Doctor Who: Inferno (3rd Doctor, Season 7, 1970)

[bimo]

Cavendish and I are watching a lot of retro TV at the moment, most recently some of the Classic DW box sets we treated ourselves to for Christmas.

Yesterday we finished "Inferno", which took me by surprise with its outstanding dark B horror movie qualities and memorable guest characters. No wonder the adventure's script writer Don Houghton later wrote several feature films for Hammer Films.

As a 3rd Doctor adventure, "Inferno" starts out pretty regular with Three, still earthbound and working with UNIT, acting as scientific advisor to an ambitious drilling project (German-last-name-bearing mad scientist included) aiming at piercing the Earth's crust to harness energy. Hubris, mutations, death and chaos occur, and finally a TARDIS malfunction which lands Three in a dystopian, fascist parallel universe.

And that parallel universe is easily one of the bleakest things I've ever seen on DW, new series included. Mostly because of how the script tilts and twists the previously established characterizations, with the changes ranging from subtle but consequential (for example the just slightly altered chemistry between Dr. Petra Williams and Greg Sutton) to the really big ones (Liz and the Brigadier, logical and chilling)

Definitely worth seeing.

Oh, and I love Liz Shaw as a companion. Smart, sensible, no nonsense. In her depiction as a female scientist clearly ahead of her time. Too bad this adventure already marks Caroline John's departure from the show.

Comments

[bimo]

did you know she was married to the actor who plays the next incarnation of the Master (i.e. the crispy version in the Tom Baker story) at the time?

I didn't. Only that she was married and already pregnant while filming "Inferno".

Note that as opposed to the ST version, DW doesn't go for "everyone's evil selves are more sexualized"

I thought so as well, though I believe that the production team must definitely have watched "Mirror, Mirror" at some point, and then decided to do the exact opposite of Spock's beard thingie. Every character sporting a beard/mustache in the original verse (Stahlman, Sir Keith Gold, the Brigadier), is perfectly clean-shaven in the doomed AU. That can't be a coincidence ;)

As for Liz: Real world reasons for Caroline John's departure aside: I wonder how Liz would have reacted if she had ever gotten the chance to go into space with Three or one of the Doctor's later incarnations. Maybe Fivey taking her out for a spin, because he feels that he needs a sensible adult to co-parent... ;)