It’s time for the second instalment
of my “Exciting Guide to Doctor Who”
to hit the blog. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can go here (http://chapwithwings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/watching-every-tv-adventure-of-doctor.html)
for more details or here (http://chapwithwings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/exciting-guide-to-unearthly-child.html)
to see the entry for the very first Doctor
Who story.
Rather than move on to story 2, I
thought it would be more interesting to skip about a bit, so let’s have a
Troughton.
Story
Forty Eight
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story Code
XX
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spoiler Alert! You might want to preserve the surprise of
who has invaded the Moon station.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title
The Seeds Of
Death
“Friends” Title
The One With
The Bubble Bath
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Episodes
6
Current availability
All episodes
exist.
Source
BBC Video
Release.
The video was edited for release, with
all episode endings etc removed. I have
therefore used the Television
Companion to fill in any missing data,
and have had kittens about the episode 5/6 cliffhanger.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date
2106
(Winter).
No date is
given, and there’s a lot to think about.
For starters, weather control exists, but is no longer on the Moon as it
was in The Moonbase. If we presume that Gravitron and Sun-Catcher
technology has improved to the extent that they now keep it in a warehouse in
London, then it must be after 2065. I
would suggest that it is also after the death of Salamander in The Enemy Of The World, otherwise
someone would want to phone him up and ask for a solution. There is, of course, the problem that no-one
recognises the Doctor as Salamander...but then, I wouldn’t know the Australian
Prime Minister or someone like that if I ran into him. There is no mention of World Zones, but not
of countries either, only cities - the United Nations is namechecked, but it
doesn’t specifically contradict The Enemy
Of The World. The Sun-Catcher,
incidentally, may have been put out to pasture, as T-Mat seems to be doing the
world famine job now.
The Doctor
states that the model rocket is twenty-first century, but that was built some
years ago. If we presume that T-Mat came
into operation some twenty years after the events of The Enemy Of The World, then there is no problem with The Seeds Of Death taking place in the
early twenty-second century, i.e. 2106.
Personal Chronology
The Martians
in this story come from a later time period than Varga and his Warriors...
although it will be a few more centuries before Varga is revived.
Genre
Alien
Invasion
Plot synopsis
1. At T-Mat Moon Control, assistant
controller Fewsham has allowed shipments to get five minutes behind
schedule. His superior, Osgood, goes up
to get him back on target, but the Moon station is suddenly invaded by aliens,
and Osgood is killed whilst sabotaging the equipment. Cut off from Moon Control, Commander Radnor
realises that the only way to contact the Moon is by obsolete rocket. Meanwhile, the TARDIS lands in a space museum
and the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe meet rocketry expert Eldred, who has an
unauthorised ion rocket that Radnor attempts to enlist. Technician Locke at the Moon manages to get a
message through to Radnor saying that Osgood is dead - the aliens cut him off
and kill him. They are revealed to be
Martian Warriors.
2. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe volunteer to
fly the rocket. On the Moon, while
Fewsham struggles under guard to repair the T-Mat link, fugitive technician
Phipps sets up a communications beacon and a solar weapon, killing one of the
Warriors. When Fewsham re-establishes
the link, senior technician Gia Kelly travels up to Moon Control to fix the
system. Meanwhile, the rocket heads for
the Moon, but thanks to a circuit fault, contact with Earth is lost. Phipps’ use of the solar power makes the
rocket homing beacon inoperative - the three companions are in danger of
crashing or drifting endlessly through space.
3. The rocket makes contact with Phipps,
and lands using his signal. Miss Kelly
fixes the T-Mat link, but is then confronted by the Martians. The Doctor finds Phipps and plans to put
T-Mat completely out of action - however, on the rocket, Zoe and Jamie discover
the landing has permanently disabled the motors. The Doctor manages to rescue Miss Kelly, but
is captured himself. Investigating the
seed pods that the Martians intend to send to Earth, he is knocked out when one
of them expands and explodes. A pod is
sent to London...and starts to expand.
4. The gas emitted from the pod kills a
technician from oxygen starvation, and chokes everyone else until the air
conditioning expels it. The Warriors
continue to send pods to major world cities.
The gas spreads over the world, siring a foam-like fungus that creates
more seeds to explode in turn. The
Martian Commander tries to get Fewsham to use T-Mat to send the Doctor into
space to kill him, but Jamie and Phipps rescue him unnoticed. A Warrior T-Mats down to London, and storms
out of the base, killing guards as it goes.
While a Warrior enters the solar stores where Jamie, Miss Kelly and the
Doctor are hiding, Zoe and Phipps turn the Moon base’s heating control up, but
Phipps is killed and a Warrior advances on Zoe.
