The Seeds of Death Episode Four

The one where Slaar's deadly plan starts to take shape...

Patrick Troughton was on holiday during the recording of this episode, and so supporting player Tommy Laird doubles up for the unconscious Doctor throughout. There's a moment where Fewsham rolls the prone Doctor over to transport him to a T-Mat booth and we get a brief but clear view of Laird's very unTroughton-like face, but then nobody ever doubled for Troughton very satisfactorily, whether it was Chris Jeffries (The Dominators), Gerry Grant (Sky Ray ice lolly advert) or Reece Shearsmith (An Adventure in Space and Time)!

To be honest, the Doctor isn't really missed, particularly as he has had zero impact on the plot thus far anyway. While he lies unconscious, Slaar's invasion plan takes effect as the Ice Warriors T-Mat their deadly seed pods to every major city in the northern hemisphere, which in turn explode and deprive the humans around them of oxygen. It's a shame we don't see any humans succumbing to the exploding pods on location, as that would ramp up the danger tenfold. Instead, all we get is a rapidly expanding sea of white foam on Hampstead Heath, harming no one.

However, let's not pooh-pooh those Hampstead Heath scenes, because they look simply splendid. It's no surprise that Michael Ferguson's location work is as impressive as his studio direction (quite often I find that a director's work is impressive on location, but average at best in studio - see Barry Letts' sometimes shoddy work on The Enemy of the World, or Morris Barry's on The Tomb of the Cybermen). On a chilly December day in 1968, with Christmas just around the corner, Ferguson and his crew captured some magical scenes which serve as the only time an Ice Warrior was ever seen on location in classic Doctor Who (filming took place at Redcliffe Caves for Empress of Mars).

The lumbering gait of the Ice Warrior which often looks comical in studio takes on a more threatening tone on location, as it walks inexorably toward its destination. Nothing can stop it, including rifle fire, and the camera angles portray the creature as truly unstoppable, whether it's in silhouette against the winter sun (Ferguson would reuse this camera shot in The Ambassadors of Death), a close-up of its marching feet, or standing implacably in the background of a shot before Ferguson crash zooms in on it, through a rain of foam. One moment that nudges the credibility though, is where the Warrior comes to a halt, glances down to check he's hit his mark, then turns to face the camera!

The Ice Warrior's arrival on Earth via T-Mat is just as impressive in that it is unheralded. The creature appears right in the middle of Radnor's computer briefing, then smashes its way out of the booth in a genuinely arresting moment. It's a pity it then spends the next few moments swaying about like a drugged Mr Blobby, this way and that way, hither and thither, before storming its way out. It just looks silly. That wouldn't have happened on Bernard Bresslaw's watch!

Poor old Brent gets killed by the pods in this episode, and the casual way his demise is treated is indicative of the lack of empathy which often runs through classic Doctor Who. The series was usually written as an almost throwaway Saturday teatime B-movie serial affair, where guest characters came and went and it really didn't matter if they lived or died. It was the monsters that mattered! And that used to suffice, by and large, until Russell T Davies came along and injected some much needed emotion and humanity into the programme. Nowadays, the death of a supporting character is usually (or at least should be) treated with true respect, because it's a very human thing to mourn, even a stranger.

So when Brent cops it here, and the best Radnor can do is confirm his death and order a "full autopsy", it jars terribly. We've known Brent for three episodes now, and although he wasn't given any discernible character or personality, he was a man that Radnor worked closely with (he was leading technician) and the commander should show some sorrow. I realise I'm viewing this from a 21st century perspective, and that deaths like this go unacknowledged all the time in classic Who, but I can't ignore it, because even back in 1969, television writers with some forethought and consideration could have added at least one line to address things like this. The fact they didn't is tragic.

All this is ironic because writer Brian Hayles does address human empathy for strangers when Fewsham takes exception to Slaar wanting to T-Mat the Doctor into outer space. We see Fewsham traumatised by what he thinks is the Doctor's demise, and although he is the one that presses the button, he deflects the blame onto Slaar for making him do it. The fact is, Fewsham doesn't take an awful lot of coercion in matters like this. All the Ice Lord needs to do is threaten Fewsham's life and he relents. And Slaar is absolutely right when he makes Fewsham confront his own traitorous actions. The technician says: "You can't ask me to kill a man just like that!", but the truth is that by sending all the pods to every major city in Earth's northern hemisphere, he's condemned his entire planet to death. Yeah, swallow that, Fewsham!

By the way, Slaar's insistence on having the Doctor sent via T-Mat into space between Earth and the moon is nonsensical. Fewsham has to reprogramme T-Mat to allow it to do this, wasting valuable time when all he really needs to do is zap the Doctor with his sonic laser. Fewsham then has to reprogramme T-Mat back again in order to ready it for the Ice Warrior's transfer to Earth.

Throughout the episode, Gia and Zoe have been rigging up a weapon to use against the Ice Warriors (which doesn't work, leading to a very amusing shot of Jamie looking terribly camp!), while the boys crawl around the maintenance tunnels in search of the thermostat. By the end of the episode it is li'l Zoe who activates the heating control (which definitely wasn't on the wall in earlier episodes!), giving us some gorgeously framed silhouettes as she edges her way past the huge pulsing wall of lights. Quite why she freezes on the spot as the Warrior advances on her at the end, instead of running for her life, is beyond me...

First broadcast: February 15th, 1969

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The location work at Hampstead Heath is shot very stylishly.
The Bad: All the guff about reprogramming T-Mat just to zap the Doctor into space is blatant time-wasting.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

NEXT TIME: Episode Five...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Five; Episode Six

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-seeds-of-death.html

The Seeds of Death is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Seeds-Patrick-Troughton/dp/B01I076ZYO.