Today it’s over to UK Gold for some Jon Pertwee era Doctor Who and the story Inferno.
I’ve been watching Doctor Who about as long as I can remember. Longer than that, probably. One of my earliest memories was of the Autons – the shop-window dummies that came to life. I used to call them the Dollymen. And for many years after, I had assumed that this was Jon Pertwee’s first story, Spearhead from Space.
However, then I started reading the Target novels, and when I read the novelisation of The Silurians I realised I didn’t have any memory at all of watching that. And later still, catching up with these repeats on UK Gold, I couldn’t remember The Ambassadors of Death, or this serial, Inferno.
But I did have a very early memory – it was of someone being carried around on the front of a dalek. I had always assumed this must have been Roy Castle in the Peter Cushing movie, until I mentioned it to a BBC colleague who was a much bigger fan than I was, and he said it sounded like it might have been from one of the lost Troughton stories, Evil of the Daleks. I still don’t know how likely this was since I would have been 2 years old, but it’s a nice thought.
But all this means that I came to Inferno without any nostalgic baggage, although by the time I watched it, I knew it was quite a popular story. I have watched this before, and don’t really remember being overly impressed at the time, but let’s see if it’s improved with age.
The first unusual thing about this story is that the story title doesn’t come over the main titles as it usually does in this era, but over some stock footage of a volcano erupting. I don’t think they did this again, although real fans can correct me if I’m mistaken.
The Doctor is singing Verdi as he drives somewhere in Bessie.
Another man is cycling, and whistling. I like this bit of mirroring. I can’t work out what tune he’s whistling, though. He’s cycling through a big refinery or other similar industrial complex – it’s always good value when the show can shoot at big impressive locations.
Inside the control centre we meet Prefessor Stahlman, who’s angry that the drilling rate has slowed because of a repair. You can tell immediately that he’s the kind of pig-headed person who’s perpetually convinced of his own genius, and will ultimately cause whatever catastrophe this story is about.
He’s arguing with Sir Keith Gold, Executive Director of the project. For whom Stahlman has little respect. “Your concern is with such important matters as the canteen facilities and the new roster for the cleaners. Anything to do with the drilling is my concern and mine alone.” Gold is played by Christopher Benjamin, one of those actors that always seems vaguely familiar, but who’s in so many things that it’s hard to place him, although Doctor Who fans are most likely to remember him from the Tom Baker story The Talons of Weng Chiang as Henry Jago.
There’s green gloop escaping from the pipe that’s being repaired by our whistling cyclist. That’s never good.
Don’t touch it, cycling whistler! Something bad’s sure to happen. Sure enough, pretty soon he’s wandering around looking like he’s in some kind of trance.
Someone sees him staggering around outside and goes to help, but he attacks them. There’s a nice cut between him raising his arm to strike, and a hammer putting a nail into a wall.
Who’s putting up a picture? It’s Sgt Benton. I loved the Unit era.
The Doctor arrives and looks at another of the Brigadier’s photos. He can’t recognise him, so the Brigadier tells him. Apparently he’s the one on the front row on the left. Incidentally, he’d got about five or six of these framed photos. Presumably he takes them to anywhere he has to set up a temporary office.
The Brigadier has arrived because of a murder – the technician murdered by the whistling cyclist, Harry Slocum. Slocum is missing, and the wrench used in the murder was red hot when it was discovered.
Back in the control room, an expert in oil drilling has arrived, Greg Sutton (Derek Newark).
You get a good sense of who he is when he’s introduced to Petra Williams (Sheila Dunn) and immediately starts hitting on her. “Perhaps you could help me settle in the place.” “How do you mean, Mr Sutton?” “Well, you know, show me round, dash off a few letters. Perhaps I could borrow you for a bit.”
The Doctor is worried that the warnings being given by the computer are being ignored. “Mind you I’m not wild about computers myself, but they are a tool. If you have a tool it’s stupid not to use it.”
The Doctor has a remote control door to his temporary laboratory, which he opens with the sonic screwdriver. This is literally the stuff of science fiction in 1970.
Already there is Liz Shaw (Caroline John) one of the less remembered companions. It’s nice to have a professional scientist in this role.
The Doctor has the Tardis Console in the lab. Outside the Tardis. In fact, the Tardis is nowhere to be seen. This strains my mental model of what the Tardis is. Did he have to disassemble it to remove it? Surely it’s too big to take through the exterior Tardis doors in one piece. It’s doin’ me bleedin’ nut in.
Whistling Cyclist Wrench Murderer Slocum is starting to look a little zombie-like. And also, for some reason, he’s looking a little bit more like Professor Robert Winston. But with hairier hands.
The Doctor is trying to use the nuclear power from the facility to power the Tardis. Special power that’s measured in Megga-Volts. None of your ordinary Mega-Volts here.
