Welcome to the final episodes of season 11 and the final episode of the Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who. “Planet of the Spiders” is not only terrible, it is the ultimate Jon Pertwee era episode. You have a car chase, you have Venusian judo, you have a boat chase, you have terrible spider puppets, you have terrible effects, you have monarchists and you have racism.
Yup, let’s get that part out of the way. There’s the most racist yellow-face I’ve seen. This Brit putting on a Chinese accent wearing terrible prosthetics to make him look Chinese not only insults in this manner, they turn the occult into faux-ancient ways.
Basically this meditation cult is trying to summon an alien spider who takes control of a dude who just wants power. Mike Yates is infiltrating the group and thinks something is wonky, so he lets Sarah know.
Sarah, who’s only met Yates once before… when he tried to kill her and The Doctor, for some odd reason trusts him. She does her own investigations and The Doctor’s investigations meet up together.
They end up on Metabalis where there are two Earth species living. Humans and evolved spiders. The spiders hold the Humans in slavery. The Doctor and Sarah help the Humans rise up against the spiders and fail.
They’re all fighting for a crystal that’s on Earth.
The Doctor must face his greatest fear and take the crystal back to the Great One. He does, his body is destroyed, and he returns to UNIT collapses and becomes…
TOM BAKER!