The Seeds of Death

Episode 1

Hannah: Oh. Is it a story about deadly herbs?
Me: Yes, they're thyme-travellers.
Hannah: And we're on futuristic Earth again.
Me: But look, there's a strong independent woman in charge this time!
Hannah: Did they not have that a lot in the sixties?
Me: Well, occasionally. Not in Star Trek, at any rate.

A control centre on the Moon is being invaded by aliens. If Hannah recognises their distinctive weaponry, she's not letting on.

Hannah: Oooh. Cool effect.

She's not so impressed with the stripe motif on the shell suits worn by the base crew ("It look like they're wearing giant pants"), one of whom deliberately sabotages the equipment rather than co-operate with the invaders; unfortunately his poker face needs work, and he gets shot for his trouble.

Hannah: Hmmm. Far too cocky. He was grinning way too much; you need to do that a lot more subtly if you're going to be brave or cocky enough to try and pull it off.

Meanwhile, the TARDIS has arrived in a space museum ("Again. Because it went so well last time"), in an age where the entire planet's transport and economy relies on the T-Mat teleportation system.

Hannah: So the relay station is on the Moon, but if all T-Mat movements go through the Moon it can only cover half the Earth at a time, so how do locations on either side of the world connect with each other? If it was above London, it wouldn't be able to transmit a direct signal to its antipode. Maybe it works in sections, and different regions come into range as the Moon moves, but in the first scene they were sending a consignment from Moscow to Canberra.

I'm waiting to see whether or not Hannah will recognise the clues pointing to the identity of the invaders. Sure enough...

Hannah: (giggling) I know who they are!
Me: Why are you dancing?
Hannah: Because I hope I'm right.

The cowardly and hysterical Fewsham is pressed into helping the aliens in their mission to sabotage T-Mat.

Hannah: I can actually feel the fear in this. Even though it's a little bit over the top.

Back on Earth, the irritable museum curator is helpfully delivering some exposition disguised as a history lesson.

Hannah: He looks very much like the ARP Warden from Dad's Army.
Me: I thought you might say that.
Hannah: Why? Is it him?
Me: No.
Hannah: I thought not. Otherwise you'd have asked me if I recognised him by now.
Me: But since you mention it, the ARP Warden from Dad's Army is played by Jon Pertwee's cousin.
Hannah: Well, they've both got the surname Pertwee; there can't be that many of them.

Hannah is impressed by the technology ("T-Mat is so swanky"), until she realises that there's no way of getting up to the Moon to repair the fault.

Hannah: There's no back-up transport or communications at all? They said it's still in its early phase, so why would you trust it so completely that you get rid of all alternatives? Complete madness, just to make a thrilling story.

The aliens are revealed to be [drumroll please]... the Ice Warriors.

Hannah: Oh, I was wrong. I was very wrong. I shouldn't have been wrong.
Me: You didn't recognise the unique gun effect, or the hissing voices?
Hannah: No. I didn't recognise anything.
Me: Who did you think it was?
Hannah: I saw very, very rounded sides, and a voice that I couldn't quite place, and I thought Sontaran because we hadn't seen them yet. But then I thought they were too tall.
Me: Are you pleased to see the Ice Warriors again?
Hannah: Er... yes? I don't remember their story.
Me: It was called The Ice Warriors.
Hannah: They were digging ice... where?
Me: It's the one with Peter Sallis, set in a future ice age.
Hannah: On Earth? And they're trying to hold it back with a laser on the Moon?
Me: No.
Hannah: And they're Martians, but we never see them on Mars at any point?
Me: We do, but not until they appear with Peter Capaldi.
Hannah: They weren't on the Moon last time. It was Cybermen on the Moon.
Me: That's right.
Hannah: Okay. They're clearly very memorable to me. It's odd that Earth has developed matter transference technology, but they still can't keep unwanted guests out of major international control stations. You'd think they could have managed a shield or an alarm or something.

Episode 2

Hannah: I'm really disappointed that I got so excited, and then I was wrong.
Me: Excited about Sontarans?
Hannah: Yes. I wanted to meet them.
Me: You will, one day.
Hannah: This music is odd. It's doing a lot. Feels very Willy Wonka.

The Ice Warriors' sonic guns have the same distinctive screen-warping effect from last time.

