Doctor Who 10x22

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

2. "and Jo discovers the strange secret of the coal mine." (Radio Times)

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. which the BBC's Programme Review Board had welcomed as a "satisfactorily horrific" start to the story.

6. Notice the false perspective backdrop at the rear of the set, showing the engine room extending backwards.

7. As the action cuts to the interior of the plummeting mine cage, there is a flash of yellow on the left of the frame.

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

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

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

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

12. which allowed a scrolling roller caption to be keyed into the picture, giving the illusion of downward movement.

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

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

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

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

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

18. However, she seems to have mislaid the lamp from the front of her helmet. Don't worry, it'll be back in a moment.

19. The lamp returns!

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

21. All of the sequences set in the mine itself were shot during the first two-day block of studio work

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

23. The mine set took up nearly half of the studio, positioned next to the Doctor's laboratory from Episode 1.

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

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

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

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

28. For that reason, the Doctor was originally going to say, "It would mean cutting the cable and clearing all this mess."

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

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

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

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

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

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

35. In editing, this final part of the scene was moved forwards and interspersed with the Brigadier's attempts to call back.

36. In fictional drama, there is always the risk that elements could be mistakenly understood by viewers to be real.

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

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

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

40. For 'The Green Death', the names Professor Clifford Jones, Hinks and Elgin were all checked and cleared.

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

42. Originally, he was named Bell,

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

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

45. For that reason, the name Bell was simply changed to Fell and the "B" in the script was overtyped with an "F".

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

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

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

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

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

51. In the end, it was felt that there were enough company directors called Stevens for the name to be unproblematic.

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

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

54. It starts with Stevens telling the Brigadier that they'll be only too glad to help. He calls Fell on the intercom:

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

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

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

58. "'Get off home to your family. Get along with you,' I have to say to him," finishes Stevens, just as Fell walks into the office.

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

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

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

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

63. Fell is played by John Rolfe, who had previously appeared as the Captain in 'The War Machines' (1966),

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

65. He also played the treacherous Terloc in the 1978 Blake's 7 episode, 'Project Avalon', also directed by Michael E. Briant.

66. The call-signs of "Greyhound" and "Trap" (for the Brigadier and UNIT HQ) Were established in the 1971 series.

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

68. This had Bert telling Jo about how, eight years earlier, he had been trapped for 42 hours in a tunnel collapse before being rescued.

69. Notice Dave's pronunciation of Llanfairfach here.

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

71. A cotter is a pin that is passed through a fixing hole to ensure that mechanical parts are held tightly together.

72. The early part of the scene, involving Dave's phone call to the National Coal Board (NCB), was shortened during rehearsal.

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

74. "No, this is the only shaft," says Dave. "Uneconomic, see, to have more. Owners were in coal for profit, weren't they?" Then the call resumes.

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

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

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

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

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

80. In the script, he says, "Closed up years ago after a bad fall. Fourteen dead. Lost some good mates, I did..."

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

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

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

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

85. "There's no need to impress me with the urgency of the situation, Brigadier," retorts the Doctor, and asks Cliff what his suggestion was.

86. On hearing it, the Brigadier replies, "Direct action, eh? Always appeals to me, I must admit. Just a matter of deploying the...

87. "Here, hang on a minute. I can't start a war with United Chemicals. I'm supposed to be protecting them! Against you!"

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

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

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

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

92. The guard hut is BBC scenery, not location: The calendar is a deliberate inclusion, not just an old one that happened to be lying round.

93. In the script, the Doctor is simply hiding up a tree and he swings on a branch to launch himself over the fence.

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

95. a Land Rover with a Hymac hoist was hired from the South Wales Electricity Board in Bargoed.

96. About eighteen months later, TVComic, which had featured a regular Doctor Who comic strip since 1964,

97. used virtually the same method of getting over an electrified fence in 'Death Flower', their first story for Tom Baker's Doctor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

104. In consequence, the script is a real mishmash of names, using both "United" and "Global", sometimes on the same page!

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

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

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

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

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

110. of the real-life Gamlen Chemical Company, an Uxbridge-based U.K. Subsidiary of a Californian multi-national.