5. Fewsham attacks the Warrior, who then
collapses from the heat, as does the one in the solar stores. The Warrior on Earth reaches his goal, the
Weather Control Bureau. Fewsham sends
everyone else back to Earth, remaining behind himself as a spy. The Martian Commander survives to return the
heating to normal and sets up a beacon for the Martian fleet. Fewsham allows London to overhear the
Martians’ homing signal, and is killed for his trouble. The Doctor examines the fungus and finds it
is vulnerable to water. Zoe and Jamie go
to the Weather Bureau to make it rain, but find the controls sabotaged and the
Warrior still in residence. The Doctor
races to their rescue, but ends up cowering from an expanding seed pod.
6. Zoe lets the Doctor in while Jamie
lures the Warrior away. They find a
solar store and use the power to defeat the Warrior. While the Doctor repairs Weather Control and
makes it rain, Radnor’s team send a satellite up to act as a relay for T-Mat
and to give the Martian fleet a false signal.
The Doctor T-Mats back to the Moon to disable the real signal, and the
fleet heads straight into the sun. The
final Warriors on the Moon are killed, and while Radnor, Kelly and Eldred argue
about rockets v T-Mat, the time travellers take their leave.
Pitch
The Moonbase meets Star Trek. With Ice
Warriors.
The Money Shot
An Ice
Warrior marches through the fungus. (Episode 4)
The Doctor and his kind
• The Doctor
is a self-proclaimed genius.
• The Doctor
has a superb moment when he arrives on the Moon. He looks around, takes stock...and solemnly
declares to Phipps that they will have to destroy T-Mat, something that no-one
from Earth at that time would even consider.
Bravo!
The TARDIS log
• There is a
hard-to-operate control that scans the, er, scanner back and forth.
• The Doctor
claims the TARDIS is not suited to short-range travel. This is clearly a fallacy, as it hardly ever
does anything else! Last season, it
hopped back and forth all over one planet!
It is, however, unsuited to reliable
short-range travel.
The history of Earth
• Space
travel was entirely abandoned by mankind when Travelmat was invented. The rocket Professor Eldred designed to take
Man beyond the Moon was abandoned.
• Eldred’s
father engineered the first Lunar passenger module, and Eldred himself
travelled on the last trip back to Earth.
• Solar power
is used extensively, especially on the Moon, which stands to reason I suppose.
• This is the
blurb on T-Mat in the museum: “Travelmat
is the ultimate form of travel. Control
centre of the present system is the Moon, serving receptions at all major
cities on Earth. Travelmat provides an
instantaneous means of public travel, transports raw materials and vital food
supplies to all parts of the world.
Travelmat supersedes all conventional forms of transport. Using the principle of dematerialisation at
the point of departure, and rematerialisation at the point of arrival in
special cubicles, departure and arrival are almost instantaneous. Although the system is still in its early
stages, it is completely automated, and foolproof against power failure.”
• The
computer system used at T-Mat Earth Control is clearly some sort of worldwide
system - it is able to hail Radnor and patch messages through when he is in
Eldred’s museum. Maybe governmental
computers can hack into others via a network.
• For some
reason, the world is so dependent on T-Mat that a delay of a few hours is
unacceptable. By the second episode -
the same day as the Martins invaded! - situation is “desperate” in Calcutta
thanks to non-arrival of medical supplies.
All major cities are soon suffering food shortages. Does no-one have storehouses any more?
• Similarly,
it would seem that there are no boats, no aeroplanes, no helicopters or
anything else left in existence that could ferry supplies to countries. Seems a tad unlikely. And you’d have thought cars etc must exist,
because things have to be moved from T-Mat terminals to the people, but Miss
Kelly has to go rummaging in a motor museum to find one.
• At this
time, Weather Control is managed from Britain, whereas it was on the Moon in The Moonbase. It also seems to be manned by a single
technician, and its primary controls are found on a table!
• Despite
this invasion, no-one on Britannicus Base recognised the Martians. But okay, this was three thousand years
later. You forget things.
• Fewsham
tells Slaar he would be executed as a traitor back on Earth. Is this a worldwide policy or had Britain
re-embraced capital punishment? Or, more
likely, is he just bullshitting the Martian?
• The whole
of the Moon base is manned by Brits. Hip
hip hurrah!
• Eldred
recognises the TARDIS as a twentieth century police box. What a fine historian the man is. If it wasn’t for Doctor Who, I doubt I’d know what the damn thing is.
Alien Worlds
• The
Martians are here led by a slimmer, less bulky version of the race - presumably
a higher caste of some kind. The highest
rank we see is a Grand Marshall.
• The hissing
of the Warriors is clearly linked to Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere - the
Marshall, on board his spaceship, has no such speech impediment.
• The Doctor
describes Mars in this time as a “dying planet.”
