288 The Mind of Evil: Episode Six

EPISODE: The Mind of Evil: Episode Six
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 288
STORY NUMBER: 056
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 06 March 1971
WRITER: Don Houghton
DIRECTOR: Timothy Combe
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.3 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Mind of Evil
EPISODE FORMAT: 16mm b&w film recording recoloured using chroma dot recovery

"Don't forget he's got that rocket full of nerve gas. He can point it at any city in Europe!"

The Brigadier shoots Mailer saving the Doctor. The Keller machine breaks it's bonds but is restrained by the presence of Barnham, who has no negative impulses left in him. The Master escapes during the fighting and returns to the aircraft hanger ready to launch the Thunderbolt missile. The Doctor bargains with the Master offering him his dematerialisation circuit back in return for the Master leaving. The Doctor takes Barnham and the machine with him as an insurance policy, but Barnham is killed by the escaping Master. The machine is destroyed when Unit detonates the missile on the ground. The Master phones the Doctor to confirm his survival and gloat.

MASTER: Ah, Doctor. I was afraid you'd be worried about me, so I thought I'd let you know that I'm alive and well.
DOCTOR: I'm extremely sorry to hear that.
MASTER: I made the safety of my Tardis which, thanks to your generosity, is in perfect working order.
DOCTOR: So, we won't be seeing you for quite some time.
MASTER: Not for quite some time. But one day, I will destroy this miserable planet and you along with it. Goodbye, Doctor. Oh, by the way, enjoy your exile.
JO: What did he say?
DOCTOR: His usual threats.
JO: Never mind, Doctor. You've beaten him.
DOCTOR: Have I, Jo? He's got his Tardis back. He's free to come and go where he pleases, while I'm stuck here on Earth ..... with you, Brigadier!

The start of this episode is a long, LONG reprise of the action sequence from the previous episode with Unit storming the prison, omitting how Mailer took Doctor hostage and jumping to Jo's escape attempt which allows us to see that the shot wasn't fired by Mailer, it was the Brigadier killing him.

We're then treated to the joy that is acting prison governor Benton (what happened to the real Governor?)

BRIGADIER: Right, Sergeant Benton. You'll be in charge of the prison. You can consider yourself Acting Governor.
BENTON: Thank you, sir.
BRIGADIER: Oh, Benton?
BENTON: Yes, sir?
BRIGADIER: Don't get any delusions of grandeur, will you?

It genuinely throws The Master when he rings to talk to the Doctor:

BENTON: Acting Governor Benton here.
MASTER: Who?
BENTON: Stangmoor Prison - Acting Governor Sergeant Benton here.
MASTER: I see. Er, would the Doctor be there by any chance?
BENTON: I'll see, sir. Who's calling, please?
MASTER: Er, just say it's an old friend.

Then there's the bargaining between the Doctor and the Master.

MASTER: Oh, Doctor, do I gather that the tables have turned somewhat at Stangmoor?
DOCTOR: You have gathered correctly. In spite of what I've said, do you still intend to fire that rocket on London?
MASTER: I most certainly do!
DOCTOR: Well, that would start a world war.
MASTER: Exactly! And then later when this planet is in ruins, I shall take over.
DOCTOR: I see. Aren't you forgetting something?
MASTER: Am I, Doctor? What?
DOCTOR: The dematerialisation circuit from your own Tardis. You can't leave Earth without that, can you.
MASTER: Are you offering me a deal?
DOCTOR: I am. Hand me back that rocket and I'll return your circuit.
MASTER: That's very generous of you.
DOCTOR: Leave Earth. Stop bothering us. Go somewhere else and be a nuisance elsewhere. Well, what do you say? Well?
MASTER: Right! But you will bring that circuit to me here at the hanger. You and you alone. At the first sign of treachery, the first sign of interference from your UNIT friends and I launch the missile immediately.

As we were watching the sequence, the Master sunk to the floor in thrall to the Machine, Liz said "Don't let Barnham walk by the machine" at which point he promptly did, weakening it's control and allowing the Master to escape.

To then see Barnham mown down by the escaping Master is quite horrible.

You see little of his previous self in episode one so for the most of this story he's been presented as an innocent. Somehow for him to die, purely because he has the power somehow to restrain the Keller machine and is persuaded by the Doctor into using it to help him, seems really rather wrong.

