Doctor Who 10x22

Directed by Michael E. Briant

Jerome Willis as Stevens • Stewart Bevan as Clifford Jones • Tony Adams as Elgin • Ben Howard as Hinks • Mostyn Evans as Dai Evans

The Doctor and the Brigadier attempt to rescue Jo and Bert from the mine but Global Chemicals prove distinctly uncooperative.

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1. "The Doctor discovers that Global Chemicals is more sinister than it seems -

2. "and Jo discovers the strange secret of the coal mine."

3. This episode was first shown on 26 May 1973 and was watched by 7.2 million people.

4. This was a drop of two million viewers from the opening episode the previous week,

5. A number of shots in this story used a process called Colour Separation Overlay (CSO),

6. where the action was performed against a backdrop of a solid colour.

7. The background could then be electronically replaced with a different image.

8. In this case, a solid yellow backdrop was hung behind the lift cage set,

9. Glycerine was applied to the actors' faces, to indicate their exertion in stopping the falling cage.

10. As we cut back to the lift, notice that Jo seems to have lost her helmet...

11. For some reason, the stated depth of the mine shaft changes from 500 to 600 yards.

12. At the real Ogilvie Colliery, the North shaft was 483 yards deep whilst the South shaft was 546 yards.

13. As the unconscious Jo awakens, her helmet seems to have magically crept back onto her head!

14. The lamp returns!

15. The sound effect played in at this point was specified as a "screwdriver from 20 feet".

16. recorded on Monday 2 and Tuesday 3 April 1973 in Studio 3 at the BBC Television Centre in London.

17. On the other side of the studio were the sets for the Engine Room and the Pit Head Office

18. as well as Stevens's Office and a small part of Cliff's Laboratory.

19. The script indicates that, as the Doctor forcibly slows down the winding gear,

20. parts of the surrounding mechanism also collapse under the strain.

21. Poor Dai Evans was given a scripted line at this point to show how unwell he is.

22. It simply reads, "Moan, moan"!

23. Dai is played by Edward Mostyn Evans (1923-90).

24. A few months later, he played the Exxilion High Priest in 'Death to the Daleks' (1974)

25. And he was also considered for the role of Ernie the poacher in 'Pyramids of Mars' (1975).

26. As scripted, when the call ends prematurely, Elgin turns to see Stevens, who has cut the connection.

27. For that reason, the BBC requires any fictional names to undergo a process called Negative Checking.

28. This attempts to ensure that any invented names of characters or organisations that feature in a story

29. don't correspond too closely with names in the real world, thereby risking prosecution for libel.

30. This scene introduces a new character to the story, the company's chief scientist.

31. Originally, he was named Bell,

32. but the negative check performed in late February 1973 returned a "positive" result:

33. There was a Douglas Bell working as a scientist and chief executive at the chemical company, ICI.

34. It was left up to the production office to decide whether or not they should risk using the name Stevens.

35. It was pointed out that there was someone by the name of Stevens employed in the chemical industry:

36. Frank Stevens headed up the Sheppey Glue and Chemical Works at Queenborough in Kent.

37. There was also Professor Thomas Stevens (1900-2000) Of the University of Sheffield.

38. He was an organic chemist who co-discovered the Bamford-Stevens Reaction in 1952.

39. We'll find out in the next episode where the name Stevens really came from...

40. This scene was truncated during editing, losing the opening dialogue between Stevens and the Brigadier.

41. "Mr Fell? May I have a word?" And the reply comes back, "At once, Mr Stevens."

42. "Ralph Fell is our chief scientific and technical officer," explains Stevens.

43. "An excellent fellow - if a trifle over-scrupulous in his work - an idealist, you know?

44. A small change to the scripted dialogue occurs at this point.

45. In the script, Stevens says that Professor Jones "tried to borrow ours some weeks ago",

46. but this is altered in the recorded scene to "They tried to borrow ours yesterday."