• Subject
Martians to too much heat and they melt very quickly, armour and all!
• Jamie and
the Doctor instantly recognise the description of the aliens as “Ice Warriors”
- the term we heard Walters and Penley use to describe them in their last
encounter.
Script Heaven
• Eldred
“You’ve been spying on me.” Radnor “Oh, no, no, no. We stopped that a long time ago.”
• The Doctor
“Your leader will be angry if you kill me, I...I’m a genius.” Warriors
“Geniussssss...”
• Fewsham “You
can’t ask me to kill a man, just like that!” Slaar “You dispatched the
seeds. In so doing, you destroyed your
entire species. What is the death of one
man compared to that?”
Script Hell
• Jamie
“Travel-mat? Sounds like a flying
carpet.”
• Zoe “Where
are we going now?” Jamie “Oh, it’s no good asking him. He’s no more idea than the man in the moon.”
Villainous Plotting
• The
Martians invade T-Mat Control on the Moon, intending to use T-Mat to spread
seed pods over the Earth. These pods
will spread a fungal growth all over the world, which will eventually reduce
Earth’s oxygen levels to 1/20th of present, exactly like the atmosphere of
Mars, thus allowing the Warriors to leave their dying planet.
The Doctor’s Achievement
• He has
defeated the Martian invasion of Earth, and tricked the Martian fleet into
heading straight for the sun.
It’s The End Of The World As We Know
It!
• Earth
saved: 13 times. Saved from having its
population wiped out by the Martians.
Body Count
Harvey. Osgood.
Locke. Two Warriors killed in the
solar stores. Miss Kelly’s two
technicians. Brent. One guard in London Control and probably at
least six others offscreen. One more who
falls comically into the foam, and his two mates who we don’t see die. Another one behind a tree. Phipps.
Two Warriors from the heat. The
Weather Control technician. Fewsham. Three security guards in the Weather Bureau,
plus the Warrior. Slaar and two other
Ice Warriors in the denouement. The
Grand Marshall, plus the entire Martian fleet. Four men Eldred mentions who died from oxygen
starvation, but we can probably bet on one or two in every major Northern
Hemisphere city the seeds were sent to - maybe 30-odd all told. Add to that deaths after the initial
arrivals, plus those lives lost thanks to T-Mat, and it’s a pretty big
offscreen tally.
24.
Screams / Twists Ankle
• We’ve heard
a lot about how clever Zoe is, but I think this is the first time anyone’s
claimed that she has “total recall.”
• Jamie
screams “Creag an tuire!”
Irrelevant Escape Attempts
• It’s not an
irrelevant escape attempt, but very similar padding - the Doctor runs about for ages in episode 3
chased by Ice Warriors.
EffectsWatch
• T-Mat
transmits instantly - without so much as a wibbly Star Trek effect. Thank God
for that - it looks far more believable.
• Martian
guns continue to be top, and in fact are possibly more effective this time
round, with a perfect marriage of incidental music.
• The
Ice-Warrior-melting effects are memorable too.
• The rocket
is obviously a model...in fact, obviously the same model we saw in the
museum! Having said that, what they do
with that model is largely rather good.
Dudley!
• This may be
the ultimate classic story for Dudley Simpson music, from his pounding theme
for the Martians to his regular clang!s at dramatic moments. Go Dudley!
Whoops
• Watching Doctor Who do futuristic technology is
always great, but a flashing light with “DELAY” under it is perhaps copping out
a little!
• While
Radnor and the Doctor are discussing rocket fuel in episode 2, someone drops a
spanner or something offscreen. Possibly
this is intentional, but I doubt it.
• The
no-gravity acting is quite funny.
• The
Doctor’s sideburns are fascinating, appearing and disappearing at whim. I can think of no possible explanation for
this.
Notes
• Three
oddly-dressed strangers wander up and say “we can fly your space rocket, and we
have lots of experience of doing so, despite the fact that no-one has flown a
rocket at all for many years.” The
response? “Doctor, that’s
splendid!” How trusting.
• The TARDIS
astral map, as seen in The Web Planet,
has wound up in Eldred’s space museum.
How intriguing. I wonder how this
happened?
• This
episode has some of the most admirable Hiding In Plain Sight yet seen on the
show. Witness episode 2, when Phipps
hides from a Warrior in the solar stores by...leaning against a wall.
• This size
of ventilation shaft is much more sensible than the 1986-vintage tunnels seen
in The Tenth Planet.
• Patrick
Troughton goes on holiday during episode four, hence the Doctor is unconscious
all episode.
• When the
Doctor is waking up, he name-checks Victoria.
• Radnor says
that they have tried everything to hold back the fungus, and it is
indestructible. Hmm. Personally, I would have tried a garden hose
or two by now. What were the men
squirting on it before the Doctor makes his discovery?