The missile used in this story is a real missile: a Thunderbird 2 SAGW missile from the 36th Heavy Air Defence Regiment who were based Horseshoe Barracks in Shoeburyness, Essex. Soldiers from the regiment appear as The Masters mercenaries and assist in the storming of the prison scenes.

The helicopter meanwhile looks very familiar. There's similar models in The Invasion, The Silurians and Ambassadors of Death but at least one of these has a different registration, G-AWFL, whereas the one here is G-AWLC! Looking them up online both registrations are for the SA-318C Alouette II Astazou model.

The end of the episode treats us to a nice big explosion, out first in quite a while, when the missile goes up taking the hanger with it. It's a nice piece of special effects but a more memorable explosion will follow later in the season.

Like the Silurians, Ambassadors of Death, Terror of the Autons & The Dæmons this story was shown in colour in the USA and recorded onto domestic video tape. Unfortunately the person who recorded it taped over it, allegedly with an American Football match, so that only three brief colour clips from the start of this episode survive: The storming of the prison through to the Brigadier rescuing the Doctor, in he Governor's office and the Master returning to the hanger. These are found on the end of the BBC video release of this story.

I loved Mind of Evil as a book, released in 1985 & adapted by Terrance Dicks. It was one of the last Pertwee stories to be released as book with just Ambassadors of Death & Time Monster following it. It's also the latest released Doctor Who book that I borrowed from my local library. I've enjoyed it on previous viewings as a black & white recording from UK Gold and the BBC Video. However it didn't grab me so much when I watched this for the An Episode A Day Blog, Perhaps I was expecting it to be just like Inferno, the writer's previous Doctor Who story which I now find is hanging like a shadow over those that follow it. Somehow that time it didn't push the right buttons for me which worried me somewhat as I didn't have either of the next two stories down as ones I liked which meant this was looking like a particularly down patch of stories.

Since then of course the DVD was released on 3rd June 2013 and I can finally see the story in full colour. I probably saw it twice on release, once as a story with Liz and once by myself with the commentary on - Mrs Ayres does not like commentaries - but haven't returned to it since until now. I'm struggling to see what was wrong with it last time I watched and wrote about it! I'm not watching it just four days after Inferno, which helps a lot as anything is going to pale by comparison after that, but thematically Mind of Evil feels more like one of the season 7 stories than the later Pertwee seasons, and feels a bit more realistic too.

Doctor Who Season 8, containing this story, is due to be released on Blu Ray on March 8th.

Two day after this episode was broadcast The Logicians, the 12th episode of Doomwatch Season Two, was shown on BBC1.

287 The Mind of Evil: Episode Five

EPISODE: The Mind of Evil: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 287
STORY NUMBER: 056
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 27 February 1971
WRITER: Don Houghton
DIRECTOR: Timothy Combe
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.6 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Mind of Evil
EPISODE FORMAT: 16mm b&w film recording recoloured using chroma dot recovery

"Well, in the event, in the highly unlikely event of UNIT finding us before the missile's ready, you'd make a very useful hostage. Remember that!"

The machine teleports away from the Doctor to go to feed on the more evil minds of the prisoners. The Master forces the Doctor to build a device to restrain the machine. The Brigadier works out the prison was involved in the missile hijacking and, using a food delivery van as a trojan horse, storms the prison. Mailer takes Jo & the Doctor hostage, but Jo tries to distract him so the Doctor can escape. Seizing Jo, Mailer trains his gun on the Doctor and a shot rings out.....

Another big action sequence in this episode as UNIT troops storm the prison, and a surprisingly blood thirsty one too as casualties are suffered in some numbers by both sides. It's odd to see the Brigadier and co blazing away at other human beings rather than at monsters! The major location for this episode, and the whole story, is Dover Castle which doubles for Stangmoor Prison.

Before this episode we'd not seen more than the main gate but much more is revealed as UNIT infiltrate the prison:

Unfortunately the film recorded at the site on 27th October 1970 was found to have a scratched negative resulting in a remount 4 days later.

The location looks superb onscreen, a good choice from the production team.

We get to meet another of the Brigadier's deputies in this episode, the pretty useless Major Cosworth played by Patrick Godfrey who was Tor in The Savages.

