The Green Death

Global Chemicals sets up shop in a small mining community in Wales promising to bring wealth to the area as they ramp up production on their new synthetic crude oil. The new process they claim creates next to no by-product and will extend the existing supply of natural crude well into the future. Local biologist Cliff Jones doesn't buy into it and stages loud protests in the media, attracting Jo's attention and spurring her on to leave the Doctor and join the fight against big oil. It's not long before the Doctor and UNIT are fully drawn in, though, as miners emerge from the local disused tunnels glowing green and dying, and giant maggots emerge from the ground. The link between the ecological disaster waiting to happen and Global Chemicals is obvious, but while investigating and looking for the proof he needs, the Doctor realizes that the company has bigger plans for the world than simple ruthless profiteering - the entity behind the corporation, the maniacal supercomputer called the BOSS wants to control everything.

The Green Death is typical of the era it was made in, grabbing hold of a bigger issue and making a statement about it. I watched this one with my friend Leanne who has not seen a lot of the earlier episodes and I warned her about the less than subtle message about pollution and big business, and there it was in the dialogue for all to hear. It was interesting to observe in this day and age how the concerns for the future of the environment have been there for that long and have not changed, although in Jones' case they are not taken seriously by enough people for anything to really happen. Maybe it takes something like Facebook to get people to get involved more even if it's just about pushing a "like" button.

Jo gets to be the voice of outrage along with Professor Jones who is seen as something of a radical hippie by most, but as a brilliant pioneer in alternative energy by those around him at the Wholeweal commune he had founded. Jo's attraction to him is a sort of transference of her obvious feelings for the Doctor, and she says that Jones reminds her of him in a lot of ways. Her decision to bail on the Doctor and a trip in the TARDIS and run off to Wales seems to come out of nowhere, and the Doctor doesn't understand at all until she equates what she needs to do with what he does as a matter of routine; Earth is, after all, her home, and she has to do what she must to protect it.

UNIT meanwhile ends up on both sides of the growing conflict; bound by its mandate to protect the world from threats it is still ordered about by politicians who see Global Chemicals as a saviour (and herein the script takes another shot at the politics of its time) and are willing to dismiss the Brigadier's concerns to keep from looking bad. The Brigadier has to keep his cool but once there are giant (and seemingly bulletproof) maggots to shoot at he's in his element at last. The regulars are also along for the ride - Sergeant Benton and Captain Yates - and Jo's announcement that she is leaving them at the end throws the whole UNIT family into a bit of a tailspin. And it does come off as a bit sudden - in the grand scheme of storytelling here The Green Death only takes place over a few days even if it's a 6 part series which played out over as many weeks.

And while I am really just focussing on continuity here and not going into deep plot analysis, it's got to be said that the BOSS is a villain like no other - a sentient computer out to dominate and control the human race through capitalist gains and out and out brainwashing and be damned the costs to humanity. The maggots are not its agents, just a side effect of its ambition. It also doesn't have a backstory, though; the director of Global is firmly under the BOSS' control so someone else must have built it to run things, but we're never really told who. There were moments where the headsets used to program and brainwash Global's employees looked as if the Cybermen were going to show up but alas no.

So an era ends with Jo leaving the Doctor for love. After all they have been through. Same deal as before, and a very poignant shot of the Doctor driving off into the sunset alone to close the season. Big Finish have given us a few more Jo stories, though, so her time is by no means up...

NEXT EPISODE: THE DOLL OF DEATH