50 Years of Doctor Who: 352 The Green Death Episode Three

EPISODE: The Green Death: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 352
STORY NUMBER: 069
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 02 June 1973
WRITER: Robert Sloman (and Barry Letts uncredited)
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.8 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Green Death (Special Edition)
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video

"Mister Stevens, two of my friends are still down there in that mine in the gravest danger. If I consider it necessary to close Global Chemicals, then closed it will be!"

The Doctor & Jo use a mine cart & pole to push their way through the sea of green ooze & maggots. Elgin confronts Fell about his refusal to loan cutting equipment. The Doctor finds a crevice he believes leads to the surface. The Brigadier summons UNIT to investigate and threatens to close Global Chemicals if they turn out to be responsible. Stevens counters by contacting the ministry of ecology. The Doctor & Jo find giant maggot eggs and bring one with them. Elgin takes an interest in the pumping that Fell is conducting. The Brigadier is instructed to put himself at the disposal of Global Chemicals by first the Ecology Minister and then the Prime Minister. The Doctor & Jo emerge into Global Chemicals pump room as Elgin discovers they about to pump more waste into the pipe. He opens the direct door to the pipe freeing them as Fell's conditioning breaks down. Elgin gets them out of Global Chemicals as Fell returns to Stevens who places headphones on him allowing BOSS to process him again. Fell is given instructions to kill himself jumping off a balcony. The Doctor, Brigadier & Jo return to the Wholeweal community for dinner. Professor Jones tells them he's going on a trip down the Amazon to investigate fungus. A phone call comes through saying Bert the miner has died. The Doctor intends to analyse the egg but gossip concerning it's existence has reached Global Chemicals and Hinks is sent to fetch it. As everyone retires to bed at the Wholeweal, the Brigadier staying at the local pub, Jo stays up reading. In the lab the egg hatches, the Maggot crawls across the floor and approaches Jo.....

I'm really not sure what to make of this episode, it's good yes, but there's a lot in. The dark glowing tunnels and the maggots will appeal to the show's younger fans!

But Fell's mind control, breakdown and instructed suicide are very adult themes that make me feel like I'm watching a series 7 story again.

Then we get this wonderful scene of the Wholeweal community having dinner together and there at the head of the table, looking completely out of place in his dinner jacket & bow tie, is the Brigadier. What follows as Cliff Jones attempts to explain to this very establishment figure what they're doing there is a wonder to behold.

JONES: Some more, Brigadier?
BRIGADIER: Oh, I wish I could. What was that meat?
JONES: Not meat at all. Fungus.
BRIGADIER: Fungus?
JONES: My new hybrid.
JO: So you solved your problem? You've found what you've been looking for?
JONES: Oh, I wish I had. No, no, it tastes fine, looks good, the texture's right, but it's relatively low in protein. Has to be picked at exactly the right moment, and it has to be eaten or dried straight away, or it goes off.
JO: Oh, so you've still got a long way to go.
JONES: Yes, you could say that. Right up the Amazon in fact.
JO: Up the Amazon?
JONES: Aye in about a month's time.
JO: Oh.
JONES: Look, I'll show you.
BRIGADIER: So, all your research is biological?
JONES: Well, mine is. The others, well. Take Jessie there, tootling away on her tin whistle. She's one of the finest mathematicians in the country. She's doing a study of the probability factors in a projected future ecology.
BRIGADIER: Is she indeed. I never would have guessed. And the gentlemen making that statue thing?
JONES: He used to design supersonic aircraft. They even made one once.
BRIGADIER: What's he doing here?
JONES: Making windmills.
BRIGADIER: Really?
JONES: Aye, and when Hilda's not upside down there, she's writing a book on self-actualisation. Aren't you, love? She used to run an encounter group in Aldgate.
BRIGADIER: Oh, I was stationed once in Aldgate.
JONES: Really? Here it is. Up the Amazon with rifle and camera. It's practically unexplored territory, see?
BRIGADIER: What, the Amazon basin? Oh surely not.
JONES: No, no, I mean the things people eat to get their protein. Grubs, caterpillars, locusts, the blood of their cattle.
JO: Urgh.
JONES: Well, it's only the same as black pudding, love.
JO: Oh, that's disgusting.
JONES: Ah, now listen to this. (reads) And when game is in short supply, these tribes, or so it is said, will subsist for months at a time on a certain giant toadstool peculiar to their region, which serves them for their meat. Thus doth beneficent providence etc, etc.
BRIGADIER: When was that published?
JONES: 1884.
BRIGADIER: And on the strength of that, you'll go gallivanting off into the jungle?
JONES: Aye.
JO: But of course, Well look, it's like finding an old treasure map, isn't it?
JONES: Aye, and what a treasure. It could help to make the whole world rich.
JO: Right.
BRIGADIER: A toadstool?
JONES: Aye, a toadstool!

There's also a running theme through the second half of the episode as Jo & Cliff try to share a romantic moment but keep getting interrupted! Stewart Bevan, who plays Professor Cliff Jones, was Katy Manning's boyfriend at the time this story was made. The other thing I've seen him in is the Blake's 7 episode Death-Watch where he plays Max.

