What's Wrong With... The Green Death

 

Jo Grant knows all about Nobel Prize-winning Professor Jones, yet hasn't a clue what he looks like. Has no newspaper or Sunday supplement magazine ever published a photo of him?

You've seen your friends turn bright green and die, and are then confronted with a bright green slime that smells horribly. Why, then, do you insist on touching it with your bare hands?

One of the biggest problems with The Green Death is its representation of the Welsh. Had they filmed it in Surrey it would have been bad enough, but the fact that they actually went to Wales to film the location scenes makes this even worse. All the Welsh characters are presented as stereotypes. They come across as anti-English, say "Boyo" and "Blodwen" rather a lot, and have 'Name-the-Job' structure titles - like Jones the Milk.

Director Michael E Briant had a considerable location filming allocation - Monday 12th March to Tuesday 20th March incl. - but still ran out of time. 

This is why we get actors standing in front of really obvious CSO screens. Another CSO cock-up is when the Doctor and Jo are using a coal truck to traverse the area of the mine full of maggots. The bottom of the truck disappears - leaving the upper part floating in mid-air.

As far as model work goes, we go from the sublime to the ridiculous. The explosion of the mine workings and of Global Chemicals are very good, but the shots of 'Bessie' driving across the spoil heaps, surrounded by inflated condoms leave a lot to be desired.

As well as condoms being used for maggots on model shots, lavatory ballcocks were used as bombs on location. 

The hire company for the helicopter is rather blatantly seen (Twyford Moors of Southampton), when it's supposed to be a UNIT aircraft.

To save studio time, Briant ran the closing sequence under the end credits backwards on three of the episodes, rather than rewind them each time.

When miner Dai Evans uses the phone to call for help, you see the hand of a floor assistant waving bottom right corner of the screen to give him his cue.

The ground bounces a great deal when John Levene runs over it to rescue Cliff and Jo from the cave - as he's running over a raised studio rostrum, enabling the maggot props to be manipulated from beneath. You can see the grooves for the maggot rod puppets in some scenes.

The Doctor and Jo escape from the mine up a pipeline which is about to fill with chemical sludge - yet it has a CCTV camera in it.

One very obvious issue with the latter part of this story is the sudden disappearance of the character Elgin, and the equally sudden appearance of a man named James whom we've never seen before.

Prior to the final recording block actor Tony Adams was struck down by peritonitis. Unable to take any further part in the production, his character was simply replaced by another, hitherto unseen, Global Chemicals employee - Mr James - rather than recast the part. James is played by Roy Skelton, who had already featured as the invisible Spiridonian Wester in the previous story. An old friend of the programme, he was available and happy to step in at the last minute.

The calendar in the guards' hut at main gate is for February 1972. The one in Yates' office is for April. You might expect the rarely used office to have an out of date calendar on its wall - not the other way round.

Terry Walsh, who played the security guard, was Pertwee's stunt double, and he also doubled for Richard Franklin in this story - rather obviously in both cases. Note especially when Yates is supposed to be the man jumping from the balcony above the factory's main doors.

In filming his pretend landing, Franklin split his trousers.

The cast credits for Episode Four list a character known as "Yate's Guard".

In the scenes where the Doctor is apparently climbing a steep cliff on Metebelis III, Pertwee was naturally only a few feet off the ground. Some schoolchildren watching the filming laughed at this, which really annoyed him.

A very big deal is made about needing an oxy-acetyline torch. Half an episode is wasted with the Doctor breaking into the factory in a fruitless search for this equipment. The Brigadier finds what they are after at a local garage. No self-respecting garage would be without this stuff, so why did they not think to look there first?

Barry Letts was concerned that he might get into trouble for featuring such strong ecological messages in family viewing, but the only letter received was from someone commenting on how Pertwee had mispronounced "chitinous". It came in the form of a poem:

"The reason I'm writin',

 Is how to say 'chitin'".

The story presents Jones and his community as free spirits, who don't want to conform - yet Jones insists that everyone do as he says. He knows best how they should run their lives and their community. In many ways he as bad as Stevens and BOSS. He is as likely to turn into a cult leader as he is a saviour of the Valleys.

As an aside, the DVD production subtitles assure us that Wagner wrote Beethoven's Violin Concerto.

