355 The Green Death Episode Six

EPISODE: The Green Death: Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 355
STORY NUMBER: 069
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 23 June 1973
WRITER: Robert Sloman (and Barry Letts uncredited)
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Green Death (Special Edition)
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video

"Too late, Doctor. In five minutes, my power will be extended to seven other complexes throughout the world. Think of that. You have failed in your poor little attempt to halt our progress towards maximum efficiency and productivity.!"

The Doctor tries to find an antibiotic agent to attack the virus in Professor Jones' body, wondering what he meant by serendipity. Benton brings the Doctor a maggot chrysalis that he's found. Nancy finds the escaped Maggot dead, Benton wonders if what it ate killed him and the Doctor realises it's the fungus. The BOSS orders that Yates be subjected to total processing. Benton & the Doctor sprinkle the fungus on the hillside killing the maggots. Cliff is getting worse at the Wholeweal. Yates escapes from Global Chemicals. Benton & the Doctor are attacked by a giant fly, the metamorphosed form of the Maggot which the Doctor kills. Jo tells the Doctor of the accident she had with the fungus powder which enables the Doctor to produce a treatment. Yates tells the Doctor about BOSS's plans and the Doctor goes to Global Chemicals where BOSS prepares to link himself to seven other computers internationally. The Doctor goes to destroy the Boss ordering the Brigadier to attack the site if he's not finished by the deadline. As the plan draws near to fruition Stevens connects himself to the BOSS acting as BOSS's mouthpiece when the Doctor confronts him. The Doctor uses the blue crystal on Stevens to break his conditioning and released from BOSS's hold he destroys Global Chemicals and the BOSS. Jo & Professor Stevens decide to get married and go down the Amazon together to look for the fungus. The Brigadier receives word that Wholeweal has been granted status as a UN Priority One research centre, thanks to Jo making a request of her Uncle at the UN. The Doctor gives her the blue crystal he brought back from Metebelis 3, before silently slipping away from the celebratory party and driving off in Bessie into the night.

Usually deadlines or countdowns add some urgency to an episode but they don't really seem to here. We know that BOSS's plan comes into affect at 4pm but he's been very vague about what it is and as far as I can figure it's a poor man's attempt at knocking off WOTAN from the War Machines.

BOSS: Report.
STEVENS: The medical staff have completed all implantations, and all slave units are now ready to be activated.
BOSS: Good, good! Establish links with the seven international computers. The countdown to phase one can begin!

And the plan has only really been introduced in this episode as is the idea of the maggots pupating and turning into flies, which look superb as stationary models but maybe a little less so airborne. Maybe introducing both plot elements a little earlier in the story would have helped?

So we're left with Cliff Jones illness and imminent death as the plot element we're invested in, mainly because Jo's obviously fallen for him in a big way. Fortunately the treatment for the illness, and the solution to the maggot problem has been in plain sight for some while.

Two odd points to this episode.... well three, but we've already done the dodgy CSO earlier in the story. BOSS spends most of this episode behaving very oddly, humming Wagner and the like, which isn't behaviour you expect from a super computer and isn't really explained.

Then we have Terry Walsh's guard on the gate..... OK I get he's been immobilised, when BOSS tries to take control of his slaves, so he stands there wobbling around. But why doesn't anyone take his gun off him when the Doctor rushes past? He's still holding it when the Doctor returns some while afterwards. So UNIT just stood there while someone wobbles around for how many minutes leaving him holding a double barrelled shot gun ?????

Nice little cameo in the back of the party scene: There's Pat Gorman, seen earlier in the story and indeed this episode as a Security Guard at Global Chemicals, now featuring as a Wholewheal member.

But what the Green Death episode Six is best known as is it's Katy Manning's final episode of Doctor Who. Katy Manning's impending departure had been known about for some time and throughout this season her character shows some real development resisting the Masters hypnotism and fear machine in Frontier in Space and being given a potential love interest in Planet of the Daleks. Right through this story her attraction Cliff is obvious, as is his to her, which sets her departure up nicely and gives her probably the best departure story of any companion. Oddly enough this story also marks the start of real character development for another of our characters: Captain Mike Yates. The effects of what has happened to him here will be felt for some time and will tie into Jo's last influence on the series towards the end of the next series.

