| THE GREEN DEATH by Robert Sloman |
| Story 69 Synopsis: Llanfairfach has problems. It has a mining community, but a closed mine. It has a multinational company, Global Chemicals, who are distrusted. It has an environmentalist lobby group, the Wholeweal commune. Finally, it has a chap dead but glowing green, which brings in UNIT. The Doctor ducks off for a trip to Metebelis 3, returning only with a blue crystal. Jo goes to join Wholeweal, run by Professor Cliff Jones. The Brigadier seems curious about GlobalChem, but keeps an open mind. Jo persuades someone to show her into the mine, but the lift is sabotaged, and she's stuck down there. The Brigadier tries to get help from GlobalChem, but they seem keen to avoid people going down the mine altogether. The Doctor manages to get down and find Jo. There is a trail of green slime that is causing the trouble. It also seems to mutate some maggots into Giant Maggots. The Doctor and Jo escape up an output pipe from Global Chemicals, and narrowly avoid being swept away by the wasteflow. The Doctor infiltrates GlobalChem, and finds that the brains behind the company is a super-computer, BOSS, linked to director Stevens. BOSS tries to hypnotise the Doctor, but he proves resistant. The Brigadier blows up the mine on GlobalChem's orders, but that drives the maggots to a slagheap. An air strike on the slagheap proves no more successful, although it leads to Professor Jones going to rescue Jo, and getting a maggot bite for his pains. He has found a solution to the maggots, but is too weak to say so. Captain Yates is working as UNIT's man inside GlobalChem, and tries to shoot the Doctor. With a sapphire from Metebelis 3, the Doctor breaks through BOSS' conditioning. Yates is sent back with the sapphire to get some info, but to little avail; he learns that something will happen with the computer at 4pm. The Doctor finds that the Wholeweal fungus is an antidote to the maggots and their slime. With it, he solves the problem at the slagheap, and cures Professor Jones. Arriving at GlobalChem, he finds Stevens and BOSS in the final stages of their plan to take over the world. Using the sapphire to break BOss' hold on Stevens, the Doctor breaks the link. Stevens blows up BOSS and GlobalChem. Jo decides to help the Professor with his quest up the Amazon, and to marry him. The Doctor drives off into the sunset. |
| Review:- An iconic story, the "one with the maggots" is as fondly remembered in 2003 as it was in 1973. But to focus on the biggest scares is to skim the surface of this highly thought-provoking tale. Pollution and its harmful effects on the environment are part and parcel of our everyday language nowadays, but at the time, this was real forefront stuff. That the means to show this issue is pretty basic (green slime makes horrid creepy-crawlies grow to enormous size) but no less effective for all that. The main performances to watch are Jerome Willis as Stevens, and Stewart Bevan as Professor Jones. Each are at the opposing end of the scale, but are no less interesting for that. Stevens is an icy-smooth operator, who fully believes in what he is doing, and is prepared to go to any lengths to ensure he gets his way. BOSS may get the bottom line of being evil, but Stevens carries the bulk of the nasty work. Jones is dyed-in-the-wool decent, not to be dismissed as a hippy because he is not only a bona fide professor, but a Nobel Prize winning one. He is able to advance the story in scientific terms, and look pretty rugged at the same time. That Jo falls for him is really a charming subtext of the whole story. After 3 seasons at the Doctor's side, Jo suddenly finds herself adaptable to help someone else. The idea that she has become a better person for knowing the Doctor is all reasonable within the series' parameters. UNIT are given some room to adapt as well as control. Benton reaches his best moment when he helps offload the fungus that destroys the maggots. The Brigadier is all over the place, opposed to Global Chem, but reluctantly able to obey orders from the PM. That he is open to the views of the Wholeweal commune by the close of the story, having been so against at the start, shows his journey (and the one the viewers are intended to make). Mike Yates makes a late showing, under the thrall of BOSS, but able to break free, and get the vital 4pm deadline out. Sadly, the acting seems the wrong side of knowing, and as this is the first step in his big exit from the show, it is hard to see which side he is supposed to be on. The Doctor kicks off with an amusing jaunt to Metebelis 3, alone. That he manages to get a sapphire brought back is remarkable given the fact that it seems such a harsh place. The sapphire goes on to be as important as the Doctor (remember-blue hexagons can counter telepathic control!). He is able to rescue Jo from the maggots in the mine, decipher the cure for the maggot slime (although as most other people do the deductions, he can't really take the credit) and act dashing over and over, whilst still finding time for comedy spots dressed up as a milkman and a washerwoman. Quite an astonishing turn. Overall, The Green Death is a thoughtful, dramatic story, well worth watching. It retains the impact of its message, even being repeated on BBC4 as part of week-long celebrations of 1973. |
| Disclaimer: I've read the book, and seen the video. |