Fans would have been doubly heartbroken when watching Episode Six. Not only was the popular Jo Grant leaving the series after three seasons, but Master actor Roger Delgado had been killed in a car crash in Turkey at the beginning of that week.

What's Wrong With... Planet of the Daleks

The story opens with the Doctor asking the Time Lords to send him after the Daleks, following the reveal in Frontier in Space that they are the power behind the Master's efforts to provoke a war between Earth and Draconia. As with all his previous missions from the Time Lords, they don't do anything to make things easy for him. He's dumped in the middle of a hostile jungle environment, and has to spend half the story just working out what the Daleks are up to, before he can start defeating them.

Terry Nation likes his "Unusual Dalek Surprise Cliff-Hanger Appearance" - be it coming out of the Thames or pushing its way up from a sand dune. Here, despite the fact that the story has "...of the Daleks" in the title, and the Doctor had asked to be sent after them, he is apparently shocked to see one revealed by black paint, and we're all supposed to be surprised as well.

What was the invisible Dalek doing wandering about the jungle by itself anyway? If part of an experiment, shouldn't it have been better supervised?

There are 10,000 Daleks somewhere on Spiridon. It is made out to be an impossibly big number, but it's not that many when you think about it. If the Earth and Draconian empires combined covered, say, 100 planets, that would mean only 100 Daleks available to conquer and then hold each world. On Earth alone that wouldn't be enough to allow one Dalek per country - they would need twice as many just for us. As universe conquering armies go, it's actually a pretty feeble force.

Mind you, the Daleks don't appear to have even conquered half of their own home planet. It is clearly stated that the Thals still live on Skaro, right next door to the Daleks.

If extreme cold kills Daleks, then why is the whole Dalek scheme based on freezing them? Why do they need to be kept inactive - by any means - in the first place?

Terry Nation has never grasped what the TARDIS really is. He has always assumed that it operates just like a conventional spaceship. He certainly never gets the infinite dimensions of the interior, as he thinks that the ship can run out of oxygen in a very short space of time. Back in The Chase he had the Doctor talk about them being unable to hang around in space as they would suffocate - as though the ship draws its air supply from the outside - and that's exactly what he's suggesting here as well. The fungus forms a shell around the exterior of the TARDIS and the Doctor starts to suffocate because of it.

(And surely the TARDIS doors, which open inwards, would be strong enough to overcome the fungus substance).

The TARDIS is huge inside (later stories will deny it is infinite, but it is certainly vast), yet the air runs out after an hour or two. The Doctor then produces air tanks, which we've never seen before. These are supposed to be an emergency supply - but they are practically empty. 

Despite his predicament, the Doctor changes his clothes. Surely even a small amount of physical exertion would deplete the scarce oxygen even faster?

The MFI-style bed and wardrobe suite in the TARDIS console room isn't wrong as such - just very, very stupid. If the Doctor does live in the console room all the time, and never uses any other area of the ship, why does he put up with a Black & White TV?

A problem with spaceships in Doctor Who ever since the very first one - Captain Maitland's in The Sensorites - the Thal craft has lots of loose items lying about, ideal for injuring the crew every time there is the slightest bit of turbulence. Having the main entrance / exit positioned right between the two engines is probably a bit of a design flaw. Did the Thals never consider burying their dead commander?

Thal pilots seem to have learned to fly at the Ice Warrior space-pilot school - they are forever crashing.

The Doctor claims it will take a thousand years to dig out the Dalek army. But the ice on Spiridon remains liquid - so it should take considerably shorter time to simply pull them out and warm them up again.

The Plain of Stones is where everyone goes at night for heat. Why have the Spiridons and Daleks not worked out that this is the most likely place to find their enemies after dark, and so plan an ambush?

Jo has the bombs well hidden - behind a tuft of grass right in front of where everyone is standing.

Marat had hardly hidden them anywhere less visible - sitting on a rock shelf where any passing Dalek might spot them. As it is, they find the bombs by using his map after he has been killed - but how do they know it leads to explosives? We can see that it is just an "X" on the map. It could be where they've stashed their sandwiches for all the Daleks know.

