277 Inferno: Episode Six

EPISODE: Inferno: Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 277
STORY NUMBER: 054
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 13 June 1970
WRITER: Don Houghton
DIRECTOR: Douglas Camfield (and Barry Letts - Uncredited)
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 5.7 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Inferno Special Edition
EPISODE FORMAT: 525 video RSC

"Listen to that! Do you want to end your lives fighting like animals?"

Escaping from the Brigade-Leader's office with the aid of Fire Extinguishers which they use to cool the Primords the Doctor & Sutton contain them using the coolant for the drill head. The Brigade & Section Leaders take Petra to the power room where she attempts to reconnect the power to the Tardis Console, but she is forced out by the Stahlmann Primord. Sutton returns with her and they activate the power making it back to the Doctor. The Brigade Leader pulls his gun on the Doctor threatening to shoot him if he won't take them with him. Liz shoots the Brigade Leader and orders the Doctor too leave as Lava pours towards the building .....

When I listened to the Abominable Snowmen I was impressed by how the tension was ratcheted up over the six episodes. It's the same here as we know the Doctor is under real time pressure to get off the Inferno Earth and return to our own before that world is destroyed. The noise just gets louder as this episode goes on, it's noticeable how much quieter it is on the real Earth during this episodes brief visit there! There's a lovely visual effect over the location footage to indicate the rising heat, presumably at Douglas Camfield's direction.

By using a parallel Universe this story allows members of the cast to play not one but two versions of themselves, so when Nicholas Courtney died in 2011 and Liz & I decided to watch one of his stories, this was the one we chose. But he not only gets to play the Brigadier and his evil counterpart the Brigade Leader, in this episode he also gets to take the second character for a huge jump off the deep end as he sinks first into hopeless despair and then insanity in the face of his imminent death doing everything in his power to find a method of escape. It's a brilliant performance from Courtney and underlines what a good actor he was.

STEWART: How long is all this going to take?
WILLIAMS: I don't know.
STEWART: Well, can't you hurry it up, Doctor Williams?
WILLIAMS: No, not if I'm to do the job properly.
STEWART: You must! We've very little time!
WILLIAMS: Brigade Leader, I'm trying very hard to carry out a complex scientific task under impossible conditions. You will not help matters by bullying me.
STEWART: You are insolent, Doctor Williams.
WILLIAMS: Am I? Then it's about time that you learned that some problems just can't be solved by brute force and terror.
SHAW: Better let her get on with it, Leader. We're in her hands.
STEWART: We've got to the power through to the hut. It's our only chance.
SHAW: But the Doctor said he can't take us with him.
STEWART: Do you think he wants to help us? He's only concerned with his own safety.
SHAW: I think he's telling the truth. I think he has been all along.
STEWART: When the time comes, he will take us. He'll have no choice.

STEWART: Doctor Williams. You must hurry!
WILLIAMS: As I've already told you, Brigade Leader, I'm hurrying as fast as I can.
SHAW: All right, Brigade Leader, we're still here.
STEWART: I don't like your tone. Those explosions are getting closer. I'm thinking about the safety of all of us.
SHAW: Oh, yes, yes, of course you are.
STEWART: We've all got to get out of here!
WILLIAMS: You go if you want to. I shall stay here and finish the work.
STEWART: You carry on with your work!
SHAW: Where's there to go?
STEWART: If that spacecraft of the Doctor's works, you'll see for yourself.
SHAW: You don't really think you can force him to take us? He's not the sort of man you can frighten.
STEWART: Once that thing's working, we can take it over.
SHAW: We don't know how to operate it.
STEWART: Doctor Williams can learn how to operate it. She's a scientist!
SHAW: That device is beyond all our comprehension.
STEWART: Then I shall have to persuade him to operate it for us.
SHAW: And if he tries to go by himself?
STEWART: And leaves us to die? I shall make sure that he dies first.