While The Doctor is powering the console, Slocum kills another technician, and boosts the facility to full power, which has an effect on the Doctor’s experiment, throwing him into a malfunctioning hall of mirrors.
This shot looks like it’s from The Thing.
The power boost is also causing problems with the drilling, so there’s alarms, running about, everyone shouting at Stahlman because he seems to be doing the ‘This is fine’ thing. The Doctor and Liz find the technician killed by Dr Robert Winston, who then jumps out an snarls at them, for the episode cliffhanger.
In episode 2 they deal with Zombie Robert Winston, and the Doctor has to use the Brig’s pistol handle to set the big power slider back to zero, because it’s too hot to touch. I’m slightly amused by the fact that all during this tense scene, the sound of a trimphone ringing is heard, because the control room are calling to ask what’s happening there. The trimphone ringing sound probably seemed terribly modern at the time. It certainly seemed modern when we got our first trimphone.
Two more people seem to have been affected by what affected whistling, cycling Robert Winston lookalike. Is it a Zombie apocalypse? The Doctor thinks he’s seen something like this before, when the volcano on Krakatoa erupted – an unseen adventure which I presume was the subject of a Big Finish or New Adventures spin-off at some point.
The two new victims vanished before they could be examined, and the Doctor spots one of them and gives chase. The show’s making the most of their location here with lots of running about high up on gantries and walkways. The affected guard is also showing zombie-like traits, but as he’s trying to bash The Doctor with his gun (a nice touch, implying his mind has lost the knowledge of what a gun is, so he’s using it as a stick) he falls from a high walkway.
They’ve found some of the green goo that affected Slocum, but can’t analyse it because it’s too hot. Again, The Doctor recognises it from Krakatoa.
“I’ll tell you something that should be of vital interest to you, professor.” “Well, what?” “That you, sir, are a nitwit.”
The green goop is overheating and the flask is about to crack, so the Professor grabs it an puts it back in its box. I wonder where the scientist was with the insulated gloves who took it out of the box in the first place? This operation is very badly run.
Stahlman is still ignoring the computer warnings. The production didn’t seem to know how to represent the computer in this serial. There’s no screens, and occasionally the Doctor is looking at ticker tape, but sometimes they’re just vaguely looking at a black table. Then Stahlman annoys the Doctor by telling him that he’s cutting off the power to his lab for his experiment. Which annoys the Doctor.
The Doctor surreptitiously resets the power to his lab.
While Stahlman surreptitiously removes a part from the Computer.
The Doctor catches Stahlman about to smash the circuit, and when Stahlman, already being affected by touching the flask of goo, tries to bash him with a pipe, he stops him with some Venusian Karate.
So the Doctor goes back to continue his experiments, getting rid of Liz by asking her to run some calculations on the computer for him. When she returns to the lab with the Brigadier, they see the Doctor vanish with his console and Bessie. Cue cliffhanger.
In the next episode, the Brigadier and Liz demand Stahlman restore the power to the Doctor’s experiment. But he refuses. He’s definitely giving off some big Dominic Cummings energy, the ‘brilliant expert’ who can do whatever he wants, and the government will back him up.
Meanwhile the Doctor wakes up, back where he started, in the hut where his Lab is. Except all his experimental equipment is gone. And there’s a strange poster up saying ‘Unity is Strength’.
He leaves the lab in Bessie and almost immediately people start shooting at him, including Sergeant Benton, wearing a different uniform.
There’s an epic chase sequence, with some great stunt work.
The Doctor is menaced by one of the infected technicians, and there’s more grappling on top of a big tank.
Then he finds Liz – who’s had a sudden makeover.
She takes him to see the Brigadier, who’s changed too. He’s now the Brigade Leader. The Doctor realises that he’s moved into a parallel dimension. And that eyepatch is textbook evil universe costuming. Plus the scar.
Even Stahlman has a different costume and haircut. Plus some cool shades. Pity he’s also still got the blue hand from touching the flask, which obviously all happened in this dimension too.
Alarms start going off, as the drilling is causing problems, as the computer and the Doctor were predicting. Everyone’s running around, and technicians are being ordered to stay at their posts. This is suddenly looking like a 1970s production of Chernobyl. The Doctor tries to repair the computer, but Benton stops him and threatens to shoot him. Cue another cliffhanger.
The Doctor manages to repair the computer, and the emergency is over for now. The Doctor tries to reason with evil Liz, but everyone here is full-on Nazi.
They interrogate The Doctor, but he can’t tell them anything because he’s already told them the truth.
Back on Earth Prime, the Executive Director is going back to London to speak to the minister, and bringing his anxieties about the pace of the drilling. He wants the drilling slowed as they get closer to penetrating the Earth’s Crust (the whole point of the drilling). I hope he doesn’t die on the way, like his counterpart on the Evil Earth.
