Maybe this is a story that is failed by the random journey. "Planet of the Spiders" is best compared (favourably) to "Journey's End" or "End of Time, Part Two" in that it is a celebration of the era and of Pertwee himself. He surrounded by the trappings of his era, including the entire episode dedicated to the chase (no, not that one). Of course, this wasn't intended as such, but Letts goes a long way to giving the Pert a proper send-off, even including the insert-boring-space-colonists-here stuff. While greed for knowledge may not be the best signifier of the third Doctor, he is defined by being very aristocratic and I think the rejection of his greed in the story is a nice cap stone for that.
Two points I want to bring up. One: did you notice K'ampo Rimpoche and Cho Je's regeneration parallels the Fourth Doctor and the Watcher? Two: I recently watched The Abominable Snowman, which takes place in a temple in Tibet. This predates Barry Lett's involvement, but it's a hell of a coincidence
Yep! The whole Watcher thing definitely has echoes. And The Abominable Snowmen makes you wonder even more about when K'anpo arrived and what he's been up to since this episode.
The spiders did not win.The great one died when she got the metebelis crystal and all the other spiders died the moment she did because they are all connected to her.The doctors sacrifice was the result of his greed for knowledge and taking the crystal.knowing that going back to the cave on metebelis 3 will be fatal due to the radiation in the cave.
All true, but the Doctor went back to give the Great One the crystal - the equivalent of giving a nuke to Hitler. He did not know it would create a "positive feedback" circuit when he made that decision.