Godfrey also appears as Grant in the Doomwatch episode The Human Time Bomb which aired 5 days before this episode did! He later appears in Edge of Darkness as Oakley in Breakthrough, Blott on the Landscape as Mr Bullett Finch and the film Clockwise as the Headmaster.

As we explained, in Terror of the Autons, in the British Army a Major outranks a Captain. So Cosworth, not seen before this story or indeed after it, outranks Captain Yates. Judging by his treatment from The Brigadier in this episode, I suspect Lethbridge-Stewart feels that Yates is the better soldier!

BRIGADIER: I know exactly where that missile is. Here.
COSWORTH: Stangmoor Prison, sir?
BRIGADIER: It all adds up. Benton saw a Black Maria when the missile was ambushed and I saw the Doctor and Miss Grant. I'm convinced the Master has taken over the prison to be used as a hideout for that missile.
COSWORTH: Then I assume we'll be taking the place, sir. I'll draw up an assault plan.
BRIGADIER: Major Cosworth? COSWORTH: Sir?
BRIGADIER: Have you seen Stangmoor Prison?
COSWORTH: No, sir.
BRIGADIER: Well, I've just been looking at it. It's an old fortress. You'd need an army to get in there.

A somewhat poor choice of words there from Lethbridge-Stewart given that the Brigadier *is* in The Army! I assume his sentiment is that he personally doesn't have that many troops available.

Cosgrove continues to be ever so slightly annoying during the briefing....

BRIGADIER: Now we shall, as you realise, be very considerably outnumbered. However, not all of our opponents will be armed and none of them will be trained soldiers.
COSWORTH: And, of course, we shall have surprise on our side.
BRIGADIER: Exactly. Any questions?
COSWORTH: No, sir.
BRIGADIER: Right, carry on.
COSWORTH: An excellent plan, if I may say so, sir. A very good chance of success.
BRIGADIER: Thank you, Major Cosworth. I'm very relieved to hear that!

Prop Spotting!

We've already seen the missile control panel in the Master's shed earlier in the story where it served as the control panel for the Keller Machine and it also appeared in the previous story, The Terror of the Autons, in the satellite dish control room. In real life this is a panel from the ICT 1300.

Also in the shed we've another control panel, seen in first in the bunker in the Enemy of the World:

It later appears on the UNIT Plane in The Invasion:

The odd upright structure by the door was first seen in Doctor Who also in The Invasion where it's a Cyberman spaceship. It's turned up again in Spearhead from Space but since then it's blue boxes have become have grey.

More name dropping from The Doctor as he relates a tall tail of a previous occasion he was locked up:

DOCTOR: Huh. Did I ever tell you about the time I was in the Tower of London?
JO: No?
DOCTOR: No?
JO: No.
DOCTOR: Well, I shared a cell with a very strange chap called Raleigh.
JO: Raleigh?
DOCTOR: Yeah, Sir Walter Raleigh.
JO: Oh.
DOCTOR: He got into some trouble with Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth the first, that is. He kept going on about this new vegetable of his he'd discovered, you see, called the potato. One day, he sat down, pointed a finger at me ....

As episode one of this story started, and the shot panned up the outside of the castle building, Liz & I turned to each other and both said three words to each other before collapsing in a fit of giggles:

Norman Stanley Fletcher......

Porridge has become such a definite work on the subject of prisons that it's hard to avoid mentioning it when talking about a show set in prison. Following a pilot, Prisoner and Escort, in the 1973 BBC series Seven of One which also spawned Open All Hours, three series and two Christmas specials were made by the BBC. Ronnie Barker is superb throughout ably backed up by Richard Beckinsdale.

Several of the rest of the substantial supporting cast have got Doctor Who form. We'll start with Fletcher's fellow prisoners: Tony Osoba, McLaren, is Lan in Destiny of the Daleks while the disgraced judge The Honourable Mr Justice Stephen Rawley is played by prominent actor Maurice Denham who is in the Twin Dilemma as Edgeworth. Incidentally the voice heard at the start of every Porridge episode sentencing Fletcher is Ronnie Barker himself! Brian Glover, Cyril Heslop, appears in Attack of the Cybermen as the crook Griffiths. Williams is Philip Madoc (Krotons, War Games, The Brain of Morbius & The Power of Kroll) while Jarvis is David Daker, Irongron in The Time Warrior & Captain Rigg in the Nightmare of Eden. Dentist Mr. Banyard is played by Eric Dodson who is The Headman in The Visitation. John Dair played Heavy Crusher in Porridge and an American in Time Flight. Doctor Who Supporting Artist Eric Kent is frequently seen as a Prisoner in Porridge.