Hannah: Is that what their guns did before?
Me: Yes.
Hannah: What, did a weird zoomy in-and-out wiggly thing?
Me: Yes, you commented on it at the time and compared it to a Snapchat filter.
Hannah: Really?! I don't remember that effect at all.

Not only does T-Mat handle all the world's shipping consignments, but every other form of transport is now obsolete.

Hannah: Are there any vehicles at all anymore, or is all transportation covered by T-Mat, no matter how short the distance? Pop to the shops? Commute to work? Shipment of bricks? Does anyone ever go outside? Doesn't sound particularly healthy.

Hannah finds Fewsham's perpetually-fearful expression rather endearing.

Hannah: He's got a lovely little worried face.
Me: Good, because you're going to be seeing it a lot.

The museum curator just happens to be harbouring a secret space-rocket, so it's time for the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe take their protein pills and put their helmets on.

Hannah: It looks like a tiny rocket sitting in an eggcup. Why aren't they wearing suits or anything? And they're taking a massive risk, for people that aren't their responsibility in the slightest. I suppose they do that a lot.
Me: I just want to know where this secret rocket has been hiding.
Hannah: Maybe everyone saw this great big thing outside and knew that it was part of the museum, but nobody knew that he was really working on it. This is an interesting story so far, but unfortunately it's another one where Jamie's not very useful at the moment; he's just along for the ride to make some random comments. He's dead weight on that rocket.

One of the base crew, a man named Phipps, hides in a storeroom and cobbles some equipment together. Well, I say hiding; he doesn't make much effort to get out of sight when an Ice Warrior pays him a visit, but that's okay because it somehow fails to spot him anyway.

Hannah: Is he making a trap? He's going to solar-zap them.
Me: You know I hate it when you get all technical.
Hannah: Why are all the aliens so blind?
Me: To be fair, I don't suppose they have very good peripheral vision in those helmets.
Hannah: Maybe they shouldn't have designed a helmet that stops them from being able to see.

Hannah is impressed with how good Miss Kelly is at her job, if a little surprised by her choice of words when she hears about the chaos and death.

Hannah: She means "fantastic" in the original usage of the word, obviously.
Me: Let's hope so.

The homing beacon at the Moon is accidentally switched off, and the episode ends with the Doctor's rocket looking set to drift endlessly through space.

Hannah: I still haven't seen any seeds yet. Is the title going to be completely metaphorical?

Episode 3

Hannah: The Moon looks like it's got a wrinkle in it.

Without enough fuel to make it back to Earth, the Doctor is forced to land the rocket and hope that the Ice Warriors don't slaughter everyone before he has a chance to refuel.

Hannah: This music is annoying.
Me: It's building tension.
Hannah: It's just a talking scene. I get that they're trying to ramp up the tension, but they're just interfering with it and you can't hear what they're saying. It's overly insistent; it's forcing us to be tense, but it's just making me distracted and irritated.

The rocket makes a bumpy landing, leaving the Doctor in a slightly awkward position.

Hannah: Get your hand off her leg.
Me: This isn't the David Tennant era, you know. It's all very innocent.
Hannah: Nothing is innocent.

The Doctor is chased around the base by Ice Warriors, taking a brief detour through a hall of mirrors.

Hannah: That's a cool camera trick, but completely unnecessary. Why would there be a room with two mirrors facing each other?
Me: My parents' bathroom does that.
Hannah: But in the middle of a Moonbase? This is starting to seem a little bit farcical. He's spent too long sat down inside a spaceship and now they're just running around all over the place.

Another Ice Warrior, who somehow fails to see and hear Jamie through a mesh door, falls victim to Phipps' science project.

Hannah: Mmm, baked Martian.

Back in the control room, Fewsham is told to T-Mat a seed pod down to Earth, but Hannah isn't too concerned when it arrives in the cubicle there and starts to expand.

Hannah: It's a balloon. They'll shut the door before it goes bang.

Episode 4

An unconscious Doctor is dragged to the T-Mat cubicle.

Hannah: What, they're sending him back to Earth? After he's spent all this time trying to get there?
Me: They're going to suspend him in space, between Earth and the Moon.
Hannah: Um... no. If they want to get rid of him, why don't they just shoot him? They shot everyone else. That's a very complicated time-wasting way to kill him; they're just building in a massive opportunity for him to be saved.

