The Doctor attempts to destroy the giant maggots and cure Cliff but the real threat is BOSS, who is poised to take over all the world's computers.
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1. "Our planet is in double danger:
Domination by the Boss,
and a plague of giant insects.
2. "Will the Doctor be in time
to save the World?" (Radio Times)
3. This episode was first shown on
23 June 1973 and was watched
by 7.0 million people.
4. 'The Green Death' drew some very
positive comments from the BBC's weekly
Programme Review Board.
5. During the meeting following Episode 3,
the Head of Music Programmes,
John Culshaw, mentioned
"another excellent episode",
6. whilst Aubrey Singer (Head of Features)
Said that he tried
never to miss the programme.
7. After Episode 4, the "style and
effectiveness" of the maggots
was "warmly commended",
8. and Paul Fox, the Controller of BBC-1,
ventured to suggest that they were
actually better than the Daleks.
9. Following Episode 5, Huw Wheldon
(Managing Director of Television and
Chief Dalek Fan) opined that the maggots
10. "were indeed quite good,
if not sufficiently grubby",
11. to which the Director of Programmes,
Alasdair Milne, retorted that they
were nasty enough for him!
12. After this episode was shown,
the Review Board met again
13. and the Head of Drama Series,
Ronnie Marsh, praised a good story
and the "fine" 1972-3 series as a whole.
14. Indeed, he felt that it was Doctor Who's
most successful series since 1964-5.
15. John Cain (Head of Further Education,
Television) said that the episode
had bought his family to tears.
16. Ironically, Serendipity was the name
of Katy Manning's next television job
for the BBC.
17. The series of ten programmes was
broadcast between October
and December 1973
18. and focused on various arts and crafts
such as weaving, carving,
macramé and dyeing.
19. She was filming Serendipity during
the day whilst also working at
Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre,
20. where she was playing a 16-year-old girl
guide serial killer in Stanley
Eveling's Union Jack and Bonzo.
21. Later that year, Scotland was also
the location for a magazine photo shoot
involving Katy Manning,
22. posing alongside Stewart Bevan and
a maggot for the Doctor Who Special,
published by Radio Times in 1973.
23. The pictures showed Katy looking
suitably horrified at coming across
the monster.
24. They were shot atop Arthur's Seat,
a rocky outcrop overlooking Edinburgh.
25. The "chrysalis" is just a piece of thin
plastic that's been vacuum-formed
around a mould.
26. At this point in the script, Nancy,
who hasn't yet left the room,
27. asks Benton if he'd like a sandwich.
"Try me!" he replies,
and she leaves for the kitchen.
28. You may have noticed that, in the
previous larder scene, as also in this
one, the window by the table is open.
29. The script indicates that the maggot
was meant to be seen
next to a broken window.
30. Presumably this was changed to forestall
questions about why nobody heard
the glass break.
31. They might be ecologically minded at
Wholeweal, but they still leave bottles
of bleach sitting next to foodstuffs!
32. As usual for Doctor Who, the incidental
music for 'The Green Death'
was composed by Dudley Simpson.
33. He created a total of 33 minutes' worth
of music for the story,
using a five-piece orchestra.
34. Any story involving location filming
away from London is going to be costly.
35. A British Rail return ticket from London
to Cardiff in 1973 cost £5.80.
(Remember to multiply by ten
for modern values.)
36. A hotel room, with bath?
£4.50 per night.
And if that sounds like a lot,
37. the BBC's Film Operations and Servicing,
who provided the film crew along with
all the equipment charged
£130.50 per day.
38. Filming overran and spilled over into
an unscheduled extra day,
Wednesday 21 March.
39. This not only racked up another day's
hire but also incurred an extra 10%
on top as a late booking charge.
40. The Brigadier also brought
his own expense.
41. The character was originally created
for the 1968 story,
'The Web of Fear' by Mervyn Haisman
and Henry Lincoln.
42. When the production office later decided
to reintroduce the character
in a semi-permanent role,
43. Haisman and Lincoln were paid a fee
for every episode
in which he subsequently appeared.