Not visible on screen - luckily - but the Dalek base houses a sauna, laundry, lobby, kitchen and study, as well as a couple of bedrooms. A servants' bell pull panel was used as set dressing on a control panel. (See the photo on page 45 of Volume 20 of Doctor Who: The Complete History if you don't believe it).

There are some very obvious Louis Marx toy Daleks on show - not just in the Dalek arsenal.

Next Doctor Who Chronicles - 1973

According to the new issue of DWM, the next year to receive the Doctor Who Chronicles treatment is 1973 - the 10th Anniversary year. A Pertwee year was the obvious next release.

The stories covered are just the Season 10 ones - The Three Doctors, Carnival of Monsters, Frontier in Space, Day of the Daleks and The Green Death. There will also be the usual articles on the VFX of the time, the programme in the news and what else was on TV that year, the 1974 annual, comic strips and other merchandising, plus many more. No doubt the death of Roger Delgado will feature.

It is released on October 6th. As with the 1967 issue, don't go looking for it on Panini's own website. You would have thought the makers would make it available to order on the day that it gets advertised, but... no. It was almost a week before you could order the 1967 issue on their own website.

What's Wrong With... Frontier in Space

Capture / escape / capture / escape... This story is composed almost entirely of captures and escapes - or at least that's how it feels.

To take just the Doctor: (1) he is captured by the freighter crew, (2) he is freed when the Ogrons attack,  (3) he is arrested by Earth space policemen, (4) he escapes when the Ogrons attack the prison, (5) he is recaptured by Earth security a few minutes later, (6) he is freed by the Draconians, (7) he escapes from the Draconians, (8) he is recaptured by Earth security, (9) he almost escapes from the lunar penal colony, (10) the Master captures him instead, (11) he escapes from the prison ship cell, (12), he is captured by Draconian space security, and finally (13) he gets captured by the Master / Daleks.

Jo shares most of these, but towards the end she gets captured by the Master, escapes from the Master, gets recaptured by the Master and escapes from the Master - all in just two episodes.

Even the Master gets captured and escapes at one point.

Where exactly is the TARDIS, and in what state, for it to almost collide with a spaceship? We hear that the spaceship is travelling through hyperspace, but the TARDIS has never been said to travel that way. If it dematerialises to travel, how can it then be in a solid enough state to have a collision?

The freighter crew tell of a near collision with a small blue box, and the mind analysis machine shows the same small blue box, yet General Williams still doesn't believe the Doctor.

And what is it with the fancy gowns and opera gloves for an interrogator? Apparently the director had a big say in the costume designs for this story...

Once on the freighter, Jo sees another spaceship change appearance when she hears the strange sound. Why would she see it as anything different if she has no idea who it belongs to? We later find out she's been subjected to a device which targets the fear centres of the brain, but she has absolutely no reason to fear this spaceship at this point, and wouldn't know a Draconian or Ogron vessel from any other.

The Master's device fortunately picks on people who just happen to have a shared fear, so that every single human sees Draconians, and every single Draconian sees humans. Why do some not see spiders, or snakes, or clowns?

If the device can be so fine tuned that the Master can determine what people see, why does Jo see a Drashig when confronted by a freighter crewman in the first episode?

The Doctor also sees a Draconian on a screen in the same instalment, but why does he not see it as the Ogron it is - or do the Ogrons employ Draconian glove puppets for such eventualities?

Does the Master trust the Ogrons to use the device on their own? He only seems to have one of them, and his whole plan depends on it, so it's a huge risk giving it to the stupid Ogrons.

Why the attack on the prison, risking an Ogron or two being captured or killed, when all the Master had to do was wait for the Doctor to be sent to the Moon?

The lunar penal colony obviously imposes strict conformity, yet the Doctor is allowed to go with the rolled up trouser leg and sandals look, which Pertwee probably adopted at his home in Ibiza, instead of the customary boots.

Why was the Doctor given his own gear back in the Earth jail, when Jo has to change into the black judo outfit?

Jo saw Ky transform into a super-being not that long ago, so knows that the Mutants of Solos are not monsters, yet she sees one when the device is used on her by the Master.

Why is the Drashig she sees only about 5' 5", instead of 30' high?

A problem we already noted with The Mutants - people treat being suddenly exposed to the vacuum of space like it was just a bit of a breeze, instead of being sucked out the door.

