The Green Death Episode One

The one where the Doctor and Jo go their separate ways (but not yet for good)...

After a gorgeous opening aerial shot of Llanfairfach Colliery (actually Ogilvie Colliery in Glamorgan, which closed in 1975), we're launched straight into the new story (and Doctor Who's 350th episode) as we witness tensions between the local mining community and the manager of Global Chemicals, which seems to have had work at the colliery halted. Stevens promises new opportunities and employment for the locals thanks to his company's new energy-producing process, which negates the need for coal mining.

Set dead against both Stevens and coal mining in general are Professor Jones and his hippy pals who are campaigning for cleaner, greener energy production using natural resources. Stevens acts like Neville Chamberlain, his pronouncement to the men reflecting the Prime Minister's infamous "I have in my hand a piece of paper" speech prior to World War Two (it's perhaps an unfortunate choice of politician for him to choose as it was Chamberlain's government that set up the controversial Coal Commission in 1938).

Then there's the gruesome fate of a frightened miner down in the pit, who sounds the colliery horn as his final act before a very green death. The glowing green skin of the infected John Scott Martin is much more effective than the woeful use of our old friend Colour Separation Overlay (CSO).

Meanwhile, at UNIT HQ, Jo Grant is cosplaying as the Fifth Doctor while chomping on an apple and catching up on the morning's news. The scene is beautifully written, played and directed as she and the Doctor first share a warm exchange, then drift subtly apart as he chunters on about visiting Metebelis III, and she determines to travel to Llanfairfach to help Professor Jones. Neither is listening to the other; both are thoroughly engaged in their own little world. It becomes clear that Jo is far more interested in and motivated by the ecological fight taking place in South Wales at Jones's Wholeweal community than she is the Doctor's adventuring on alien worlds. Jo has changed, matured, developed into her own woman, with her own opinions and principles quite apart from those of her mentor, the Doctor.

It's both empowering and saddening to see, because Jo's emancipation goes hand in hand with a distancing from the Doctor, who can already sense a parting of the ways on the cards ("So... the fledgling flies the coop" he ponders wistfully). His priority is to go travelling the universe in his TARDIS, while Jo's is to try and save her own planet's future. In some ways she has become the Doctor, and he the wide-eyed adventurer. Their roles have gently swapped.

Into this walks Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier, who we haven't seen for too long and has been missed. He is on the side of Global Chemicals, but wants to investigate the green death of Hughes at Llanfairfach and take the Doctor and Jo with him. She's going anyway, but the Doctor stubbornly insists he's going to Metebelis III. Although by no means the last time they'll see one another, the goodbye scene feels quite symbolic and oddly final, for the Doctor at least. Jon Pertwee plays the scene so well, with a gentleness and understated melancholy which says everything there is to say about the way the Doctor feels about Jo (and Pertwee about Katy Manning, no doubt).

And so the Brig and Jo set off to Wales alone, despite Hughes' death being perfectly up the Doctor's street ("This chap's bright green, apparently, and dead!"). He drops Jo off at Wholeweal (aka the Nuthutch), but it's a bit of a boo-boo that writer Robert Sloman makes her unaware of what her heroic Professor Jones actually looks like. After a scene which cleverly retreads her introductory scene with Pertwee in Terror of the Autons, she learns that this infuriating but handsome Welshman tending to his toadstools is actually the man she reveres so much. But if Jones attracts so much publicity for his cause (as Elgin tells Stevens), it's hard to believe he's never been pictured in a newspaper or interviewed on TV. Jo even says that the professor reminds her of a younger Doctor, so she must know something of his appearance.

Stewart Bevan is great as the eccentric, principled Professor Clifford Jones, head of a hippy community of eco-warriors working on developing an alternative foodstuff to animal meat (saliota orbis is apparently a high protein fungus - yum!). Bevan is a charismatic and endearing presence, and hits it off immediately with Manning (I'm not surprised to learn the two were an item at the time!). Jones has plenty of very Doctorish qualities, including his long blue scarf (albeit prescient), boyish enthusiasm and drive, and quirky personality (I love the bit where he refers to his friend as "Nancy with the laughing face", referencing a song sung by Frank Sinatra, but which was originally written as Bessie with the Laughing Face in 1942. The Bessie is a huge, buried coincidence, but nice all the same!).

The Doctor's adventures on the very blue Metebelis III are interspersed with Jo's introduction to Jones, providing an amusing counterpoint. For saying the Doctor was so keen to visit this planet, it's not exactly the most hospitable of locations (and why he'd be happy to take Jo there I'm not sure!). It's a very dangerous place, full of giant lizards and flailing tendrils, as well as a pair of giant bird's talons which swoop over the Doctor's head with minimal (and unconvincing) urgency. The best thing about these Metebelis scenes is the Doctor's struggle to return to Earth, where he materialises just in time to pick up the ringing telephone ("Hello? I'll speak to anyone!"), his clothes in tatters from his dangerous exploits. Wonderful timing and wonderful writing.

At Global Chemicals the Brigadier is finding out more about the Stevens Process, which the moustachioed industrialist claims can produce 25% more petrol and diesel fuel from a given amount of crude oil, and with "negligible" waste and pollution. Hmmm, that just does not sound likely, and the Brig isn't convinced either. Even Professor Jones doesn't believe there can be no waste product, telling Jo that he believes the Stevens Process must be based on "Bateson's polymerization", resulting in thick sludge, a kind of liquid plastic. Oooh, alarm bells are ringing instantly! Could Stevens and Global Chemicals be a front for the return of the Nestenes? Stevens certainly appears to be under the mental influence of an unseen force...

Jo believes this thick sludgy waste must be being pumped into the mine, which makes sense seeing as Stevens is keen to close the colliery and prevent anybody going down there. It's also probably the reason why poor Hughes - and later Dai - get infected. Jo goes down the shaft with Bert to try and help Dai, while up top the Doctor insists Dave stops winding the lift and bring them back up (it's heartwarming to see Talfryn Thomas turn up, the Rent-a-Welshman of the 1970s who gives us another subtle link back to the Nestenes thanks to his earlier appearance in Spearhead from Space. The year after The Green Death he'd join the cast of the sitcom Dad's Army as Private Cheeseman).

This first episode introduces a lot of new characters and a strong central situation, although it's a shame the Doctor is out of the main action for almost all of it. Having said that, it's nice to have Jo take the lead for once, and the Doctor follow her, rather than the other way around.

First broadcast: May 19th, 1973

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The scene with the bedraggled Doctor making it back to answer the phone is splendid.
The Bad: Dodgy CSO in the mine!
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 25
Neck-rub tally: 13

NEXT TIME: Episode Two...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Four; 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/2014/05/the-green-death.html

The Green Death is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Green-Death-Special/dp/B00CX3FTA8