Onto the staff: Fulton McKay, playing Mr Mackay, we saw recently as Dr Quinn in early episode of The Silurians while the Governor of Slade prison is played by Michael Barrington who is Sir Colin Thackaray Seeds of Doom. Slade has more than one Doctor seen on screen: one is Graham Crowden, Soldeed in Horns of the Nimon, while another is John Bennett, who plays General Finch in Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Li H'sen Chang in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Visiting prison officer Mr Wainwright if played by Peter Jeffrey, the Pilot in The Macra Terror & Count Grendel in The Androids of Tara. Finally the Christmas Special The Desperate Hours is one of the best places to spot Pat Gorman outside Doctor Who as he plays the Prison Officer who wanders into the gents where Fletcher has stashed his illicit booze!

Two day after this episode was broadcast The Inquest, the 11th episode of Doomwatch Season Two, was shown on BBC1.

286 The Mind of Evil: Episode Four

EPISODE: The Mind of Evil: Episode Four
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 286
STORY NUMBER: 056
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 20 February 1971
WRITER: Don Houghton
DIRECTOR: Timothy Combe
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.4 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Mind of Evil
EPISODE FORMAT: 16mm b&w film recording recoloured using chroma dot recovery

"You wanted to know how long I could hold out against that machine. Well, the answer is I can't. Nobody can."

The Doctor is quickly overcome by the the Keller machine falling unconscious and causing the Master to restart his stopped heart. He is flung into a cell with Jo. The machine then attacks the Master but he locks it in the treatment room and barricades the door hoping to starve it of the negative emotions it feeds on. The Master has the prisoners hijack Unit's missile convoy seizing the Thunderbolt missile. Captain Yates pursues the missile on a motorcycle to a local hanger but is captured. The machine learns how to teleport itself and goes on a feeding frenzy round the prison and attacks Jo & the Doctor........

The Doctor's been subjected to the Keller Machine twice, nearly killing him the second time:

MASTER: Wake up! Wake up! Ah. Welcome back. Would it surprise you to know that one of your hearts stopped completely? You were within an inch of dying.
DOCTOR: You wanted. You wanted to know how long I could hold out against that machine. Well, the answer is I can't. Nobody can.
MASTER: Of course you can! If I can control it from that console, then so can you. And you must while I'm not here.
DOCTOR: No, no.
MASTER: Oh, come on, Doctor. We are both Time Lords.
DOCTOR: Be that as it may, I know the secret of that machine. Inside is a creature that feeds on the evil of the mind, and very soon it'll feed on yours.

The Doctor's prophecy comes true very quickly as the machine turns on The Master exposes that what the Master fears most is The Doctor!

It's not quite clear how the machine, or rather the creature inside it learns to teleport. If it could do it all along why hasn't it done so before now to escape from the Master? Or perhaps it's got something to do with the amount of negative emotions it's absorbed recently having boosted it's power levels somehow? Either way the wibbly wobbly teleport affect used will be instantly recognisable to anyone who's seen people leave the Liberator's teleport bay in Blake's 7.

The effect of the machine killing looks very odd. I suspect this might originally have looked quite similar to the energy effect seen in Ambassadors of Death and Terror of the Autons but hasn't survived being converted to Black and White terribly well. It looked odd when I first saw it in B&W off of UK Gold and on the VHS release and now looks even odder now it's been colour recovered on the DVD!

This episode is built around a location action sequence of the prisoners ambushing the missile which works really well.

The ambush sequence was recorded at Archers Court Road Whitfield, Kent on 28th October 1970.

On the 29th October 1970 filming took place at Alland Grange Manston Park, Kent which provides the location where the missile is stored for the next few episodes.

A sequence showing he convoy underway at Pineham Road was cut from the finished program, which was shot 30th October 1970 the same day as the location footage at RAF Swingate cut from episode 3. I know footage for episode 5 had to be reshot following a problem with a damaged negative: I wonder if the footage on this day was similarly affected?