• There is an
awful lot of material added into the reprise at the start of episode 6 to
explain how the Doctor survives the episode 5 cliffhanger. Cheats!
• Top comedy
scene in episode 6 when they are looking for the door control - first Jamie
switches the lights off, then the Doctor finds the correct control has “SHUT”
written on it.
Queries
• How did the
astral map get there?
• Where on
Mars are all these Martians hiding? We’d
have spotted them by now! Do they live
underground?
• If T-Mat
provided the answer to world famine, where does that leave Salamander’s
Sun-Catcher and, much later, the Great World Computer?
• Was T-Mat
still operational when the Daleks invaded Earth in 2157?
• Why does
Slaar order Fewsham to completely re-programme T-Mat just so that he can kill
the Doctor by transporting him into space?
Why not just shoot him? Or is it
because he fancies acting like a Bond villain and giving Jamie and Phipps just
enough time to rescue him?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On-screen Credits
Taken from The Television Companion.
CAST
Dr. Who -
Patrick Troughton, Jamie - Frazer Hines, Zoe - Wendy Padbury, Gia Kelly -
Louise Pajo, Radnor - Ronald Leigh-Hunt, Fewsham - Terry Scully (1-5), Computer
Voice - John Witty, Eldred - Philip Ray, Brent - Ric Felgate (1-4), Osgood -
Harry Towb (1), Phipps - Christopher Coll (1-4), Locke - Martin Cort (1), Slaar
- Alan Bennion, Ice Warriors - Steve Peters; Tony Harwood (2-6); Sonny Caldinez
(4-6), Security Guard - Derrick Slater (4), Sir James Gregson - Hugh Morton
(5), Grand Marshall - Graham Leaman (5-6).
CREW
By Brian
Hayles. Title Music by Ron Grainer and
the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Incidental
Music - Dudley Simpson. Special Sounds
by Brian Hodgson, BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Visual Effects - Bill King/Trading Post.
Costumes - Bobi Bartlett. Make-up
- Sylvia James. Studio Lighting - Howard
King; Fred Wright (6). Studio Sound -
Bryan Forgham. Film Cameraman - Peter
Hall. Film Editor - Martyn Day. Script Editor - Terrance Dicks. Designer - Paul Allen. Producer - Peter Bryant. Directed by Michael Ferguson.
Familiar Faces
Ric Felgate
(Brent) American
Journalist in The War Machines.
Martin Cort
(Locke) Aydan,
Voord and Warrior in The Keys Of Marinus
Tony Harwood
(Ice Warrior) Cyberman in The Tomb Of The Cybermen.
Yeti
in The Abominable Snowmen.
Rintan
in The Ice Warriors.
Sonny
Caldinez (Ice Warrior) Kemel
in The Evil Of The Daleks.
Turoc
in The Ice Warriors.
Graham Leaman
(Grand Marshall) Controller in The Macra Terror.
Price
in Fury From The Deep.
Review
In one way,
this is a thematic sequel to The Ice
Warriors, but it holds up very well as a story in its own right. Knowledge of the earlier story is not
required. The Martians are built upon,
and new levels are discovered - the sleeker figures of Slaar and the Marshall,
the seed pods, the voices. Meanwhile,
writer Brian Hayles again indulges his love of creating a society, and gives us
a realistic base on Earth. But it is
hard to ignore the similarities to his earlier story. Again, we have a military base with a
hardnosed commander and a clever female 2-i-c.
Again, world famine has been cured.
Again, there is an all-powerful computer. And again, the Martians/Ice Warriors
jeopardise everything. Still, if it
ain’t broke. There are downsides to this
story. Episode one almost drowns in its
own exposition, while the Doctor and co. do absolutely nothing until the next
episode. There is some notable padding,
especially in the middle episodes. Slaar
dominates his Warriors to the extent of them not having any kind of personalities. And there is a lot of very heavy, wooden,
“dramatic” acting, especially from Ronald Leigh-Hunt and Louise Pajo (“You
stopped me once, Commander, please don’t try to stop me again” and “If we lose
her nothing can save us!”...Yeuch.)
Philip Ray’s Eldred sometimes provides relief from all this, but just as
often goes along with it. The real
saving grace is Terry Scully as Fewsham, quite the most pathetic character I
can ever remember on Doctor Who,
while still being utterly believable and sympathetic. His reaction on learning of the consequences
of his actions, and his redemption, make him this story’s emotional heart. Round of applause, please. As for the regulars, they do their best, but
Jamie again has little to do. The Doctor
gets a good crack, when he’s conscious.
All round, despite its weaknesses, The
Seeds Of Death is a good, solid, invasion of Earth story with good
baddies. Bravo.
7/10.