Katy Manning's eclectic career post Doctor Who includes presenting the arts & craft program Serendipity, posing naked with a Gold Dalek and many stage appearances. After having twins in 1978 she emigrated to Australia where she eventually became the partner of Barry Crocker, the writer of the theme music for the Australian Soap Opera Neighbours. Her best friend is Liza Minelli who is godmother to her children. No, honestly, I'm not making any of this up! She appeared opposite Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith and Elizabeth Sladen, her successor as companion, in the Sarah Jane Adventures episode The Death of Doctor Who where her character is credited as Jo Jones.

Jo Grant appears in 77 episodes of Doctor Who, which is exactly equal to the number of episodes the Ian & Barbara, the Doctor's original human companions, travelled with him albeit with the small caveat that they weren't both in all those episodes. At the moment that stands joint second behind Jamie McCrimmon who has 113 episodes spanning his first and last appearance with the same caveat that applies to Ian & Barbara. Nobody will ever overtake Jamie's record but Jo, Ian & Barbara will find themselves relegated to joint third place in a few years time.

As well a being the last episode to feature Jo Grant/Katy Manning this is the last appearance of the original Third Doctor/Jon Pertwee opening & closing title sequences which have been on the last 102 episodes. The record here is 152 episodes held by the original Hartnell sequence, and this only just beats the Troughton tally of 101 episodes. The next sequence will be the shortest, at just 26 episodes, but will serve as the template for what follows with Tom Baker's first title sequence being used on 150 episodes, of which 144 were broadcast. And to celebrate the final appearance of these titles the end sequence is once again, like episodes 2 & 5, broadcast the wrong way up and in reverse. This also the last time an episode is entitled "episode " & the number.

The Green Death has been repeated three times by the BBC. Firstly on 27th December 1973 it was shown as a 90-minute compilation. This no longer survives in the BBC archives, unlike the original transmission tapes for all 6 episodes which have always been there allowing it to be shown from the 2nd January to 6th February 1994 on BBC2. Then in 2006 on the 3rd to 5th April it was shown 2 episodes a night on BBC4. In fact more of this season, the tenth, of Doctor Who has been repeated than any other with The Three Doctors & Carnival of Monsters being shown as part of the Five Faces of Doctor Who in 1981 and Planet of the Daleks being shown to celebrate the 30th anniversary in 1993. The runners up here are Davison's first season & Pertwee's third with 14 episodes apiece shown and then Tom Baker's First & Last both of which have has twelve episodes of Doctor Who repeated.

The Green Death is the only story to be novelised by Malcolm Hulke that he did not write the television script for, but the anti big business and environmental issues click very nicely with themes expressed in his other stories, especially Colony in Space. Hulke gets round actor Tony Adams illness by restoring to Elgin all the lines taken by James in the fifth episode.

The Green Death was released in double video pack in August 1996 as a tribute to Jon Pertwee who died earlier that year. It was the first release after the break in the classic Doctor Who video range for the Eighth Doctor Paul McGann Doctor Who TV Movie and sports a modified style to the covers not yet quite in the style they would be for the last few years of the Doctor Who video range.

The Green Death was released on DVD 10th May 2004, as the fourth Jon Pertwee release, and includes a great mock documentary by Mark Gatiss. If you were at my wedding two month later then Rob Leitch gave the sermon there with his notes up against my copy which he'd borrowed and, knowing I wouldn't be back in Kingston for a while, thought he aught to return then! Doctor Who: The Green Death Special Edition DVD was released on August 5th 2013 with an expanded extras package

So while Doctor Who was off air in the summer of 1973 Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks were busy with Moonbase 3, a supposedly more realistic science fiction show. It didn't fare that well in the ratings and was for many years thought lost. However 525 line NTSC copies were recovered from the USA during the 90s. It was released on DVD but is now long out of print.

Oddly enough when I dug out the Doctor Who Magazine Third Doctor Special Edition to check something to do with Frontier in Space I discovered an advert for The Moonbase on DVD on the back!

354 The Green Death Episode Five

EPISODE: The Green Death: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 354
STORY NUMBER: 069
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 16 June 1973
WRITER: Robert Sloman (and Barry Letts uncredited)
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 8.3 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Green Death (Special Edition)
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video

"We must find an answer to those maggots before they pupate. Imagine, thousands of flying insects spreading their infection throughout the world!"

