YYY1 - The Monster of Peladon 1

It's good to see so little has changed on Peladon over the course of fifty years. No redecoration has occurred to the walls and throne room, the guards still wear short skirts, the Chancellor is a superstitious old coot who still holds dominion over the inexperienced monarch, the reigning monarch has a mute giant as his/her champion, and Alpha Centauri is still hopping around the place, annoying everyone with its grating voice and bad jokes.

I've probably been quite unfair to The Monster of Peladon over the years (especially considering the licking my Radio Free Skaro cohorts and I gave it in Episodes 98 and 99), but, certainly at first glance, it seems to be covering the same ground as its predecessor The Curse of Peladon. Not only were both stories written and directed by the same people (Brian Hayles and Lennie Mayne, respectively), but both stories open with the exact same camera shot!

What's most remarkable about this episode, though? The fact that Donald Gee reminds me so much of Tom Baker. Gee even wears a similar shiny space suit (maybe the same shiny space suit, knowing the BBC) that Tom Baker will be wearing in Genesis of the Daleks. Gee's got the wide-eyed expression that Baker would soon make famous down to a T. Looking at this, one wonders if Donald Gee's number was far from the phone when Tom Baker broke his collarbone during the making of The Sontaran Experiment, and they needed a double for some long shots...