Inspirations - The Seeds of Doom

So, there are these polar scientists and they come across something alien buried in the ice. They take it to their isolated base and what they've brought back proves to be merely dormant. It returns to life, and is found to be vegetable-based but carnivorous. An alien creature then stalks the base looking for blood.
Then we have this plant-obsessed millionaire living in a big English mansion, and he falls under the mental control of an alien plant-form which fell to Earth. It compels him to feed it and it grows to giant size, threatening to demolish the house. The heroes who become trapped in the building use a new high powered defoliant against it. The story features an eccentric old lady who is equally plant-obsessed, but one of the goodies.
That first paragraph is me talking about the Howard Hawks movie The Thing From Another World. And the second paragraph is a brief summary of "Man-Eater of Surrey Green", an episode of The Avengers.

Doctor Who during the latter half of the 1970's adopted a pattern of five 4-part stories, with a 6-parter to conclude the season - starting with this season. Script Editor Robert Holmes did not like 6-parters. He felt that they required padding as the narrative couldn't be sustained for nearly two and a half hours. Holmes advocated splitting the narrative into a linked 2-part section, and a 4-part section. Look at the way The Talons of Weng-Chiang has the first four episodes revolving around the Palace Theatre, before moving the last two parts to Greel's new hideout. The Invasion of Time has four episodes of Vardans, then suddenly introduces the Sontarans once the Vardans are defeated and the action moves inside the TARDIS. The latter part of Shada, had it been completed, moves away from Cambridge into outer space. The Armageddon Factor is actually split into three sections - two episodes apiece set in different locations - Atrios, Zeos and finally the Shadow's planet.
This splitting of the narrative to different settings can first be seen with The Seeds of Doom.
Writer Robert Banks Stewart had written what was supposed to be the final story for the previous season - Terror of the Zygons - although it had been held back to open Season 13. Deeming it a success even before it had aired, he was invited back to write another story by Holmes and Producer Philip Hinchcliffe. Once again, he asked for an Earth-based setting. As director Douglas Camfield had realised Zygons so well, he was commissioned to direct Stewart's new story as well, and he in turn invited back composer Geoffrey Burgon, making this a bit of a reunion.
It would also prove to be the swansong for all three on Doctor Who. Camfield, who directed the filmed action sequences for the very first Doctor Who story - An Unearthly Child - way back in 1963, and who got his first director credit the following year with the third part of Planet of Giants, moved on to other things. He did attempt to write for the show after this - in particular a Foreign Legion-set story that would have seen Sarah Jane Smith killed off. Robert Banks Stewart did start to write a third story - "The Foe From The Future" - but it was never finished and Robert Holmes used elements of it for his own The Talons of Weng-Chiang.

Taking Holmes' advice about 6-parters, Stewart set his first two episodes at the South Pole, at a scientific research base. The team find a gourd-like pod, which leads them to believe that there was vegetation in the Antarctic thousands of years ago, judging from how deep it was found in the permafrost. The scientists learn that it is not dead but dormant, and it grows under ultra-violet light. One night it splits open and a tendril shoots out and attaches itself to the arm of one of the men. He becomes infected and starts to turn into a Krynoid - a hostile plant-based life-form which is carnivorous. Back in London, the World Ecology Bureau have called upon UNIT's scientific adviser for advice about the pod. Why they should think to do so is never explained. It's only when the Doctor has already been called in that he identifies it as alien. By the time he and Sarah get to the South Pole the scientist has already been infected and is mutating into a Krynoid.
These two episodes do seem to be inspired by that movie mentioned above - not the first time that the programme has looked to John W Campbell Jnr's novella Who Goes There?. This story was first published in the August 1938 edition of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, under the pen name of Don A Stuart.
The story tells of a group of scientists in the Antarctic finding an alien spaceship buried in the ice. They accidentally destroy it when they try to melt the ice, but then find the body of the occupant nearby. When it thaws out, it begins to devour the crew of the polar base and then mimics its victims. It can shape-shift as a person or an animal and is telepathic - so can retain its victim's memories, and the story is basically about paranoia as no-one knows who can be trusted. John Carpenter's 1982 version - The Thing - is much closer to the original story than 1951's The Thing From Another World. This earlier movie was directed by Christian Nyby, whose contribution is usually overshadowed by Howard Hawks' involvement (it was his production company).
In 2018 it was discovered that the novella was actually a shortened version of an earlier unpublished full novel - the original manuscript being found amongst Campbell's papers. There are moves afoot to have this published soon. In the 1951 film, the alien does not shape-shift, but it is found to be a plant-based creature. The lead scientist even tries to grow mini-aliens from spores it produces in the greenhouse, feeding them from the base sickbay's blood stocks.