Cliff comes up on the slag heap and spots Jo. The Doctor argues with BOSS (Biomorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor) which the Doctor labels as a Megalomaniac Machine. Jo & Cliff are trapped by the RAF barrage in a cave. Boss boasts of it's infallibility but the Doctor tries to trap it with a logic problem attempting to make his escape as Stevens arrives with guards. The maggots have survived the RAF attack. The Doctor is attached to BOSS. Cliff has been knocked unconscious during the barrage but Jo finds they are now cornered by maggots. The Doctor is taken away & locked in a room to be used as a bargaining chip. Yates comes to rescue him but they are quickly detected. The Doctor escapes, driving through the main gate on the milk float he came in on, but Mike is trapped and captured. The Doctor drives to the slag heap on Bessie as a faint transmission from Jo is received. The Doctor & Benton rescue her & Cliff, taking him back to the Wholeweal where he remains unconscious, waking briefly to say the word "serendipity". Cliff shows signs of being affected by the disease. The Doctor is worried that the Maggots will pupate.

Mike arrives at the Wholeweal, having come to kill the Doctor on BOSS's orders. The Doctor uses the Blue Crystal he brought back from Metebelis 3 to break BOSS's conditioning but unintentionally hypnotises the Brigadier as well. Stevens speaks with Mr James who has been programmed to obey the BOSS. Stevens and BOSS check the progress of their plans Yates returns and reports that he has killed the Doctor. Mike tries to break James' conditioning: he tells Yates that a 4 o'clock today The BOSS intends to take over and then collapses, dead, as Stevens enters the room having discovered Mike's treachery.

Ah the Metebelis 3 Blue Sapphire, or as it will be later known Blue Crystal:

The Doctor uses it to undo Yates' programming and Yates' uses it to undo James'. It's future use probably wouldn't even be in the minds of the show's creators at this time but it will later return to play a rather larger role....

My wife is not a woman that recognises the final technical points of television. She wouldn't have spotted that the end titles of this episode, as per episodes two & six of this story, are shown upside down and reversed. However she walked into the room as the Doctor and Benton are driving through the slag heap and immediately agreed with my assertion that that was Horrible CSO (Colour Separation Overlay) with it being immediately obvious that background and actors have been composited together. Also look at the shots of the Brigadier & UNIT troops standing on the slag heap talking, evidently CSO again. I can't find any record of the notoriously fickle Welsh weather having critically intervened with production but it's a possibility ....

Real life does have a major impact on this episode though: between the second (episodes 3 & 4) & third recording (episodes 5 & 6) studio recording blocks Tony Adams, playing Elgin, went down with Appendicitis and was hospitalised.

Our old friend Roy Skelton, of Dalek Voice fame, was brought in to play a new character, James, who took on Elgin's role & lines. James appears in two scenes, one just after he's been programmed by BOSS:

STEVENS: Mister James? Do you hear me, Mister James?
JAMES: I hear you.
STEVENS: Good. How have you been programmed?
JAMES: To obey the BOSS.
STEVENS: At all times?
JAMES: At all times.
STEVENS: Good. Now then, we must go to work. There is very little time left. Here are your instructions.

A little superfluous, but it does bring back the plot point that BOSS is enslaving people, seen previously with Fell, just before the process is used on Yates. There's a hint too here that it's becoming more prominent in the story:

STEVENS: New York. Seven two oh three slave units prepared.
BOSS: Now reading seven five eight zero.
STEVENS: Zurich. One five eight four.
BOSS: In preparation. Slave unit assessment to follow.
STEVENS: Moscow. Ten zero zero three.
BOSS: Prepared. One one zero zero nine eight.

James is then used to convey the information that BOSS is planning something:

JAMES: What are you doing?
YATES: Nothing. Just concentrate on the blue crystal, Mister James. As you look, you'll see it glow. Watch carefully.
YATES: Mister James? Your mind's clear now. You have to tell me what's going to happen.
JAMES: Takeover. By the BOSS. At four o'clock this afternoon, the computer is going to...
STEVENS: Just can't depend on anyone, can you, Mister Yates.

The novelization of the story restores these lines to Elgin which makes much more sense. Not knowing that Adams was taken ill when you watch the story seeing Elgin disappear without trace then a new character pop up and almost immediately get bumped off makes you wonder what's happening.

I suspect that Elgin may have had earlier scenes in this episode too which were cut when Adams was taken ill and replaced by the poorly CSOd scenes in the studio featuring the Doctor & Benton in Bessie and the Brigadier & Benton with two soldiers played by a couple of regular extras.

