Inferno (Doctor Who)

This article is about the 1970 Doctor Who serial. For the 1965 episode of the same name, see The Romans (Doctor Who).

054 – Inferno
Doctor Who serial
File:Inferno (Doctor Who).JPG The Doctor, the Brigadier and Liz confront Professor Stahlman.
Cast
Doctor Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor)
Companion Caroline John (Liz Shaw)
Others Nicholas Courtney — Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart John Levene — Sergeant Benton Olaf Pooley — Professor Stahlman Christopher Benjamin — Sir Keith Gold Sheila Dunn — Petra Williams Derek Newark — Greg Sutton Ian Fairbairn — Bromley Walter Randall — Harry Slocum Derek Ware — Private Wyatt David Simeon — Private Latimer Roy Scammell — RSF Sentry Keith James — Patterson Dave Carter, Pat Gorman, Walter Henry, Philip Ryan, Peter Thompson — Primords
Production
Directed by	Douglas Camfield Barry Letts (episodes 3-7, uncredited)
Written by	Don Houghton
Script editor	Terrance Dicks
Produced by	Barry Letts
Executive producer(s)	None
Music by	Stock music
Production code	DDD
Series	Season 7
Running time	7 episodes, 25 minutes each
First broadcast	9 May–20 June 1970
Chronology
← Preceded by The Ambassadors of Death Followed by → Terror of the Autons

Inferno is the fourth and final serial of the seventh season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in seven weekly parts from 9 May to 20 June 1970. This serial was the last regular appearance of Caroline John in the role of Liz Shaw.

Plot

"The Inferno" is the nickname given to a project to penetrate the Earth's crust to reach pockets of Stahlman's Gas, which is theorised to be able to provide boundless amounts of cheap energy. Professor Stahlman himself is ill-tempered and obsessive about any interference with the progress of his work. Sir Keith Gold, the project director, is concerned about this and tells Petra Williams, Stahlman's assistant, that he is calling Greg Sutton, an oil drilling expert, to consult on safety issues. UNIT is overseeing security at the project. The Third Doctor is also present, as he is using the output of the project's nuclear reactor to power experiments on the TARDIS console, which has been removed from the TARDIS, hoping to repair it in order to end the exile on Earth imposed on him by the Time Lords (The War Games).

The project, however, has its own problems. Harry Slocum, a worker repairing one of the drill pipes, encounters a toxic green slime seeping out of the pipe that rapidly mutates him into a subhuman primordial creature, who kills several technicians and a soldier. A quantity of the substance siphoned into a jar also mildly scorches Stahlman's hand. Meanwhile, whilst operating the TARDIS console, the Doctor vanishes into thin air before a shocked Brigadier and Liz and arrives in a parallel universe. On this Earth, Great Britain is a Republic under a Fascist regime; it is implied that the British Royal Family was executed (possibly in 1943). The Inferno project is also ongoing, though having progressed farther in this reality. The project is run along the lines of a scientific labour camp, under the auspices of "Director Stahlmann," this reality's counterpart to Professor Stahlman. The Doctor, captured and under interrogation by the British Republican Security Forces, encounters brutal, alternative versions of his friends - "Brigade Leader" Lethbridge-Stewart, "Section Leader" Elizabeth Shaw, and "Platoon Under Leader" Benton. In this universe, Sir Keith Gold has been killed in a car crash. The Doctor tries to convince the parallel versions of his friends that he is from another universe, but they believe he is trying to feign insanity. The Doctor manages to escape his cell and tries to stop the drilling but is discovered. The Doctor pleads for them to stop, telling them that the screeching noise coming from the drill shaft is the sound of the planet "screaming out its rage."

