The planet Chloris is plentiful in vegetation but almost barren of metal. The Doctor, Romana and K·9 arrive in response to a distress signal, which appears to be coming from an enormous metallic shell. They are captured by Chloris' leader, the wicked Lady Adrasta, who has the Doctor thrown into a deep pit. Although he survives the fall, he finds himself in tunnels which are reputed to be the home of an immense green monster. With the help of the elderly astrologer Organon, the Doctor sets out to discover the creature's origins -- even as Adrasta plots to use K·9 to destroy her enemies once and for all.

With the Doctor having saved all of time twice in the past two years -- in the Season Fifteen finale The Invasion Of Time and again throughout the Key To Time arc of Season Sixteen -- producer Graham Williams decided to refocus Doctor Who's seventeenth season on smaller-scale stories. To this end, it was decided that the TARDIS would now be equipped with a Randomiser to evade the Black Guardian, whose scheme to seize the Key To Time had been foiled by the Doctor and Romana. The Randomiser would effectively reestablish the Doctor as a figure who wandered into adventures accidentally, rather than by design. New script editor Douglas Adams viewed the low-key narratives as an opportunity to tailor the Doctor's character more closely to Tom Baker's own personality.

To write the first such serial, Williams and Adams approached David Fisher, who had contributed two Season Sixteen adventures: The Stones Of Blood and The Androids Of Tara. Fisher was asked for a story set on an alien planet which featured an atypical monster, and this led to the notion of a creature which was not malevolent, but instead committed monstrous acts by accident or misunderstanding. Accordingly, he titled his scripts The Creature From The Pit. To further confound expectations, Fisher decided that the main villain should be a woman.

Ironically, the mythical Erato was the Muse of erotic poetry, and her name meant “lovely”

Many of the names chosen for the storyline were derived from Greek mythology. Lady Adrasta was inspired by the legend of Andromeda, whose homeland was plagued by a gargantuan sea monster. Fisher christened his creature Erato, after a member of the group of goddesses called the Muses. This choice was intentionally ironic: the mythological Erato was the Muse of erotic poetry, and her name meant “lovely”. The creature's homeworld of Tythonus was originally spelt “Tithonus”, from a prince of Troy who was granted immortality but without the benefit of eternal youth. Chloris, meanwhile, was a minor flower goddess -- cognate with the Roman deity Flora -- and was etymologically linked to the word “chlorophyll”, the green pigment found in most vegetation.

As originally conceived, much of Fisher's story was concerned with Adrasta's attempts to seize the TARDIS for herself. K·9 eventually took Adrasta away in the time machine, returning her -- cowed and defeated -- at the story's conclusion. Upon initially being thrown into the titular pit, the Doctor was attacked by Hellyn, a former member of Adrasta's team of engineers. In the final episode, a battle fleet from Tythonus arrived, threatening to destroy Chloris with a photon missile. Erato and the Doctor travelled into space in Erato's ship, and the Tythonian wove a spacesuit for the Doctor so that he could reach the missile and disarm it.

Fisher's scripts were commissioned on November 16th, 1978. The title “The Creature In The Pit” was briefly used at this point. Williams had asked Fisher to incorporate some genuine scientific concepts which would appeal to older children and so, to revise his climax, Fisher sought the assistance of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University. As it turned out, several members of the faculty were fans of Doctor Who, and were eager to contribute. They offered a neutron star as a potent choice of Tythonian weapon, and suggested that one way to avert its threat would be to encase it in metallic foil.

One of Adams' suggestions for The Creature From The Pit was that the scarcity of metal on Chloris would have driven some former miners to banditry. Fisher initially feared that this element would become too silly, but he soon began to emulate the comedic approach which Adams had favoured in his own Doctor Who serial, 1978's The Pirate Planet, as well as his successful radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Fisher also drew upon the crooked Fagin of Charles Dickens' 1839 novel Oliver Twist to inspire the bandit leader Torvin. Adams wound up having to rein in the jokiness of Fisher's scripts; nonetheless, they were criticised by BBC Head of Serials Graeme MacDonald who, in recent years, had regularly argued against overt humour in Doctor Who.

Graham Williams and Lalla Ward decided to make the new Romana more playful and appealing to children

By now, it was known that the opening story of Season Seventeen would be Terry Nation's Destiny Of The Daleks, with The Creature From The Pit planned to follow it. However, since the scripts for the Dalek serial would be delayed, it was decided that Fisher's studiobound adventure should be made first. As such, it would mark Lalla Ward's debut as the new incarnation of Romana; she was taking over from Mary Tamm, who had decided to leave Doctor Who after recording had wrapped on Season Sixteen. The original concept for Romana had been to pair the Doctor with a more assertive, independent companion, but Williams now felt that this had not worked well. He and Ward decided to make the new Romana a more playful figure who would be appealing to children. Fisher had written The Creature From The Pit with Tamm's Romana in mind, but he made an effort to revise his scripts to account for the new characterisation.

During the autumn of 1978, Williams had been badly ill, and many of his duties had been successfully assumed by production unit manager John Nathan-Turner. Prior to the start of Doctor Who's seventeenth recording block, Williams approached MacDonald for permission to promote Nathan-Turner to the post of associate producer, only for the request to be denied. Nonetheless, MacDonald was becoming increasingly concerned with some of the production decisions that were being made on Doctor Who, and he asked former producer Barry Letts to keep an informal eye on the programme.

