The Seeds of Doom Part One

The one where an alien seed pod is discovered in the Antarctic permafrost...

Everything about the opening scenes of this episode screams The Thing from Another World, the 1951 film which adapted John W Campbell Jr's 1938 novella Who Goes There? (how ironic!). Most people will know the 1982 John Carpenter adaptation (The Thing) much better, but in this case Doctor Who got there earlier. Who goes there? Who, of course!

Two scientists discover a strange seed pod buried deep in the Antarctic permafrost, so deep that it's probably been there for 20,000 years. The ice may look like popcorn, but it's kept this mystery object safe since the last Ice Age, and already it's obvious that it should have stayed that way.

The research base is manned by three hairy scientists - botanist John Stevenson, zoologist Derek Moberley, and the terribly-handsome-in-a-Martin-Jarvis-sort-of-way Charles Winlett. I love the relationship between these three, there's just enough in there to show that they're good mates and get on well, exactly as it would be in such a confined, remote outpost. They even play "three-handed crib" together...

Stevenson starts to get a little obsessed with the pod, claiming he senses it might be alive, and rather foolishly places it under lamps to melt the ice and warm it through. This is essentially the worst thing he could have done, especially given the official advice from Westminster in advance of a specialist flying in to look at the pod...

And that specialist is the Doctor, whose introductory scene sees him taking over the office of civil servant Richard Dunbar. It's wonderfully Doctorish when Tom Baker suggests Dunbar takes a seat (in his own office!), then plonks himself down in Dunbar's chair and throws his jumble of legs and scarf up onto the desk. The Doctor is in charge, and nobody really noticed how! It's a recurring motif of the early Fourth Doctor years that he is unable to sit down and look tidy. He slouches and slumps, but rarely sits up respectfully (he's particularly slovenly in Robot and Terror of the Zygons). The Doctor announces that he will fly out to Antarctica to look at the pod, and in the meantime warns: "No touch pod. Could be dangerous." And that's the crux of the entire story really. People do touch pod, and it is dangerous...

The Doctor gets one scene in the first half of the episode, and Sarah Jane Smith only comes into it 12 minutes in, so we get to spend an unusually informative amount of time with guest characters, which is nice. It's not long before we learn that Dunbar is a far cry from the usual interfering civil servant Doctor Who threw up in the 1970s. Dunbar is only out for himself, and takes news of the pod's discovery to renowned botanist Harrison Chase, suggesting that the pod could go missing on its way back to the UK "for a price".

Harrison Chase is played magnificently by Tony Beckley, who simmers beautifully in his scene with Kenneth Gilbert's Dunbar. We learn so much about Chase's frame of mind by the way he smoothly prods Dunbar about the World Ecology Bureau's lack of interest in the preservation of endangered plant life. Chase has a particular axe to grind about the art of Japanese bonsai, which he sees as miniaturisation and mutilation. Dunbar is rather clueless in return, and is finally closed down when Chase points out that the Bureau is more concerned with the preservation of mammals than vegetable life.

But Chase's ears prick up at the suggestion he might be able to get hold of this new, possibly alien seed pod thanks to Dunbar's duplicity, and promptly dispatches his men Scorby and Keeler to the Antarctic to seize the item. Throughout, Beckley is silky smooth, understated, but with a through-line of steel. There's an underlying feeling of threat, menace and disdain in his performance, but with a veneer of respectability and poise. He's a man with a lot going on in his head, but who is reluctant to show the workings. Beckley's measured, studied performance makes Chase an intriguing and mildly unsettling screen presence.

Back at the research base, things get out of hand when the warmed-up seed pod sprouts a groping tendril which attacks the sleeping Winlett. The animation of this tendril is really well done and has the look of stop-motion, even though it's not. It puts me in mind of the work of Ray Harryhausen, and is very cleverly achieved by director Douglas Camfield. It's not long before Winlett is found collapsed on the floor, his face already beginning to go a little veggie (shouldn't it be his arm first?).

This is Doctor Who going full-on body horror, something it has dabbled with in the past (Mission to the Unknown, Fury from the Deep, anything to do with the Cybermen) but which has become more of a preoccupation in the Hinchcliffe era (The Ark in Space's Wirrn, Genesis of the Daleks' Mutos, Planet of Evil's Sorenson, The Brain of Morbius's host creature). Winlett's physical deterioration is rapid, morphing from green and lumpy-faced to full-on vegetable man-mutant in a matter of scenes. The make-up for John Gleeson is impressively realistic and horrifying. I can imagine young viewers at the time racing behind their sofas in droves!

Tom Baker is particularly downbeat in this episode, pretty much as soon as he claps eyes on the seed pod photos. He knows almost immediately that it is an alien Krynoid seed pod, a carnivorous galactic weed which will be difficult to stop once it gets a hold (rather like Japanese knotweed). "It's more serious than death..." he states. "He's changing form." When the scientists discover plant bacteria in Winlett's bloodstream, the Doctor can't resist the grim observation that his blood is turning into vegetable soup.

Just when you think things are dark enough, the Doctor suggests that sensitive zoologist Moberley will have to amputate Winlett's arm in a desperate attempt to save his life. Michael McStay is great here, portraying Moberley's personal horror at the thought of having to chop off his mate's arm, but also fully aware that only a few moments earlier he had promised Winlett that he would do everything he could to help ("We're doing our best"). Most unsettling of all is when Moberley suggests the Doctor conduct the amputation (as he's a doctor). "You must help yourselves," comes the reply, further reinforcing the alien detachment of this Doctor.

It reflects what would come years later in Kill the Moon, where the Twelfth Doctor was happy to leave the future of Earth in the hands of Clara Oswald, taking a back-step himself ("I can't help you... The Earth isn't my home. The moon's not my moon"). The difference here is that, in Kill the Moon, the Doctor gets a right tongue-lashing from his assistant Clara, who is so outraged at his policy of high-minded non-intervention that she wants to stop travelling with him. In The Seeds of Doom, Sarah sees straight away that arguing with the Doctor isn't going to work, so she immediately becomes an extension of him, pointing out that the Doctor isn't a doctor of medicine, and that Moberley is Winlett's only chance of survival. It shows a resolute belief in and loyalty to the Doctor, whose refusal to get involved seems slightly out of character here (I mean, he gets involved all the time in every other adventure, never pulling the "you must help yourselves" card out of the bag). The difference in the way the two companions react to the Doctor's attitude is basically the difference between the classic and the new series: in the "old days", companions did as they were told and sided with the Doctor, whereas nowadays the companion is expected to stand up more, and reflect the natural feelings and reactions of a human when faced with the Doctor's very alien attitudes.

I still think it's a shame Sarah doesn't question the Doctor's refusal to help though, even in private.

Moberley agrees to give the amputation a go, but now that the infected Winlett knows he is the only man who could save him from total vegetation, he decides to kill him. This is obviously the will of the Krynoid taking charge, and it's a tragic demise for Moberley, murdered at the hands of the man he was trying to save, but who was overcome by a stronger, alien will to survive. And that shot of the Krynoid Winlett crouching in the shadows is truly spooky.

First broadcast: January 31st, 1976

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The body horror of the Krynoid taking over Winlett is really well executed.
The Bad: Popcorn snow and fake beards.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆

"Would you like a jelly baby?" tally: 05

NEXT TIME: Part Two...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part Two; Part Three; Part Four; Part Five; Part 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/2014/07/the-seeds-of-doom.html

The Seeds of Doom is available on BBC DVD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Seeds-Doom-DVD/dp/B003Y3BEZA