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.
No comments:
Post a Comment