The director assigned to The Creature From The Pit was Christopher Barry, whose last Doctor Who credit had come on 1976's The Brain Of Morbius. Unfortunately, Barry quickly became sceptical that the enormous Erato was remotely feasible; another colossal Doctor Who monster, the giant squid Kroll, had been a notable failure in the previous year's The Power Of Kroll. These doubts were shared by visual effects designer Mat Irvine, who suggested realising Erato using a combination of puppets and model sets. However, Barry did not feel that this was the right approach.

One of Barry's tasks was to help Williams cast a new voice for K·9, with John Leeson having decided not to return for Season Seventeen. He made overtures to his longtime friend, David Brierley, only to find him reluctant to accept the offer. On March 16th, however, Brierley agreed to take the job, and he was formally contracted on the 28th. Also cast in The Creature From The Pit was another veteran Doctor Who director, Morris Barry (a distant relative of Christopher's). He had made three serials in 1967 and 1968 -- latterly The Dominators -- but had recently returned to acting, and was now hired to play the engineer Tollund.

Work at Ealing was delayed by a day due to union activity over an accusation of wrongful dismissal

Production on The Creature From The Pit got under way at the BBC Television Film Studios in Ealing, London. Work there was originally scheduled to begin on March 20th, 1979 but was delayed by a day due to union activity over an accusation of wrongful dismissal. As a result, Barry was forced to compress his schedule into three days: March 21st to 23rd. Material on the pit platform was spread across the first two days. The latter part of the 22nd and some of the 23rd were concerned with sequences in the clearing where Erato's eggshell-like spacecraft rested. Also recorded on the final day at Ealing were sequences in the forest and the palace shrubbery, as well as the serial's modelwork.

As the studio dates for The Creature From The Pit approached, tensions continued to mount regarding Erato. Work on the prop was proceeding very slowly, which meant that it would not be available for rehearsals. Barry had a change of heart, and proposed resurrecting Irvine's original suggestion of using a puppet version of the creature; however, he was now told that insufficient time remained to accomplish this. Barry then argued that Erato should be completely reimagined, but Williams rejected such a significant change at so late a date.

Meanwhile, as rehearsals for the studio sessions began, Barry was finding that Baker had become a much more domineering presence than had been the case on The Brain Of Morbius. Adams became a moderating influence on his lead actor, a strong friendship having quickly developed between the two men. Brierley also established a good rapport with Baker, although he was less physically involved in rehearsals than Leeson, who had often dropped to his hands and knees to serve as a stand-in for the K·9 prop.

The first studio session for The Creature From The Pit took place on April 9th and 10th at BBC Television Centre Studio 6 in White City, London. The first day was used for scenes in Adrasta's palace from Episodes One and Two, as well as some material in the mine passages and in Organon's cavern. When the Erato outfit arrived, a new problem was identified: with its lengthy, flexible proboscis, the monster irrefutably resembled male genitalia, and changes would have to be made to diminish this impression. The remaining palace sequences were completed on the second day, together with those in the bandits' tent.

By this point, Barry had discovered that there were serious problems with the model filming conducted at Ealing, such as the strings on the miniature TARDIS prop being visible. Williams concurred with his director and authorised a remount, which was held at the BBC Visual Effects Workshop in Acton, London on April 17th and 18th. Inflation in 1979 was soaring, and every excess penny spent was a huge blow to the Doctor Who budget. The blame for the debacle was laid, in part, at Irvine's feet; together with the issues surrounding Erato, this resulted in a growing rift between the Doctor Who production office and the Visual Effects Department.

It was clear that Tom Baker and Lalla Ward's affection for one another was growing deeper

Recording on The Creature From The Pit concluded with a three-day session in TC6 from April 22nd to 24th. The Erato outfit had now been altered, with arms added to make it appear less phallic. Scenes in the mines were taped on all three days, while the TARDIS sequences were also captured on the 24th. By now, Baker and Ward were beginning to find that they had a similar philosophy about what made Doctor Who work. They also shared a propensity for rewriting their dialogue to better fit their visions of their characters. Indeed, it was becoming clear that Baker and Ward's affection for one another was growing deeper than that of mere colleagues.

However, Ward was less happy about how The Creature From The Pit catered to Romana. She thought her hairstyle was unflattering, and disliked the fact that the white outfit designed by June Hudson intentionally recalled Mary Tamm's original dress from The Ribos Operation. Ward also felt that Fisher had done a poor job of revising his scripts to reflect her new interpretation of Romana, and she expressed reservations that she was being expected to be nothing more than an echo of Tamm's incarnation. Williams agreed that Ward should henceforth have more say in her character's portrayal. The Creature From The Pit was also a frustrating experience for Barry, and contributed to his decision to end his association with Doctor Who after a decade and a half.

It was ultimately decided that City Of Death would be broadcast in-between Destiny Of The Daleks and The Creature From The Pit, making the Chloris adventure the third serial of Season Seventeen. As such, it was the first of the year's stories to enjoy competition from ITV, following the resolution of the industrial dispute which had kept the rival broadcaster off the air for two months. On November 3rd, Episode Two aired five minutes later than usual, at 6.05pm, in order to accommodate an extended animated short -- an episode of Barney Bear -- earlier in the evening.

• Doctor Who Magazine #304, 30th May 2001, “Archive: The Creature From The Pit” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #9, 22nd December 2004, “One Step Beyond” by Andrew Pixley, Panini Publishing Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #31, 2018, “Story 106: The Creature From The Pit”, edited by Mark Wright, Hachette Partworks Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Handbook: The Fourth Doctor by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1992), Virgin Publishing.
• Doctor Who: The Seventies by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1994), Virgin Publishing.
• In·Vision #41, January 1993, “Production” edited by Justin Richards and Peter Anghelides, Cybermark Services.