In the serial, the First Doctor (William Hartnell) and his travelling companions Ian Chesterton (William Russell), Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), and Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) ally themselves with the Menoptra, the former inhabitants of the planet Vortis, as they struggle to win back the planet from the malignant Animus (Catherine Fleming) and its Zarbi slaves.

Martin hired a mime artist to develop choreography for the serial, and forwent a traditional score in favour of prerecorded stock music.

A force acting through Barbara Wright's (Jacqueline Hill) gold bracelet draws her outside, leaving Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) alone.

The Zarbi take Barbara and Hrostar (Arne Gordon), a Menoptra, to the Crater of Needles to drop vegetation into acid rivers which feed the Animus (voiced by Catherine Fleming).

Ian and Vrestin meet the Optera, descendants of the Menoptra who fled underground, and convince them to help fight the Animus, digging upwards beneath the Carsinome.

Although disappointed with the scripts, Martin observed that they were as close to a fantasy adventure as Doctor Who should get; he felt that they had visual potential, but that the available studio facilities would limit it.

Spooner made edits to the script towards the end of 1964; he found the narrative to be multilayered, with the Menoptra representing free enterprise and the Zarbi communism.

[15] The script for the third episode was structured to omit Barbara, as Jacqueline Hill was scheduled to take a week's holiday;[11] she retained a credit in Radio Times,[16] but not on-screen, as was common when the regular cast was absent.

[22] The three established Dalek operators—Jewell, Kevin Manser, and Gerald Taylor—were cast as the main Zarbi, alongside John Scott Martin in his first appearance on the series.

[28] Martin wanted to use a greased neutral-density filter on shots of Vortis to capture its thin atmosphere, but found that the optical glass was too expensive, opting for a cheaper alternative;[29] two special lenses were fitted, both of which broke at some point during production.

[35] The recording had finished so late that the dressing room lights were switched off by studio management, forcing the crew to exit in darkness.

[26] Following the recording, Lambert asked Martin to avoid allowing the actors to alter their dialogue, noting that major changes should be suggested at readthroughs with Spooner present.

[24] The final episode was recorded on 26 February, and the session overran by 15 minutes due partly to sound problems necessitating a major retake.

[38] A special trailer for The Web Planet, filmed on 4 February 1965, features the Zarbi arriving at the BBC Television Centre before being shown to their dressing rooms.

[1] The serial was believed to have been wiped in the early 1970s and presumed missing until negative film prints of all six episodes were recovered from BBC Enterprises in the late 1970s.

[40] Comments from younger viewers read on Junior Points of View were mixed; some found the episode "exciting and hair-raising", while others complained about the "pointless, noisy, bleeping" of the Zarbi.

[40] An audience report prepared following the serial's broadcast indicated satisfaction with its conclusion and choreography, but confusion regarding the action and criticism of the costumes and blurred lens.

In The Discontinuity Guide (1995), writers Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping praised the serial's imagination and ambition, but noted that it was "slow and silly looking" by modern standards.

[19] In A Critical History of Doctor Who (1999), John Kenneth Muir described the serial as "a noble experiment" despite its mixed execution; he praised the costumes for the Zarbi, but criticised the Menoptra suits, alien voices, blurred lens, and Strutton's unoriginal scripts.

[3] In 2009, Den of Geek's Cliff Chapman ranked The Web Planet among the most underrated classic Doctor Who serials, noting that it "is a joy for being so different" even if "the ambition might outstrip the execution".

[47] In 2012, Neela Debnath of The Independent found the story "enjoyable" with ambitious writing that "lacks impact given the poor quality of the visuals".

[53][54] Strutton was approached by Frederick Muller Ltd to create a novelisation of the serial, which he wrote in three weeks; Doctor Who and the Zarbi was published as a hardback in September 1965, with illustrations by John Wood.

It was republished in December 1975 by White Lion, retaining Wood's original artwork except for the cover painting, which instead depicted the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker).

The Target paperback was reissued several times: with a revised logo in August 1978, with Alister Pearson's artwork in January 1990,[50] and by BBC Books in April 2016 with Achilleos's cover and Wood's illustrations.