Doctor Who: "Inferno."

Then Came Pertwee.

On this website so far, we have covered every man to play the Doctor in the 1980s (and most of the latter '70s).  Tom Baker, Peter Davison, and Colin Baker.....well, okay, we've missed Sylvester McCoy.  But trust me.....I haven't found a really good McCoy episode yet.  One that won't leave me in the fetal position in front of the VCR for an hour and a half screaming to God with a question most people cannot explain: "Why did they fire Colin Baker just to replace him with a darker version of the character he created???"

Of course, that's about the time where I reach for something else.....a movie?  "Attack of the Crab Monsters?"  "Atom Age Vampire?"  How about "Escape From The Bronx?"  Oh, if I'm really, truly desperate, I'll turn back to Whodom and grab an episode that is a surefire hit, one that will reestablish my faith.

This episode is one of them.  And this brings the 3rd Doctor to Odd Cinema, a fellow by the name of Jon Pertwee.

Jon Pertwee's career has seemed to begin with Doctor Who and end with it.  For the life of me, I don't believe the man ever really had a solid job in the acting arena aside from his five year reign as the Doctor (1970-1974).  Which is a shame, since the man had the chops for it.  In many ways, he was the last man to base his Doctor character on the old Hartnell "grumpy older man" mold.  Well, except for his "Venusian Karate" bits when Pertwee would suddenly change to his stunt double in a bad wig and take out an alien baddie with stunts that would make Lee Van Cleef feel better.

"The Master?," anyone?  Or rather, "Master Ninja??"

Oh, never mind.

Anyway, the stunts performed by Pertwee and his stunt double is what truly set this era of Whodom apart from any other.  Not until Davison did the show ever really give the audience a Doctor who would run on a regular basis.  Well, that, and Pertwee's era was the first one in COLOR!!

Anyway, where was I before this mishmash of an introduction got to?  Oh, yes....."Inferno."

"Inferno" was the last story of Pertwee's first season, a season that to this day is unmatched in the number of great stories it produced.  A full four out of four stories (due to three stories having SEVEN episodes).   In this season, the Doctor (Pertwee) has been forced to regenerate by his race, the Time Lords, due to inference with the natural course of time.  The Doctor is now banished to Earth, with the TARDIS broken beyond repair, and his memories involving the Science of Time erased.  Stuck with nowhere to go, the Doctor finds work with UNIT (United Nations International Taskforce) lead by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, of whom the Doctor has met twice.  Hence, the premise for Pertwee's era has began.

This time, the Doctor and Liz Shaw are at Project: Inferno, an experiment by the British Government to break past the Earth's Crust to find new energy sources lead by the stubborn doctor Stahlman.   Stahlman is a determined man who takes too many chances, provoking the Government liaison Sir Keith Gold to report him to the Minister (of Resources, presumably).   Unnoticed at first, the drilling causes a strange green ooze to transform various technicians into Primords, strange green gorillas that like to snack on humans.   Which delays the Doctor's chance to try to repair the TARDIS console itself to try a few test flights while using the Project's reactor.  One such attempt sends him sideways in time.  The Doctor is fascinated but needs more power to break through.

But the Doctor's carefree and sarcastic manner soon irks the unstable Stahlman, who has secretly been infected with the green ooze and is slowly devolving into a Primord.  Stahlman cuts the Doctor's power under the guise of 'needing more power for the project.'  The angered Doctor switches it back on, and succeeds in slipping sideways in time.  Despite Liz's wishes, Stahlman refuses to restore the power in order to get the Doctor back.  The Brigadier's hands tied, Liz decides to wait and see if the Doctor returns.

However, the Doctor has slipped into a parallel universe.  A fascist state where Project: Inferno has advanced at an extraordinary rate.  Only a few hours from penetration of the Earth's Crust, the Doctor realizes that the drilling has uncovered a green goo that devolves people back to apes with an extraordinarily high temperature.  The Doctor tries to tell the parallel universe equals of his friends about the danger that this poses, but they don't listen.  The Earth's Crust is then cracked, unleashing great amounts of heat and lava which consumes the parallel Earth whole.  Fortunately, the Doctor escapes and stops the very same thing from happening to the 'Good' Earth and everything is saved.  Except the 'good' Stahlman turns into a Primord and is killed by a fire extinguisher.

Most of the action in the seven episodes this story takes place is mostly suspense in action, mainly in episodes three through six, where the Doctor is actually in the Parallel Universe and the Project is far more advanced then it is in the Regular Universe or "Good" universe or whatever.  I could type forever and never get that straight.  Anyway, most of the story is the Doctor trying to convince the mirror images of his friends to listen to him and us the viewers getting a treat of seeing the Brigadier acting like a coward with one eye and Liz Shaw doing her best impersonation of a Nazi.  Despite my lackass of a overview, the story is more of a 'must be watched' rather than 'must be described.'  Like most of Pertwee's stories, come to think of it....."Planet of Spiders" comes to mind, especially....

Anyway, this is reported to be one of Pertwee's LEAST favorite stories, strictly on account of the Primord itself.  Of course, when you look at a still it looks pretty damn goofy, like the Beeb stole some of John Chambers' stuff during "Battle for the Planet of the Apes" but not any of the appliances, hence a half assed look.  But it all works, somehow.  Probably thanks to the good writing job of Don Haughton, who would later do a few more Doctor Whos of the Pertwee Era (like "The Mind of Evil") and a couple of Hammer Studios lesser known films, like "Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires," "Shatter," and "The Satanic Rites of Dracula."

RATING:  Action-packed, tight script, and the seven episodes fly by almost too fast.  A great ending to a reportedly great season (which could be more confirmed if BBC America re-released "Spearhead from Space" and issued "Ambassadors of Death"...not that I'm complaining).  Four out of four stars, it's worth the money.

And, despite what the tape sleeve says, it is in COLOR.