As Stahlmann holds the Doctor at gunpoint with the Brigade Leader's pistol, an earth tremor rocks the installation and most of the technicians and RSF troops flee the complex in terror. The temperature rises rapidly as more green slime oozes out of the drill shaft. Stahlmann and most of the scientists become primords. The Doctor believes that the parallel Earth is doomed and tries to convince the others that he can stop this from happening in his own universe if they will help him to return, but refuses the Brigade Leader's demands to save them too. Finally agreeing to help the Doctor, the group fights off the hordes of primords, including an infected and mutated Benton, with fire extinguishers, as the creatures thrive on heat and are vulnerable to cold temperatures. The parallel Petra, with Sutton's help, manages to feed power to the TARDIS console. At the last moment, the Brigade Leader snaps and threatens to shoot the Doctor if he doesn't save them, but is shot dead by Section Leader Shaw. The Doctor manages to return to his own universe just as a wall of lava sweeps towards the hut.

The Doctor returns to his own reality. After waking from a coma, the Doctor learns that since Sir Keith Gold has survived his car accident in this universe, it means that "the pattern can be changed" and this Earth need not perish as the parallel one has. The Doctor goes to the main control room and tries to stop the project by smashing the equipment, but he is restrained by UNIT troops. The drilling has almost reached the critical point, "Penetration Zero," but Sir Keith is reluctant to shut down the project without sufficient proof. However, this world's Stahlman has also ultimately mutated into a primord, and attacks the control room before being killed by the Doctor and Sutton with fire extinguishers. Petra has the drilling stopped, and with the project abandoned, Sir Keith announces his plans to have the shaft filled in. Shortly before the nuclear reactor is deactivated, and after an altercation with the Brigadier, the Doctor tries to repair the TARDIS console one last time, but lands himself several hundred yards away at a nearby rubbish dump.

Continuity

This story marks the last appearance of the original TARDIS console, which had been used on the series since the very first story, An Unearthly Child. The story shows it removed from the TARDIS and malfunctioning badly. Liz Shaw does not feature in any subsequent serials, although an illusory image of her is seen in The Five Doctors. In Death of the Doctor, she is said to be at UNIT's moon base. In the next serial (Terror of the Autons, at the start of the following season) it is merely mentioned that Liz went back to Cambridge.

The Past Doctor Adventures Doctor Who novel The Face of the Enemy, by David A. McIntee, is a sequel to Inferno and concerns the survivors from the parallel Earth attempting to take the place of their counterparts in the Doctor's universe.

Production

Don Houghton came to Terrence Dicks with an idea for the story based on the real life Project Mohole. A smaller budget for the serial drove the idea of a parallel world, where the studio could use the same actors in multiple roles. Despite Douglas Camfield receiving sole credit as director, Episodes 3-7 were directed by producer Barry Letts after Camfield had a minor heart attack on April 27, 1970. Letts later stated that Camfield's preparations were so meticulous, that he just followed the other man's plans anyway. Camfield remained credited as director, as BBC regulations at the time forbade any person from being credited for more than one production role, and they did not want Camfield's illness to become widely known, lest it harm his career.

Derek Ware did not actually perform the scene where the mutated RSF Trooper Wyatt is shot and falls to his death from the top of one of the cooling towers, in case he was injured, as he was also needed for studio recording. His place was taken by Roy Scammell, who also played the soldier who fires the fatal shot. Ware also stated in an interview that Scammell had already signed the contract to do the fall before Ware had been cast as Wyatt. At the time it was filmed, the fall was the highest fall ever performed by a British stuntman. John Levene's portrayal of Benton as a Primord was inspired by Richard III (so nicknamed because of the Primord creature's hump).

Caroline John enjoyed her role as Section Leader Elizabeth Shaw and says that it was fun playing "fascist" Liz. She also says she hated doing the scenes when she was playing the normal version because it was boring compared to being an evil character. She was particularly upset though about the scene in which Shaw shoots Brigade Leader Lethbridge-Stewart, as she was pregnant at the time. As a result, the scene was recorded with the weapon fired from out-of-shot, after which Shaw was shown returning the gun to her holster.

During the scenes set on the parallel Earth, images (supposedly) of the British Republic's dictatorial leader are seen on posters. The image used is that of Visual Effects Designer Jack Kine, in homage to the 1954 BBC adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four where the face of Big Brother was Head of Television Design Roy Oxley (Kine had worked on the visual effects for that production).