47. The amendment helps to emphasise the fact that Stevens is being deceitful.

48. and as the entirely comprehensible lunar operative Sam Becket in 'The Moonbase' (1967)

49. The call-signs of "Greyhound" and "Trap" Were established in the 1971 series.

50. A large chunk of scripted dialogue from this scene was excised prior to recording.

51. Notice Dave's pronunciation of Llanfairfach here.

52. He's the only one who says it correctly. Everyone else wrongly puts a heavier emphasis on the "fair".

53. Dave asks to speak to Ron Owen and, as he waits, Cliff asks if there's any other way into the mine.

54. Here, Bert is talking about the accident he mentioned in the earlier deleted dialogue.

55. A rather neat little segue between this scene and the next was abandoned at this point.

56. As Bert sketches, the picture was to mix to the official map of the mine in the engine room.

57. You can just see it on the wall behind Dave and Professor Jones.

58. Dave's reply about the West Seam is slightly obscured and shortened at the start of this scene.

59. Some small dialogue changes were made in the upcoming conversation.

60. After the Doctor's line, "For the age that you live in," his scripted line continues,

61. "I haven't seen anything like it since a fellow I met in Vladivostok in 2179..."

62. The Brigadier cuts across him: "Doctor! Please! Miss Grant..."

63. Hang on a minute! United Chemicals? Who are they? We'll answer that one shortly.

64. The calendar in the guard hut shows a 29-day month, indicating that it's a February in a leap year.

65. Around the time of 'The Green Death', the leap years were 1972, 1976 and 1980.

66. You can make up your own mind in which of those years the story is set!

67. However, to make the scene a little more visually exciting,

68. In the strip, the Doctor and Sarah-Jane get into the mysterious Vegpro factory via an overhanging tree,

69. but make a hasty exit using the raised platform of a fork lift truck taken from the company's loading bay.

70. So why, in that deleted dialogue, did the Brigadier name the company "United", rather than Global, Chemicals?

71. It was because the nomenclature went through several changes during the scripting process.

72. The company was originally called Universal Chemicals, before becoming United Chemicals.

73. But this was too close to the name of an existing company, so it was changed to Global Chemicals.

74. Both of these are also occasionally abbreviated in the script as "U.C." and "G.C."

75. When Malcolm Hulke came to write his 1975 novelisation of 'The Green Death' for Target Books,

76. the company name was once again changed, this time to Panorama Chemicals.

77. Even the final on-screen choice of Global Chemicals was not entirely without its problems.

78. Two days after the story concluded on television, the BBC was contacted by the sales manager

79. They had noticed what they took to be "amusing comparisons" between Gamlen and Global Chemicals.

80. In particular, their own "G" logo was almost identical to that used in the story.

81. This, they claimed, had caused them "some slight embarrassment".

82. Two days later, the BBC wrote back.

83. "As you are no doubt aware, the Dr Who series does not attempt to portray reality.

84. "visits to other worlds, battles with Daleks and other monsters etc.

85. "Anyone watching the programme would realise that any organisation depicted was part of this fantasy

86. "and did not relate in any way to reality."

87. They also disputed the claimed similarity between the two company logos.

88. The location chosen to represent the exterior of the Global Chemicals

89. was the RCA International plant on Intermediate Road in Brynmawr.

90. and the new owners wouldn't move in until the late summer of that year.

91. For several years, the site was owned by the computer firm Anacomp Magnetics.

92. It was completely demolished in the latter part of 2008.

93. This whole sequence of the Doctor breaking in, fighting the guard and being captured

94. was filmed on Monday 19 March 1973, the second of the three days spent at RCA International.

95. After this sequence, and before the Brigadier and Dave arrive back at the mine,

96. "Below the main sheave wheel," observes Cliff.

97. "That's it," confirms the Doctor. "Then our new cable runs to our donkey engine which is here."

98. "So, all we have to do is cut the original cable and we're laughing," replies Cliff.

