The seventh season of "Doctor Who" was the first of the seventies, and apart from marking the start of a new decade it also marked a new start for the series in several other ways. It was the first to be broadcast in colour. It saw the debuts of Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor and of a new assistant, Liz Shaw. It also saw a change in the basic concept underlying the series. The First and Second Doctors had been wanderers through time and space; the Third, for reasons explained in "The War Games" (the last serial of season six), found himself confined to Earth by order of the Time Lords. These Earth-bound episodes were clearly influenced by an earlier British science fiction television series, "Quatermass". The Doctor finds himself working as scientific adviser to UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce), a quasi-military force charged with defending the Earth against threats
"Inferno" is the name of a scientific project to drill through the Earth's crust in to tap into a new source of cheap energy. The Doctor is involved because UNIT is responsible for security. He is also using the project's nuclear reactor to power experiments on the TARDIS console, and one of these goes awry, sending him into a parallel universe where history has taken a different course.
On the parallel Earth, Great Britain is a republic ruled by a Fascist regime. (We learn that the Royal Family were executed many years earlier). The Inferno project, moreover, is also taking place in this universe, with many of the same personnel involved, although sometimes in slightly different roles. Liz Shaw, for example, is a "Section Leader" with the Republican Security Force, the regime's secret police. While in this universe the Doctor realises something which he has already suspected, namely that there are serious safety issues with the Inferno project. Indeed, it is so dangerous that it could lead to the destruction of the entire earth. Can the Doctor manage to return to his own universe? And, if he does, can he persuade those responsible, especially the arrogant and obsessive project director Professor Stahlman, to stop the drilling before it is too late?
The one plot point which is never really integrated with the rest of the story is that fluorescent green slime which mutates all those who come into contact with it into subhuman creatures known as "Primords". (This may have been done because the serial does not otherwise contain any monsters and younger members of the audience may have been disappointed if the Doctor did not have any evil creatures to flee from).
This serial marked the last appearance of Caroline John as Liz; apparently she wanted to continue in the part but was written out by the producers who felt the character was "too intellectual"- Liz is supposed to be a brilliant scientist- and that audiences could not therefore identify with her. Her predecessor as the Doctor's companion, Zoe, was also something of an intellectual, but as she was also a sweet and innocent teenager was presumably felt to be more acceptable. I always thought that Caroline's departure was a pity; the stories always seem to work better if the Doctor's companion is (as far as possible, given that he is a member of a super-human species) his intellectual equal, and Liz made a refreshing change from all those female sci-fi characters whose main function is to stand about looking pretty or to run away screaming whenever danger threatens.
"Inferno" is one of the more original "Doctor Who" serials. The "alternate history" element provides an intriguingly different slant, as well as allowing some of the actors to explore two different, but complementary, personalities. The two versions of Stahlman do not seem very different, but then even in our timeline he is the sort of natural- born Fascist for whom a totalitarian regime would be his natural habitat. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, however, is transformed in the alternate universe into a ruthless secret policeman and Liz into his subordinate, although she is at least intelligent enough to realise that some things are more important than mindless obedience to orders. The scriptwriters were presumably trying to make the point that functionaries tend to take on the personality of the regime they serve.
Jon Pertwee is probably my favourite Doctor Who, with Tom Baker a close second, and (the Primords apart) this is one of the most intelligent and entertaining of his adventures. It even manages to incorporate a neat philosophical point about predestination and free will. A first-rate adventure.
"Inferno" is the name of a scientific project to drill through the Earth's crust in to tap into a new source of cheap energy. The Doctor is involved because UNIT is responsible for security. He is also using the project's nuclear reactor to power experiments on the TARDIS console, and one of these goes awry, sending him into a parallel universe where history has taken a different course.
On the parallel Earth, Great Britain is a republic ruled by a Fascist regime. (We learn that the Royal Family were executed many years earlier). The Inferno project, moreover, is also taking place in this universe, with many of the same personnel involved, although sometimes in slightly different roles. Liz Shaw, for example, is a "Section Leader" with the Republican Security Force, the regime's secret police. While in this universe the Doctor realises something which he has already suspected, namely that there are serious safety issues with the Inferno project. Indeed, it is so dangerous that it could lead to the destruction of the entire earth. Can the Doctor manage to return to his own universe? And, if he does, can he persuade those responsible, especially the arrogant and obsessive project director Professor Stahlman, to stop the drilling before it is too late?
The one plot point which is never really integrated with the rest of the story is that fluorescent green slime which mutates all those who come into contact with it into subhuman creatures known as "Primords". (This may have been done because the serial does not otherwise contain any monsters and younger members of the audience may have been disappointed if the Doctor did not have any evil creatures to flee from).
This serial marked the last appearance of Caroline John as Liz; apparently she wanted to continue in the part but was written out by the producers who felt the character was "too intellectual"- Liz is supposed to be a brilliant scientist- and that audiences could not therefore identify with her. Her predecessor as the Doctor's companion, Zoe, was also something of an intellectual, but as she was also a sweet and innocent teenager was presumably felt to be more acceptable. I always thought that Caroline's departure was a pity; the stories always seem to work better if the Doctor's companion is (as far as possible, given that he is a member of a super-human species) his intellectual equal, and Liz made a refreshing change from all those female sci-fi characters whose main function is to stand about looking pretty or to run away screaming whenever danger threatens.
"Inferno" is one of the more original "Doctor Who" serials. The "alternate history" element provides an intriguingly different slant, as well as allowing some of the actors to explore two different, but complementary, personalities. The two versions of Stahlman do not seem very different, but then even in our timeline he is the sort of natural- born Fascist for whom a totalitarian regime would be his natural habitat. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, however, is transformed in the alternate universe into a ruthless secret policeman and Liz into his subordinate, although she is at least intelligent enough to realise that some things are more important than mindless obedience to orders. The scriptwriters were presumably trying to make the point that functionaries tend to take on the personality of the regime they serve.
Jon Pertwee is probably my favourite Doctor Who, with Tom Baker a close second, and (the Primords apart) this is one of the most intelligent and entertaining of his adventures. It even manages to incorporate a neat philosophical point about predestination and free will. A first-rate adventure.