Well! I didn't think our hero Sir Keith Gold could ever be faced with as challenging a situation as in the previous story, "The Admin Assistants of Death" - but here we are!
As director of the project to drill for Stahlman's Gas, Sir Keith was tested to the limits of his professional skill set.
Professor Stahlman, while no doubt a brilliant scientist, really shouldn't have been part of the drill site staff. At times, Stahlman's communications with staff were... brusque. Also curt. I suspect his behaviour has resulted in one or more grievances being filed. I was hoping that Sir Keith would ask him to attend sensitivity training, but, as always, our hero kept his cool. There were larger issues on his to-do list that he had to prioritize.
The first order of business should have been calling a meeting to review the design approvals for that site. I mean seriously, that deep core drill was literally on top of the employees. It wasn't necessary for UNIT to be there, it should have been Health and Safety! It was inevitable that one of the technicians would come into contact with the green goo that seeps out of the Earth from time to time, and he contracted an infection. Oh dear!
Sarah -
Harry. Harry! HARRY!!!!!!!! Snap out of it, Old Boy, this isn't a parallel universe and Sir Keith is not our protagonist. Get a grip, Chap!
Harry -
What? Why Sarah, what happened to your brunette wig? Didn't you just see that spinning sparkly thing? Gosh...
Sarah -
Brunette wig? Perhaps you’d better lie down, dear.
Harry -
That was unsettling. D'you know, what do you think we'd be like in a parallel universe? Would we be blogging about Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
Sarah -
Hmm, I certainly could rise to that challenge, but perhaps we should stick with Doctor Who for now. The Hellmouth is no place for two bloggers with such sensitive dispositions.
Harry -
As for this Doctor Who story, "Inferno," wow! Season seven goes out on top form. That was seven episodes of high tension. The atmosphere at the drilling site was brutal. Everyone was on edge, Stahlman was a prick, Sir Keith was a bit of a ninny, and the Doctor seemed to be pissed off the entire time. And it didn't let up. There were no humourous moments or characters. The story didn't pause once for a moment of comic relief; it kept ratcheting up the pressure on the characters and us the viewers.
Sarah -
You know what I could use after this season? A frolic on the beach with the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe…or, at the very least, a hug. While brilliant, the intensity of this season has left me feeling a bit drained.
Harry -
The shift from season six to seven has been nothing short of mindblowing. The fun frolics of the Troughton era seem so far away. I miss those days!
Sarah -
Don’t get me wrong, I love this story. It’s non-stop from beginning to end. While I’m not a big fan of the seven-parters, Inferno never flags. There isn’t much filler – it’s just go, go go!
Harry -
Full credit goes to the cast for delivering master performances. Jon Pertwee played the entire story in a state of set-gnawing pissed-offedness; Olaf Pooley kept burning my piss as the bullying, self-centred Stahlman; Christopher Benjamin was tragically ineffectual as the by-the-book public servant; Derek Newark and Sheila Dunn were charming as the pair who bonded under extreme duress; John Levene went to hell and back as Sergeant Benton; and massive praise to Caroline John and Nicholas Courtney for their fantastic parallel performances. In the DVD featurette, John gushed about how much she loved the chance at playing a baddie - even though her baddie came good in the end.
As for the Brigade Leader... that was almost Shakespearean. Okay, I'm gushing now too, but watching Courtney's alternate self descend from a vicious thug to a gibbering coward was sheer brilliance!
Sarah -
Nick Courtney was utterly brilliant! Caroline John’s slow realization that there could be another way was quite moving.
I started out being irritated by Sutton and his attempts to pick up Petra. Ah, the good old days of workplace sexual harassment as normative behavior. Eventually, the parallel universe Sutton and Petra and the excellent performances by Newark and Dunn (Director Douglas Camfield’s wife, previously seen in "The Daleks' Master Plan" and heard in "The Invasion" – as the computer voice of The Electromatic Company) made me like the characters.
Stalhman. Wow. What an asshole. I understand the lure of cheap energy, but who would ever let this guy head up a project? OK, I take that back. Lots of companies would put this jerk in charge.
