Day 516: The Creature from the Pit Part 3

When I look back on the stories that I've watched over the course of this blog, one frequently comes to mind: The Smugglers. It is perhaps the only story that I can remember virtually nothing about, due to a combination of factors including doing Uni work at the time, it being a reconstruction, and the fact that it's actually not a very engaging story.

So why do I bring this up when I'm talking about The Creature from the Pit? It's because when I look at the blog entries that I wrote for The Smugglers, it becomes obvious that not only do I not remember anything about The Smugglers now, it would appear that I did not remember anything about The Smugglers five minutes after I'd watched it as I started to write its blog entry. So there's not really any personal record of me watching The Smugglers, and any number of interesting things could have happened in it that I missed because of some overarching factor.

All of this is build-up to say that we've got a similar scenario with The Creature from the Pit. Unlike The Smugglers, I can enjoy this story, and several things stick out, such as a few side characters, the unique position that the 'monster' is put in, and the cliffhanger which will deserve a strong mention in my eventual cliffhanger analysis piece due to its framing of whether we are looking at someone in peril or a major plot development.

But all of that falls by the wayside. Because all that will be remembered about this episode is the fact that Tom Baker grabbed the 'monster' by the phallus and, in an attempt to communicate with it, blew into it.

Tomorrow, when I raise what I did over the storm-induced break with my friends, this will probably be the first thing that I shall mention. In a months time, when I complete the Tom Baker era and am looking back on highlights from each of his stories, this will be the major moment that springs to mind when thinking about The Creature from the Pit. In a year, when I look back on Doctor Who as a whole, my mind will only remember The Creature from the Pit's phallus and not the intricate story that has been woven around it.

And there is good stuff in this story. It just so happens that the Creature from the Pit has a large object that distracts our attention. Hopefully things will improve tomorrow though, as this story reaches its climax.