Mitzi McKenzie plays Nancy, one of the Wholeweal community. She was Mrs Martin in Colony in Space, where she was credited as Mitzi Webster, which was also directed by Michael Briant. Oddly she is credited on, but doesn't appear in, episode 1.

The Blonde Haired Hippy Girl standing behind The Brigadier at dinner is Alison Daumler: she was an extra in the crowd scenes in The Silurians Episode 6, one of the Female Technicians in the future in Day of the Daleks and an Atlantean Serving Girl in The Time Monster. She returns as one of The Sisterhood of Karn in Brain of Morbius. Her companion is played by Robert Birmingham who was previously in Inferno as a Technician in our reality. I can't find him on IMDB!

The Sculptor is played by Ken Halliwell, who isn't the more well known Kenneth Halliwell who died 6 years previously! This Ken Halliwell was also in Michael Briant's first Doctor Who story Colony in Space, where he plays a colonist, and appears in Blake's 7 Federation Trooper in Games and a Bidding Agent in Assassin.

Hilda, the girl in the Lotus Position, is played by Jean Channon. She'd been a Parisian Woman in The Massacre. She returns as a Masquer in The Masque of Mandragora, a Passser By and one of Audience/Dancing Girls/Stagehands in The Talons of Weng-Chiang, a Passenger in Nightmare of Eden, a Castrovalvan in Castrovalva, a Dinner Guest in Snakedance, a Lazar in Terminus and the Woman at Telephone in Survival. In Blake's 7 she is a Zondawl Citizen in Warlord.

Jessie, the Flautist, is Jessica Stanley-Clarke. I couldn't find her on IMDB but a google search led me to a band she'd played in called Marsupilami which in turn led me to her Wikipedia page which reveals she is now organic gardening expert, author and broadcaster, particularly on the cultivation and use of herbs!

I can't spot the Long-Haired Boy that the DWAS production file lists but he's played by Keith Norrish who was also a Technician in Inferno. He returns as one of Irongron's Men in the Time Warrior, a Thal Officer in Genesis of the Daleks, a soldier & brethren member in The Masque of Mandragora, Leela's Guard in the Sunmakers, an Orderly in Frontios and a Technician in The Ops Room in Twin Dilemma. In he's a Federation Trooper in Bounty, a Salvage Man in Dawn of the Gods and a Guard in Moloch. In Porridge he plays a Prison Officer in the first episode, New Faces, Old Hands.He can be seen in Doomwatch as a RAF Man in Survival Code.

We get a lovely little joke during the Brigadier's phone call to the Ecology Minister:

MINISTER: Fair enough, Jocelyn, but you are interrupting a cabinet meeting, you know. Who? Oh yes, the UNIT chap. Well, you'd better put him on. Do forgive me, Prime Minister. Ah, Brigadier. Unfortunate business, this.
BRIGADIER: I'd put it a little more strongly than that, sir. Well, it seems to me that an international investigation. No, I don't agree at all, sir.
MINISTER: Don't you, Brigadier. Interesting. Nevertheless, I strongly suggest that you put yourself and UNIT at the disposal of the director of Global Chemicals. He is in by far the best position to handle the situation.
BRIGADIER: May I remind you that I answer to Geneva. Under Article seventeen of the Third Enabling Act, the United Nations
MINISTER: I helped draft that act, Brigadier. May I remind you of Article eighteen, Matters of Domestic Concern? Er, paragraph three if I remember rightly, will place itself at the disposal of the host nation in all respects. The Prime Minister and I feel
BRIGADIER: Sir, with respect, I disagree that this is a purely domestic matter, on the contrary
MINISTER (covering mouthpiece on phone): Wretched fellow needs a swift kick on the backside. Would you care to administer, Jeremy?
BRIGADIER: And what's more, sir. What do you say? ..... Oh. Yes, good afternoon, sir. Duty? Yes, I think I know. Yes, I know that. Is that an order, Prime Minister? I see.

At the time this story was filmed the leader of the Liberal Party was led by Jeremy Thorpe, the insinuation being that somehow the Liberal Party, third placed no hopers, had managed to form a government with Thorpe as PM! For more fun & games with British politics join us for Terror of the Zygons in two years time.

The silent, and all but off screen, Prime Minister Jeremy is Brychan Powell who Was previously in Day of the Daleks as both the Daleks' Guard and a Russian Aide following which he was a Solonian in The Mutants. He returns as a Mentiad in The Pirate Planet, a Noble in The Androids of Tara, a Logopolitan in Logopolis, an Umpire in Black Orchid, a Business Passenger in Time Flight and a Citizen in Planet of Fire. He can also be seen in Doomwatch as a Man in Flood.

His Minister of Ecology is Richard Beale who was in The Ark as the Refusian voice, The Gunfighters as Bat Masterson and The Macra Terror as the Broadcast voice.
He is in Blake's 7 as Saymon in The Web, and Ulf in two early second season episode of The Tripods.

Elsewhere in the same room is Cabinet Minister Evan Ross who had been an advisor in The Mutants. He returns as an extra in Robot, a Noble in Androids of Tara and a Logopolitan in Logopolis.

Right, we're on the look out for UFO props and there's a SHADO HQ control desk being used by Fell in the Global Chemicals pumping room: