Inferno

Episode 1

So far, Hannah's assessment of the Jon Pertwee era has been nothing if not consistent: all three stories have been awarded 7 out of 10. But will that change now that we've come to the most popular Pertwee adventure?

Hannah: I'm finding the Pertwee stuff a bit too gritty so far, compared to the previous ones. I appreciate seeing people behave more realistically, but it's not as fun or entertaining as I expect Doctor Who to be. I miss all his little quirks. I mean, it still could happen, but it's just not happening; all these stories are way more serious than before and don't have those quirky bits in them, and I miss it.

The story title appears over footage of an erupting volcano. It's definitely the most dramatic title card we've ever had, but even this striking image isn't enough to distract Hannah from the important questions.

Hannah: I love a bit of magma. Oh, a single-word title! How many single words have we had?
Me: It depends on whether you count the individual episode titles from the Hartnell episodes, because there were a handful of those. Funnily enough, the final episode of The Romans was actually called "Inferno".
Hannah: That's silly, then. What about actual story titles, though? Is this the first?
Me: Yes.
Hannah: See? I know these things.

For the third time in as many stories, we find the Doctor entering a high-tech installation containing a major government project.

Me: I don't suppose this area looks familiar?
Hannah: It looks a lot like Dungeness, because it's all flat and there's a nuclear power plant there. But it's also got loads of stuff that's not in Dungeness.
Me: No, it's somewhere else in Kent. But it's funny you should say that, because Dungeness Power Station will actually be turning up in a couple of weeks.
Hannah: So where's this one, exactly?
Me: Hoo St Werburgh.
Hannah: That's the wrong bit of Kent; it's the north bit, and my family lives in the south.
Me: So much for my background research.

This being a Doctor Who story, there's trouble afoot; one of the workers discovers some green slime and apparently can't resist touching it with his bare hands, much to Hannah's consternation ("Don't touch the green ooze, you idiot! Have you never seen sci-fi?").

Hannah: So it's another place where they're doing a drilling operation and there's some kind of creature that's come up a pipe and taking over people. This is just like Fury from the Deep.

Just as he's about to crack a man's head open with a wrench, we cut to Sergeant Benton hammering a nail into a wall.

Hannah: That's a very nice cut.
Me: Would you care to hazard a guess at the director?
Hannah: Is this Camfield?
Me: Of course it is.
Hannah: He does have good ideas.

Sir Keith has sent for a drilling consultant, Greg Sutton, to lend some expertise.

Hannah: They've already started the project, they're twenty-two miles down, and now they've brought in someone who know how to drill? If you need someone to troubleshoot or predict difficulties, get him there from the beginning.

Sutton takes an instant shine to Professor Stahlman's assistant Petra, delivering classic pick-up lines like "Perhaps I could borrow you for a bit?" and feeling a bit miffed when she rejects his advances.

Hannah: Maybe you deserve it, you chauvinist pig.
Me: Remember when we watched The Invasion, and you recognised Sheila Dunn's name in the credits?
Hannah: Is that her?
Me: Yep, it's the director's wife.
Hannah: She looks like a member of ABBA. I wonder if she got the part without having to audition? Maybe she had a private audition.
Me: Stop winking at me like that. You're not Sid James.

Sir Keith introduces Sutton to the Doctor and Professor Stahlman. Once Hannah has gotten over the fact that nobody is shaking hands, she turns her attention to their hiring policies.

Hannah: So they've just randomly allowed the Doctor to take part in this operation? He's got no credentials whatsoever; he's just some bloke who turns up everywhere and asks if he can join in! It's like coming up to the sandbox and saying "Can I play?" and someone gives him a spade and says "Yes, you can build sandcastles with me." And everyone's okay with him not having a name.

She's much more impressed with the outside scenery seen through Bessie's garage door.

Hannah: I can see that they've done the thingy again.
Me: CSO?
Hannah: Yes. But only just; that was really good. Why is there a canister of radioactive material in the corner of the room?

We discover the real reason for the Doctor's interest in the drilling project: he's secretly diverting nuclear power from the operation in an attempt to jump-start the TARDIS console.

Hannah: That's sneaky. Doesn't the TARDIS have its own power source?
Me: It doesn't work! The Time Lords deactivated it.
Hannah: I thought it would still have power, though? I didn't think they'd switched it off completely, just turned off one of the control circuits. It's a very complicated piece of semi-sentient machinery, you can't just switch it off. I don't see how it needs energy.

The first trial run doesn't quite go according to plan.

Hannah: Why doesn't he just wait until his punishment's over?
Me: What if that takes hundreds of years?
Hannah: He should know better than to be playing around with this kind of thing.