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

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

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

114. They asked the BBC to indicate that they were a reputable world-wide company and in no way associated with Global Chemicals.

115. Two days later, the BBC wrote back.

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

117. "It is a science fiction series which owes its existence to the fantastic situations created involving time travel,

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

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

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

121. The BBC rejected the suggestion that Gamlen's reputation could have been harmed by analogy with a fictitious company.

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

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

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

125. By March 1973, when these scenes were filmed, the premises had been empty for 16 months,

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

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

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

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

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

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

132. came a deleted scene in which the Doctor draws a picture to show Cliff how they're planning to effect a rescue.

133. You can see the drawing on the desk when we cut to the second part of the scene in a moment.

134. In the cut scene, the Doctor says, "So you see, a length of cable has been spliced onto the existing cable. There."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

143. "a whole issue called 'Blueprint for Survival' that turned out to be one of the seminal documents about conservation.

144. "It showed quite clearly that our present world economy must inevitably lead to disaster for the whole human race.

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

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

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

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

149. A revised version of the report was published by Penguin Books that same year, and went on to sell over 750,000 copies.

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

151. The Times found it "too plausible to be dismissed", the Sunday Times declared it to be "nightmarishly convincing",

152. and the Daily Mail thought its "prophecy of a world blindly careering towards self-destruction" was "profoundly disturbing".

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

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

155. saying that they refused to sign the Blueprint because of the errors of fact or emphasis they perceived within it.

156. However, they acknowledged that the report was a "major contribution to current debate" on the subject.

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

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

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

160. "He immediately said, 'Well, why don't you? What's to stop us doing a Doctor Who about this very subject?"'

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

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

163. Sloman was experienced in writing for Doctor Who, having already scripted 'The Dæmons' (1971) And 'The Time Monster' (1972).

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

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

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

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

168. The arrangement gave Letts complete involvement in creating a story on a subject about which he felt passionately.

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

170. "but the Writer's Guild had been complaining that it was happening too often and I didn't want to be told I couldn't!

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

172. "firstly a basic idea, and then hone in on the actual plot. In the end, we would have a scene-by-scene breakdown of every episode.

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

174. "Bob would take it away and write the whole thing over a few days - he was a very fast writer.

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

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

177. "but when it didn't, or could be improved, I would completely rewrite it, following our agreed storyline.

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

179. "Normally, a writer wouldn't be commissioned until the producer was satisfied with a fairly detailed storyline.

180. "But this didn't happen with the 'Sloman' scripts. They were commissioned automatically once we'd had the basic idea.

181. "So the normal early storylines were never written down. They existed only in our heads, during our discussions."

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

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

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

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

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

187. A few moments earlier, just before they discover the green slime, the scripted line was "Bert! Is that you?"

188. Jo's view at this point is a miniature shot showing real maggots (from London Zoo) Wriggling around in Swarfega,

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

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

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

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

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

194. "At that moment the rocks along the side begin to dislodge, a gap is formed and through it pours some of the liquid, covering the floor.

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

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

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

198. This will also happen at the end of Episodes 5 and 6. We'll look at why the next time it happens.

199. Also appearing in this episode were:

200. Geoffrey Morgan, Michael Cunningham (Security Guards)

201. Billy Horrigan, Alan Chuntz (Stunt Security Guards) as quick as I can.

202. Is that a light? Where?

203. Up ahead. There.

204. (SHOUTING) Bert!

205. Here are we!

206. The light's green.

207. Put our lights out, then, Doctor.

208. Come on.

209. What an extraordinary smell.

210. Come on.

211. What is this stuff?

212. No, don't touch it.

213. Come on. Let's get on.

214. - Here's Bert! Where?

215. Bert? Bert?

216. - (BERT GASPS) - Here you are, here you are.

217. Look at his hand. - Oh!

218. It burns, burns.

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

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

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

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

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

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

225. - You understand? - Yes, Doctor.

226. It's far too dangerous.

227. Jo! Jo, are you there?

228. JO: Doctor! Here! Quickly!

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

230. Good grief!

231. Come on!