The Green Death was the last serial of the 10th season. It's the 69th serial and it first aired May 19 through June 23 1973. It's a 6 part story with a nice mix of social commentary and giant bugs. In a closed Welsh coal mine the local petrolium producer is secretly dumping the run off from his new gas production technique. The run off kills a man, he glows green, and UNIT gets called in. While the Doctor takes a short trip in the Tardis, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Jo Grant drive up to the mine. There are several groups of players; miners, oil men, some hippies and a super computer that's gone off it's nut. Katy heads to the hippy farm which is home of Professor Clifford Jones who leads the group in protest against the local coal miners. The oil company has a super computer that has a human interface. It takes control of the company officers and proceeds with plans for world domination.
There's the usual running around, sometimes underground. At one point the Doctor sneaks into the oil company HQ disguised as a cleaning woman. The goo turns tiny maggots into giants who kill people. There's plenty of explosions as the Air Force attacks. The scenery is mostly quarry sites with plenty of dirt and rocks. One of the maggots turns into a flying bug. They figure out how to kill the maggots. The doc kills the flying bug with his coat. It was kind of anticlimactic. They still have to stop the super computer but you know they will. Jo announces she wants to stay with the Professor and the Doctor wishs her well. He's sad. This is the last serial for Jo Grant. She becomes engaged to Professor Cliff Jones and leaves UNIT. Jones was played by Stewart Bevan who, at the time, was engaged to Katy Manning. They seperated about a year later. Katy Manning stayed in show biz for a while. She took a break and moved to Australia. She revived her character on a couple of episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures. She did a lot of stuff for the extra material on the Doctor Who dvds.
I thought it was very much like the usual UNIT story. I did like the giant maggots but some of the Color Seperation Overlays did not look that great. It's a process that for used a lot in this serial. The extras on the disc are a bit skimpy, a couple of interviews, a fake docu about the town the serial is set in, an effects short and some pictures. That's ok. I get tired of going through some of the stuff at times. I skipped the commentary.
The Time Warrior arrived in the mail early this week and even though it was out of sequence I watched it anyway. Serial 70 first aired December 15 1973 and ran to January 5 1974. It was the first serial of the 11th season. There were three other big firsts on the show. A new logo, a new alien and a new companion. You can see the logo above.
That's the Sontaran in the silver suit. He's crashed in medieval times and set up in the castle of a local thug named Irongron. Link, the Sontaran, is kidnapping scientist from the future. UNIT and the Doctor are investigating. Sarah Jane Smith, played by Elisabeth Sladen, sneaks into the project the scientists are disappearing from looking for a news story. The Doctor figures out that someone from the past is stealing the men and he follows their trail in the Tardis. Because Sarah Jane's a snoopy type she gets to travel in time to medieval days and she does ok facing the danger. The Tardis finally makes a trip that the Doctor programmed. He even makes a comment on it.
That's the Sontaran without his helmet. The other guy is Jeremy Bullock (Booba Fett) who is playing Hal. He works for Lord Edward of Wessex. He's one of the few stout men in Lord Edward's castle, most are away at foreign wars, and he has a pretty good part in the serial. Irongron plans to take over Lord Edward's castle. It's just part of his plans for an empire, especially now he has superior weapons from Link. The Doctor does a lot of running around and there's plenty of fights and arrow shooting. In one of the featurettes producer Barry Letts and script supervisor Terrance Dicks talk about the low ratings of previous Doctor Who serials with historical settings. They hoped to keep their viewers tuned in to the program by introducing a science fiction element. It worked pretty well, at least for me. The alien is a mean but beatable thug and the medieval setting worked well enough.
The story has a quicker pace than the 6 parts stories do and there's a nice bit of humor. I liked it better than a lot of the serials. They used a couple of real castles and some nice enough sets. I listened to the commentary by Terrance Dicks, Barry Letts and Elisabeth Sladen. It was ok. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. More fun than normal episode.
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