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| The Doctor is helpless to stop Jo from falling for young Professor Clifford Jones (Stewart Bevan). |
6 episodes. Running Time: Approx. 154 minutes. Written by: Robert Sloman. Directed by: Michael E. Briant. Produced by: Barry Letts.
THE PLOT:
After performing some maintenance, the Doctor decides to try again to reach Metebelis III - but Jo won't be going with him. She declines his invitation, telling him that she's going to Llanfairfach, a Welsh mining town that's now home to Global Chemicals.
The company and its director, Stevens (Jerome Willis), tout their new refinement process, which will produce 25% more fuel from crude oil while creating minimal waste. It sounds too good to be true - which is why Professor Clifford Jones (Stewart Bevan) and his commune of hippie scientists at the nearby "Nut Hutch" are protesting, certain that any refinement process must be producing thousands of gallons of waste. Jo wants to help Professor Jones, while Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT are called in to investigate the death of a miner who was found with his skin glowing green.
By the time the Doctor arrives, after barely escaping alive from his "pleasure jaunt" to Metebelis III, Jo has already gone into the mine... where an act of sabotage by Global Chemicals disables the lift and leaves her stranded. The Doctor finds his own way down to rescue her, reuniting with Jo just in time to discover the source of the green infection: giant maggots, mutated by the waste that Global has been secretly pumping into the mine!
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: This story is my pick as Jon Pertwee's single best performance as the Doctor. He essentially moves through the stages of grief at the prospect of Jo leaving. When she refuses to go with him to Metebelis III, he first ignores her refusal (denial) and then tries to persuade her to come (bargaining). While he never shows anger, there is a certain petty malice in his deliberate interruption of a romantic moment between Jo and the professor. Finally, the end sees him bid a gracious but subdued farewell to Jo (acceptance). These emotional beats are played with reserve and even subtlety, but the Global Chemicals plot allows Pertwee to display his showmanship, with him even using a couple of comedy disguises along the way.
Jo Grant: Whether intentionally or not, you can draw a direct line between the end of the previous story and the beginning of this one. At the end of Planet of the Daleks, Jo declined the Doctor's offer to take her to any planet, telling him that she was only concerned with one world - Earth. This story opens with her again refusing to travel, preferring to help Professor Jones to work for Earth's ecology. Jo describes Jones as a younger version of the Doctor, and her first meeting with Jones is a direct parallel to her introduction to the Doctor as she disrupts an experiment. Jo is as headstrong as ever, putting herself in harm's way multiple times. My favorite scene of hers is near the middle, though, when she mourns the death of a miner she had befriended.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart: The buffoon of The Three Doctors is gone, thankfully, with him back to his usual competence. He is initially sympathetic to Global Chemicals, seeing the benefits of "cheap petrol and lots of it." However, he can sense that Stevens is hiding something, particularly when the executive interferes with his efforts to help Jo and the trapped miners. His superiors forbid him from taking action, so he sends Mike Yates to infiltrate the company in the guise of a Ministry official. He shuts down Professor Jones when he insists he's going down into the mine after Jo, flatly telling him to leave it to the Doctor: "My concern for Miss Grant is as deep as yours, probably more so," he says, and the combination of authority and compassion is enough to talk the younger man down.
Mike Yates: Richard Franklin does a fine job with Mike's scenes as he impersonates a smarmy government bureaucrat. He's limited in what information he's able to gather, communicating to the Brigadier that he's being watched at all times. He does gain a decent overview of the layout of the Global Chemicals building, which he puts to use to help the Doctor to locate Stevens' mysterious "boss." Then he has to get the Doctor out of trouble, exposing himself to danger in the process.
Professor Jones: Jo's love interest is a brilliant, occasionally prickly, proudly anti-authoritarian scientist who isn't afraid to put himself in danger to do good... which, as Jo observes, makes him basically an age-appropriate version of the Doctor. The script pulls off a tricky balancing act: Their scenes together are focused on the budding relationship, but every one of them also moves the story forward. As a result, the romance works without interfering with the overall pace.
THOUGHTS:
"Jo, you've got all the time in the world, and all the space. I'm offering them to you."
-The Doctor strives to keep Jo from moving on.
The Green Death ranks among the best stories of the Pertwee era. It effectively mixes two separate but related plots. The thread the story is most remembered for involves the giant maggots and the deadly infection they create. But maggots, even mutated ones, don't make for very interesting villains, so the story provides a callous human baddie: Stevens and Global Chemicals, who inadverdantly created the maggots by dumping waste into the mine tunnels.
The threads are closely linked in the first half. Global's determination to cover its misdeeds creates increasingly serious complications. The Doctor and Jo are trapped in the mine because Stevens orders a henchman to sabotage the mine lift. When their escape takes them into the Global complex, they have to flee from corporate security.
They plots separate in the second half. Global's agenda isn't related to the maggots, which were simply an unintended consequence, leaving the Doctor and UNIT with two problems to solve. Even so, the plots continue feeding each other, particulary when the final episode creates deadlines for both: the prospect of the maggots evolving into flying insects becomes pressing at the same time that Global Chemicals nears the culmination of its ambitions, and the growing sense of urgency in each individual thread adds to the tension of the other.
The plot works, and the story would be enjoyable enough on that level. What makes it stand out, however, is the authenticity of the emotion - not always Classic Who's strong suit. The Doctor/Jo relationship has grown steadily better as the seasons have gone on. In many of my Season 9 and 10 reviews, I described their interplay as "sparkling," with Pertwee and Manning elevating scenes and serials through amusing bits of screen business and ever building screen chemistry. This is the story that ends their partnership, and it was important for the series to get that right.
The script sets up Professor Jones as a life partner for Jo and as a replacement for the Doctor. Both men are shown to be protective of her, with the Doctor rescuing her from the mine in the first half and Jones putting himself in harm's way to save her in the second half. Most of Jo's screen time in the first half is with the Doctor, reinforcing the old relationship; most of her screen time in the second half is with Jones, building the new relationship.
I like that the Doctor is so resistant to Jo moving on. There's a desperation in his initial appeal to Jo when he's trying to convince her to go off in the TARDIS with him, and a forced cheerfulness when he interrupts her moment with Professor Jones. He may ultimately let her go, but it's clearly difficult, and that internal struggle is convincingly portrayed. I also love the final image: the Doctor driving away in Bessie, alone both physically and emotionally for the first time in years.
OVERALL:
I could raise a few quibbles. Though the early episodes benefit from Welsh locations that make this feel more grounded than most serials, later episodes look much cheaper. A few greenscreen shots are downright awful, notably when the Doctor deals with the maggots in the final episode. There are also cheesy moments, from overly earnest dialogue about replacing meat with fungus to scenes involving hypnotism and a blue crystal... though I'll also admit to finding The Green Death's brand of '70s cheese to be rather endearing.
None of this undermines the story's many strengths. The "A" and "B" plots work well together, each increasing the urgency of the other even when they cease to be directly related. The character material is strong, with the Doctor/Jo and Jo/Professor interactions working particularly well. It's also extremely well paced, with the character material advancing the plot rather than stopping it in its tracks.
Add in an excellent final scene, complete with perfectly judged final shot, and it all adds up to a serial that I'd rank as one of this era's finest.
Overall Rating: 10/10.
Previous Story: The Planet of the Daleks
Next Story: The Time Warrior
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