(Note: A Review Of All Seven Episodes)
A little more than forty-five years ago, Doctor Who aired one of the most unique stories in its history. Coming at the end of Season Seven, Jon Pertwee's first year as the Third Doctor, Inferno in many ways is that season's ultimate triumph. Not only that, it is perhaps not only amongst the best stories in all of Doctor Who but the best story of the entire Pertwee era.
At its heart perhaps, Inferno is a simple mad scientist story. UNIT and the Doctor are yet again at a government funded scientific project that is attempting to drill through the Earth's crust to penetrate pockets of Stahlman's Gas, which is theorized to be able to provide nearly cheap endless energy. The project, nicknamed "the Inferno" by the technicians working upon it, is headed by a brilliant but egotistical Professor Stahlman who views virtually everyone around him with suspicion due to his belief they are trying to slow/ stop him and his project.
While the Doctor and Liz are there working on the TARDIS console in an attempt to get in working, the Brigadier and UNIT are investigating a series of strange events and deaths. Despite growing concerns, the project proceeds on even when a mysterious green substance begins to ooze out of one of the drill's output pipers from deep within the Earth itself. Unable to stop the project and becoming increasingly confrontational with Stahlman, the Doctor's attempts to fix the TARDIS land him in a parallel universe where the project not only exists in a Fascist Britain along with familiar faces, but is actually considerably ahead of the one he left behind.
It's when the story reaches the parallel Fascist Britain that the story really picks up. Everyone but the Doctor is represented here raging from an even more egotistical Professor Stahlman, Sergeant Benton as a despicable thug and Liz not as a brilliant scientist but the assistant to the worst one of all: the Brigadier (known in this world as the Brigade Leader). It is a world stripped of morality and these seemingly familiar characters embody that fact.
Indeed, the real star of the story might be Nicholas Courtney. Up until his passing in 2011, he would always cite this story as his favorite and it isn't hard to see why. While he's legendary to Doctor Who fans for playing the Brigadier, it's really here that we get to see the man's acting chops. The Brigade Leader might look like the Brigadier but he certainly isn't him: behind the eye-patch is a bully who is really nothing more then a coward at heart who struggles to deal with the situation once things go wrong and his troops all but desert him. As the Brigade Leader, Courtney loses all the charm and dry humor he brought to the Brigadier and plays a thoroughly nasty and likable piece of work which helped to make the story all the more iconic.
The story also benefits from its extra episodes in other ways. The story has time to unfold and remains tense thanks to Don Houghton's script and the combined direction of Douglas Camfield and Barry Letts. Houghton's script uses the extra episodes to its advantage, throwing the parallel universe plot into the middle of the story and actually being better for it since it allows us to see the consequences of the project in a parallel world which heightens the tension once the story shifts back to the "normal" universe. The story's direction both from Camfield (who did the first two episodes and all the exterior film sequences before becoming ill) and Letts (who directed all the interior scenes in the rest of the story) give the story an almost feature film like quality despite it being set largely within a couple of buildings though it's perhaps the filmed sequences which standout the best.
The production values of the story are strong as well. There's some excellent excellent set design to the costumes, especially when the story shifts over to the fascist parallel world. The Primords, the monsters of the story, prove the old saying that "less is more" as the designers go for a simpler approach to them, using the fact that they're played by actors in make-up to their advantage. Last but not least is the music which isn't much a score as a collection of stock music, some of which was composed by Delia Derbyshire. The music though was well picked as it adds tension and atmosphere when it's used, which is sparingly used. All of which makes Inferno one of the best looking and least dated Doctor Who stories of its time.
After Inferno aired, the series would never quite be the same again. By the time the next season started airing in January 1971, a number of changed would take place. Inferno would be the last of the more adult oriented Doctor Who with morally ambiguous plots and themes, and it would be the crowning triumph of the season that helped bring Doctor Who out of black and white and into color. It was, and remains, a story unlike any other in Doctor Who and the best story of the Pertwee era.
