Category: Complete Review
Doctor Who episode 354: The Green Death – Episode Five (16/6/1973)
After the army were drafted in for The Mind of Evil and the Navy for The Sea Devils, this time it’s the turn of the RAF. It’s a bit of a half-bothered effort though, with one lo-tech helicopter lobbing some bombs out of the door. Where are the Harrier jump-jets with cruise missiles? It’s a good sequence, though, in a serial that’s already well above its quota of iconic images. It’s also a nice twist that UNIT and BOSS share the same goal: the elimination of the maggots. They aren’t part of a grand plan to take over the world, but an unintended consequence of Global Chemical’s pollution and ruthless efficiency/corner cutting.
Doctor Who episode 353: The Green Death – Episode Four (9/6/1973)
If you squint, The Green Death belongs in an alternative universe where the Season Seven approach wasn’t so comprehensively binned by Terror of the Autons. The third Doctor is possibly closer to Derrick Sherwin’s concept than in any other Pertwee story: dressing up and doing funny voices. UNIT is more central than they have been in anything since Season Eight. There’s a clear, contemporary ecological message, and, no alien villains for the first time since Inferno (plus, obviously, green slime). After three series increasingly focused on getting the show back into outer space, and a tenth anniversary season that’s focused on bringing back Troughton and recreating a Hartnell epic, this is the one for viewers nostalgic for 1970.
Doctor Who episode 352: The Green Death – Episode Three (2/6/1973)
One of the good things about The Green Death is the way it instantly rehabilitates the Brigadier. In his last couple of scripts, the Brig has been a fairly reduced, comic relief character, with little of the steel and smartness that Nick Courtney brought to his appearances between Seasons Five and Eight. In The Time Monster and (to a slightly lesser extent) The Three Doctors he’s written as a comedy buffoon, apparently unable accept exactly the kind of strangeness UNIT was set up to handle. By The Three Doctors, even the loyal Benton suggests that his CO is having a nervous breakdown. So it’s a relief to get a scene like the Brigadier’s face-off with Stevens, declaring this is a security matter, and will be investigated by the UN, and it takes no-one less than the Prime Minister to make him back off. Later, at the lovely domestic dinner scene at the Nuthutch (the Brigadier, delightfully, has turned up in full evening dress), his incredulity at Professor Jones’ plan to go searching for a fabled mushroom in the Amazon is played as healthy scepticism rather than utter closed-mindedness. I’m so pleased Nicholas Courtney is again getting worthy material, even if he’s suddenly looking very much the middle aged Brig of the Fourth Doctor stories.
Doctor Who episode 351: The Green Death – Episode Two (26/5/1973)
So far this is possibly the most X-Filesy Doctor Who, with its dodgy government contracts, colourful locals and something nasty buried below the Earth infecting people. There’s a strand of thought that UNIT stories are all like this, but usually they’re providing security for something, or acting as official observers, rather than the Brigadier, in civvies, having a nosey. Courtney looks great in his flat cap (I’m less sold on Pertwee’s dog blanket), but no-one can hold a candle to the incredible cuteness of Katy Manning in her miner’s gear, hat askew.
Doctor Who episode 350: The Green Death – Episode One (19/5/1973)
The sinking feeling when Robert Sloman’s name appears in the opening credits is misplaced. There’s none of the archness and whimsy that disfigured his last script, The Time Monster. Instead, we’re presented with something that skirts dangerously close to polemic as Professor Jones and Jo Grant take a stand against the diesel pollution threatened by Global Chemicals’ new factory in South Wales. This has a sense of purpose and passion beyond pretty much anything the show has previously offered, and the result is one of the most instantly compelling episodes ever.
Doctor Who episode 349: Planet of the Daleks – Episode Six (12/5/1973)
The Latep/Jo relationship sums up Planet of the Daleks. It’s oddly cursory, it comes out of nowhere, lasts just long enough to make a point, and is then over and done with (Latep takes the whirlwind, one-episode romance very stoically as he waves a cheery goodbye and heads back to Skaro). It’s almost like a pastiche of what Terry Nation remembers about the 1960s episodes and Susan and Vicki’s shotgun marriage departures.
Doctor Who episode 348: Planet of the Daleks – Episode Five (5/5/1973)
Pace has slowed to a crawl in this instalment, as it tends to with most fifth of six episodes. A great deal of time is spent battling creatures in the dark (represented by some light bulbs) which reinforces the dangers of Spiridon, but doesn’t do much to move things forward. You can sense how much the serial has run out of steam by the amount of time the Doctor and Jo sit about wondering what to do next, with no particular sense of urgency.
Doctor Who episode 347: Planet of the Daleks – Episode Four (28/4/1973)
One thing I really like about Planet of the Daleks is its focus on the utter, relentless horror of the Daleks themselves. They cut through a solid metal door, quickly discover the Doctor’s escape route up the ventilation shaft, send a squad out to locate and destroy the Thal bombs and intercept the escapers at the top of the shaft, send a Dalek to elevate up after their enemies (belying Revelation and Remembrance‘s claims to have been the first to feature flying Daleks), and develop a deadly bacteria to wipe out all life on Spiridon just out of spitefulness towards the little band of rebels. There’s something quite Michael Myers about this unremitting pursuit and destruction that reminds us how brilliantly horrible an invention the Daleks are.
Doctor Who episode 345: Planet of the Daleks – Episode Two (14/4/1973)
Terry Nation has decided to give this story a theme, with all the subtlety he displays when naming planets. So we have several moments where the Doctor reflects on the difference between recklessness and courage, condemning Vaber’s hot-headedness and praising Codal’s self-sacrifice. It all boils down to “feel the fear and do it anyway”. Thanks for attending this Ted Talk.
Doctor Who episode 344: Planet of the Daleks – Episode One (7/4/1973)
Frontier in Space/Planet of the Daleks was inspired by memories of the 12-part Daleks’ Master Plan, but separating the planet hopping/interstellar politics/enemy Time Lord elements of that serial from the Dalek city on Kembel. Terry Nation’s first script for the programme since 1966 picks up almost precisely where he left off, with a desperate mission to a Dalek-infested jungle planet populated by deadly flora that can turn a human being into a vegetable. Instead of Agent Bret Vyon we get Taron the Thal, but for the most part this repurposes Mission to the Unknown and the first five episodes of The Daleks’ Master Plan. It even has a desperate message recorded on a cassette.
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