Back on Evil Earth, the Doctor’s cellmate is the zombie technician, who attacks a guard and is able to bend the bars. The Doctor uses this opportunity to escape the cell.
He finds a hazmat suit, so he’s able to disguise himself and get back into the control centre. The drilling is getting closer to penetrating the crust. The Doctor tries to stop it but the Brigade Leader spots him. He almost shoots the Doctor, but drilling expert Sutton stops him. Of all the people on Evil Earth, he seems least like a Nazi. I wonder if he’s also not a misogynist in this Earth. The Doctor tries to run but guards stop him, and Stahlman now has the Brigade Leader’s gun and is about to shoot, giving us cliffhanger 4.
Luckily, the drill gets through the crust before Stahlman can shoot, and the whole facility is rocked by quakes, and some nice miniature explosions.
The Doctor, Sutton and Stahlman go into the drilling area to try to cap the bore. But Stahlman bashes Sutton with a pipe, then fights with The Doctor. It’s a good thing Stahlman and Sutton have massive name badges, otherwise I wouldn’t have a clue what was happening.
The Doctor and Sutton get out of the bore room, leaving Stahlman in there, quite happy in the heat because he’s turning into one of the goop zombies, albeit much slower than all th others we’ve seen. The Doctor breaks the news to everyone that, because the drill has unleashed the raw power inside the Earth, the Earth is now doomed to ‘dissolve in the fury of expanding gasses’.
Greg Sutton and Petra Williams are rather being thrown together by the end of the world.
The Doctor tries to persuade the Brigade Leader and Liz to help him get back to his own dimension and save that Earth from the fate of this one.
Stahlman comes out of the bore room, and at least he still has his hair. He also has friends.
Oh No! Sgt Benton is attacked by Stahlman, and even he turns green. This is classic alternate world stuff. RIP Benton, you is wiv da angles now.
We get a quick look back at Earth Prime, and Sir Keith is driving back from the Minister, having got his full backing to suspend the drilling. But his driver has been ordered to take him the wrong way so he can’t give those orders to Stahlman, and when Sir Keith learns this, and orders him to take him directly back, they’re involved in a car accident. Poor Sir Keith.
The Doctor explains his plan to repair the power circuits, but they are interrupted by one of the furry zombies trying to break through the door, and another cliffhanger.
Now here’s a slight interlude. I’ve cut out most of the ad breaks and the idents from this tape – I was clearly watching while I was recording – and so far, all the UK Gold idents were these ones, with lots of dogs running around.
You might wonder why UK Gold’s idents are a whole bunch of dogs in wacky lighting. Well, in order to clue us in, just before the next episode, we get an older UK Gold ident. As you’ll see, it features a Golden Retriever, which makes sense on a branding level. So I presume, when it came time to refresh the idents, they didn’t have anyone in the room who remembered that it was specifically a Golden Retriever in the old idents, and all they could think of was ‘dogs’ so we got the random dogs and the school disco lighting. It was probably a couple of years before they did another refresh and dropped the dogs entirely, going with molten gold, which wasn’t bad and was at least on brand.
So now we reach episode six of Inferno, and the remaining few have to figure out how to get back into the control centre, fight off the zombies, and repair the circuits so the Tardis console get get the Doctor back to Earth Prime. Fire Extinguishers are cold, so they can drive back the heat loving zombies, so we get some exciting scenes of the group holding off the zombies while the Doctor tries to fix things. It’s only slight undercut by the fire extinguisher they have not actually having much gas left in some of the shots.
Luckily Sutton is able to get some of the coolant from the drill, which is a much better deterrent.
The Brigade Leader, Petra and Liz get out of the building. I love the filters they’re using to illustrate the impending death of the planet. It feels ultra modern. This story was directed by Douglas Camfield, who was a young director who was particularly good with action. He died very young, and was a great loss to the show, but these stories really show his visual and storytelling flair. This is a long story but it hasn’t felt like it’s flagging at any point.
We go back to Earth Prime again, and the Brigadier can’t find out what happened to Sir Keith. There’s a lovely scene here with the Brigadier and Benton, as Benton tells the Brig that Stahlman won’t come, and when the Brig presses him as to why, Benton says “he’s too busy to bandy words with a pompous military idiot, SIR!” The Brigadier insists. “Carry him here if you have to, but get him” he bellows. But when Benton leaves, you can tell by the Brig’s expression that he’s amused, and possibly impressed with Benton’s candour.
Back to Earth Inferno, and The Doctor fixes the circuits so he and Sutton get escape. But Stahlman is still going – and we can tell it’s Stahlman because he’s still got his handy name badge. Or is it Stahlmann? No, the credits say Stahlman, so the name badge is wrong.
They’ve got back to the hut with the Tardis Console, but the Brigadier is plotting to get the Doctor to save all of them, despite The Doctor having told them that this would violate some kind of universal law. He’s also hassling Petra Williams as she tries to fix the power boost.