44. In the main, the maggots were made from
flexible tubular ducting, covered with
a layer of foam rubber and latex.
45. Rubber bands were used to create
the segmentation on the bodies.
46. Finally, they were covered in cling film
to give them a shiny,
wet-look outer chitin.
47. Some of them were created as
glove-puppets, allowing an effects
assistant's arm to operate them
from within.
48. These were fitted with a miniature set
of jaws worked via a peg in the mouth.
49. The wide range of techniques used for
the artificial maggots ensured that they
could perform all the actions required.
50. The problem maggots were the live ones,
51. especially when the myopic Katy Manning
managed to knock a whole tray of them
over in the studio.
52. And of course, from a giant maggot,
you'll get a giant fly!
53. Now, there's a bit of
a scale issue here.
54. If the giant maggots all hatched from
giant eggs, then what laid the eggs?
55. The fly might be large, but it doesn't
look as if it could lay an egg
the size of a football!
56. Yates's escape from Stevens and the
guards in a few moments' time
57. was originally envisaged a little
differently from what
was ultimately shown on screen.
58. In the script, Yates is dragged along to
the lift and manages to evade his
captors as he does in this sequence.
59. As scripted,
he dashes down the corridor,
notices a fire hose reel on the wall,
and unrolls it.
60. When we next see him,
he's using the hosepipe
to climb down the exterior wall,
61. when a guard appears
at a window and fires at him.
62. Michael E. Briant's original plan
was to fly the fly out on location.
63. There were two options: Either flying
the model on a wire
between two scaffolds,
64. or suspending the creature from a wire
below the helicopter
that was being used that day.
65. Either way, the cold cross-winds blowing
around the slag heaps were too strong.
66. Any attempts to fly the model for real
were quickly abandoned.
67. In the end, Ron Oates's effects team
created an attacking version of
the creature on film back at the BBC,
68. and the sequence was put together
in Studio 3 using CSO.
69. The model doesn't actually
fly towards the camera.
70. Rather, the film camera zooms in on
the model, making it look as if
it's approaching at speed.
71. The green "spittle" is squirted onto
Bessie's windscreen with a bicycle pump.
72. The large model fly survived the filming
and was found lying in a bin outside
the BBC later in the 1970s.
73. It was refurbished by a BBC effects
designer, Mike Tucker, and now resides
in a private collection.
74. This isn't Richard Franklin running
along the roof of RCA International.
It's stuntman Terry Walsh.
75. Franklin was only used for the final
close-up, which required him to jump up
in the air and run away when he landed.
76. Unfortunately, he ripped the seat of
his trousers as he landed.
Cue costume change and retake!
77. After the story was completed,
Katy Manning took home
one of the maggots as a souvenir.
78. Jon Pertwee also took a maggot
(one of the glove puppets)
To give to his son, Sean.
79. In 1978, Pertwee donated the maggot,
along with many other props
from his time,
80. as a prize in a raffle being held by
the Doctor Who Appreciation Society
81. in aid of Pertwee's charity,
the Grand Order of Water Rats.
82. The maggot was won
by Larry Wauchop from Chicago.
83. Larry recalled, "I had lots of fun
getting it through customs
and onto the plane!"
84. Sadly, both the maggot and a Cyberman
helmet from 'The Tomb of the Cybermen'
(1967), went missing
85. after being loaned for an exhibition
at the 1983 Spirit of Light Doctor Who
convention in America.
86. The location filming for
'The Green Death'
attracted a lot of media attention.
87. On Thursday 15 March, the slag heaps
were visited by the local BBC
news programme, Wales Today,
88. who broadcast their report
on the filming the following day.
89. The arrival of the film crew at Deri
was covered by the South Wales Echo
on 13 March,
90. in an article entitled,
'Beasts in Bargoed pit? Who knows... '
91. whilst the Gwent Gazette ran the report,
'Wot! No tardis or Daleks
with Dr Who' on 23 March,
92. along with a photo of Jon Pertwee
surrounded by schoolchildren
outside RCA.