Sutton tries to stop Petra from risking her life to check a fault with the drill head, but he loses gentleman points for doing it in the most condescending way possible.

Hannah: I don't like him. This is so annoying; he's just being a dick because she's a woman, but at the same time it's an emergency situation and she's running around trying to keep her hair behind her ears and pull her skirt down while she's running. Obviously there's nothing wrong with being pretty and clever...
Me: I do my best.
Hannah: ...but it's just annoying that they've had to write her that way. If there was an emergency I wouldn't be trying to hold my skirt down. I wouldn't be wearing a miniskirt anyway, but that's besides the point.

When the episode ends and the DVD returns to the menu screen, Hannah observes that the episode selection screen has a second page.

Hannah: How many episodes are there?
Me: Ah, yes. About that...

It's time for me to come clean and tell Hannah that this is our third seven-part story in a row.

Me: There are four stories in the season, but three of them are longer than usual so that the budget can be stretched further by using the same sets across more episodes.
Hannah: Fair enough, but it means that there's not a lot of variety.
Me: It's only for this season. After this story, the stories will go back to being a bit shorter. Actually, this is the last seven-part story ever.
Hannah: Aw. But does that mean there might be a longer one?
Me: Well, that's a bit of a grey area. We can have a chat about it when we reach 1986...
Hannah: Okay, whatever.

Episode 2

As the body count starts racking up and Stahlman decides it's none of his concern, Hannah finds herself tiring of the archetypal Head-in-the-Sand Executive character. (And God help us, it's only the fourth story of the Pertwee era!)

Hannah: These stubborn "idiots in charge" are getting on my nerves; I'm sick of all these important establishments giving total authority to people with a very skewed idea of what's actually important. It's one thing to have ambition and motivation, but it always seems to come with a huge ego and a senseless disregard for safety. Even some patience and a smidge of caution would be a huge improvement.

As if to prove Hannah's point, Stahlman picks up a vial of the green ooze and then discovers his hand has started to turn green.

Hannah: Oh no, he's turned into a hot Hulk.
Me: I beg your pardon?
Hannah: Not in a sexy way. Why is there a goo that makes people contagiously hot, anyway?

When he spitefully cuts off the power to the Doctor's hut, the Doctor surreptitiously re-connects it...

Hannah: Sneaky Doctor. So sneaky. But he's pushing his luck a little too far.

...and then goes off to find something better to do.

Hannah: I'm surprised the Doctor isn't focusing more on the murder incident; he's so distracted by the possibility of fixing the TARDIS that he's probably going to fail to act in time to prevent more deaths or a second major incident. I'm used to him being somewhat absent-minded but not so aloof as this, aware of trouble but not really interested in solving the problem. He doesn't have to fix the Earth's problems, but I thought he usually wanted to.

Despite the life-threatening danger at the complex, the Doctor is far more preoccupied with rejoining Liz and fixing the TARDIS.

Hannah: Is he teaching her how to fix the TARDIS? Is he actually teaching her Time Lord mechanics?
Me: How should I know? Maybe she's PAT testing.
Hannah: She identified broken parts and was able to replace them, so either you can use standard Earth parts in the machinery or he's got a stock-pile of Time Lord bits lying around.
Me: Remember when we were talking about companions a little while ago, and you were saying that as far as you're concerned they're not a companion if they don't travel in the TARDIS?
Hannah: So, if Liz never travels in the TARDIS...
Me: Would you still consider her a companion?
Hannah: Yeah, I suppose so.

Whilst Liz is otherwise engaged, the Doctor fiddles with the console and disappears into thin air (along with Bessie, for no discernible reason).

Hannah: Oh, and the car? That's an interesting cliffhanger. Why did it take the car but not the bookcase?
Me: Any idea where he might have gone?
Hannah: Five seconds into the future. It's not like he can control it or anything. The story's called "Inferno" and one would assume that he needs to stay there and fix the problem. So unless there's a way for him to get back, he hasn't gone anywhere.

Episode 3

Me: Before we start, I need to tell you something.
Hannah: Is it that Pertwee died and they replaced him with his twin brother?
Me: Douglas Camfield had a heart attack. He'd already finished all the location filming, so that's all him, but the producer Barry Letts had to step in and finish off the studio work. He's working to Camfield's shooting plans, though.
Hannah: Does this mean it's not going to be as good?
Me: Not necessarily. He directed The Enemy of the World, and you gave that one 10 out of 10.
Hannah: So is this Camfield's last? Or does he recover and come back?
Me: He'll be back in the Tom Baker era.
Hannah: Good.

