Synopsis:
Susan has found herself alone in a dense jungle, where she hears a terrible screeching sound...
The others arrive soon after, but the noise has stopped. They find themselves outside a ruined compound which is being overgrown by vegetation. Susan is sure that a creeper has tried to wrap itself around her leg.
Parting some vines they see a stone idol which appears to have the Conscience key hanging on it. Ian tries to find a way to get to it, but Barbara thinks she can reach it herself. She climbs up on the idol to grasp the key, but its arms suddenly wrap round her legs and the whole statue rotates with her in its grip. When it revolves around again, there is no sign of Barbara. The key is on the ground, however.
Sabetha tells Ian that Barbara may have used her travel dial to escape from the idol, and may now be in some new dangerous situation. Ian formulates a plan. He will use the idol to look for Barbara here, in case she is still within the compound, whilst the others will travel on ahead to the next location, in case she is there. If Ian cannot locate her, he will assume she has used her dial and he will follow shortly.
After Susan and Altos depart, Sabetha discovers that the key from the idol is a fake. It is fractionally smaller than a real one. Ian will have to find the real key whilst she goes on ahead to let the others know what has happened.
He climbs up on the idol and it carries him into a courtyard beyond the wall. Stepping on a loose flagstone, he narrowly avoids being struck by an axe-wielding mechanical figure in armour. Luckily Barbara had shouted a warning. The whole compound is full of lethal traps like this.
Ian tells her of the fake key, and that the real one must still be nearby.
She passes through a door and finds herself in another trap - covered by a net as spikes descend from the roof. Ian triggers another trap when he tries to lift a crowbar which is connected to a metal grill that falls, locking him in an alcove.
Barbara is saved by the intervention of an old man named Darrius. He takes her travel dial to check it and confirm that she was sent by Arbitan as she claims. Ian manages to break free and just as he reaches Barbara they hear Darrius cry out. Entering a laboratory they see the old man being throttled by vines.
They cut him free and he gives them a cryptic message about screaming starting when darkness falls, plus the letters and numbers "DE3 O2". He then dies from his injuries.
They try the strange code as a combination on a safe, but it fails to open it. Reading his journals they learn that Darrius had been experimenting on accelerated plant growth. As darkness falls the meaning of his cryptic warning is revealed as they hear a screaming noise begin, and the plant life starts to force its way into the building.
At the last moment they discover that DE3 O2 is a chemical formula, and locate the key in a glass jar containing the substance. They quickly activate their travel dials.
They suddenly find themselves in the middle of a freezing blizzard and are overcome by the intense cold...
Next episode: The Snows of Terror
Data:
Written by: Terry Nation
Recorded: Friday 3rd April, 1964
First broadcast: 5:30pm, Saturday 25th April, 1964
Ratings: 9.9 million / AI 61
Designer: Raymond P Cusick
Director: John Gorrie
Additional cast: Edmund Warwick (Darrius), Martin Cort (Mechanical Knight).
Critique:
There was some controversy surrounding the writing of this episode, when writer Robert Gould raised a complaint with the production team. Gould had originally been tasked with writing a new story based on the "Miniscules" idea which had first been essayed by C E Webber as a potential opening story for the series. When this did not work out, Gould instead proposed an alternative plot line which involved a world where plants treated people the way people treated plants. This he submitted in early February. After less than a week he contacted the production office to notify them that he was pulling this idea.
However, when he learned that Nation's story was to feature an episode involving plant-life hostile to humans he assumed that his idea had been stolen. David Whitaker had to show from his notes of the initial meeting with Nation that their idea had predated Gould's.
Whitaker's initial idea for this episode was a "House That Jack Built" set-up, of a building that was full of deadly traps. Nation then came up with the notion of nature running out of control, and wanted the episode to have some exterior shots, as the first two instalments had been confined to indoors. The hot jungle setting would then contrast with the cold location of the next episode.
One of Nation's inspirations for the hostile plants came from the play The Trouble With Our Ivy, written by David Perry, which had been screened as part of Armchair Theatre in 1961. The play involves a garden-obsessed suburban couple getting revenge on their equally garden-obsessed neighbours by introducing a fast-growing creeper into their garden. The producer was Sydney Newman, then head of drama at ABC. A year later, Dr Terror's House of Horrors would feature a segment based on a deadly creeping vine. This movie went into production in May 1964, but the various segments had actually been written in 1948 by producer Milton Subotsky.
The most famous deadly plant story which the general public might have been familiar with was John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids, which had been published in 1951. It had been turned into a movie in 1962, featuring Susan herself - Carole Ann Ford.
With William Hartnell on holiday, rehearsals and recording were a much more relaxed affair. Edmund Warwick later recalled that Ford would carry out psychic readings for the cast during rehearsals.
Ray Cusick had only bad memories of the sets. In one interview he recalled that a design assistant had provided the arms for the rotating idol statue, but it was actually an actor named Bob Haddow who played this part.
Trivia:
- This is the second of three appearances by Martin Cort in this story.
- His mechanical knight costume sold at auction for £1320 in 2009.
- As was the tradition of the time, William Hartnell was still credited on this episode - on screen and in the Radio Times - despite being on holiday.
- Edmund Warwick had worked with William Russell before on his The Adventures of Sir Lancelot series. He would return to the programme on two further occasions - imitating Hartnell both times.
- Warwick's character is only named as Darrius in the closing credits, never on screen. When it came to the novelisation by Philip Hinchcliffe he wasn't named at all, referred to simply as the "old man".
- Kenneth Adam, director of television, told a review meeting at the BBC on 28th April that his three year old granddaughter was complaining about the Doctor and companions always splitting up, when they knew something bad would always happen. The production team made placatory noises about looking into this matter, but of course it was the nature of episodic action-adventure serials that this had to happen. At the same meeting the panel had found this episode particularly "creepy".
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