2.19: The Seeds of Death
In which the second most important Who writer of the 20th century makes his debut, only uncredited, because he was also script editor.
Broadcast: January-March 1969
Watched: November 2019
The Seeds of Death, Episode One
Eight minutes til the regulars appear. Hmm.
The set up is quite nicely done: a mixture of cool sci-fi tech and surprisingly realistic office whinging. I like the Ice Warrior’s eye view. The TARDIS landing in a museum is a nice touch, too.
Huh, there’s an Osgood in this.
If T-Mat is so new, how come rockets are obsolete already, hmmm? I do like the idea of a story in 1968 reframing rocket-based moonshots as something from the past that only tired old men would be interested in, mind.
Bold to make the Ice Warrior the cliffhanger. Assumes anyone remembers that tedious shit form a year ago.
Enjoyed that, but then I always enjoy episode 1s.
The Seeds of Death, Episode Two
“The TARDIS isn’t really suited to short-range travel.”
What is it with Ice Warrior stories and scientists refusing to save the world in a fit of pique because the government was mean to them? [Actually, I should probably have asked “What is it with writer Brian Hayles and…” shouldn’t I?]
The tense scene in which an Ice Warrior can’t see a man who isn’t even hiding is very odd, as is the enthusiasm with which the authorities embrace the idea of letting some total strangers crew a rocket.
“You’re the only one who really understands T-Mat” right can you see where you’ve gone wrong here? Anyway, they should definitely have sent Gia not Jamie. But the idea of the TARDIS crew in a rocket must have seemed pretty cool in 1969. Oh! This is Jim’s Apollo chic period of Who isn’t it? What else is in it? Ambassadors, Pirates, Wheel?
Aaaand then T-mat immediately comes back on. FFS. At least this is the last iteration of that argument about who’s in charge here that I’m going to have to watch for a while. I hope.
I kind of like that the moonbase staffer’s mcguffin for killing an Ice Warrior switches the homing beam off and almost gets the TARDIS crew killed.
The Seeds of Death, Episode Three
Just realised this is another story where they have a special story-specific bit of the opening credits. Was the War Machines the first of these? What’s the last – Inferno? [Actually, I now think it’s Mind of Evil]. And it’s not every story either is it?
Zoe giving Jamie an entirely made up job watching a dial to keep him out of the way (”Now, do you think you can remember that?”) is funny.
The Doctor running around to get away from the Ice Warriors is somehow both hallucinatory, all mirrors and camera distortions, and strangely dull. Also: in the “I’m a genius!” scene he doesn’t deny being human. Which is pleasingly like John Hurt not showing up among the Doctors we see in Nightmare in Silver. [I think by this I just mean, “It happens almost immediately before a story in which it’s contradicted”; but the new series version feels like a deliberate attempt to remind the audience of all the old Doctors to make a previously unseen one all the more shocking, where this is clearly just a cock up.]
The Ice Warriors hissing out the names of random world cities is quite fun (“Ssssssstockholm”). The line about primitive areas coping best without T-Mat is a bit hmmmmm.
It’s not identical to the earlier base under sieges, and it’s better than The Ice Warriors, but it is still on balance quite dull.
The Seeds of Death, Episode Four
I’m actually sort of enjoying this. I mean, there’s not much to it, but it has characters and world building and a plot that develops towards a climax. More like Fury than the Ice Warriors. [Yes, I am aware that contradicts *literally the previous sentence* I wrote about this story. No, I cannot, three years on, explain or justify this.]
Phipps’ panic attack seems to be there just to create some fake tension. Love that the heating system is controlled by a big turn-y wheel. The Ice Warriors are staggering unobservant – although I got 15 minutes in before realising this was a Doctor-lite episode, so: so am I.
The traitor, whose name I still don’t know, is quite a nice bit of characterisation. The fact it takes Eldred so long to spot that all of the seeds are in the northern hemisphere is a bit odd.
This was episode 235 by the way. I’m over a third of the way through the 20th century series. [The Power of the Doctor will be the 863rd episode, fact fans.]
The Seeds of Death, Episode Five
Oh the Doctor’s awake. I’d forgotten about him.
Fewsham’s repeated changes of heart are quite interesting. I thought from the broken time switch stuff that he was sacrificing himself, then he’s being all nice to the Ice Warriors again. I assume that a noble self-sacrifice is still in the offing at some point, but still: in an unusual turn of events for a base under siege, I actually want to know what’ll happen to him.
Oh, there it is, he’s dead.
Ahh the whiny coward version of the Doctor, who ends this episode literally screaming because of some foam. I have realised that I don’t much like the Troughton Doctor.
The Seeds of Death, Episode Six
Wait a second – from Wikipedia I learn that Jamie was meant to be written out and replaced by someone called “Nik”. How have I never heard this before? Who was Nik meant to be? [Apparently he was meant to be introduced in The Prison In Space, a story that was a bizarre attempt by the sitcom writer Dick Sharples to produce a sort of Doctor Who sex comedy. It’s perhaps for the best that never made it to screen, but there is a Big Finish version, which tragically doesn’t feature anyone named Nik.]
Some very odd “silent movie soundtrack” incidental music in this one when the Doctor is out looking for an Ice Warrior to murder in cold blood. [
The fact the homing signal in episode 2 has turned out to be a key plot point in episode 6 is mildly interesting in, a Chekhov’s gun kind of way. This story is sort of about the risks of being over-reliant on new technologies, but undermines it slightly by showing that the solution is actually other, different technologies.
Oh and the Doctor’s gone a-murdering again. His portable gun is very silly.
We’ve seen this before, haven’t we – someone gets their angle wrong by about 2 degrees and instantly flies into the sun. When was that? Tenth Planet? Moonbase? Wheel?
Talking of things we’ve seen before, the guest characters are arguing and they’re about to ask the Doctor for help, yep he’s legged it already.
Anyway: curate’s egg. Some really fun stuff in that one, but f*** me it went on a bit. And I’m not gonna lie: I’m looking forward to stories that are about something again.
Oooh just spotted Dicks’ name in the credits. Things are looking up. [The writer I referred to in my standfirst: the show’s longest-serving script editor from 1968-74, and a guy who wrote more Doctor Who novelisations than anybody else, he also wrote much of this serial, uncredited.]
***
Two other stray thoughts... Given the rate at which the temperatures rise it’s odd the humans don’t react, even if it hits the Ice Warriors more. And it is odd the way that this doesn’t fit at all with all the Thousand Day War stuff from the NAs. [The New Adventures novels ran from 1991 to 1997 and are basically my era of the show. One of them, Transit, by the former McCoy-era Who-writer Ben Aaronovitch, feature as their backdrop the solar system following the interplanetary war, which this story sparks.]