects more pathos into the deaths of some of the other characters. Overall though, the televised version shown here has enough good moments to render it watchable at least.

DVD extras are fairly lightweight to be honest, but include an interview with long-serving Doctor Who director Christopher Barry - this story was his last, a making-of featurette 'Team Erato', a photo gallery, and a nostalgic sequence from 70s kids' after-school favourite 'Animal Magic'.

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3.0 out of 5 stars "We call it the Pit." "Ah, you have such a way with words."
"What is that thing in the pit?"
"We call it the creature."
"Ah, that's original."

With dialogue like that it's clear that The Creature from the Pit is not... Read more

Published 20 days ago by Trevor Willsmer

4.0 out of 5 stars Leave the blob alone.
Don't normally post reviews but I'm going to stand up for Creature From The Pit - it's a shedload of fun. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Jmrichardson

4.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious, Brilliant and an all round great story
A great Doctor Who story full of laughs, shocks and great acting espically by Myra Frances who is wonderful as the evil Lady Adrasta!

Published 9 months ago by D Maskell

3.0 out of 5 stars Better than I thought
Just don't laugh at the monster... Geoffrey Bayldon is a delight to watch, Tom Baker just get's all loud and sweaty.

Published 13 months ago by Champs

4.0 out of 5 stars Good solid story, but an unbelievable monster!
This story has taken a lot of heat over the years. Every show has both its stronger and its weaker moments. Read more

Published 14 months ago by Daron G. Woodward

4.0 out of 5 stars VERY GOOD BUT NOT EXCELLENT !
The Creature from the Pit is often an overlooked story because of the monster (or the creature from the pit) Erato which was made full-size on a very small budget made out of... Read more

Published 18 months ago by JJG

4.0 out of 5 stars green blobby thing licks baker
I do remember this story when first transmitted, and being a child, this was the only doctor who story to have made me hide behind the sofa...believe it or not!!! Read more

Published 18 months ago by dazza

4.0 out of 5 stars Highs Amongst the Lows
Starring Tom Baker and Lalla Ward as our time travelling duo. This adventure sees the Time Lords lands on the planet of Chloris after being drawn there by an emergency beacon... Read more

Published 20 months ago by JA Fairhurst

3.0 out of 5 stars "Pit and Miss"
Sorry about the pun. This is another one of those stories that would be better thought of if it did not have such an attrocious monster. Read more

Published 20 months ago by Bob Marlowe

5.0 out of 5 stars All praise The Creature from the Pit!!
It's good to see that the once despised Creature from the Pit has appeared on bbc dvd and garnered a loyal fan club - as seen in many of the reviews here. Read more

Published 21 months ago by Matthew J. Parker

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