93. Here, BOSS alludes to Lady Bracknell
in Oscar Wilde's 1895 comedy,
The Importance of Being Earnest.
94. She states: "To lose one parent may be
regarded as a misfortune;
to lose both looks like carelessness."
95. BOSS's scripted line at this point was,
"Try to keep up your pecker,
my little superman..."
96. It looks like they keep a keep a handy
stock of new barriers at
Global Chemicals!
97. Throughout the story, the role of the
Chief Guard has been played, once again,
by Terry Walsh (1939-2002)
98. As well as wearing his peaked cap
and pretending to be Mike Yates
jumping from a rooftop,
99. Walsh also doubled for Jon Pertwee
during the fight sequence
with the guards in Episode 2,
100. who were played by his fellow stuntmen,
Alan Chuntz and Billy Horrigan.
101. Richard Wagner (1813-83)
Was a German composer and theatre
director, known mainly for his operas.
102. His appropriation of Teutonic mythology
to create a German national epic,
and his anti-Semitic opinions,
103. both appealed to Adolf Hitler:
Wagner became the music of choice
for the Nazi party.
104. Despite being insistently associated
with German fascism, BOSS has somewhat
more eclectic musical tastes.
105. He also refers here to Tchaikovsky's
anti-Naopleonic 1812 Overture (1880),
106. and to Beethoven's Symphony No.9 (1824).
107. He ends up reciting Chopin's
Marche funèbre ('Funeral March')
From the third movement of his
Piano Sonata No.2. (1839).
108. The script indicates that as the
"strange electronic sound"
fills the air,
the guard stiffens and drops his gun.
109. The sound then stops completely,
but the guard remains frozen.
110. Another tune from BOSS, this time the
opening motif from Beethoven's
Symphony No. 5 (1804),
111. scripted to be sung as "Tantantara!
Tantantara! Tzing-boom!"
112. BOSS's "juicy mixed metaphor"
reference to "Time's winged chariot"
113. comes from Andrew Marvell's love poem,
'To His Coy Mistress' (c. 1651),
about the shortness of human life.
114. One final piece of classical recital
coming up from BOSS now.
115. This time, we get to hear the computer
singing the word "Connect"
116. to the opening allegro from Bach's
Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G major
(c.1721).
117. If you look carefully around Cliff's
pillow, you can see the green light
being reflected to make
the infection glow.
118. 'The Green Death' was reshown in its
entirety on BBC-2 over six consecutive
Sundays between 2 January
and 6 February 1994.
119. This was part of a short two-story
repeat season, along with the
1975 story, 'Pyramids of Mars'.
120. However, between 1971 and 1976,
the regular practice was not
to repeat complete stories,
121. but instead to show one-off, re-edited
compilation versions of selected
adventures, usually once a year.
122. In 1973, 'The Green Death'
was chosen to be boiled down
into a 90-minute version,
123. to be broadcast on BBC-1 at 4 p.m.
On Thursday 27 December 1973,
124. between Parts 2 and 3 of the opening
story of the 1973-4 series,
'The Time Warrior'.
125. Episode 1 of the story lost around ten
minutes' worth of material in total.
126. All of the first scene in the UNIT
laboratory was removed, along with
Cliff's initial examination of Hughes.
127. The Doctor trying to convince Jo to go
to Metebelis 3 was also lost, along with
the Brigadier and Jo's dialogue
with the milkman.
128. Sizable chunks of Jo's first meeting
with Cliff and the Brigadier's visit
to Global Chemicals were removed, too.
129. In Episode 2, various sections
of Jo and Bert's travels
through the mine went,
130. but by far the biggest loss came with
the removal of the Doctor's
introduction to Professor Jones
131. along with the entire six-minute
sequence of the Doctor entering Global
Chemicals, being captured
and getting released.
132. The third episode lost a number of
small sections from the Doctor
and Jo's escape from the mine,
133. along with several sequences between
Elgin and Fell in the Pump Room.
134. The Brigadier's telephone conversation
with the minister was heavily
re-edited and shortened.
135. A lot of the early part of Episode 4
was absent from the compilation.