But she can’t fix it (probably because of the Brigade Leader’s micromanagement techniques) so they run to the Doctor’s lab. Where the Brigade Leader practically has a breakdown, tries to shoot Sutton, then has a fistfight with him. No wonder this was one of Nicholas Courtney’s favourite stories.
After subduing the Brig, Sutton realises that Petra has gone – she’s run back to the nuclear power switch room to finish her repairs. When he finds her back there, he asks “What are you trying to do, commit suicide?” “What does it matter, we’re finished anyway.” This is magnificent stuff.
Now that the power’s flowing, the Tardis starts powering up, but the Brigade Leader’s recovered from his bashing, and he’s loaded his gun, so he intends to go with the doctor, despite the Doctor telling him it would create a ‘cosmic disaster’. “You’ll have to shoot me, Brigade Leader. I have no intention of taking you.” And before the Brig can shoot, there’s a gunshot and he falls. It’s Liz Shaw! “Now’s your chance, Doctor.” This is absolutely incredible. I love it so much.
We even get a montage of the cataclysm happening outside, with stock footage of lava and eruptions, mixed with the filtered shots of people running through smoke, and as the Doctor says he can’t leave yet because it’s still too erratic, the episode ends with this shot of the lava approaching the hut. OK, it’s 1970 vintage CSO, but that doesn’t undercut the stakes.
I’m almost afraid to watch the final episode, as I don’t think it can really match up to that ending. It opens (after the cliffhanger recap) with the Doctor lying unconscious, back on Earth Prime.
Meanwhile, because Sir Keith is still missing, Stahlman is insisting on accelerating the drilling, against the advice of everyone else. At this point perhaps we can assume this is more than pig-headedness, and he’s being affected by the zombie virus.
The Doctor is mumbling things about what’s gone wrong, “Number Two Output Pipe Blown” because he saw that in the other world. “Only one thing to do – reverse all systems.” Then he lapses back into his coma.
Liz takes this suggestion to Control Centre, and Sutton agrees it could work, based on his experience with oil drilling.
The Doctor wakes up to see the real Liz and Brigadier. “You really do look better with that moustache.” He tells them about where he’s been, and starts asking questions about what’s happened. He’s wondering if it’s possible to stop the same thing happening here that happened on the other Earth.
There’s a knock at the door, and who should enter but Sir Keith. Slightly the worse for his car accident, but not dead, as the Doctor keeps saying. I never thought I’d be so happy to see a mid-level bureaucrat in a Doctor Who story.
“So not everything runs parallel. An infinity of universes, ergo an infinity of choices. So free will is not an illusion after all. The pattern can be changed.” This episode is a bit lower on the action stakes, but in terms of the philosophy it’s still firing on all cylinders.
The Doctor goes to the control centre, and tries to stop the drilling, but he’s a little too proactive with a wrench, so the Brigadier has to restrain him and march him off.
This allows Stahlman to take control of the drilling, and he locks himself behind the heatshield. “I shall control the last phase of the drilling myself.”
The Doctor isn’t under arrest for very long, and we get a bit of action as he runs around, and faces down one of the zombie technicians.
Stahlman, in the bore room, gets more of the green goop.
There’s two minutes before the drill penetrates the crust, and somehow, Sir Keith is still reluctant to order a shutdown without Stahlman’s say so. “We have no proof of an emergency situation”
Then the heatshield comes up again, and Stahlman has gone full furry. Proof if proof be need be of an emergency.
The technicians try to shut down the drill, but the buffer controls will keep it drilling, and Stahlman has smashed those controls. Can the Doctor fix them in time? Notice the way the story keeps The Doctor in play right to the end, when it could just as easily had the technicians just shut everything down. Plus we get a nailbiting countdown before The Doctor and Sutton return to the control room, and the countdown voice announces the drilling has stopped. Hooray!
Now the Doctor has to say goodbye to the Brigadier and Liz. He’s sad to say goodbye to Liz, but calls the Brigadier a “pompous self-opinionated idiot.” Then he activates the Tardis console and disappears.
But he’s back a moment later, having travelled about 100 yards away, into the rubbish heap. Asking for the Brigadier’s help moving the now stranded console, he says “We don’t want to bear a grudge for a few hasty words, do we?”
And Liz laughs as they leave together. It’s a shame this was her last appearance, as in the next season, Jo Grant appears.
So that’s Inferno, it’s a fan favourite, and after this watching, I can see why. I don’t think I appreciated it as much the last time I watched. Admittedly, it already has a head start because it’s an alternate universe story, and I believe that those are always a lot of fun, any time a series does them, but this one really does pull it off. Great stuff.
The tape ends just after the last episode. I was ruthless with the pause button on this one.
VHiStory 