Liz tells the Brigadier and Sir Keith about the Doctor's disappearance.

Hannah: Do they take the whole episode to get him back? Has Jon Pertwee gone on holiday?
Me: They don't do that anymore.

Hannah's guess that the Doctor has ended up back where he started turns out to be correct. Well, nearly.

Hannah: Is he back in his hut?
Me: In a manner of speaking.
Hannah: Alternate universe?
Me: Could be.
Hannah: Or he's accidentally gone into the future, so he can see what terrible things are going to happen if you dig it all up and then he'll go back and tell them to stop drilling.

Technically, both of her theories are more or less correct; we're only two episodes into a seven-part story and she's already managed to broadly summarise the entire plot.

The Doctor finds himself in a world of fascist doppelgängers, and soon runs into the alternate reality version of Liz. When we get the dramatic reveal of the Brigade Leader, looking exactly like the Brigadier sans moustache and sporting a Nick Fury-style eyepatch, Hannah bursts out laughing.

Me: What's so funny?
Hannah: It looks like a comedic evil villain eyepatch! With a scar! He looks weird without the moustache and with his hair combed like that.

The line-up of UNIT's Bizarro World counterparts is rounded out with...

Hannah: Is that Benson?
Me: Benton.
Hannah: Oh, yeah. I'm thinking of Bensons for Beds.

When the Doctor insists that he doesn't belong in this universe, the Brigade Leader coldly replies "Then you won't feel the bullets when we shoot you."

Hannah: I want to see the making-of documentary for this. See if they enjoyed playing baddies.
Me: This is Nicholas Courtney's favourite story, for that exact reason. We can watch the documentary later.
Hannah: It's good when they get to have a go at doing something different. I love evil alternate universes; they're possibly a bit overdone and clichéd these days, but they're so much fun for the writers, actors and viewers.
Me: Speaking of the DVD special features, there's also one where Toby Hadoke reunites Havoc and they teach him how to be a stuntman.
Hannah: Awesome. We'll definitely be watching that.

Hannah is (understandably) confused as to how, in an alternate universe with at least thirty years of divergent history, the same drilling operation is still being run by the same people.

Hannah: Liz has a completely different background in this universe but she just happens to be in the same place at the same time, even though there's an entirely different regime? How would she have gotten involved with Lethbridge-Stewart? Obviously it's been written that way so that they can use the same actors, but Liz wasn't really interested in working for UNIT when she was first introduced; she only stayed because of the Doctor, and the Doctor doesn't exist in this universe so why would she have stayed? She's not even a scientist in this timeline, but somehow she still ended up with the same group of people. That's the only thing I find difficult; everything else is fine. I like the idea of parallel worlds being used as a prophecy, so that the Doctor knows that what goes wrong in this universe will soon happen in the other one.

Benton puts a gun to the Doctor's head and threatens to save him the trouble of making an appointment with the firing squad. Cue credits.

Hannah: Oh, everyone's only credited as their normal-world characters; they haven't done a "slash" and credited both characters. That's disappointing.
Me: Do you want to watch the next one straight away?
Hannah: Nah.

Episode 4

Not everyone in this reality has undergone a personality transplant; the parallel Greg Sutton may be more sharply-dressed, but he's just as blunt when speaking to Petra.

Hannah: You can dress him up in a suit, but he's still the same bloke.

Elsewhere, the Doctor is enduring a savage interrogation at the hands of the Brigade Leader and Parallel Liz.

Hannah: They're going to actually torture the Doctor?
Me: Unsettling, isn't it?
Hannah: And you've got the nice characters, the characters that you know so well, being somebody else and doing horrible things to their friend. It's quite striking. You can tell it's not for children anymore.

The Doctor tries to get Liz to accept his story ("I bet he can tell her something that only she knows"), but she believes that he's a political activist.

Hannah: I really thought she was actually going to believe him that time.
Me: Would you believe him?
Hannah: Well, if I'm me, I would, but if I was her, I wouldn't. I'd love to see what an evil version of the Doctor would be like. Not just an evil Time Lord, but an actual bad version of the Doctor. One of the Doctors, anyway.

We cut away to check in with what's happening back in the Doctor's universe, but Hannah is fixating on the special effects during the transition.

Hannah: Is that a blurry shot moving across some water?
Me: They're panning sideways, because it's a sideways universe.
Hannah: Yes, but what are they panning across?
Me: Well, it's... the limbo between dimensions, I suppose.
Hannah: It looks like glittery water.
Me: If you say so.
Hannah: Actually, now that I see it again, it's more like sequins. It's a disco ball.

The episode ends with the Doctor on the business end of a firearm again as the Inferno project counts down to zero.