136. No preparations were made to blow up
the mine, nor did the Brigadier
talk to the milkman.
137. Much of the laboratory scene with
the Doctor and Cliff was cut down.
138. Nancy's announcement that the mine
is going to be destroyed cuts directly
to the last seconds of the countdown,
139. entirely losing the Doctor's meeting
with the Brigadier and most of his
subsequent visit to see Stevens,
140. though a small amount of resequencing
did allow for the introduction
of Mike Yates.
141. The cleaner didn't see the maggots
in the pipeline, and Elgin's discussion
with Stevens was removed.
142. Jon Pertwee still camped it up as
the old milkman, but his cleaning-lady
drag routine was gone.
143. Episode 5 lost the majority of
the Doctor's scenes
in BOSS's computer room,
144. and several of the sequences of Jo
in the cave were edited together
into one.
145. After the Doctor's escape from Global
Chemicals, a number of small
alterations were made:
146. A whole range of scenes,
too numerous to specify,
were trimmed and reordered.
147. In this final episode,
the opening sequence
with the chrysalis was trimmed down
148. along with some of the shots
of Benton and the Doctor
killing the maggots.
149. Barring a few seconds,
virtually all of Stevens's conversations
with BOSS were edited out,
150. though the majority of
this scene was left intact.
151. After this, the only removal
was a small section
of the Doctor's farewell to Jo,
152. where the Doctor realises that
she's contacted her uncle to secure
funding for the Wholeweal community.
153. The compilation secured a healthy rating
of 10.4 million viewers for its one
and only post-Christmas broadcast.
154. But John Stirling, reviewing the repeat
in The Stage of 3 January 1974,
was less than complimentary.
155. He complained that even though children
(including his own) loved Doctor Who,
they deserved better.
156. He thought the only decent performances
came from the maggots.
157. The series was just capitalising on past
successes and should have
better-thought-out stories,
more like those in its earlier years.
158. The start of this scene
was trimmed in editing.
159. "That's it, sir," says Yates,
looking at his watch. "Right, in we go,"
responds the Brigadier.
160. "No, wait. Look!" shouts Yates,
as he sees the Doctor
running from the factory.
161. Katy Manning had decided to leave
Doctor Who
at the end of the 1972-3 series,
162. so the search was on to find a new
travelling companion
for the wandering Time Lord.
163. After interviewing a large number
of actresses interested
in taking on the role,
164. Barry Letts selected 29-year-old,
Somerset-born April Walker to play
the new role of Sarah Jane Smith.
165. Her contract to play Sarah in all
five stories of the 1973-4 series
was signed on 14 March 1973,
166. just as the location filming began
on the Ogilvie slag heaps
in South Wales.
167. On returning to London,
the leading actor
was not happy to discover
what had happened while he was away.
168. Jon Pertwee and April Walker had
previously worked together in the 1968
West End play, Oh, Clarence!
169. But he thought that she was too tall
and too buxom
for the role of his companion.
170. A week later, on 29 March,
April Walker's contract was cancelled,
171. but the BBC paid her in full for the
26 episodes
she had committed to appear in.
172. On the suggestion of Z Cars producer
Ron Craddock, Barry Letts auditioned
Elisabeth Sladen (1946-2011).
173. This time he took the actress to meet
Jon Pertwee before offering
her the role, pulling him out of
his 'Green Death' rehearsals.
174. Pertwee gave his wholehearted approval,
175. and at the beginning of May,
Lis found herself performing her
first scenes in 'The Time Warrior'.
176. "Never mind, Mike" was an unscripted
addition, reflecting the fact the Yates
had been created as
a love interest for Jo.
177. This reference to Jo's uncle goes
right back to 'Terror of the Autons':
178. She originally got her assignment
to UNIT
179. because "relatives in high places" had
"pulled some strings" on her behalf.
180. This wouldn't be the last time that
Josephine Jones (née Grant)
Would cross the Doctor's path.
181. She unknowingly instigates the events
of 'Planet of the Spiders',
by returning the blue crystal to him.