Since the very first Doctor Who story the Doctor has spent a fair proportion of his time being flung into cells. In fact the second episode of the first story, the Cave of Skulls, is named after the very first place his imprisoned in. But actual Prisons? You don't see that many of them in Doctor Who. All his companions get locked up in the Conciergerie Prison in Paris but the Doctor stays free. We get an entire Prison Planet in the Dalek Masterplan episode 3, Devil's Planet, an idea that Terry Nation liked so much he reused it in the third episode of Blake's 7, Cygnus Alpha. A sixth season Troughton story, Dick Sharples' the Prison in Space, would have been set in a prison run by leather clad women, but the story was abandoned at a late stage. However later that same season Jamie gets thrown in a Military Prison during the War Games. The only proper prison in the entire series is in this story, but we'll see a prison with a single prisoner in the Sea Devils and one for malcontents on the moon in Frontier in Space. A Prison space ship gets seen in Stones of Blood and another prison in space would have appeared in another cancelled story, Shada.

As you can see we don't return to the subject much after Jon Pertwee's time as the Doctor..... and we'll look at a possible reason for that next episode!

Two day after this episode was broadcast The Human Time Bomb, the 10th episode of Doomwatch Season Two, was shown on BBC1.

285 The Mind of Evil: Episode Three

EPISODE: The Mind of Evil: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 285
STORY NUMBER: 056
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 13 February 1971
WRITER: Don Houghton
DIRECTOR: Timothy Combe
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.5 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Mind of Evil
EPISODE FORMAT: 16mm b&w film recording recoloured using chroma dot recovery

"Your UNIT friends are transporting their nuclear missile. I intend to take it away from them!"

The Doctor overpowers Chin-Lee removing the device that links her to the Keller machine and severing the Master's control over her, saving the life of the American delegate. Prison officers, with a little help from Jo Grant, regain control of the prison wing but when the Master, in the guise of Emil Keller, arrive he helps Mailer seize the entire prison. The Doctor is captured when he arrives to collect Jo and is chained to the Keller machine which subjects him to images of many of his foes.

Second episode out of three which has ended with the Doctor subjected to images from the Keller Machine! Visually it's very hard to work out what the Doctor is seeing here but the soundtrack makes it quite clear:

Dalek: Destroy! Exterminate! Annihilate! Destroy!

The first vague appearance of the Doctor's oldest foes during the Third Doctor's time on the program.

Come to think of it the episode that doesn't end with The Doctor being tortured by the machine has someone else, the US Senator, subjected to images from it instead!

FU PENG: That was one of the legendary monsters of my people.
DOCTOR: A collective hallucination, gentlemen, nothing more. Who's that?
BRIGADIER: Senator Alcott. Is he dead?
DOCTOR: No, but he's suffering from acute shock.
FU PENG: Sing-sen!
DOCTOR: Yes?
FU PENG: What is this?
DOCTOR: Well, it's a telepathic amplifier.
BRIGADIER: Is that what caused the hallucinations?
DOCTOR: No, not caused them. No, it merely picks up the impulses and projects them through Chin Lee's mind.
BRIGADIER: Impulses? From where?
DOCTOR: Well, unless I'm very much mistaken, from the Keller machine at Stangmoor prison.

FU PENG: Doctor, I've understood very little of what you have been saying. Please, explain more clearly.
DOCTOR: Wa ai, Peng-san. Wa ai. Chin Lee was being used by someone who was trying to drive this world into war.
FU PENG: You will find this person and punish him?
DOCTOR: Yes, I will if I can.
FU PENG: Then I leave matters to you. I must go to my Embassy.
DOCTOR: Hang ahn, Peng-san.
FU PENG: Din gon ba bi lu, Sing-sen.
DOCTOR: May God go with you also.

And with one bound the peace conference is all but gone from the story, which effectively exposes it as some padding to stretch the rest of the story out to 6 episodes. It's a shame because, although he's only on screen twice and both times very briefly, Kristopher Kum does a cracking job as the Chinese delegate Fu Peng and his interaction with the Doctor is a joy to watch!

The Peace Conference is now reduced to being a target for the missile that the Master hopes to steal:

MASTER: Your UNIT friends are transporting their nuclear missile. I intend to take it away from them.
DOCTOR: Well, it's a lunatic scheme. Still, that's only to be expected.
MASTER: Oh, come, Doctor, how can I possibly fail? I launch the missile and wipe out the peace conference, the world is at war.
DOCTOR: I see.