And then there’s Sir Keith Gold, such a heroic figure. He’s such an unassuming man, yet he’s not afraid to take a stand when a stand must be taken. Did he hesitate for a moment when Stahlman’s excessive behavior warranted a visit to the Ministry? No, he did not! He ordered his car and set off for London, post haste.
Sir Keith’s exposure of Stahlman’s fiendish plot to delay his arrival at the ministry was an intellectual triumph worthy of Sherlock Holmes himself. Most impressive was the sympathetic manner in which Sir Keith dealt with the errant chauffeur, Patterson. Our hero is certainly a man for the ages and I look forward to following his further adventures in this blog.
Harry -
Er, what do you mean, further adventures? Oh dear... Sarah? Sarah are you there? SARAH! Stay with me, Old Girl!
Sarah -
What? Harry, is that you, Old Boy? Did you just see that spinning sparkly thing? Did you hear that whirling music? It felt so real...and don’t call me Old Girl!
Harry -
And she's back. Whew!
Well, that spinning sparkly thing is impressive, isn't it? Despite the intensity of the story, there's a kind of throwback charm to the production. The hairstyles and clothes, the analog countdown thing, and of course, the garage door opener!
I wonder at what point, if ever, the production crew sensed they might have overplayed the garage door opener. Or was it just that fantastic an innovation in 1970?
Sarah -
The level of ceremony necessary to open the garage door with the sonic screwdriver seemed particularly unwarranted.
Harry -
There were no music-related points in my notes for this story, but looking over them, it seems I made fewer and fewer notes each episode. I decided that episode five was The Shouting Episode because that's all everyone did for 20 minutes - except Sir Keith, who addressed everyone in a respectful tone as always.
Sarah -
As if we would expect anything else! If there’s one thing you can say about Sir Keith, it’s that he always treats others in the manner appropriate to a man of his station. Why I remember in a previous adventure when he…
Oh no! It’s happening again. Stop this sparkly spinning thing, Old Boy!
Harry -
There - I've just wedged a gin bottle into it. Should stop it spinning now.
Episode six was This Infernal Extension Cord! or, The Rewire the Power to the TARDIS Console Episode (a touch drawn out). I didn't make any notes for Episode seven, being both exhausted and maybe starting to get a bit bored with all the delays by that point.
Does this story have a happy ending? In the parallel universe, we watched everyone die horribly. In our universe, the drilling was halted in time, but not before many lives were lost. And little do we know it, but we've just seen the end of Dr. Elizabeth Shaw's involvement with UNIT.
Sarah -
Poor Liz. Dumped so unceremoniously for the crime of being too bloody smart. Ah, Lizzie, we hardly knew ye.
Harry -
Season seven, always serious, ending on a sombre note.
Sarah -
I was thinking about your observation that the Doctor gets more pissed-off as the story progresses. This Earthly exile is clearly wearing away at the good Doctor. He even snaps at the Brig. What is this universe coming to?
Harry -
He's not liking the exile. He sure was a bit "in-your-faces" about restoring the TARDIS and splitting ASAP.
Sarah -
We’ve kind of avoided the elephant in the room here. The console can be moved out the TARDIS and used for travel on its own? Stupid, cheap BBC wouldn’t let them use the TARDIS set? What’s going on here?
Harry -
I did wonder how the TARDIS console could be moved around like that, and I don't think it was ever explained.
As season seven draws to a close, would you agree that Doctor Who has gone from "base under seige" to "Earth under seige?" Grander scale, greater stakes, more things to get pissed off about!
Sarah -
If you need me, I’ll be on the beach making sandcastles.
Best Lines:
Doctor: "But I don’t exist in your world."
Brigade Leader: "Well, then you won’t feel the bullets when we shoot you."
Favorite Moment: The Brig making the Doctor squirm for calling him a pompous, self-opinionated idiot.
Lasting Image: The Brigade Leader pulling a gun on the Doctor
9/10
Harry -
Best lines: we are agreed on this one.
Favourite moment: the Doctor slowly takes in the fact that he is in a parallel universe.
Lasting image: the Brigade Leader's nasty scar.
9/10
Our marathon continues with Story #55 - Terror of the Auditors - whoops! - Terror of the Autons...
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