235 The Seeds of Death: Episode Four

EPISODE: The Seeds of Death: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 235
STORY NUMBER: 048
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 15 February 1969
WRITER: Brian Hayles
DIRECTOR: Michael Ferguson
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Peter Bryant
RATINGS: 7.1 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who Revisitations Box Set - Volume 2 (Seeds of Death, Carnival of Monsters & Resurrection of the Daleks)

"It's killed them. It's killed them all!"

When the seed explodes it produces a gas killing technician Brent. Commander Radnor has the air vented. The Ice Warriors dispatch more seeds to T-Mat centres all over Earth. Outside the London T-Mat control the vented gas settles on the ground and turns to foam. Slaar orders the Doctor t-mated into space but Jamie & Phipps rescue him by opening the back of the T-Mat capsule. Bubbles form in the foam exploding and spreading the foam further. Reports come in of other T-Mat technicians killed, like Brent, by Oxygen starvation. An Ice Warrior T-Mats into the London HQ rampaging through the complex killing several guards. Zoe volunteers to climb through the narrow vent to get to heating controls in Moonbase control. The Ice Warrior continues it's rampage outside T-Mat Control on into the foam. Professor Eldred realises that the Ice Warriors have only had pods sent to currently cold cities. Miss Kelly & Jamie are found in the energy store by an Ice Warrior. Technician Fewsham provides a distraction to allow Zoe to turn up the temperature control but she is caught returning to the vent...

Oooh, the Doctor's unconscious all episode, can you tell that Troughton's off on a fishing holiday again this week? Actually the absence is significant as it's the last time a member of the regular cast takes a week's holiday from the show! Substituting for him is Tom Laird who we'll see again shortly as a Roman Soldier in The Wars Games.

Brent, killed in the opening moments of this episode is played by Ric Felgate who was Roy Stone in The War Machines and returns as Van Lyden in The Ambassadors of Death. All three stories are directed by Michael Ferguson. There's a family connection there however: Ric Felgate was married to Michael Fergusson's first wife's sister as Michael Fergusson confesses in Toby Hadoke's Who's Round 180.

Phipps is played by Christopher Coll. A recurring part in Z-Cars brought him into contact with this story's director Michael Ferguson and also Christopher Barry who cast him as Stubbs in The Mutants.

When I last watched the next episode for blogging purposes I noticed that Zoe said that Phipps was killed in this episode, which I'd missed. I've found it now, it's quite close to the end and possible to miss.

Terry Scully plays the cowardly Fewsham. He too had worked with Michael Fergusson, and Christopher Coll, on Z-Cars earlier in 1968. Earlier in his career he appeared in the acclaimed An Age of Kings BBC production of William Shakespeare plays where he played King Henry VI amongst other roles. He was in five episodes of Survivors, Genesis, Spoil of War, Law and Order, The Future Hour & Revenge, as as Vic Thatcher and appeared in Blake's 7 Dawn of the Gods as Groff.

With Troughton away we get lots of activity helping to make up for the first few episodes. There's three main lines of action with Jamie, Zoe, Miss Kelly & Phipps fighting the Ice Warriors on the moon and Radnor & Eldred providing exposition in T-Mat control.

The third line of action opens up when the Ice Warrior T-Mats to Earth and then goes on a rampage outside as we go on location for the first time since The Invasion! Filming occurred on Hampstead Heath on the 19th September 1968.

This involves another outing for the foam machine, much used in season 5 and last seen simulating lava in The Dominators/The Mind Robber.

It's also the only time the Ice Warriors get go on location and we know that Steve Peters, who later plays on of the other astronauts in the Fergusson directed Ambassadors of Death, is the actor inside the costume on this occasion.

Director Michael Ferguson makes great use of the alien showing it wading through the foam, in silhouette and from a distance.

There's a number of other actors on location as security guards. We know Derrick Slater is there because he gets to speak and is thus credited!

According to Richard Bignell's Doctor Who On Location the other actors involved were Alan Chuntz, who was Harvey in episode 1, Derek Chafer, who we last saw as a Cyberman in The Invasion episode 6, and Jimmy Haswell. It's his first appearance in some while having been a Guard in The Massacre but IMDB think he's in 3 stories out of 6 now returning as a Pirate in The Space Pirates, a Prisoner in The War Games and Corporal Champion in The Ambassadors of Death, Michael Fergusson's next Doctor Who job, before taking another absence followed by playing a Beat Policeman in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. He'd also appear in the missing Out of the Unknown The Yellow Pill (director M Fergusson)as a Plain clothes Man and the Blake's 7 episodes The Harvest of Kairos as a Labourer and Children of Auron as an Auron Technician.

However since Chafer & Haswell are credited by IMDB as extras on Space Pirates episode 4 and not for Seeds of Death 4, I'm a little suspicious about their credits there! I can also see see the third Ambassadors of Death Astronaut, after Steve Peters & Rik Felgate credited to that story, and not this, so there's another little alarm bell about the accuracy of some of the IMDB credits around now!

There's also some guards briefly featuring in the studio and this is probably where IMDB got their credit for Peter Roy as a Guard from episode 1 from. We listed his extensive CV recently in The Invasion episode 7. Rather unhelpfully they don't list any uncredited guards for this episode.

Hurrah, it's also a return for our old friends the Power Station panels! They've been in the Moonbase control room every episode but this is our first real good look at them.

The white one is a familiar site from Salamander's Office in the bunker in Enemy of the World and makes a fleeting appearance in web of Fear 1.

If the black panel has appeared before then it was in Fury From The Deep, where the black versions of the panels make their Doctor Who debut. It's very similar to a white one we've seen before as far back as The War Machines, with the "BBC Schools Clock" pattern of round dots but that one had two square meters next to each other instead of above like here.