275 Inferno: Episode Four

EPISODE: Inferno: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 275
STORY NUMBER: 054
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 30 May 1970
WRITER: Don Houghton
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield (and Barry Letts - Uncredited)
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 6 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Inferno Special Edition
EPISODE FORMAT: 525 video RSC

"If you break through the Earth's crust now, you'll release forces you never dreamed could exist! Listen to that! That's the sound of this planet screaming out its rage!"

Section-Leader Liz Shaw intervenes allowing the Doctor to repair the computer. The Doctor is interrogated by the Brigade-Leader & Section-Leader. The Doctor is taken to the cells and placed with a sleeping figure. In the real world Sir Keith Gold leaves to consult with the ministry. The figure in the cell turns out to be the mutated Bromley and while fighting him the Doctor escapes. He infiltrates drilling control, disguised in a protective suit, attempting to stop penetration of the Earth's crust but is discovered and held at gunpoint as the drill breaks through.

STEWART: You there!
COMPUTER: Final countdown commences now.
STEWART: Come down here.
COMPUTER: Zero minus fifty seconds. Stand by.
STEWART: Did you hear what I said? Come down here.
COMPUTER: Zero minus forty seconds.
DOCTOR: You must stop this countdown before it's too late!
COMPUTER: All personnel stand by.
DOCTOR: Do you hear me? You must stop it!
STAHLMANN: Brigade Leader, shoot that man now!
GREG: You can't do that! It's just murder!
DOCTOR: If you break through the Earth's crust now, you'll release forces you never dreamed could exist!
COMPUTER: Zero minus thirty seconds. Countdown moves to final phase.
DOCTOR: Listen to that!
COMPUTER: Zero minus twenty seconds.
DOCTOR: That's the sound of this planet screaming out its rage!
COMPUTER: Countdown will now proceed by seconds.
STAHLMANN: I order you to shoot that man!
GREG: Go on, run for it! Run!
COMPUTER: Zero minus ten seconds. Nine. Eight.
COMPUTER: Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.

Fab stuff again here. Very 1984/World War II film as the Doctor is interrogated by the Brigade & Section leaders.

SHAW: Name?
STEWART: Who sent you here?
SHAW: Did you come to commit sabotage?
STEWART: Name?
SHAW: What organisation employs you?
STEWART: When did you first become a traitor?
SHAW: How did you get into the complex?
STEWART: Who helped you? Was it Sutton?
SHAW: Name? What is your name? Answer!

DOCTOR: You're wasting your time, you know. I can stand a great deal of this childishness.
STEWART: This is only the beginning.
SHAW: We have other methods.
DOCTOR: Yes, I'm sure you have. But it won't do you any good.
STEWART: You'll talk, eventually.
SHAW: Everybody talks.
DOCTOR: How can I give you information that doesn't exist?

STEWART: The information must exist and you will give it to us!
SHAW: Name?
STEWART: Who sent you here?!
SHAW: Which of our enemies are you working for?
STEWART: Who are your associates?
DOCTOR: I came here on my own. I came by accident. I came here. The Tardis console slipped me sideways in time. Slipped me sideways in time.
SHAW: Shall we proceed to stage two interrogation? He's just babbling.
STEWART: No, he's a tough one. He might die before he talked.
SHAW: Yes. We'd better let him get his strength back.

There's a nice sequence as the Doctor talks with Liz which shows there are parallels between the Liz we've known all season and her counterpart on this Earth.

SHAW: You seem to know a great deal about this project.
DOCTOR: Enough.
SHAW: You're a scientist.
DOCTOR: Of sorts, yes.
SHAW: Where do you come from?
DOCTOR: I've already told you. I come from a parallel space-time continuum. A twin world of this.
SHAW: If you told us the truth, there might be some hope for you.
DOCTOR: Your counterpart in the other world would tell you that I'm not in the habit of telling lies, Elizabeth.
SHAW: This other woman, the one that looks like me.
DOCTOR: It's not that she looks like you, she is you. I do wish I could make you understand this.
SHAW: What does she do?
DOCTOR: Do? She's a scientist.
SHAW: I am a security officer so there's no possible link, is there?
DOCTOR: Did you ever think of becoming a scientist? Yes. Yes, I can see that you did.
SHAW: I read physics at university. What's that got to do with it?
DOCTOR: Simply that her mind process runs along a similar parallel to yours. Doesn't that strike you as significant?
SHAW: Not particularly.
DOCTOR: Look, Elizabeth, please try and think. Whatever they taught you in this bigoted world of yours, you've still got a mind of your own. Now use it, before it's too late!

To do a Parallel Universe story you really need something for it to be compared to and this is the first time Doctor Who has had a large enough backing cast plus a stable setting, the Doctor's Earth exile, for it to get away with doing this. Here the recall of John Levene as Benton, and his insertion into the previous story becomes important expanding the familiar cast of supporting characters to three and presenting each of them as different versions of their normal selves: The Brigadier the fascistic Brigade Leader, Sergeant Benton becomes the bullying Platoon Under Leader and Liz becomes part of the army instead of a scientist.

