History Recap / DoctorWhoS2E5TheWebPlanet

'''Production code:''' N

Written by Bill Strutton. This six-episode serial first aired from February 13 to March 20, 1965.

Episodes: "The Web Planet", "The Zarbi", "Escape to Danger", "Crater of Needles", "Invasion", "The Centre".

!!Tropes

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* ObscuredSpecialEffects: Outdoor scenes were shot with a special distortion lens that had been greased with petroleum jelly to communicate the planet's strange thin atmosphere to viewers. This unfortunately does not have the added bonus of making the Zarbi costumes look any more convincing despite probably being a secondary goal.

* ConvenientlyTimedDistraction: Barbara and the Menoptera confront the Animus to save the Doctor and Vicki and kill it, but the Animus overpowers them with its light and blocks their attack. The Animus then gets briefly distracted when Ian and the Optera arrives from under the ground and Barbara quickly uses this opportunity to kill the Animus.

* OurMonstersAreWeird: Everything - the Menoptera, bee-butterfly humanoids with AccentUponTheWrongSyllable speech that communicate partially through hand gestures; the Zarbi, bipedal giant ants that communicate through synthesised beeping sounds and have a larval stage with a long nose that it can fire like a gun; the Optera, grunting trogladytic creatures that speak in barely comprehensible metaphor; and the Animus, a spider-like EldritchAbomination that communicates through web tunnels. The surreal look of the serial is the point here.

-->--'''The Doctor''' ponders the difficulties of communication.

The one on drugs.

* ObscuredSpecialEffects: Scenes with the Zarbi are shot through a greased lens in an attempt to obscure how unconvincing the cheap ant costumes are. It doesn't work, mostly because they have a pair of hilariously human legs in trousers and shoes sticking out.

* EldritchAbomination: The Animus qualifies both in terms of its powers and in terms of its appearance.

* InCameraEffects: The unique look of this serial was achieved by attaching a distorting lens to the camera.

** Animus is a word meaning both a spirit, and a hatred or hostility.

* ClipItsWings: The ant-like Zarbi from the planet Vortis (who have been made militant by the evil Animus) remove the wings of captured Menoptra (a race of humanoid butterflies) as a matter of course. At the end of the story, the Animus has been defeated (with the help of the Doctor and his companions) and the inhabitants of Vortis are learning to work together again, but the mutilated Menoptra, known as Optera, will never regain the power of flight.

* AntAssault: The Animus arrives on the planet Vortis and takes of the native Zarbi--who resemble giant ants--and use them to attack the other native species the Menoptra.

Written by Bill Strutton. This serial first aired February 13-March 20, 1965.

Written by Bill Strutton. This serial first aired February 13, 1965.

* AbsenteeActor: Barbara is absent from the third episode in order to give Creator/JacquelineHill a holiday. She was not credited on the episode. She requested that the credits be amended for overseas sales, but this did not happen.

* AbsenteeActor: Barbara is absent from the third episode in order to give Creator/JacquelineHill a holiday. She was not credited on the episode. She requested that the credits be amended for overseas sales, but this did not happen.

* ClothingDamage: The Doctor uses Ian’s Coal Hill school tie tobtest for acid. The latter is not amused.

* ConvenientlyTimedDistraction: Barbara and the Menoptera confront the Animus to save the Doctor and Vicki and kill it, but the Animus overpowers them with its light and blocks their attack. The Animus then gets briefly distracted when Ian and the Vrestins arrives from under the ground and Barbara quickly uses this opportunity to kill the Animus.

* ClipItsWings: The ant-like Zarbi from the planet Vortis (who have been made militant by the evil Animus) remove the wings of captured Menoptra (a race of humanoid butterflies) as a matter of course. At the end of the story, the Animus has been defeated (with the help of the Doctor and his companions) and the inhabitants of Vortis are learning to work together again, but the mutilated Menoptra will never regain the power of flight.

Novelized under the title ''Doctor Who and the Zarbi''. It was the second novelisation to be released, right after ''Doctor Who In An Exciting Adventure With The Daleks''.

* AbsenteeActor: Barbara is absent from the third episode in order to give Jacqueline Hill a holiday. She was not credited on the episode. She requested that the credits be amended for overseas sales, but this did not happen.

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Meta example. The BBC retains the late-Sixties Spanish dub of episode 6, wherein the Animus, whose voice is supposed to be soothing and hypnotic, sounds like a man talking into a staticky walkie-talkie.

* MindControlDevice: The Zarbi have a gold collar that they put around people's necks to control them, since the Animus can use gold to exert mental control over someone. Barbara is forced to leave the TARDIS in a trance-like state in episode one because she's wearing the gold bracelet that Nero gave her.