Meglos

“Doctor Who and the Dodecahedron”, “Revenge of Barbara Wright”, “Mega Loss”

“The One with the Monster in a Pot” (USA), “Prickly Earth Man Cactus Same Face Massacre” (China)

Doctor Who stops the most absurd monster since… ever from completing the worst plan since… ever.

-*** - it does what it says on the tin. But the tin is labelled "Something Incredibly Stupid".

“The man with the glasses is the biggest nerd we’ll ever see in Doctor Who” (someone who hadn’t yet seen Adric)

“Will you swear allegiance to pants?”

The Earthling was considered as a possible companion until the producer’s medication wore off.

The script tries to be witty, apparently.

Jacqueline Hill had previously appeared in Doctor Who as “Unnamed History Teacher” in the pilot episode)

The Chester Walls described Meglos as “chunky but ultimately fair” while the Chesterfield Stump said it was “Like cactus soup – cactussy but hard to swallow”.

It is obvious to point out but the story’s MONSTER is a plant in a POT. Plant in a pot. Say that over again and join me in shunning its spiny ass.

Lalla Ward was very turned on seeing Tom Baker in his Meglos makeup and insisted he wear it at home too.

...is that monsters without limbs can overcome their disability if the script is silly enough.

Si Hunt

I attended a signing of the video cassette of Story 5Q in a semi-official capacity as I was attempting to get an exclusive sit-down interview with Crawford Logan. I stood at Logan's side while he increased the collectability of the proles' video cassette box covers and asked him a series of fascinating technical questions (some of which he didn't hear owing to what I can only assume was an extremely localised fault in the shop's air conditioning system).

"Mummy" said a small boy, "why has that man got pricks all over his face?"

"Don't be pathetically stupid" I quipped before his no-doubt unmarried mother could answer. I explained that Meglos was a cactus creature and that Baker had been made into a half-man, half-cactus as part of the so-called story. The boy went off sated but crying and his mother aimed an umbrella strike at the life-sized cutout of Tom Baker next to me (she missed and hit me in the face but I'm well beyond apologising for the poor eyesight of the plebs).

A few minutes later a second small boy asked his mother "Mummy, why has that man got pricks all over his face?" I explained the plot of Story 5Q again and this time was told I ought to be ashamed of myself. I assumed I had given away "spoiler" information and that she was one of those weird people who cares about "plot" and "narrative" and all that unnecessary rubbish.

It quickly became a regular occurrence - people getting Crawford Logan's autograph would ask "why has that man got pricks all over his face?" and I would be forced to retread the same tired explanation. I was rapidly becoming cheesed off and went to find a photocopying machine which I could use to make copies of the plot synopsis from the first reference book which came to hand. It was while on my quest that I caught sight of my face in a mirror and realised that someone had drawn membrum virile all over my face while I dozed on the train. I was too cross to go back to the signing and to this day Crawford Logan has never given a sensible interview about his time on Doctor Who. Don't blame me - blame the pathetically childish person or people who thought it was richly comic to make my face obscene.

"The DodecaWHOdron" wasted three issues trying to explain how, why, when and where Barbara Wright and Lexa were one and the same. It involved multiple clones, a side effect of using the Dalek time machine, an experience at Sunday school which put her off Anglicanism for life, lots of self administered drugs, Ian Chesterton having an affair with a sailor, the dodecahedron existing in multiple realities at more or less the same time and Barbara having a mid-life crisis and being advised to take up a new hobby by her doctor. These days no one believes a word of it but back in 1983 it caused the biggest stir since Ian Levine was publicly ridiculed for suggesting that Commander Maxil was the new Watcher and would merge with the Fifth Doctor when he regenerated into the Sixth.