73) THE MONSTER OF PELADON

The Monster of Peladon does not live up to its previous counterpart and dives into far too many storylines – feminism, workers’ rights, exploitation of smaller powers all which do not mesh together to create a cohesive story. There is far too much bickering and yelling going on, silly sword fights, running back and forth and unnecessary killing; the body count is unnecessarily bloodthirsty for no reason than to be bloodthirsty. The story is beyond bland where everything which made The Curse of Peladon (a masterpiece compared to this) work is sadly missing in this dull rehash. The parallels between the two are so glaring that the narrative appears to mock this fact, which is a hit-in-face, considering a more complex original storyline would have been preferable.
There are far too many obvious villains working away in the background and the return of the Ice Warriors is sadly ruined before they actually appear. There are a lot of the same, recycled characters from before; the mute King’s (or this in case Queen’s champion), a disgruntled advisor, the spirit of Aggedor, and of course squeaky voiced Alpha Centauri (remember him?), who is even more annoying than before. He serves nothing more than to be an elaborate innuendo, flamboyant joke and his antics get tiring pretty quickly. The cast and characters range from mediocre to bland; what on Earth does Sarah Jane see in Queen Thalira exactly? When the only highlights to the production are the recycled sets from The Curse of Peladon then something is very wrong.**​​