99. The Doctor smiles somewhat ruefully at him and replies, "I never felt less like laughing in my whole life."

100. In the script, the Doctor says here, "Jo and the others may desperately need my help."

101. So, where did the idea for 'The Green Death' originate?

102. Writing for the publication An Adventure in Space and Time in 1987, producer Barry Letts explained:

103. "I used to take a magazine called The Ecologist, which brought out

104. "Not only are we fast using up irreplaceable resources, such as fossil fuels,

105. "but we are also poisoning ourselves with the resultant pollution."

106. The issue of The Ecologist in question was published in January 1972.

107. It was co-authored by Edward Goldsmith, the magazine's founding editor and publisher, and Robert Allen.

108. The press reacted with horrified concern to the publication of A Blueprint for Survival.

109. The report was supported by 34 distinguished biologists, ecologists, doctors and economists,

110. but a few days after the magazine was published, 187 scientists signed a letter to The Times

111. A Blueprint for Survival had a profound effect upon Barry Letts.

112. "I was so shaken by its arguments that I remember saying to Terrance Dicks

113. "that I wished I worked in an area of television where I could do something about it.

114. Letts suggested bringing in writer Robert Sloman to work on the new story.

115. The reason for this choice was two-fold.

116. He was credited on screen for three of his four contributions,

117. but the first went out under the pseudonym "Guy Leopold",

118. All this concealed the involvement of his regular collaborator,

119. who was, unbeknownst to the BBC management, none other than Barry Letts himself.

120. "There was no BBC rule against producers writing for their own shows," recalled Barry Letts in 2009,

121. "He lived five minutes' walk away, so we'd get together on a regular basis and discuss,

122. "Making sure first that Terrance, as script editor, was happy with it,

123. "He'd then give it to me, a slow writer, saying, 'Here it is, do what you like with it.'

124. "I would then go through it, keeping Bob's stuff whenever I could see that it worked;

125. "At least fifty per cent of the dialogue was mine.

126. That said, the environmental story that Sloman and Letts originally came up with

127. had nothing to do with coal mines, oil refineries, toxic slime or giant maggots.

128. We'll take a look at their original plans as we go through the next episode.

129. Dave's Welsh calls as they search the mine were all ad libbed.

130. At this point he was scripted to ask, "Bert, can you hear me?"

131. a brand of heavy-duty dark-green, gelatinous hand cleaner often used in the engineering industry.

132. So, if you suffer from scoleciphobia, an irrational fear of worms and maggots,

133. then 'The Green Death' is probably not going to be the story for you!

134. The tunnel collapse that you see at this point is not mentioned in the camera script.

135. The stage direction simply indicates, "They begin to go back down the shaft.

136. "Worse still, three maggots also wriggle out. Jo and Doctor Who are trapped."

137. Notice something a little odd about the closing credits?

138. The image in the background is being played upside down and in reverse.

139. Also appearing in this episode were:

140. Geoffrey Morgan, Michael Cunningham

141. Billy Horrigan, Alan Chuntz as quick as I can.

142. Is that a light? Where?

143. Up ahead. There.

144. Bert!

145. Here are we!

146. The light's green.

147. Put our lights out, then, Doctor.

148. Come on.

149. What an extraordinary smell.

150. Come on.

151. What is this stuff?

152. No, don't touch it.

153. Come on. Let's get on.

154. - Here's Bert! Where?

155. Bert? Bert?

156. - Here you are, here you are.

157. Look at his hand. - Oh!

158. It burns, burns.

159. - Where's the girl? Gone on ahead.

160. Take him up to the surface, quickly as you can.

161. - Let the professor take a look at him. - What about you?

162. I'm going on ahead to look for Jo.

163. Tell the brigadier that I'll find her and bring her back,

164. but don't let anybody come down looking after us.

165. - You understand? - Yes, Doctor.

166. It's far too dangerous.

167. Jo! Jo, are you there?

168. JO: Doctor! Here! Quickly!

169. - Doctor! Doctor, it's horrible! - What is it?

170. Good grief!

171. Come on!