As it is, the conference's presence in the story is quite useful as it helps set the international tone for the third Doctor's stay on Earth which is a theme we'll return to in the Day of the Daleks as UNIT acts as security for another peace conference.

While we're on the subject of padding: why do the guards regain control of the prison wing only to loose it again mere minutes later? Yes it gets the Master in to fix the Keller Machine but why not have him there from before the prison is initially seized. Odd. Liz remarked that Pertwee's performance at the end of the episode doesn't look like the Keller machine is subjecting him to his worst nightmares. Quite the contrary in fact by the way he's writhing around!

Cast:

Fernanda Marlowe appears as UNIT's Corporal Bell in this story and the next. Can't find anything else on her CV I've seen her in but her character is rare in Doctor Who appearing in more than one story without being a regular. Trying to find a decent picture of just her was really difficult and I had to resort to raiding the The Mind of Evil DVD photo gallery!

The main guest actor in this tale is William Marlowe, as Mailer, who later is seen as Lester in Revenge of the Cybermen. Despite identical surnames the two Marlowes were not married, contrary to just about every publication on Doctor Who I've ever read saying they were. At the time William Marlowe was married to Catherine Schell, later to find fame as Maya in Space: 1999. Then in 1979 he married Kismet Delgado, the widow of the actor playing The Master Roger Delgado. He appears in Out of This World, the ITV science fiction anthology series, as Bill May in Cold Equations. Like most of the rest of this series the episode no longer exists but the soundtrack is held by Kaleidoscope. He also appears in the 1975 BBC The Legend of Robin Hood as Sir Guy of Gisborne.

Hayden Jones, Mailer's henchman Vosper, had voiced the Autons in Terror of the Autons and would have played the phone engineer there too if this better role hadn't been offered him. He'd been in Out of This World appearing in the sole surviving episode Little Lost Robot where he plays Walensky. This episode is available on DVD. He was also in Out of this World's BBC successor Out of the Unknown voicing the robots in The Prophet, which is sadly missing. Said robots are later repainted white and used in the Doctor Who story The Mind Robber.

Neil McCarthy, Barnham, returns as Thawn in The Power of Kroll. He can also be seen in The Professionals as Sam Armitage in It's Only a Beautiful Picture, Clash of the Titans as Calibos and Time Bandits as the 2nd Robber.

Roy Purcell, Chief Prison Officer Powers, receives a promotion to the President of the Council of the Time Lords in The Three Doctors. You can see him in Doomwatch as Dr. Barton in Public Enemy and in The Professionals as Richardson in Kickback.

Eric Mason, playing Senior Prison Officer Green is also CPO Smedley in The Sea Devils. He appears in Fahrenheit 451 as a Male Nurse, The Sweeney as Kenny Jarvis in Abduction and Hot Fuzz as Bernard Cooper.

Then we have the rest of the Prison Officers. One of them is our old friend Dave Carter who Katy Manning takes great pleasure in pointing out on DVD commentaries every time she spots him! He's already been a Male Rebel in The Power of the Daleks, an IE guard in The Invasion, The Old Silurian plus other unidentified Silurians in The Silurians, Inferno as a Primord and Terror of the Autons as the Museum Attendant. He returns in The Mutants as a Skybase Guard, The Time Monster as a Roundhead Officer, Invasion of the Dinosaurs as Sergeant Duffy and The Android Invasion as Grierson. There's an Adam Adamant Lives! on his CV where he plays a Partygoer / Tourist in Death Has a Thousand Faces and an episode of The Tomorrow People, The Living Skins: Cold War where he's a Guard.

Another Prison Officer Bill Matthews was Davis the Silurians. He returns as a Draconian in Frontier in Space and an Extra in Planet of the Spiders. He was He was in Quatermass and the Pit as a Sightseer in The Halfmen, Man in Crowd in The Wild Hunt and a Sightseer in Hob, A for Andromeda as an Extra in The Murderer and an extra in the Doomwatch episode The Islanders.

IMDB says a third Prison Officer Martin Gordon can be seen in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as Vane�.

This episode should have featured footage shot at RAF Swingate on 30th October 1970, but ended up cut from the final program for filming reasons..

Two day after this episode was broadcast In the Dark, the 9th episode of Doomwatch Season Two, was shown on BBC1. This episode features Second Doctor Patrick Troughton as McArthur.