The Seeds of Doom Part Six

The one where Harrison Chase becomes one with nature...

If you take a step back - generally, to stand where most non-fans would be watching from - the jeopardy injected into the opening scene, in which our heroes are urgently placing pot plants outside in the courtyard like their lives depended on it, is utterly ridiculous. Yes, their lives kind of do depend on it, but it's still very silly, and one of those perfectly Doctor Who-ey moments that few other series could attempt straight-faced.

The Doctor, Sarah, Scorby and Sergeant Henderson are locked outside by a vengeful Harrison Chase, and it looks like their number's up as the mammoth Krynoid looms over them. But look, here's UNIT, headed up by Major Beresford, who uses a laser gun to fend the alien off. "Hit it square in the chest!" bellows Beresford, bizarrely oblivious to the fact the Krynoid doesn't have a chest.

With the Doctor and co safely back inside, the Krynoid redoubles its efforts to get at them, with tentacles writhing through windows and smashing through the ceiling. The Krynoid attack on the house is very convincingly done, both in studio with collapsing masonry and panes of glass, as well as the excellent model work to show the creature writhing on top of the mansion. It's Harryhausen-esque in its quality.

At last we get to glimpse a human side to the so-far pretty two-dimensional Scorby. The fact the entire situation is out of his control - and more in the Doctor's - really gets to him, and he starts to unravel. "I've never relied on anybody, just myself," he says. "I've always got myself out of trouble. Africa, the Middle East, you name it. I've not been a mercenary for nothing. I'm a survivor, right?" John Challis finally gets some meat on the bones of his thuggish character, and injects some tragedy and pathos into his performance. Scorby seems genuinely rattled by what's going on. He is unable to control events around him, he's no longer the master of his own destiny. He cannot bring himself to trust anybody else, such as the Doctor, so decides to do what he's always done, and look after number one. He makes a break for it, fighting his way desperately through the writhing, grasping vegetation and undergrowth outside. His demise, by being pulled underwater and drowned by pondweed controlled by the Krynoid, is unexpected and gruesome.

Gruesome is the ideal word to describe this episode, if not the entire story. Those that die do so in a gruesome manner, and this is most true of poor Sergeant Henderson, a peripheral aide to the Doctor who is clobbered with a spanner by Chase, tied up, and fed into the composting machine. It's uncompromising television for youngsters, and the sort of scene that you'd expect in a Saw film, not Doctor Who. OK, so there's no blood and gore, but the suggestion of what's happened to Henderson is plenty for a child's imagination to run riot with.

When Sarah encounters Chase in the composting room, he tells her: "The sergeant's no longer with us. He's in the garden. He's part of the garden." This is chilling material. Tony Beckley is magnificent in this scene with Elisabeth Sladen, his cold stare, madness dancing just behind his eyes, and that ever-present serenity emanating from his core. He's terrifying, particularly when he lunges for Sarah and director Douglas Camfield cuts to the next scene, leaving you wondering what the hell he's done to her.

Of course, Chase becomes part of the garden too when he gets drawn into the jaws of the mangler, his death a result of his own vindictiveness (if he hadn't tied Sarah up, she'd have been able to switch the machine off and save him). The Doctor is unable to pull Chase free of the composting machine because the villain was trying to pull him in with him. The look of terror on Chase's face just before he gets drawn in - and the pain-ravaged gurgle, followed by the deafening silence - hints at a moment of fear, something the character hasn't expressed at all throughout this story. Chase's demise is one of the most gruesome in Doctor Who history, but it's a fittingly memorable end for one of the all-time best villains. Beckley would only live another four years, dying at the age of 50 of what was at the time described as a brain tumour, but which friend Sheila Hancock said in her 2004 book The Two of Us could well have been a very early undiagnosed case of AIDS. Whatever, Tony Beckley died too young, but he gave us one of Doctor Who's very finest villainous performances, in a season sprinkled with good examples. Philip Madoc is often rightly praised for his turn as Solon in the preceding story, but for my money, Tony Beckley wins hands down.

The Krynoid being just 15 minutes away from germination, the Doctor tells UNIT to bomb the sap out of it, which seems to be the only way of stopping it in his eyes. No attempt to concoct a scientific resolution, to knock up a defoliating virus in the lab like so many other Doctors would do. Just bomb it. It's such a disappointing resolution, especially given it's the Doctor who orders the bombing, and not Beresford. It's not even an accidental explosion. And this from the man who, in this very episode, tells Scorby: "Bullets and bombs aren't the answer to everything, you know." Oh, the irony.

As is so often the case with Doctor Who, the end is abrupt, and we cut to Sir Colin's office and a little joke about the Doctor being president of the Intergalactic Floral Society. The Doctor then offers a holiday to Sarah in Cassiopeia (I'm assuming the constellation), and also invites Sir Colin along, which is an unexpectedly random moment. It's a shame Sir Colin would rather go home to his wife because Season 14 with the Fourth Doctor, Sarah and Sir Colin would have been fascinating (although he'd have been dumped back on Earth in The Hand of Fear, just like Sarah). I'm surprised Big Finish hasn't recast Michael Barrington and done a box set.

The very last scene is very weird, with the TARDIS taking them to Antarctica, because the Doctor forgot to cancel the coordinates, despite the fact they were never going to Antarctica in the TARDIS to start with. I suspect this is a result of some clumsy script editing/ rewrites. As for that last line - "Have we been here before... or are we yet to come?" - it's baffling, especially given how hilarious the Doctor and Sarah seem to find it. It's not funny, what are they referencing? I know the Doctor's been to Antarctica before, in The Tenth Planet, but that story was set in 1986, so he is indeed "yet to come". But none of this refers to Sarah, so... huh?! Whatever, it leaves our heroes grinning like goons as the titles come in and thirteenth series of Doctor Who comes to a close. Tom Baker seems to look across at somebody off-set in the last second, so maybe it's more of an in-joke?

And what a way to end. Season 13 is without doubt one of the finest ever produced, with more stone cold classics per inch than most others. Terror of the Zygons, Pyramids of Mars and The Seeds of Doom are undeniable legends in the canon, and Planet of Evil and The Brain of Morbius are also a cut above. Only The Android Invasion lets the side down, and even that is an enjoyable romp.

Doctor Who went off air for the summer, its Saturday 6pm slot being taken variously by Dixon of Dock Green, Dad's Army, Jim'll Fix It (one holiday special in which Jimmy Savile fixes it for someone to meet Rolf Harris... gulp!... and a second in which Savile fixes it for someone to meet Dr Who himself, Peter Cushing), magic show For My Next Trick, and various films.

First broadcast: March 6th, 1976

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: Tony Beckley is terrifying... as is his demise.
The Bad: The Doctor's solution is to bomb the Krynoid to death. Not the sort of resolution I expect a super-intelligent hero of science to come up with. His predecessor would be appalled.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ (story average: 8.7 out of 10)

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

NEXT TIME: The Masque of Mandragora...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Part One; Part Two; Part Three; Part Four; Part Five

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