Back on Earth the spores are rapidly covering the ground in a mass of foam, which the base computer identifies as a byproduct of the fungus. Then an Ice Warrior turns up, and the guards meet the business end of a sonic weapon.

Hannah: Another fungus? At least this one makes more sense that the one that was used by the Great Intelligence; self-spreading, uncontained and actively killing people. Much more effective. The stuff that was contained in the London Underground in The Web of Fear seemed to serve no purpose at all. I like how the computer's carrying on talking but nobody's listening.

Commander Radnor incredulously exclaims that the Ice Warrior has managed to kill every last guard.

Hannah: No shit. It's wearing armour and you're all rubbish.

It also kills a guard on the way out, just for good measure.

Hannah: (laughing) He didn't even get the special effect, he just got to flop on the ground.

While an Ice Warrior walks straight past Jamie and Miss Kelly in the store room ("He still can't see them! They're not even hiding!"), Zoe tampers with the heating control.

Hannah: Why is it all the way up there, on the wall? And why is it a ship's steering wheel? It should be just a little knob.

Just like their previous appearance, the Ice Warriors are affected by the heat. And, just like their previous appearance, it raises a lot of questions.

Hannah: That's quick. They're boiling the room already!
Me: Again, you have to wonder why any base would install a thermostat that can literally go high enough to boil water.
Hannah: Yeah, it's for human habitation so you wouldn't want it to go above 35. Not that she can tell how far she's turning it up, because the heating control is reactive, so you don't set it to whatever number you want it to be; you change it, and then it tells you what it's become. You'd need to use trial and error if you wanted to set any particular temperature.

The Doctor is still comatose at the end of the episode.

Hannah: Is the Doctor on holiday for the next episode?
Me: He was on holiday for this episode!
Hannah: Really?
Me: Yes!
Hannah: Really? I didn't even notice that he was unconscious for a whole episode. At least the plot carried on okay without him.

Episode 5

An Ice Warrior lumbers towards Zoe, but collapses from the heat before it has time to reach her.

Hannah: This only works because they're so slow. Stridey-stridey, swing your pincers.
Me: To be fair, Mars has less gravity so it's not surprising they've got big lumbering bodies.
Hannah: Never mind that; at this temperature, even the humans should be starting to pass out. 50 degrees centigrade, and it's still going up.

The Doctor says Victoria's name as he wakes up, but Hannah doesn't seem to find it as endearing as I had hoped.

Hannah: So? I thought he was just delirious.
Me: Well, yeah, but it's still rather sweet.
Hannah: He didn't think of the people he's actually with, though.
Me: He said Jamie's name as well.
Hannah: Maybe Troughton has come back from his holiday and forgotten Zoe exists. Anyway, the Doctor is very lucky he's not human; he gets curious, and could easily have died, but his different physiology keeps him out of trouble. Just.

The thermostat has now reached 60 degrees.

Hannah: Everyone should be passed out and dead by now. The humans aren't even sweating; it's not right, at all. In the slightest. Who wrote this?
Me: Brian Hayles.
Hannah: And was he beaten to death with it?

The Ice Warriors retreat to their ship, and our heroes T-Mat back to Earth. The only problem is that T-Mat is still controlled from the Moon, so they need to find a way of controlling it from Earth.

Hannah: So why did they leave? They spent all that effort getting up there to find out what's going on; what's going on is that there are aliens there, and now they've just left them there! The Ice Warriors are still on the Moon! What if T-Mat breaks again? They haven't got another rocket to get up there. It'll take them months to build another one in order to get up there and fix it again. Why didn't they sort that out before they left? If she knew that she wouldn't be able to turn it back on from this end... this is just ridiculous. They've left the one place where they had some control, and now they're trying to fix things afterwards.

The Doctor resists Hannah's suggestion of making "foam angels" in the spores, choosing to analyse them instead.

Hannah: It's very convenient that the Doctor always finds someone who's willing to offer him a laboratory, and it always happens to be the right kind of laboratory with the right kind of things in it. The TARDIS is still parked in the museum, so he could have used his own laboratory anyway. By the way, is Jamie just drinking a milkshake and rocking backwards and forwards?
Me: Looks like it.