182. She's in South America with Cliff,
in search of the toadstool,
183. but the Indian porters object
to her gemstone's "bad magic",
so she has to send it back.
184. There was no reprise from Katy Manning,
who was having a long West End run
in Why Not Stay for Breakfast?
185. But 35 years later,
Jo Jones was back on screen in the
Sarah Jane Adventures story,
'Death of the Doctor',
186. along with Santiago, one of the many
grandchildren from her
and Cliff's seven offspring.
187. As soon as recording was completed on
'The Green Death',
188. Barry Letts held his own celebratory
party for 70 people in the Bridge Lounge
at Television Centre.
189. This marked Doctor Who's
tenth anniversary.
190. The party music you can hear in the
background is a song called
'It'll Never Be Me' by Electric Banana,
191. an alias used by the band The Pretty
Things for several library music tracks
they recorded during the 1960s.
192. In 1973, two Whitman jigsaw puzzles
used photos from the story: The Doctor
handling a mushroom and
sitting at Stevens's desk.
193. Two years later, a novelisation of
'The Green Death' written by
Malcolm Hulke
was made available by Target Books.
194. A twin-tape VHS release of the story
came in October 1996.
195. In 2009, Underground Toys released a
5-inch model of Jon Pertwee's Doctor,
complete with three maggots!
196. The final shot of the story was filmed
by the small second unit using a star
filter as the sun went down over Wales.
197. Also appearing in this episode were:
198. Leslie Bates, David Billa
(UNIT Soldiers)
199. Pat Gorman (Wholeweal Boy),
Lyn Melley (Wholeweal Girl)
200. Uncredited production
contributors included:
201. Fred Wright, Terry Wild, Tommy Dawson
(Technical Managers)
202. John Gorman (Vision Mixer)
203. James Piner (Floor Assistant)
204. Nick Rodger, Geoff Vian
(Inlay Operators)
205. Gerry Borrows (Grams)
206. Gordon Thompson (Film Editor Assistant)
207. Colin Mapson, Richard Conway
(Visual Effects Assistants)
208. Peter Granger (Camera Supervisor)
209. Camera Crew Ten
210. Production subtitles
written by Richard Bignell
211. with thanks to Michael E. Briant, Katy
Manning, Jekka McVicar, David Brunt,
Jeremy Bentham, Nigel Lamb, Chris
Balcombe, Andrew Pixley and Phil Eyden.
212. Yee-haw! God, life's good, isn't it?
213. - What's going on?
- Are you all right, Jo?
214. - Go on. Tell 'em.
- Cliff and I are going to get married.
215. - Getting married?
- (ALL EXCLAIMING)
216. Well, that's marvellous.
217. - Congratulations, Professor Jones.
- Oh, thank you.
218. Professor Jones.
219. - I'm sure he'll make you very happy.
- Thank you.
220. - Well, Professor Jones...
- Thank you, Brigadier.
221. I've got a wedding present for you.
It's a telex from Geneva,
222. granting your place here official status
223. as a United Nations Priority One
Research Complex!
224. - Oh, wow!
- (ALL APPLAUDING)
225. Do you know what that means?
It means unlimited financial help.
226. - Work for the valleys, aye.
- That's great.
227. And food... food for all the world!
228. Never mind, Mike. Let's have a drink.
229. You got onto your uncle
at the United Nations, didn't you?
230. It's only the second time
I've ever asked him for anything.
231. Yes.
232. Look where the first time got you.
233. You don't mind, do you?
234. Mind?
235. He might even be able
to turn you into a scientist.
236. Don't go too far away, will you?
237. And if you do,
come back and see us sometimes.
238. All right.
239. - Save me a piece of wedding cake.
- Right.
240. Ooh, I nearly forgot.
241. Your wedding present.
242. It's beautiful.
243. Thank you, Doctor.
244. Hey, Jo, come and drink a toast
to the happy couple, huh?
245. - But that's us!
- Aye. So it is.
246. Don't worry, Doctor,
I'll look after her.
247. (LAUGHS) Hope you like it
very well. Well done.