A little more than forty-five years ago, Doctor Who aired one of the most unique stories in its history. Coming at the end of Season Seven, Jon Pertwee's first year as the Third Doctor, Inferno in many ways is that season's ultimate triumph. Not only that, it is perhaps not only amongst the best stories in all of Doctor Who but the best story of the entire Pertwee era.
At its heart perhaps, Inferno is a simple mad scientist story. UNIT and the Doctor are yet again at a government funded scientific project that is attempting to drill through the Earth's crust to penetrate pockets of Stahlman's Gas, which is theorized to be able to provide nearly cheap endless energy. The project, nicknamed "the Inferno" by the technicians working upon it, is headed by a brilliant but egotistical Professor Stahlman who views virtually everyone around him with suspicion due to his belief they are trying to slow/ stop him and his project.
While the Doctor and Liz are there working on the TARDIS console in an attempt to get in working, the Brigadier and UNIT are investigating a series of strange events and deaths. Despite growing concerns, the project proceeds on even when a mysterious green substance begins to ooze out of one of the drill's output pipers from deep within the Earth itself. Unable to stop the project and becoming increasingly confrontational with Stahlman, the Doctor's attempts to fix the TARDIS land him in a parallel universe where the project not only exists in a Fascist Britain along with familiar faces, but is actually considerably ahead of the one he left behind.
It's when the story reaches the parallel Fascist Britain that the story really picks up. Everyone but the Doctor is represented here raging from an even more egotistical Professor Stahlman, Sergeant Benton as a despicable thug and Liz not as a brilliant scientist but the assistant to the worst one of all: the Brigadier (known in this world as the Brigade Leader). It is a world stripped of morality and these seemingly familiar characters embody that fact.
Indeed, the real star of the story might be Nicholas Courtney. Up until his passing in 2011, he would always cite this story as his favorite and it isn't hard to see why. While he's legendary to Doctor Who fans for playing the Brigadier, it's really here that we get to see the man's acting chops. The Brigade Leader might look like the Brigadier but he certainly isn't him: behind the eye-patch is a bully who is really nothing more then a coward at heart who struggles to deal with the situation once things go wrong and his troops all but desert him. As the Brigade Leader, Courtney loses all the charm and dry humor he brought to the Brigadier and plays a thoroughly nasty and likable piece of work which helped to make the story all the more iconic.
The story also benefits from its extra episodes in other ways. The story has time to unfold and remains tense thanks to Don Houghton's script and the combined direction of Douglas Camfield and Barry Letts. Houghton's script uses the extra episodes to its advantage, throwing the parallel universe plot into the middle of the story and actually being better for it since it allows us to see the consequences of the project in a parallel world which heightens the tension once the story shifts back to the "normal" universe. The story's direction both from Camfield (who did the first two episodes and all the exterior film sequences before becoming ill) and Letts (who directed all the interior scenes in the rest of the story) give the story an almost feature film like quality despite it being set largely within a couple of buildings though it's perhaps the filmed sequences which standout the best.
The production values of the story are strong as well. There's some excellent excellent set design to the costumes, especially when the story shifts over to the fascist parallel world. The Primords, the monsters of the story, prove the old saying that "less is more" as the designers go for a simpler approach to them, using the fact that they're played by actors in make-up to their advantage. Last but not least is the music which isn't much a score as a collection of stock music, some of which was composed by Delia Derbyshire. The music though was well picked as it adds tension and atmosphere when it's used, which is sparingly used. All of which makes Inferno one of the best looking and least dated Doctor Who stories of its time.
After Inferno aired, the series would never quite be the same again. By the time the next season started airing in January 1971, a number of changed would take place. Inferno would be the last of the more adult oriented Doctor Who with morally ambiguous plots and themes, and it would be the crowning triumph of the season that helped bring Doctor Who out of black and white and into color. It was, and remains, a story unlike any other in Doctor Who and the best story of the Pertwee era.