SHAW: The power's coming through!
DOCTOR: It's coming through all right, and it's gaining rapidly.
SHAW: Hurry, Doctor!
DOCTOR: Well done, Doctor Williams!
WILLIAMS: Quickly, Doctor. The power won't last for long.
STEWART: Long enough. You're going to take us with you, Doctor.

DOCTOR: I can't. It's impossible.
STEWART: I advise you to try.
DOCTOR: I can't. I literally can't! It'd create a cosmic disaster.
STEWART: You're not going to leave us here!
DOCTOR: Do you think I want to? I'd give anything to save you all.
GREG: It's not loaded!

SHAW: Let him go, Brigade Leader.
STEWART: We helped him. we've every right to go. I'll give you until three, Doctor. One
DOCTOR: You'll have to shoot me, Brigade Leader. I have no intention of taking you.
STEWART: Two. Three

At which point Section Leader Shaw has finally had enough of her superior officer and shoots him just as the lava is about to roll in the door!

Nice little comparison between the two universes halfway through the episode: in the real universe Sutton visits the hut to find out what happens to the Doctor under the pretext of wanting to see his machine. Shortly afterwards the alternate Sutton end up in their version of the hut with the console!

One of the faults Parallel Universe stories have is the inevitable sequel. Star Trek, especially Deep Space 9 repetitively returns to the Mirror, Mirror Universe and also works events from Next Generation's Yesterday's Enterprise into the main continuity, both of which devalue the original. The X-Men have returned to the Age of Apocalypse twice now. New Doctor Who flips back and forth to the universe where the Cybermen were created like it was the room next door. I very much feel it's best to do the Parallel Universe and then leave well alone. And the best way to do that is to destroy it at the end of the story, just as Doctor Who does here. Any sealed portal can always be undone, any prohibition broken. A decently apocalyptic finale should enshrine your parallel universe to one off status, not that it stopped Yesterday's Enterprise or the Age of Apocalypse from being revisited!

One new actor this week and that's Walter Henry, playing a Primord. IMDB reckons he's the double for Bento during his transformation, I'm not so sure. Walter Henry had been a Person in Square of Troy in The Myth Makers, an English Sailor/Scotsmen in Hold/Highlander in The Highlanders, a Mine Worker in The Macra Terror and a Plague Victim in Doctor Who and the Silurians earlier this season. He returns as a Peasant, Traveller, Workman Peasant and Brethren Member in Masque of Mandragora, a Time Lord in Deadly Assassin and a Cafe Patron in City of Death. In The Prisoner he's a Servant in Dance of the Dead, in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) he's the Policeman at Kay's Bedside in That's How Murder Snowballs and in Monty Python's Flying Circus he's one of the many Gasman in Dinsdale! In The Sweeney Flying Squad Detective in Ringer, Jackpot, Queen's Pawn, Jigsaw & Contact Breaker while in it's film version Sweeney! he's an Oil Conference Executive. In The Professionals he's a CI5 Man in Killer with a Long Arm, Stannard in The Rack and Cantwell in A Stirring of Dust. He's in the 1979 Quatermass as an Elderly Soldier in An Endangered Species, in Are You Being Served? he's the Priest in Heir Apparent and in Blake's 7 he's Zukan's Technician in Warlord. He was in The Empire Strikes Back as a Rebel Technician on Hoth and Return of the Jedi as a Council Member in the Briefing Room. He's also in The Italian Job as The Projectionist. He's in both unofficial James Bond films as a Casino Patron in Casino Royale and as a Man carrying papers on Largo's ship The Flying Saucer in Never Say Never Again. He was a regular in the Carry On Films appearing in Carry On Jack as a Deckhand, Carry On Cleo as a Roman Soldier, Carry On Doctor as a Visitor, Carry On Up the Khyber as a Burpa, Carry On Camping as a Man in Cinema, Carry On at Your Convenience as a Man in Cinema, Carry On Matron as a Wedding Guest, Carry On Abroad as a Stall-Holder and Carry On Emmannuelle as the Customs Officer.