The Seeds Of Death: Doctor Who: Season 6

SYNOPSIS

DETAILS

CAST & CREW

REVIEWS

Goldby

Grob

Long

The Seeds Of Death SYNOPSIS:

In the 21st century, the main T-Mat relay station on the moon has been invaded by the Ice Warriors and the supervisor killed while sabotaging the system. The T-Mat matter transmission system has ceases operation and now the movement of vital world food supplies is threatened. Technician Fewsham agrees to assist the ice warriors repairing T-mat for to complete their plans.

The Tardis lands in the museum of Professor Eldred and while explaining their presence Eldred is approached by his former colleagues Radnor and Miss Kelly about assisting them with using an emergency rocket from his museum collection get to the moon and repair T-mat. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe volunteer to fly it for them.

They land on the moon but the rocket is damaged and the Doctor captured by ice warriors. Inquiring of their plan the Doctor is incapacitated by an exploding seed pod. With T-Mat operational thanks to Fewsham, the ice warriors beam down seed pods to certain countries. They explode on contact with the atmosphere and release a deadly fungus that absorbs all oxygen.

Ice Warriors arrive on earth and take over the weather control station. Once revived, the Doctor and Zoe discover the Ice warriors plan to colonise Earth once the fungus has converted the atmosphere into that of Mars. The only way to destroy the fungus is to re-take weather control and another plan must be put into effect to stop the martian fleet homing in on the moon.

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The Seeds Of Death DETAILS:

Episode	Broadcast	Run Time	Viewership (In Millions)
Part One	25-Jan-69	23:11	6.6
Part Two	1-Feb-69	24:26	6.8
Part Three	8-Feb-69	24:10	7.5
Part Four	15-Feb-69	24:57	7.1
Part Five	22-Feb-69	24:56	7.6
Part Six	1-Mar-69	24:31	7.7

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The Seeds Of Death CAST & CREW

Stars:
The Doctor:
Patrick Troughton(Second Doctor)

Companions:
Fraser Hines (Jamie McCrimmon)
Wendy Padbury (Zoe Herriot)

Guest Stars:
Ronald Leigh-Hunt — Commander Radnor
Louise Pajo — Gia Kelly
Philip Ray — Professor Eldred
Terry Scully — Fewsham
Ric Felgate — Brent
Harry Towb — Osgood
Christopher Coll — Phipps
Martin Cort — Locke
Hugh Morton — Sir James Gregson
Derrick Slater — Security Guard
John Witty — Computer Voice
Alan Bennion — Slaar
Graham Leaman — Grand Marshall
Steve Peters, Tony Harwood, Sonny Caldinez — Ice Warriors

Production Staff for Serial XX:
Writer - Brian Hayles & Terrance Dicks (episodes 3 to 6 uncredited)
Director - Michael Ferguson
Script editor - Terrance Dicks
Producer - Peter Bryant

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The Seeds Of Death REVIEWS

Goldby

Remember this one, being the geek fan boy I was and Grob is, bought it with my pocket money on video. With our machine broken had to go to my sisters thankfully vacant flat to watch and see if these Troughton's were any good. Loved it at the time, despite the lousy picture. Funny how things reverse themselves many years later as got the dvd for a present and the cover was great, the picture quality was fantastic! Just couldn't get over how clear it was - you could actually see and hear everything but the story was only ok, the pacing bad and the underpants costumes terrible. Admire the guest cast for managing to act so convincingly in those things.

Pity they had to drag each story around this period into 6 episodes here. They could've easily shaved two off and made it so much snappier. The cast are good, but Troughton must be bored, he can't even be bothered shaving off his sideburns although he never lets it show acting wise plus he obviously goes on holiday as he's missing for an episode. Jamie and Zoe do there thing and Zoe isn't just a hot bod - she really does have brains and is smug about it. The rocket travel padding in the story is so ho hum but it's nice to see the Doctor doing a ridiculous chase scene homage to Chaplin just to break up the drudgery.

Was good to see the Ice Warriors think they work well here and they look more convincing in black and white and we get an Ice Lord this time to act as there mouth piece. The foam coming out of balloons really show things aren't good money wise with the series. Seeds of Death is ok,, will give it a 6/10 though. That T Mat computer voice really shits me too.

Grob

Well its no Seeds of Doom thats for sure.The next to nothing budget is in evidence here in a story that could have been really good in four episodes is instead dragging like wet sand in six. Its all the trips from the moon in the rocket and then trips to Earth and then (probably) back again. Seeds of Death just sort of goes on and on and on and goes nowhere. Ice Warriors don't really float my boat really - they just lumber into a scene, wheeze, fire their funny gun then wheeze out again.

Even Zoe isn't wearing anything special for us to get a chubby skyward. Speaking of which, there is some seriously bad costumes here - the guys from the moon where y-fronts on the OUTSIDE of their clothing (See photo. In fact, see photo also for the blonde with the freaking great knockers!) Yeah, its just a to-ing and fro-ing story sadly. And T-Matt seems a bit iffy; its the ONLY mode of transport now????? How come we didn't see more people tramping into the cubicles going to work and going on holidays? And if it has gone down why don't people - I dunno - WALK??? A few pluses; Troughton is great and Zoe gets to show off her brain for a change. And the little scene with all the foam at the end of part 5 is very funny. But you can tell the end is in sight here. Its 5 outta 10.

Long

Yeah, I think I want to like Seeds Of Death more than I do... maybe if the whole rocket sub-plot (which I only remember as something that got in the way of what could have been a decent story) was just unnecessary padding?

I like the idea of the T-mat and I like a lot of the ideas that are in this one, but the combination of too much padding and not enough budget do hurt it... but at least they got their clothes cleaned with all those suds!

6.5/10

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