Fewsham redeems himself by giving Earth the secret to stopping the Ice Warriors, but at the cost of his own life.

Hannah: Aw, he's sacrificing himself!
Me: It's lucky someone was watching, otherwise that would have been completely pointless.

A very hirsute-looking Doctor discovers that the fungus dissolves in water, so all he needs to do is make it rain; luckily there's a weather control station nearby ("How handy"), which saves him the trouble of throwing a barbecue.

Hannah: The Doctor's grown some sideburns while he's been on holiday.
Me: There was a big gap during the filming thanks to the Christmas break, and he's grown his hair out a bit in the middle of the story.

The cliffhanger sees the Doctor being threatened by a very familiar enemy: the BBC foam machine.

Hannah: He should just spit on it. Or he could pee on it.
Me: That's not H₂O.
Hannah: There's water in your spit and in your wee.
Me: There's water in bacon, but I don't think it would do much good if he threw a couple of rashers at it.
Hannah: It might help. You never know.

Episode 6

After an extended reprise ("Do we really have to see all of this again?"), the Ice Warrior is accosted by a security team and wipes out yet another group of the poor sods.

Hannah: Did the Doctor not give any kind of instruction on how to kill them?
Me: How do you kill them?
Hannah: Flamethrowers. Easy.

Without T-Mat, Miss Kelly is forced to get around by appropriating a car from a motor museum.

Hannah: So they literally don't have any vehicles at all anymore. They're all museum pieces.
Me: Museum pieces filled with petrol, apparently.
Hannah: Yes, combustible items left behind in the middle of a museum. It sounds very safe.

The Doctor's plan finally comes together when he diverts the Martian invasion fleet towards the Sun.

Hannah: Aww. I know they wanted to take over the planet, but there's a whole ship full of people going "oh shit" and they're just waiting to die now.

Jamie charges across the room to attack the remaining Ice Warrior, yelling out his battle cry as he does so.

Hannah: "Ace Ventura"?
Me: No, it's Scottish Gaelic. "Creag an tuire."
Hannah: Sounds like "Ace Ventura". What does it mean?
Me: "The boar's rock."
Hannah: Is that supposed to make any more sense?

As usual, the Doctor and his companions have disappeared before anyone can ask them any awkward questions.

Hannah: I imagine Zoe's always disappointed about not being able to say goodbye to people. She's the super-genius and she's young, so when she finally gets the opportunity to actually work with some people, she's probably glad to get some interaction in, and she doesn't get to say goodbye. Whereas Jamie just sits around not doing much, so he probably doesn't care.
Me: Oh, I don't know. He's a nice lad.
Hannah: I know, but he probably hasn't made many friends. The person he spent the most time with in this one has already died.

Once again, she's disappointed that there's no cliffhanger leading in to the next story.

Hannah: Have they just stopped bothering? They've definitely stopped bothering with the idea that it's all one continuous story now; they're not stumbling from one story to the other anymore, it's just distinct chunks.

The Score

Hannah: What was the last story we watched?
Me: The Krotons.
Hannah: And I gave it a 5?
Me: Correct.
Hannah: Okay. I'm trying to work out how much better this story was. It's limited.

She gives it some thought.

Hannah: It's got a little bit more merit, but not much. I'm happy to see the Ice Warriors again; they're not as big a deal as Daleks or Cybermen, but they're a credible threat and they're Martians, so they're our nearest neighbours. They seem to be much more easily defeated than Cybermen or Daleks, though, because all you need to do is get them a bit warm; you could probably just shine a hydroponics lamp at them. This story was a little boring, because some of the concepts are not new; taking over a Moonbase, fungus, lumbering monsters trying to invade Earth... it's mostly things that have been done before. I like the T-Mat device and I like the fact that humans are complacent, even at the end where the improvements to T-Mat are still quite limited after everything that's happened; it shows how humans don't change very much. So it was still an interesting story, but so much of it was just wrong. And the wacky music was all over the place.

6/10

Hannah: But it's a low 6, because it's riddled with problems and stupid ideas. Which is a shame, because they have another strong, intelligent female character as well as Zoe, rather than just having the men running around shouting as usual.