How does the Master's device, which uses sound, work in space?

General Williams spends the entire story refusing to believe the Doctor's stories, and he has a pathological hatred of the Draconians so doesn't trust them an inch. Suddenly, as the story nears its conclusion, he accepts everything the Doctor and the Draconian prince say without question.

No-one mentions the fact that Williams' ship must have been armed during the initial incident which started the war. (Actually this was explained as a non-weapon manoeuvre by Williams, but the scene was cut).

Why has no-one in 20 years talked about this incident and explained to Williams the Draconian tradition and empty gun ports?

Cameras. This entire story revolves around people seeing things that aren't there, yet no-one has any kind of CCTV, or cameras of any kind, that would have shown the truth. The idea that people wouldn't have surveillance cameras in the future, back in 1973, is odd. The first commercial CCTV system was introduced in the US in 1949.

The first Draconian we see on the freighter is obviously wearing a crude rubber mask rather than proper make-up and half-mask.

When the Doctor does his space walk you catch a glimpse of a studio crewmember inside the spaceship hatch. How can a little bit of air from his oxygen tank allow him to catch up with a spaceship flying rapidly away from him?

The second episode accidentally reran the end credits for the first, meaning actors who appeared did not get a credit on screen, and people who didn't feature did.

One episode of this story also got broadcast in Australia with the naff boingy-boingy theme tune rearrangement.

When the Doctor is first locked up on Earth, the authorities fail to remove his sonic screwdriver - a device which unlocks prison doors. Likewise, the Draconians fail to search the Master for his hypno-device when they capture him. Both these things could have been deadly weapons.

The Doctor is the greatest ever enemy of the Daleks, yet they leave him in the hands of the Master - someone who seems to go out of his way not to kill the Doctor and so frequently helps facilitate his escape.

The ending. Even with the director of the next story attempting to sort out Paul Bernard's mess, it is still rubbish. The Master simply vanishes for no apparent reason. What makes this worse, of course, is the fact that this is Roger Delgado's last appearance as the Master.

After Day of the Daleks and The Time Monster, you have to ask yourself why Bernard was hired in the first place. 

Even the Floor Tiles of Doom in Death to the Daleks implied a threat, but the cliff-hanger to Part Four of this story is simply a shot of the back of an Ogron's head...

What's Wrong With... Carnival of Monsters

Can the TARDIS controls really be so useless that they can't tell the difference between Earth and a planet in another galaxy?

How, exactly, does the Miniscope work? 

If the exhibits exist in time loops, then the Doctor and Jo should be caught up in them as well and be stuck in their 20 minute loop. The Doctor might be immune but Jo shouldn't be. The "aggro-meter" shouldn't work as no external force should influence the exhibits. (Unless it's a Chronic Hysteresis, which is a really c**p type of time loop).

Alternatively, if the people and creatures have simply been programmed in some way to repeat their actions then they will need to be fed and watered to survive. Constantly walking round the deck, with no sleep, should have an impact on them, and Major Daly should be paralytic with all that alcohol he consumes every 20 minutes.

And lets not forget toilet needs...

The big one - how can the Doctor recall the mystery of the SS Bernice if it gets put back where it was supposed to be and continues on its journey? The only way round this is if the ship suffers some other disaster soon after and sinks without trace, so all these people - Major Daly, Clare and Lt Andrews - are doomed to a watery grave.

The plesiosaur's presence is never explained. Was it just thrown into the mix by whoever stocked the Miniscope, or was it actually swimming around the Indian Ocean in 1926, and was the cause of the ship's disappearance after all?

Maybe blowing a hole in the hull with dynamite was the cause of the sinking. Andrews didn't think that one through properly, did he?

(And how do miniaturised sticks of dynamite cause so much damage to the Miniscope's innards?).

Why does Daly's calendar have the dates for 1925 when it's supposed to be the following year?

The back of the Cyberman's helmet is clearly hanging open.

Orum doubts that the Drashigs will break through the external metal plating of the Miniscope, despite having just witnessed the Doctor emerge from it.

The strange metal plate on the floor of the ship may not be visible to the passengers and crew, but it sticks up by half an inch or so. Don't people stub their toes or trip over it?

Do the people who maintain Miniscopes have to be shrunk to do it? The hatches to each domain  have metal bands across them, which suggest that they are designed for tiny people.

