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 I have been pining for Dr Who since the end of the most recent series starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper. My hubby has banned me from watching the DVDs of that series until a suitable time has elapsed, so I have been watching my classic Who DVD collection for the umpteenth time. I realised that I hadn’t yet done a review of a couple of them…so here goes with Dr Who and the Green Death DVD!
My copy of The Green Death came from play.com and cost me £12.99, a saving of seven quid on the cover price of £19.99. This Dr Who adventure stars Jon Pertwee as the third Doctor, with Katy Manning alongside him for her last appearance as Jo Grant. This is also the period of the programme when the Doctor was involved with an organisation called UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce) ~ a military group set up to protect the Earth from alien threats. For those of you who don’t want to know the plot, please feel free to skip the next three paragraphs and get back to me later…
THE PLOT
The Green Death is set in the Welsh village of Llanfairfach during the 1970’s (making it contemporary to when the story was filmed). The adventure centres around a coal mine and a big chemical company called Global Chemicals that is near to the village and the mine. UNIT is called in to invstigate when one of the miners is found dead ~ the problem being he is bright green and glowing! The Doctor and Jo come along to help, with the help of Professor Cliff Jones and a local environmentalist group (who all live in a commune).
The action really begins when they find that the mine is full of green slime and HUGE maggots ~ both of which are deadly if touched. The Doctor suspects that the slime is alien in origin and has come from Global Chemicals. The race is on to find a cure before Professor Jones (who has come into contact with a maggot) dies. Along the way we find out that Global Chemicals is being run by a super computer called BOSS (Biomorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor) that is wanting to take over the world in true evil genius style, by linking up all the computers in the world!
Thankfully, in the nick of time, a cure is found thanks to a happy accident with a meat substitute made out of fungus and the Doctor manages to defeat the computer. All is well until the Doctor finds out that Jo has fallen for Professor Jones and wants to go on an expediton with up to foreign parts. At the end of the story the cresfallen Doctor leaves Wales and returns to London alone….all together now…aaah!
It is quite an action packed story with some good moments. The special effects are a little ropey…but not surprising when you consider when it was filmed.
The Green Death was originally broadcast from the 19th May to the 23rd June 1973 (there are six episodes) and was released on DVD on the 10th May 2004.
THE DVD
SPECIAL FEATURES
***Information Subtitles/Infotext***
I really enjoyed the infotext on The Green Death. I think they work really well with an adventure that is based on Earth ~ the bits that tell you where things are filmed has much more relevance because you could actually go and visit the places and see the areas the cast were at! I also enjoy learning more about the cast ~ their names, what else they have been in, etc.
***Photo Gallery***
I still have really failed to appreciate the appeal of the Photo Gallery feature. Granted, the photos are often exclusive and unseen, but I flick through once and rarely look again.
***Commentary***
The commentary on The Green Death comes courtesy of Katy Manning, Barry Letts (Producer of Doctor Who at the time of filming this story) and Terrance Dicks (script editor and novelist). Some of the commentaries really work, but I actually listened to only a small bit of this one before I got a little bored. Katy is the most entertaining, although she does break into a rather annoying and childlike voice every now and again. The others recount some stories and they all have plenty of annecdotes to recount.
***Visual Effects***
I actually enjoyed this one ~ special effects bloke Colin Mapson (who worked on The Green Death) shows us how to make a Giant Maggot…well, you never know when you might need one! He also gives an interesting insight into the world of special effects and the problems that effects people may encounter.
***Global Conspiracy***
Probably the best feature on the DVD! This is a spoof documentary that runs for around twelve minutes and is written and presented by Mark Gattiss (of League of Gentleman fame). It is well worth a look and really is a rather fummy account of what happened in Llanfairfach back in 1973. It may be a little more interesting to big fans of Doctor Who though because some of the jokes and references are “in” jokes.
***Interviews***
This disc features three interviews with people associated with the story. These are Stuart Bevan who played Professor Jones, Robert Sloman who wrote the adventure and Colin Mapson, who I mentioned earlier. They all have some good stories to tell and really speak with fondness about working on Doctor Who.
***Easter Eggs***
As far as I know there is only one Easter Egg on The Green Death - for those of you who aren’t familiar with what an Easter Egg is they are special bonus features “hidden” in the DVD, that can be accessed by clicking on the menu buttons in a certain order. I won’t tell you how to access the Easter Egg, but will say that finding it is about as much fun as watching it once you have! LOL.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Any Doctor Who fan’s collection will be complimented by this DVD. The Special Features make it worth upgrading from the video version, as does the excellent quality of the sound and picture. The restoration team have cleaned up the picture and restored the sound to a high, crisp standard. There aren’t quite as many Special Features as there have been on some of the other releases, but this is all on one disc and the story has more episodes than some of the others.
The features have have been included are top notch and entertaining as a whole. The top one HAS to be the spoof documentary, closely followed by the Infotext. Just make allowances for the early 70’s special effects (the large fly is laughable) and a few dodgy moments in the story (you might even shed a tear at the end) and you are left with another excellent release for the BBC!
» Review by Andrea Waterhouse, Copyright 2006.
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