The Seeds of Death

The Earth’s Moonbase has had a refit and is no longer the source of weather control but a relay point for the newest mode of travel: an instantaneous transporter called T-Mat. The technology reaches every part of Earth, which is why a group of Ice Warriors overruns the moon and takes control of the whole system. Using T-Mat they start to send seed pods to Earth that grow into a fungus which unless the Doctor can stop it will destroy the world and leave it open for conquest.

So the Ice Warriors make their second appearance in the series and they’re… well, they’re not as fierce as they were before. Well, the actual warriors themselves might not be because they have a new leader, a commander named Slaar who is not as heavyset as the others and who is a bit more articulate even if his heavy breathing makes him sound something of an obscene phone call. Nevertheless it’s obvious that there are ranking classes within the Martian society, and Varga’s breed are just thugs who do what Slaar’s type tell them. They’re more methodical this time round with their plan as opposed to Varga’s desperate attempts to simply escape from Earth and go home, and it’s worth noting that this takes place before The Ice Warriors, so at this point in time while Slaar and company plot the Earth’s destruction, Varga and crew are somewhere down there below them locked up in the glacier. Even though it’s just their second outing the Ice Warriors already make for fascinating monsters and their popularity would only just rise with their return to the screen. Given that it was almost certain at this point in the show’s history that the Daleks were never coming back, something else had to come along to plague the Doctor in his travels, although they will only be back two more times on screen in the classic series.

At six episodes long this felt a bit slow in spots. The attempts to create tension and fear for the men trapped on the Moonbase were effective enough with great performances by terrorized technicians fearing for their lives, but they were counterpointed by the more comedic bits with the Doctor dashing up and down all the crooked Batman inspired corridors with the Ice Warriors lumbering along after him. In fact, the Doctor’s physical comedy comes into play a lot, with him desperately trying to avoid being overwhelmed by the fungus as it spreads across the planet below in episodes five and six. Still, the story has this sort of space opera feel to it, with a very distinctive soundtrack much like in The Ice Warriors and s customized titles sequence with the camera panning across space passing behind either the moon or Earth and then once to the other side zooming in on whichever location the action was to be joined on. Clever.

There is no actual Earth year given but at this point in time the people of Earth have not explored anywhere beyond the moon; rocket technology has been abandoned and T-Mat is the way to go now no matter what is being transported. Grumpy (and unemployed) rocket scientist Professor Eldred tells the Doctor that the human race’s curiosity for things beyond the moon has been stunted by T-Mat, so this is somewhere before Zoe’s time as she was stationed on a space station which was often visited by spaceships from Earth. The Moonbase was set in 2070, so this is sometime after that and The Murder Game (despite being expanded universe) is set in 2136 when humans are flying in space again, which would put this somewhere between them. There’s also no sign of a recent Dalek invasion, so it would have to be somewhere before 2150. Transporter technology would feature a lot in later Doctor Who episodes but not with the same regularity as on Star Trek.

I remember the first time I saw this one; it was my very first Doctor Who convention, Who-Fest 84 in Buffalo, New York; my parents surprised me with a visit there under the guise of some cross-border shopping and lo I got to meet third Doctor, Jon Pertwee himself, and get to see part of this adventure in a screening room along with a more recent episode which had been broadcast in the UK only a few months earlier. But yes, I got to see a glimpse of my first black and white episodes that day, and it would be a couple years before I saw it again in its entirety in Buffalo PBS station Channel 17. The novelization of the story came out in 1986 and was not as enjoyable, falling into the usual dull realm of novelizations penned by Terrance Dicks. At least I had seen it in full before then and knew it was enjoyable. And years after that, when my nephew expressed his opinion that the Ice Warriors were his favourites, I took a great pleasure in showing him this episode, even if his 5 year old brain didn’t get why we were watching it in “grey”.

And now from screen to novel we go…

NEXT EPISODE: THE FINAL SANCTION