Vorg is treated like a national hero for wiping out the Drashigs - despite the fact that they wouldn't have been there if it hadn't been for him.

The locals are going to twig to his sleight of hand pretty quickly, no matter how dumb Pletrac is, so Vorg and Shirna aren't going to survive very long on Inter Minor.

Are the Functionaries supposed to be wearing masks, as that's exactly what it looks like.

In any other story the plight of the Functionaries would have been a major plot point. The Doctor would have fought to free them from servitude. Not the case here. The Doctor doesn't raise an objection, let along take action to free them, and just clears off leaving them enslaved.

Behind the scenes, Barry Letts actually liked the new arrangement of the theme music - the one known as the Delaware version. It's the awful boingy-boingy one. Everyone apart from Letts hated it - even the people who made it.

What did the Australians do to upset him that they were sent episodes which included it?

What's Wrong With... The Three Doctors

The Tenth Anniversary story - yet it starts in December 1972 and is over and done with 10 months before the proper birthday. (Basically, the 23rd November date didn't mean the same thing then as it does now, and this is simply the opening story of the Tenth season).

The opening episode has the BBC copyright date of 1973 at the end, despite being broadcast in 1972.

Time Lords only appear to have black & white telly - but then they are watching old Hartnell and Troughton adventures...

It's a little confusing working out who is supposed to be in charge on Gallifrey - the President or the Chancellor. The former sounds as if he's deferring to the latter, and even seeking his permission, yet forges ahead doing what he wants to do anyway, against the latter's advice.

In the latetr part of the story, how do they suddenly know so much about what is going on beyond the Black Hole - such as that Omega is behind it all? The First Doctor hasn't turned up yet to feed back to them. And how does the First Doctor get to travel there in the first place? He seems to be able to pop back and forth like it was a shuttle service.

A supernova is just a big explosion. Immensely powerful - but once it's over, it's over. A Black Hole the size of our sun could last 10 to the 67th power years. Yet the Time Lords seem to think that swapping the power of a Black Hole for one of a supernova is a good thing.

What exactly is Omega's plan? He is busy draining Gallifrey of its energy and is about to bring the Time Lords to their knees when... he suddenly decides it's more important to leave. He is about to abandon the means of subjugating the Time Lords, leaving the job half-done. Once he leaves the Black Hole he will no longer have access to the Singularity etc. so will be just another Gallifreyan when he gets there. The Time Lords can simply lock him up, whilst the Doctor(s) can undo all the damage he's done since he's now given all his powers to them.

Omega knows that the environment on his world has a corrosive effect on his body, so he must have seen himself to notice this. You would think someone subject to a condition like this would check on it regularly, yet Omega doesn't seem to have noticed his lack of physicality for centuries.

Why does Omega seem to need the Doctor's help in lifting his mask, when he can take the whole helmet off himself a few seconds later?

Mind you, there are a couple of occasions when you can see Stephen Thorne under Omega's helmet, such as a glimpse of his hair when his mask is opened up - despite the fact that he is not supposed to have any body.

If Omega can send the Gellguards to Earth, why did he not send for help from Gallifrey a long time ago? He has singled out the Doctor to be his successor, and seems to know a lot about him (despite being stuck in the anti-matter universe), yet he takes ages to twig that the little dark haired man is another incarnation of the tall white-haired one.

If both Doctors stay that would surely mean that Troughton can never regenerate into Pertwee, so how will that work out?

The TV monitor representing the TARDIS scanner on which the First Doctor is seen also shows up the whole camera crew in the background.

Close-ups of the Gellguards firing their weapons always show a white chalky ground surface, even when they're moving across the lawns at UNIT HQ. (This is because all the close-ups were filmed together at the quarry location).

The lab doors are locked when found on Omega's world, despite having been open when they were sent there.

Omega seems to have been joyriding "Bessie", as she has chalk dust all over her wheels, despite having been transported here.

There is grass growing where UNIT HQ used to be, when it should simply be a big hole in the ground. There's no water shooting up from disconnected plumbing.

Top secret organisation UNIT not only has a big sign telling everybody what it is and where it is, but gives the name of its boss while it's at it.