Back to The Seeds of Doom... The Doctor knows that Krynoid pods, like policemen, always travel in pairs, and sure enough he unearths a second one. This is stolen by a scientist named Keeler and his mercenary companion Scorby. They have been sent by the plant-obsessed millionaire Harrison Chase, who favours flora over fauna, and wants the pod for his private collection.
Episodes 3 - 6 move the action away from the South Pole to Chase's mansion back in England, and this is where The Avengers comes in.
"Man-Eater of Surrey Green" was written by Philip Levene, and was first broadcast in the UK in December 1965 as part of the show's 4th season - the B&W Mrs Peel season. Botanists are going missing all over the Home Counties so Steed needs Mrs Peel to help investigate. They find the wreck of a crashed space test-flight, which appears to have collided with a large plant-form. Part of this plant has been found by a plant-obsessed millionaire named Sir Lyle Peterson. It has telepathic powers and it has taken him over. He has all his estate workers busy cultivating it, and it has also taken control of the missing botanists to help its plan to take over the world. The plant eats people.
It is eventually killed by weedkiller after its vines and tendrils have enveloped Peterson's house, with Steed and Mrs Peel trapped inside. (Earlier in the episode, when they discover that there are plants floating around in space, Mrs Peel makes the bizarre claim that scientists believe that the dark patches seen on the Moon's surface are thought to be vegetation...).

I've read an awful lot of stuff about Doctor Who over the years (as you might have gathered reading this blog) and one thing I notice about this story - The Seeds of Doom - is that The Avengers' episode is rarely mentioned in relation to it. I suspect that this is because it is not so much an homage, as an outright steal. There are just so many similarities. Not only is Harrison Chase the sort of villain whom Steed and Peel met on a regular basis, we also have the eccentric Amelia Ducat. She is the sort of character who also features regularly in The Avengers. She paints flowers and plants, but fancies herself as a secret agent. "Man-Eater of Surrey Green" features the equally eccentric botanist Dr Sheldon - an elderly female character who provides some light relief.
Of course, The Avengers episode is by no means itself original. Where else have we seen a spaceship crash back to Earth bringing a plant-based alien life-form with it? One that devours people as it grows? Nigel Kneale might have bemoaned the fact that Doctor Who often pinched his ideas, but so too did The Avengers on this occasion.

UNIT make their last appearance in the show (until 1989). Nicholas Courtney was still treading the boards in The Dame of Sark, so proved unavailable yet again. After their rather shoddy treatment in The Android Invasion, John Levene and Ian Marter obviously didn't feel like coming back, so we get a replacement Brigadier character - Major Beresford - and a new, short-lived, Sergeant named Henderson.
Another farewell is to the TARDIS police box prop. It collapsed on top of Tom Baker and Lis Sladen when they were recording the final scene of the story, and so plans were made to build a new one for Season 14. That final sequence has caused some puzzlement, as Sarah claims the Doctor must have forgotten to reset the co-ordinates (the TARDIS materialising at the South Pole instead of some alien paradise planet). However, the Doctor and Sarah never used the TARDIS to get to the South Pole in the first place - they went by aeroplane. This continuity error is easily explained away if we assume that the Doctor was going to use the TARDIS and set the co-ordinates, but then changed his mind as the ship does tend to be a bit unpredictable when it comes to navigation.
Next time: Astrological capers in Renaissance Italy. Mandragora swallows the moon, but the Doctor would rather have a salami sandwich...