Aka "the one with the giant maggots."
Llanfairfach, South Wales, 1973: In an abandoned coal refinery, the
corpse of a miner is discovered, suffused with an unknown pulsing
green glow, and it's only the first of several. Derailing his plans to
travel to the planet Metebelis Three (after landing there and
immediately being attacked by assorted monsters), the Third Doctor (Jon
Pertwee) follows his UNIT assistant Jo Grant (Katy Manning), and the
Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney) to investigate the situation in Wales,
encountering the opposing factions of a chemical corporation's shady
bigwig and a protesting environmentalist group led by a young
bio-technic research scientist who reminds Jo of the Doctor. (You can
see where that element is going...) The investigation reveals chemical
waste has spawned enormous maggot-like larvae but another threat lurks
behind the scenes as the chemical corporation's officials find
themselves manipulated by their hidden "boss," with sometimes-fatal
results.
Truly a gag-inducing threat.
As
matters escalate, it is determined that the miners have died of an
unknown virus, while the Doctor obtains one of the creatures' eggs that,
much to the horror of all involved, hatches, swiftly maturing into an exponentially-enormous, vicious flying insect.
Also, the big boss is unmasked, and the Doctor must race to
simultaneously find a cure for the virus while sorting out a way to
exterminate the maggots before the world is overrun with swarms of their
airborne adult dragonfly-like version (which the Doctor perceives as
"beautiful"). And let us not forget the menace of the
increasingly-insane boss's agenda of world conquest...
The adult form.
Reflecting
the growing environmental concerns of its era, THE GREEN DEATH tells
its story over six half-hour chapters and starts off as rather a slow
burn. One of the things I love about classic-era DOCTOR WHO is its
willingness to patiently weave a solid narrative, as it allowed the
story to take its time when establishing scenarios and allowing us to
get to know the characters. That is certainly the case here, and the
earthbound nature of this specific story grants it a more recognizable
flavor to its horrors than something taking place in some far-off future
location crammed with aliens. There's something quite Lovecraftian
about the hissing, squirming super-maggots, and the natural human
revulsion upon encountering such vermin of normal scale is sent into
overdrive here. The sequence where the Doctor and Jo employ a mine cart
as a makeshift canoe while paddling through a flooded mine shaft
swarming with squirming mega-larvae firmly illustrates this point.
The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee), holding some stroppy creepy-crawlies s at bay.
Another
element of this story is that after having portrayed the Doctor's
companion and aide for about two years, Katy Manning opted to leave the
show, so the always charming Jo Grant finds herself strongly attracted
to the young scientist who makes her imagine a younger version of the
Doctor. Until this point, Jo and the Doctor had something of a
father-daughter relationship and it was clear that as their association
flowered, Jo matured and, in essence, grew up, so it was only natural
for her to want to spread her won wings and get out from her "father's"
shadow. Over the course of the story the Doctor takes note of this,
along with Jo's obvious interest in the scientist, so he resigns himself
to the inevitable and lets her go. It's a poignant touch and the
departure of of Jo is only mitigated by the introduction of Elizabeth
Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, arguably the Doctor's most celebrated
companion, as of the next story.
THE
GREEN DEATH is must-see classic DOCTOR WHO, though I honestly wonder if
it would be so well-remembered today, nearly fifty years after
originally airing, if not for the nauseating nature of the maggots. It's
good, but admittedly a tad overlong in telling this story in six
chapters. It could eaasily have been tightened up by making it as four
installments.
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