According to another sign, Mr Ollis works at a "Wild Life Sanctuary", when it ought to be a "Wildlife" one.

If the scene with the Doctor, Jo and Dr. Tyler hanging around in the corridor looks like a script that's marking time, it is. The episode was under-running so this sequence was added. There is no plot reason why Omega would keep his prisoners standing around in the corridor. Tyler himself actually says "That was a bit of a waste of time, wasn't it?" - and the audience is forced to agree.

It was tidied up for the DVD release, but on broadcast you could hear the footsteps of the characters after they were supposed to have vanished through the Singularity.

How can the TARDIS show its own exterior on its scanner? 

Very little effort seems to have gone into disguising the fact that the Police Box prop has no back, and is just an empty shell. None at all, actually.

Everyone loves the Brigadier in this story, because he's funny, but the fact of the matter is that the character is being very badly redrawn in front of our eyes. The idea that he has never once set foot in the TARDIS in several years seems bizarre. He also seems to be responding to aliens and the notion of alien planets as though he has never encountered such concepts before. He refuses to accept things which he has already come to accept - several times - before. It's as if the last few years have been wiped from his memory.

Troughton isn't playing the Second Doctor as he used to either. It's as if he is also being played for laughs, with only certain aspects of the character being carried over. The problem is that people will now come to see this and the comedy Brigadier as the way they have always been, and they'll be written this way from now on. The Second Doctor is no longer the arch manipulator, and the Brigadier a soldier who kills for his country. 

Neither character should be this cuddly. They've been undermined.

K.O. Round 1.11

This time we have Season 10 versus Season 24, so this shouldn't take long. McCoy fans might want to look away...

Both seasons represent a period of change in the programme, with a companion departure in the final story, and a rogue Time Lord in the first.

Season 10 marks the first big anniversary that the series celebrated. It opened with the first multi-Doctor story, which saw the return of both William Hartnell (his final appearance and the only one in colour) and Patrick Troughton. This was in The Three Doctors, which had as its villain a powerful Time Lord, Omega, and saw the termination of the Doctor's exile to UNIT-based stories. Considering its ingredients, it is handled like a normal four part story and isn't given any special "epic" treatment.

It is followed by the colourful Carnival of Monsters, which combines sci-fi and historical elements.

The following two stories were originally going to be a massive 12-part epic, but the last director to have attempted such a thing advised against this. Instead we get a set-up story featuring the Master and the Ogrons, plus some great new aliens in the Draconians. This is Frontier in Space, and marks the last appearance by Roger Delgado as the Master, before his untimely death.

The Daleks turn up at the conclusion - leading into the second story, Planet of the Daleks.

The season ends with the final "UNIT Family" story, as this is when Katy Manning departs. Jo Grant leaves UNIT to get married at the end of The Green Death. Even non-fans knew "the one with the maggots".

Season 24 is the first to feature Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor. After the sacking of Colin Baker, he declined to return for a regeneration so the first story - Time and the Rani - opens with McCoy in Baker's costume, wearing a Harpo Marx wig. It makes for an ignominious start. 

It's a throwback to the Baker era, set up before new script editor Andrew Cartmel has established himself. McCoy looks lost and his performance is rather amateurish, lacking any subtlety.

Cartmel starts to make his presence known with the next story - Paradise Towers - and McCoy starts to settle into the role after that poor start.

These are four-part stories, and the next two are only three episodes apiece. These days the series consists of only 14 episodes, comprising four stories. Season 10 had been 26 episodes in length.

The third story is a real oddity - Delta and the Bannermen - which can't quite work out how jokey or how serious it wants to be.

The series ends with Dragonfire, in which companion Mel departs and Ace arrives - the final part of a jigsaw that will see the series finally getting back on track. But not yet.

It will come as no surprise to learn that I much prefer Season 10 over Season 24. The same would apply to all but the most die-hard McCoy fan. He did make for a good Doctor - but not here - whereas Jon Pertwee was at his height in Season 10, accompanied by Katy Manning as Jo, the UNIT regulars in two of the stories, and Roger Delgado in his final appearance. Daleks, Draconians, Ogrons, Omega, Drashigs and giant maggots beat the Rani, Richard Briers and an Alien knock-off hands down.

Next time: Hartnell's first versus Troughton's first...