The dark haired soldier is Leslie Bates who previously cast the shadow that falls across the Tardis at the end of the first episode, An Unearthly Child and then played a Tribesman in the second, The Cave of Skulls. He's a Man at Lop, Mongol Warrior and Mongol Bandit in Marco Polo, a Guard in The Massacre, a Villager at Inn / Pirate in The Smugglers, an English Soldier in The Highlanders, an IE Guard in The Invasion, an 1862 soldier, Confederate Soldier, foot soldier in The War Games, a Waxworks Visitor/Auton in Spearhead from Space, a BBC3 TV Crewmember in The Dæmons, a UNIT soldier in The Three Doctors, a Guard & Draconian in Frontier in Space and a Security Guard earlier on in this story. He returns as an Army Corporal & UNIT soldier in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, an Exxilon in Death to the Daleks, a Guard in Planet of the Spiders, a Time Lord in Deadly Assassin and a Bi-Al Member in Invisible Enemy. In the The Andromeda Breakthrough he was a British Soldier in Gale Warning, in Doomwatch he was a man in Hear No Evil, The Islanders & Flood and in Moonbase 3 he's a Technician in Castor and Pollux. He's also in our favourite Adam Adamant Lives! episode D for Destruction as a TA Soldier.

The blonde haired soldier, who I identified using his appearance in "I was a Doctor Who Monster", is David Billa who first appeared as a Guard in The Savages then played a German Soldier in The War Games episode one, German / Roman Soldiers / Alien Technician in The War Games episode four and a Time Lord Technician in The War Games episode ten, a Waxworks Visitor/Auton in Spearhead from Space, a Technician in Doctor Who and the Silurians, a UNIT Soldier in Three Doctors, a Prison Guard & Earth Guard in Frontier in Space and a Spiridon in Planet of the Daleks He returns as a a Soldier/Thal Soldier in Genesis of the Daleks and a Vogan in Revenge of the Cybermen. In Moonbase 3 he's a Technician in Departure and Arrival and Behemoth while in Doomwatch he was a Man in Flood.

There's another UNIT soldier in this episode, in the helicopter, and he gets a couple of lines yet isn't credited and I can't work out who he is!

Two days after this episode first aired Roger Delgado, the actor that played the Master, was killed in a car crash in Turkey. He was 55.

353 The Green Death Episode Four

EPISODE: The Green Death: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 353
STORY NUMBER: 069
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 09 June 1973
WRITER: Robert Sloman (and Barry Letts uncredited)
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 6.8 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who: The Green Death (Special Edition)
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video

"Oh, don't apologise, my little superman. Just be sure next time. The day is coming fast. D-day. Der Tag. Nothing must be allowed to stop it. Nothing!"

Hinks breaks into the Wholeweal and is attacked by the maggot falling into a coma and manifesting signs of what killed the miners. Sergeant Benton arrives with troops & explosives to blow the pit up. The Doctor goes to see the Brigadier and gets half an hour to negotiate with Global Chemicals but Stevens refuses to listen to him and threatens to arrest him under the emergency powers act. He introduces him to "Mr Yates", newly arrived from the ecology ministry. The detonation goes ahead as planned and Stevens throws the Doctor out. Stevens confers with the BOSS. The Brigadier reveals his suspicions about Global Chemicals led him to insert Captain Yates into Global Chemicals as a spy. The cleaner at Global Chemicals finds Maggots crawling up the pipes and alerts Elgin. Benton finds Maggots on the slag heap at the colliery. Elgin argues with Stevens who locks him in his office and allows BOSS to process him. Maggots are now emerging all over the slag heap having tunnelled their way out. Jo wonders what insects they will turn into as the Doctor discovers that they're bullet proof due to the chitinous plates making up their body. Pesticides have no effect. The Doctor disguises himself as a first a Milkman, and then a cleaner to get into Global Chemicals to obtain a sample of oil waste. Jo accidentally spills some of Cliff's fungus food on their sample of maggot slime. She then leaves to prove she can do something by fetching a maggot. The disguised Doctor finds Mike telling him how to get an oil sample and telling him that Stevens is not the real Boss. Cliff realises his spilled fungus has killed the cells in the maggot slime, then realising Jo is missing. The Brigadier orders a RAF strike on the slag heap, not realising Jo is out there. Making his way to the top floor the Doctor stumbles into an advanced control room and meets BOSS, the computer controlling the company.

It's the great Pertwee "dressing up and doing funny voices" episode! Pertwee's reputation, before Doctor Who, was built on his ability to do funny voices and for the first time since Inferno, where it was cut from the UK broadcast, he gets to give the talent an airing first as the old Welsh Milkman and then as the lady cleaner, seen for real earlier in the episode.