Hannah: Very dramatic! I'm very sorry.
Me: What for?
Hannah: For not watching it yesterday.
Me: This is one of the most popular Pertwee stories, you know.
Hannah: I can see why. But those hairy hands are disgusting.

Episode 5

Hannah: This is much more interesting than just having a base where people are trying to do things; the parallel universe base is acting as a prediction of the other one. Now he's got to tell them twice that it's a bad idea, and get them to believe him. At least he's having a dry run for it.

In fact, this particular run has gone from dry to downright scorching; the Doctor tells everyone that the planet will soon dissolve due to the accumulated heat and pressure of the core, and it's already too late to stop it.

Hannah: Now I'm starting to wonder whether this entire reality is just buggered and the Doctor won't be able to help them; he's been in dire situations before and usually comes up with some kind of solution, but his solution often involves stopping people being stupid before it gets to this point. Seeing as how it's a parallel universe, I'm wondering if maybe they are just going to sacrifice everyone for the storytelling so that he can go back and save the other lot. It would be nice if he could save both of them.

The Doctor asks his doomed associates to cut their losses and help him return to his own universe so that he can stop the same thing happening there. Parallel-Liz asks him to give a demonstration of the inert TARDIS console before they waste their time finding a power source, but the Doctor scornfully retorts that he's not a conjurer.

Hannah: Well, yes, he is. He should do that little sleight-of-hand magic trick that he did in the last story.

Outside, Benton is putting some troops through their paces.

Hannah: Look, they're drilling!
Me: Yes, very amusing.

Meanwhile, we find Professor Stahlman having the mother of all bad hair days. Don't ask me how the green slime at the centre of the earth turns people into werewolves. It just does, okay?

Hannah: Why is it making people turn primal? How? Why? What's the purpose?
Me: I suppose they wanted to throw in a traditional monster for the kids.
Hannah: That doesn't explain anything!

Benton is taken by surprise and falls victim to the creatures, leaving Hannah unexpectedly distressed.

Hannah: No, not Benton!
Me: It's not Nice Benton, it's Nasty Benton.
Hannah: I don't care. It's still Benton.

Episode 6

Once Hannah has come to terms with the presence of the Primords, she begins to fixate on their bestial grunting.

Hannah: Interesting noises. How did they make these sound effects? It sounds like someone snorting on an electronic keyboard.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and his crew prepare to abandon the facility and make a break for it.

Hannah: I like it when he gets a little team together.
Me: Even when it's a team of fascists?
Hannah: Yeah. And a man with a pipe.

The exterior scenes, incidentally, are now being seen through an orange-tinted haze.

Hannah: That's a nice effect that they've done; everything's overexposed and hot. It really does feel like the end of days.

Back in the slightly less apocalyptic universe, Greg visits Liz in the Doctor's shed.

Hannah: I still can't believe that an automatic garage door is something so exciting for these people! We have so many automatic doors now that people don't even know how to use real doors. The other day there was a queue of people trying to get into the Westquay shopping centre because everyone was waiting to use the automatic doors, so I walked straight through the middle and opened the manual doors. What is wrong with people?

Meanwhile, as the other universe rapidly deteriorates, Parallel Liz wants to make herself useful.

Hannah: Make some tea. Isn't that usually what happens? Someone's got to make the tea, and it always seems to be the female companion.
Me: Do they really have time? It's the end of the world!
Hannah: Yes, I suppose you'd break out something a little stronger.

Confronted with imminent death, the Brigade Leader finally loses his temper.

Hannah: He really has gone crazy. That's definitely what Bad Brig would be like: useless in a crisis.

Greg and Petra rewire the nuclear reactor and make their way back to the hut, and the tension is turned up to eleven as we start building towards one of the programme's all-time greatest cliffhangers. Alas, Hannah is not watching as reverently as I'd hoped.

Hannah: Wait, hasn't the Doctor been using Bessie to get back and forth from the drilling project to the hut? How did they run back in ten seconds?
Me: Maybe it took longer and we didn't see it.
Hannah: What, so the TARDIS console has had power for a good couple of minutes, and the Doctor's just been stood there watching it?
Me: I don't know! It doesn't matter.
Hannah: It matters to me.
Me: It can matter to you later. Come on, this is a serious contender for the best cliffhanger ever to appear in Doctor Who.

As lava begins to flow towards them, the episode ends with the Doctor abandoning everyone to their fiery fate.

