So look, 'Curse of Peladon'... I quite liked it. Other people hated it but I gave it 7/10 (I think, I can't actually be bothered to go back and check). But even I would be scratching around to find a reason to make a sequel to it.
And, yet, here it is. My guess is they spent so much money on the Alpha Centuri costume that someone in the BBC said "Sod it. I don't care how phallic the bloody thing looks, we're using it again, now get those overpaid writers to do something with it'.
That's the only justifiable reason. Otherwise someone thought if was a good idea and that's much, much less justifiable.
This story is the very king of 'someone needed to take a pair of pruning shears to the script'. Seriously, 6 episodes? Did the writer have photos of someone?
So, to the story itself. The Doctor returns to Peladon 50 years after his last visit and at a time when their admittance to the Galactic Federation is being exploited by their planet being strip-mined for The mineral of the week. So, once again, weare treated to a deeply unsubtle environmental message...
There is an ongoing dispute between workers and state that is quickly resolved when the Federation decide to turn them all into a pool of slave labour. There is a nice passage in the middle when we think that the Federation is desperate for resources which gives us a nice "Necessity in the time of war" theme but that's swiftly ruined by the vague attempt at a plot.
It transpires that the mineral is actually being thieved by a breakaway group who want to sell the stuff to the Federation's mortal enemies. Which doesn't make much sense, to be honest, but then that's a theme for this story as a whole.
Pertwee and Sladen continue to be brilliant together but really they're the only upside to this story.
Could have been a lot shorter and a lot better. But in essence, never needed to exist at all. It gets some points for a vaguely interesting middle but but loses many more for the rest of the story...
4/10