Wait, @handles doesn’t have a problem with a naked hermaphrodite hexapod?
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Hi! To find out what I can do, say @handles display help.
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Listened to The Prisoner of Peladon tonight of which I remembered very little. Oddly it is much more an Ice Warrior story than a Peladon story but I did like Peladon losing it with the Doctor at the end and calling him out on the way he revelled in solving the mystery of two murders. David Troughton makes for an excellent narrator again (and there was some nice synergy with listening to this straight after Troughton’s reading of the audiobook). Picked up lots of little details which are taken from Legacy (the Galactic Federation HQ being on Io, one of Jupiter’s moons I’m sure is from there as is the name of Peladon’s father).
Nice little behind the scenes chat with Troughton, Nick Briggs (voicing all the Ice Warriors in this), Nicola Bryant (who directed it) and David Richardson.
Started The Ordeal of Peladon and so far so good on that one too.
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Somehow missed this so apologies in retrospect - but bearing in mind he’s dead by the time of The Monster of Peladon I’m not sure it was that huge a spoiler… 
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Yeah absolutely nothing is spoiled if you’ve seen both Curse and Monster
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I do love the colours of this cover:
It also amuses me that for this release they photoshopped Pel hair on to Troughton but by the time of the Peladon box set, they decided to embrace Troughton’s real life hair…
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Finished The Ordeal of Peladon tonight. A good start to the box set but nothing spectacular. Troughton is always listenable and I liked the idea of Peladon leaving the Citadel and his naivety being his downfall. I’d deliberately not looked at anything about this set beyond the pre-publicity and so the surprise appearance of David Tennant was a lovely treat. I also thought the death of Ixmari, the Martian inspector was suitably shocking and I liked the laying of groundwork for the rest of the set with the poisoned lake, the cult of Skarn and the Doctor’s role in creating this.
3/5
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The interview extras were interesting too, especially the information about how the box set has been plotted out as being a little like The Crown.
The Monster of Peladon next - and yes, I’ll be doing the commentaries, DVD extras and probably the audiobook. Might skip the narrated soundtrack this time but seek out the mini-interview on it with Elisabeth Sladen.
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Crap. The Monster of Peladon novelisation audiobook is one of the few that isn’t free on Spotify Premium.
I was really looking forward to that because it is read by Jon Culshaw. Now, I do have an Audible credit going spare (I only ever sign up when they give me free months or months for 99p which they seem to do quite regularly) and could use it to get The Monster of Peladon but I usually save them for the audio originals…
I could just fish out the novelisation but I would really like to hear Culshaw’s take on Pertwee, the Ice Warriors and Alpha Centauri.
Hmmm.
I’ll ponder.
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Ooh yeah me too I love it when they do that, it’s why I have any DW audiobooks at all tbh
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I’ll just leave this here, something to look forward to when you reach The Truth of Peladon.
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The Monster of Peladon 1
Alpha Centauri throwing shade at Sarah Jane is peak Doctor Who!
I hadn’t realised how much information there is to keep track of in the first episode in terms of the political machinations, the various factions, the many, many characters and the story happening off-planet with Galaxy Five (one Galaxy to the right of Galaxy Four).
Thalira is a little wet but slightly less so than I remember.
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‘Wet’ as a synonym for pathetic - not the other thing! - it’s probably fallen out of common usage but I’m old.
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Started The Monster of Peladon audiobook this evening. Jon Culshaw does excellent Pertwee and has the speech patterns of Eckersley, Vega Nexos, Ortron and even Thalira, spot on. The only one I’m not as impressed by is his Alpha Centauri which could do with being a bit higher. Looking forward to his Ice Warriors.
It never fails to surprise me how quickly Vega Nexos is dispatched in this story and I’m really surprised his race hasn’t cropped up in more expanded media. The novelisation dispatches with his ‘Mr Tumnus’ like appearance though and describes him as a mole man in a silver jumpsuit like Eckersley’s.
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Listening to Chapter 2 of the audiobook brought focus on to one less appealing aspect of this - the characterisation of Sarah Jane. It’s there in the TV version for sure, but Terrance Dicks seems to double down on it a little in the novelisation.
She’s basically not very nice. She starts the story moaning about the Doctor getting the landing wrong (she should have been with him when he first visited Peladon with Jo) and then spends the rest of the episode being pretty xenophobic towards Alpha Centauri.
Having watched this so close to Curse, the contrast between the way Jo reacts to the plethora of weird aliens and the way Sarah reacts is striking - and it doesn’t paint Sarah Jane in a particularly good light.
Also I’ve realised it’s a bit weird that Centauri questions whether Sarah is a female when they first meet. It’s played as if Centauri doesn’t know what human females look like but they’ve already met Jo, the real Earth delegate and Queen Thalira - and that’s just the ones we know about it. Is it really believable that Centauri doesn’t know what human females look like? I’m hoping it’s not a slur on the more ‘feminist’ way that Sarah dresses!
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This is actually one of the things I love about Sarah - she is kind of horrible and assumptive all the time. I quite like it when her callousness is emphasised, I think it’s why I like her audios so much and the fact she’s still pretty closed off and rude throughout SJA is a delight to me. I just think it’s a really interesting character beat and it’s one that often goes under the radar
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It’s funny but you may have finally put your finger on what it is about Sarah I don’t like. I’ve never worshipped at the pedestal she is put on but could never quite think why. I think this might be part of it.
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