DOCTOR: Please, don't push. I'll have you know that your counterpart in the other world was a nice, sociable sort of chap, Sergeant.
BENTON 2: My rank is Platoon Under Leader.
DOCTOR: That's a bit of a mouthful, isn't it?
BENTON 2: Your trouble is you talk too much.
DOCTOR: Ah, I see I've got company. And what did he do, park in a restricted zone?
BENTON 2: Stop asking stupid questions!
DOCTOR: At least he seems to be sleeping peacefully.
BENTON 2: He's had a tranquilliser dart. They don't give us any trouble after that. We should have done the same to you. Now, get in!

The in story support characters are maybe less changed: very little separates Stahlman from Stahlmann bar a beard. The same characteristics are there in both versions of the character, driven to get the project to suceed at all costs.

Petra Williams & Greg Sutton become more straight laced and strict versions of themselves.

Greg's even wearing a suit in this second reality!

But his slight rogueishness is still here in the form of an insubordinate streak which is criticised by both Director Stahlmann and Petra Williams:

GREG: Well, it seems to be working. Who was that man in the funny clothes?
WILLIAMS: They said he was a saboteur.
GREG: How come he saves our skin?
WILLIAMS: He's trying to save his own. Hadn't you better get number two output pipe working?
GREG: It'll mean cutting down the drill to minimum revs.
WILLIAMS: The Director won't like that.
GREG: Well then, he'll have to lump it, won't he? There's no alternative.
WILLIAMS: Sutton, if you would only curb this insolent streak, you might have a great future as a servant of the State.
GREG: What, and become a nice well-behaved little zombie, you mean, like the rest of you? No, thank you.
WILLIAMS: You've only survived so long because you have certain usefulness, because of your technical skills. Once this project is over
GREG: Greg Sutton's for the high jump. A nasty little accident in the cells, or shot whilst trying to escape?
WILLIAMS: It's been known to happen.
SUTTON: Would you care?
WILLIAMS: I'd regret the waste, that is all.

STAHLMANN: Sutton? How long?
GREG: Almost finished.
STAHLMANN: Good, then we can continue with the drilling.
GREG: At reduced revs?
STAHLMANN: No, I intend to accelerate again as soon as possible.
GREG: Well, I don't advise it.
STAHLMANN: I don't need advice.
GREG: Except from that prisoner!
STAHLMANN: I would have come to the same conclusions.
GREG: You may have come to them a bit too late.
STAHLMANN: I sometimes wonder why I tolerate you, Sutton.
GREG: That's easy. On a project like this you don't just need a good party member, you need a good engineer.
STAHLMANN: Oh, you are useful, but you're not indispensable.
GREG: It seems to be my day for getting warnings.
STAHLMANN: You have a bad record, Sutton, a long history. It would be very easy to have you disposed of. Remember that.

But note how it's Greg who breaks ranks to save the Doctor's life at the end of the episode by jumping the Brigade-Leader holding the Doctor at gunpoint!

It's interesting that Doctor Who doesn't try a parallel universe again till Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel in 2006 when we have an extended cast formed from Rose's family & friends that we can compare the alternate versions to. The newer tale has another decent hook, like the Nazis having won the war here, in the Cyberman universe her father is still alive but she was never born.

The use of the Parallel Universe actually serves a function within the story instead of just being a story by itself by showing us what will happen if the Doctor doesn't stop the drilling in our world which in turn gives the closing stages of the story added urgency as the Doctor tries to prevent the destruction of Earth for a second time.

(I've actually looked at this story and parallel universe before: see The Royal Holloway College Science Fiction Society's magazine A Rune With A View Issue 28)

This is the third consecutive story this season to have a large control room set as the main setting: The reactor control in The Silurians, the Space Centre control in Ambassadors of Death and now the drill control here. The seven episode structure has given more money for larger more elaborate sets. However as we've seen it also has meant that the scripts for the stories have had to be stretched somewhat.

There's a couple of Drivers in this episode:

Bruce Cox was a UNIT Soldier/Policeman in Doctor Who and the Silurians and a Jeep Driver in Ambassadors of Death. He returns as an Army Driver in Invasion of the Dinosaurs.

B G Heath. was a Police/Ambulance Driver in The Silurians and a Jeep Driver in Ambassadors of Death. He returns as a Milkman, Black Maria Driver, Rocket Driver & Van Driver Mind of Evil. My natural suspiciousness and the similarity of roles makes me wonder if he's the Ted Heath down as a Driver/Motorcyclist in Day of the Daleks and an Army Driver Invasion of the Dinosaurs? Movie Dude's Inferno Page identifies Heath as the driver of the Jeep the Doctor hides in.

Playing the Technicians dressed in hazard suits on Location are our bunch of stuntmen: Roy Scammell, Alan Chuntz, Roy Street, Derek Martin, Billy Horrigan and Terry Walsh.

The Loudspeaker Voice is provided by Ian Fairbairn, who's playing Bromley.