Episode 6 has a small damaged section on the domestically recorded videotape, which the Doctor Who Restoration Team replaced by painstakingly recolouring the appropriate section of the existing b/w film recording.

Music

Music for this episode was made by BBC Radiophonic Workshop, though little was commissioned for this particular programme. It included "Blue Veils & Golden Sands", "The Delian Mode" (both by Delia Derbyshire), "TARDIS Control On & Warp Transfer", "Battle Theme", "Homeric Theme", "Attack of the Alien Minds", "Souls in Space" (all by Brian Hodgson), and "Build Up To" (by David Vorhaus). According to the DVD release of the ITV serial Timeslip, the music was later featured in the second part of that show's production The Time Of The Ice Box.

Cast notes

Christopher Benjamin, who plays Sir Keith Gold, also played Henry Gordon Jago in The Talons of Weng-Chiang and Colonel Hugh Curbishley in The Unicorn and the Wasp. He also played Tardelli in the audio play Grand Theft Cosmos.

The role of Petra was given to Sheila Dunn after Kate O'Mara was not available to play the part. O'Mara would, years later, be cast as the Rani, a renegade Time Lord. Dunn was the wife of this story's director, Douglas Camfield.

Derek Newark had previously played Za in An Unearthly Child.

A stuntman received a bad leg injury in episode 3 when he was hit by the car Jon Pertwee was driving. Pertwee felt so bad about it that he became ill himself, which threatened to disrupt filming.

Broadcast and reception

In 2009, Mark Braxton of Radio Times praised the intense atmosphere, with a "good, scary, cautionary" plot. However, he noted that the Primords were not the best physical design and their relationship to the events was not cleared up. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph named Inferno as one of the ten best Doctor Who episodes ever. Charlie Jane Anders of io9 listed the cliffhanger of the sixth episode as one of Doctor Who's greatest cliffhangers in a 2010 article. Den of Geek listed the serial as an example of good sound design and music score.

This serial was judged by a 2009 Doctor Who Magazine fan poll to be the finest story of the Third Doctor's era and 31st in the series overall (out of 200 stories total).

In print

Template:Doctor Who book A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in June 1984.

VHS and DVD releases

The original 625-line PAL videotapes were wiped for reuse in the mid 1970s. BBC Enterprises retained the black-and-white film recordings made for overseas sales. In 1985, a set of 525-line NTSC videotapes were returned from Canada. Due to the complexities of conversion, the original re-conversions back to 625-line PAL left the picture looking a little blurred and faded when the story was released on VHS in May 1994 in the UK. Prior to this, episode 7 of the story had been included on the 1992 VHS release, The Pertwee Years (along with the final episodes of both The Dæmons and Frontier in Space). When Inferno was released on Region 2 DVD on 19 June 2006, however, the picture quality had been markedly enhanced through the use of the "Reverse Standards Conversion" procedure. A Special Edition re-release of the story is due for 2013.

The Canadian videotapes include an additional scene in Episode 5 that was not originally transmitted in the UK, but was retained for overseas screening (and has also appeared on both the UK Gold transmissions and the BBC Video release). Set in the Brigade Leader's office where the Doctor, the Brigade Leader and Section Leader Shaw listen to a radio news broadcast done by Jon Pertwee in the style of William Joyce, the scene was cut because Pertwee's voice was too identifiable. The radio announcer names the area where the Inferno project is taking place as being Eastchester; the name is not mentioned anywhere else in the story. The scene was included as an extra on the DVD release, with the episode itself presented exactly as originally transmitted (using the b/w film recording for reference when editing).

External links

• Inferno at BBC Online
• Inferno DVD page on the Doctor Who Restoration Team Website
• Template:Brief
• Template:Doctor Who RG
• Doctor Who Locations - Inferno

Reviews

• Inferno reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• Template:DWRG

Target novelisation

• On Target — Inferno