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Doctor Who: The Creature from the Pit
Starring: Tom Baker , Lalla Ward
Directed by: Christopher Barry
Produced by: Graham Williams
Written by: David Fisher
Making a forced materialization on Chloris, the Doctor (Tom Baker), Romana (Lalla Ward) and K-9 become embroiled in the political machinations of its ruler, the Lady Adrasta. A ragtag group of bandits, a giant eggshell and man-eating Wolfweeds threaten the destruction of Chloris. Digitally remastered and new to DVD with over 40 minutes of extras plus audio commentary by Lalla Ward and others.
Item Number: 15779
- Format:
- DVD Fullscreen
- Region:
- 1 - More Details
- Run time:
- About 1 1/3 Hours
- Number of Discs:
- 1
- Special Features:
English Subtitled for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired
DVD Special Features: (41 mins)
• Audio Commentary by actors Lalla Ward and Myra Frances, director Christopher Barry and visual effects designer Mat Irvine
• Christopher Barry: Director Interview (19 mins)
• Team Erato Visual effects crew discuss problems faced in building and operating Erato, with Mat Irvine, Steve Bowman, Steve Lucas and Morag McLean (15 mins)
• Animal Magic Archive on-set interview with Tom Baker (2 mins)
• Extended Scene
• Photo Gallery (5 mins)
• PDF materials: Radio Times Listings
• Production Notes Subtitle Option
• Digitally remastered picture and sound quality
The Doctor and Romana receive a distress signal and arrive on Chloris, a lush and verdant world that has only small quantities of metals, all of which are controlled by its ruler, Lady Adrasta. Adrasta keeps order with the aid of her Huntsman and his wolfweeds - mobile balls of vegetation - while a band of scruffy thieves, led by Torvin, organize raids on her palace to steal whatever metal they can.
The Doctor identifies the distress signal's source as a large eggshell-like structure in the forest. He is taken prisoner by Adrasta's guards and, in order to escape, leaps into the Pit - the entrance to a cave system into which all those who incur Adrasta's wrath are consigned to be devoured by an immense green globular creature living within. The Doctor, with the aid of the elderly soothsayer Organon, discovers that the creature is not an unthinking killer but an ambassador from the planet Tythonus, which has a lack of chlorophyll but an abundance of metal.
The Tythonians had hoped to trade with Chloris, but the first person their ambassador Erato encountered on arriving in his eggshell-like ship was Adrasta, who took his communicator device and trapped him in the Pit so as to preserve her monopoly on metal. Erato retrieves his communicator and kills Adrasta.
He then warns the Doctor that the Tythonians have set a neutron star on a collision course with Chloris in retaliation for his imprisonment. With the Doctor's help he is freed from the Pit and, out in space, spins an aluminium shell around the star, allowing for it to be pulled off course by the TARDIS's gravitational tractor beam and thus saving Chloris.
| The Doctor | --- | Tom Baker |
| Romana | --- | Lalla Ward |
| Voice of K9 | --- | David Brierley |
| Adrasta | --- | Myra Frances |
| Ainu | --- | Tim Munro |
| Doran | --- | Terry Walsh |
| Edu | --- | Edward Kelsey |
| Guard | --- | Phillip Denyer |
| Guard | --- | Dave Redgrave |
| Guardmaster | --- | Tommy Wright |
| Huntsman | --- | David Telfer |
| Karela | --- | Eileen Way |
| Organon | --- | Geoffrey Bayldon |
| Tollund | --- | Morris Barry |
| Torvin | --- | John Bryans |
Directed by Christopher Barry
Written by David Fisher
Produced by Graham Williams
Original Music by Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, arranged by Delia Derbyshire
Film Editing by M A C Adams
Costume Design by June Hudson
Former Doctor Who director Morris Barry plays the small part of Adrasta's engineer Tollund in Part One.
Eileen Way, who had appeared as Old Mother in the very first Doctor Who story, 100,000 BC, appears here as Lady Adrasta's assistant Karela.
Geoffrey Bayldon, better known as Catweazle in the LWT series of the same name and as the Crowman in Southern's Worzel Gummidge, plays Organon.
First Transmitted
1 - 27/10/1979 18:00
2 - 03/11/1979 18:05
3 - 10/11/1979 18:00
4 - 17/11/1979 18:00
