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Season 02 / Story 013 / Production code N
The Web Planet
The Doctors?: William Hartnell
The Companions: Barbara Wright | Ian Chesterton | Vicki Pallister
Other Main Characters:
Bill Strutton: Writer
Richard Martin: Director
Verity Lambert: Producer
The TARDIS is seized by a mysterious force and dragged down to its latest resting place - Vortis?, a craggy, forbidding world where the dangers include pools of lethal acid. Here, the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki get involved in the struggles of the moth-like Menoptra? to reclaim the planet - originally their home - from an alien parasite. The Animus? has invaded Vortis and taken control of the once-docile, ant-like Zarbi?, turning them into its vicious drones who use organic Venom Guns to enforce the Animus' will.
Eventually, with the time travellers' help, a group of Menoptra and Optera? - stunted troglodyte descendants of the planet's original Menoptra inhabitants - manage to infiltrate the Animus's web-city, the Carsenome?, and confront the creature directly, destroying it with a weapon, the Isop-tope, devised by their scientists.
6 episodes:
- The Web Planet - 13 February 1965
- The Zarbi - 20 February 1965
- Escape to Danger - 27 February 1965
- Crater of Needles - 06 March 1965
- Invasion - 13 March 1965
- The Centre - 20 March 1965
Script available in print from Titan Books.