The cleaner is in a long tradition of pantomime dames and female impersonators but what "she" really reminds me of is Tim Brooke-Taylor's version of Lady Bracknell, originally from The Importance of Being Earnest, that he regularly gives air to in I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. Yates' reference to the cleaner's handbag would seem to confirm the origin since Lady Bracknell's most famous line is "A handbag?". The Brigadier proves he's not a solider that simply obeys stupid orders by inserting Yates into Global Chemicals - the Brigadier rang Yates in episode 1 - but the orders are shown to be stupid when the maggots start escaping & crawling all over the hillside.

It's welcome back to two of the series regular characters this episode as both John Levene's Sergeant Benton and Richard Franklin's Captain Yates make their return.

We saw Benton earlier this year in The Three Doctors but Yates was absent then, last seen a year ago in the closing story of season 9, The Time Monster, and he was only in the first half of that!

The end credits on this episode confirm the Guard on the gate is the series regular stunt man Terry Walsh.

Brian Justice, the guard assigned to "Mr Yates" (and credited as Yate's Guard !) was a policeman in Spearhead from Space, a UNIT Soldier in Ambassadors of Death and Claws of Axos, an IMC Guard in Colony in Space, a Guerilla in Day of the Daleks & Castle Guard Wilson in The Sea Devils.

The first of the guards pursuing The Doctor is Steve Ismay who had been a BBC3 TV Crewmember in The Dæmons, a Guerilla & Stills Cameraman in Day of the Daleks, Sea Devil in The Sea Devils, Varan's Bodyguard in The Mutants and a Presidential Guard in Frontier in Space He returns as a UNIT Soldier in The Time Warrior, an Army Soldier in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, an Exxilon and Exxilon Zombie in Death to the Daleks, a Guard in The Monster of Peladon, a Metebelis 3 Guard in Planet of the Spiders, a Guard in The Deadly Assassin, a Leviathan Guard in Ribos Operation, a Gracht Guard & one of Zadek's Guards in The Androids of Tara, would have been a "Space Monster" in Shada, possibly a Cyberman, then plays a Citizen in Full Circle, a Cyberman in Earthshock and a Security Guard in Time Flight. He had been Man in the Doomwatch episode The Islanders & Flood, and then appears in The Sweeney as a Policeman in Cover Story, a Driver in Golden Boy and a Villain in Stoppo Driver. In Porridge he played a Prison Warden in A Night In and a Gardener in Happy Release while in The Tomorrow People he was in a Vesh Rebel in Worlds Away and an SIS Sergeant in The Dirtiest Business. In Blake's 7 he plays a Scavenger in Deliverance, a Guard in Dawn of the Gods, a Convict in Moloch and a Hommik in Power.

His companion is regular extra Pat Gorman!

Jean Burgess makes a memorable cameo as the cleaner Doris!

While Ray Handy, who we saw briefly in episode 1, plays the real Milkman.

M'learned colleagues have identified one of the prominent UNIT Soldiers, the one who shoots the maggots, as Peter Michael McGowan.

His colleague who finds the maggots remains unidentified. Lots of the extras used in this story only appear in this one so my suspicion is the ones on location were sourced locally in Wales. The DWAS production guide also lists Roger Knott, who we think returns in Twin Dilemma, John Cadwaladr, who plays a Mentiad in Pirate Planet which is also location filmed in Wales, Edward Wyman, Roger Chapple, Bill Baker, David Braddick & John Jeffries, most of whom I've been unable to identify on IMDB!

While on location Jon Pertwee has a problem with his script: how to say the word Chitinous. Producer Barry Letts advised him to pronounce it as Chit as in "a chit of a girl" (An immature or disrespectful young woman.) After the programme was aired Barry Letts had a letter from a PHd Student:

The reason that I'm writin'
Is how to say kitin

This episode sees the introduction of more set elements from the TV series UFO serving as elements of BOSS' control room. We'll start with the orange control bank at the back of the room: it's definitely from UFO, as it's very similar to several on the set of the Skydiver. However I've not found an exact match

On the back wall we can see two panels from the ICT 1300, as previously seen in Terror of the Autons, Mind of Evil, Claws of Axos, The Sea Devils & The Time Monster

There's a third ICT Panel on the left wall of the control room, where we can also see a familiar looking curved desk:

This is recognisable as the curved desk found in the middle of the UFO SHADO Moonbase set.

Behind the Doctor's head are a pair of curved computer banks from UFO's Moonbase: these and their many relatives will appear in Doctor Who for years to come.

Finally the odd brown box, with a cream interior and what looks like a red record player was previously found in UFO's SHADO Earth HQ. It has a twin there, and both will show up together in a much later Doctor Who story.