Hannah: That's very tense. Horrible screaming, people dying, that giant rolling wall of tomato soup...
Me: It's the actual end of the world. You don't get that in every story.
Hannah: It's very sad that he couldn't stop it for them. They're all going to die.
Me: Well, that's one of the benefits of parallel universe stories; you can actually destroy the world for once. This is what happens when the Doctor fails to save the planet.
Hannah: Yeah, they get to explore an avenue that they'd never usually be able to. It's still sad, though. And very convenient that it happens to be an alternate reality when we finally get the opportunity to see him fail.

Episode 7

Hannah: This is a wonderfully-crafted story so far. Acting, direction, storyline, most of the dialogue... it's all very good.
Me: Is anything conspicuous by its absence?
Hannah: Not really.
Me: You don't find it strange that there was no version of the Doctor in that parallel universe?
Hannah: No. The Doctor's been in a parallel universe before - well, later, in the David Tennant era - and there was no parallel Doctor, so I didn't think anything of it.
Me: Some spin-off novels have claimed that a parallel Doctor is the republic's totalitarian leader.
Hannah: And who wrote that? Is that accepted as canon, or is it just one random person's idea? It's just as likely that there's no Doctor in that universe, or he just never visits Earth.
Me: This is the last episode of season seven, by the way.
Hannah: Okay. Why is that relevant? I'm not going to do a season summary.

The Doctor arrives back in his own universe just in time to avoid being par-boiled in lava.

Hannah: All this time I've been thinking that the intro sequence was overly dramatic, and now it's actually happened.
Me: So you appreciate it more now?
Hannah: It's just a tiny part of the story, so I still think they're over-emphasising it a bit.
Me: It's quite an important part of the story!
Hannah: And why does the world explode into a giant ball of fire, anyway? There is a lot of lava down there, but there's only so much pressure; if there was enough pressure to push all that lava out through the crust, it would already be coming out through the world's volcanoes. I don't really see how it works.

Hannah watches in rapt attention as the Doctor tries to stop events hurtling towards the same inevitable conclusion, although his method largely involves shouting at Stahlman and whacking the console with a wrench.

Hannah: Yes, that'll convince everyone. Go psycho and start hitting things.

In all fairness, Stahlman seems to be taking a break from sanity himself.

Hannah: At this point everyone can see he's really not okay. Why don't they arrest him, or confine him for his own good; the military can do that, can't they? If someone's unfit to command, they take over. Just because someone's in charge it doesn't mean that they're right. In the other world they were all a lot more strict.
Me: Well, yes, it was a fascist regime. They tend to be fairly strict.

Stahlman studies the green goo dripping out of the drill head and decides it would look better all over his face. 

Hannah: Oh, that's just... is that really necessary? Smearing his face with jelly?

Just as Sir Keith demands proof of an emergency situation, a very hirsute Professor Stahlman emerges from the drill head.

Hannah: How about now? Is that proof?

The Doctor manages to convince everyone to halt the drilling operation before it penetrates the earth's crust, and manages to shut it down in the nick of time.

Hannah: But nobody else knows why they've done it! Their leader has gone crazy and turned into a werewolf, but there's no obvious reason to shut down the project except that the Doctor has told them it's a bad idea and some green stuff came out of one of the tubes. He hasn't actually told anyone that it's going to cause a massive chain reaction that will destroy the entire planet.

The story concludes with some comedy banter between the Doctor and the Brigadier, which elicits a satisfying grin from Hannah.

Hannah: It's always nice when they can have a bit of a laugh, even after something awful has happened.

The Score

If she makes any attempt to perpetrate a pun by using the word "boring," she's sleeping on the sofa tonight.

Hannah: Very good. I like it when they get to stretch themselves beyond what they normally do. Not every story is the same, but it's nice when they do something completely outside the box. It's always fun, even when it's such a tense situation.
Me: And you get to see the end of the world.
Hannah: Well, we saw some lava rolling towards them, and then the Doctor was gone. I suppose it would have been a bit much if he'd watched the flesh burning off their bodies.
Me: What a charming image.
Hannah: It's well-written, obviously well-directed, and it's got TARDIS bits; I miss the TARDIS. It just needed a bit more action and a bit less of everyone ignoring the Doctor over and over again. It gets a tad repetitive.

9/10

We finally get around to watching the DVD extras, including Hadoke v Havoc in which Toby Hadoke reunites the eponymous stunt team. Hannah is excited to see the boys in action, and a quick glimpse of Lymington into the bargain (one of our favourite places to have a cream tea, the most recent being two weeks ago). She's particularly impressed by Roy Scammell who, in addition to falling off 70-foot storage tanks and hanging on to moving helicopters, also turns out to be a professional ice skater.

Hannah: He's just amazing at everything, isn't he, the bastard?