Inferno - Episode 1

Inferno is my favourite story of the Seventh series. It’s hard to believe that this is the fourth story of the season and yet it’s the last. This is the shortest season of Doctor Who so far and its another story where it starts off with a different way of introducing the title. The title card is imposed over the image of a volcanic eruption. This story takes place in a drilling facility. Not quite sure what UNIT is there really but I suppose that as UNIT are part of the season, they need to be part of the story even if their involvement isn’t really necessary. I mean a murder isn’t something that would warrant UNIT’s involvement. A police unit yes but not UNIT.

This is where we are introduced to Sir Keith Gold played by Christopher Benjamin. It’s hard to look at him and not think of Henry Gordon Jago. It’s clear very quickly that Sir Keith is designed to be one of the good guys and one that the viewers that can be trusted and one that will be an aid to the Doctor and Liz not a hindrance. Another supporting character that we meet is Professor Stahlman. Professor Stahlman is someone who is unlikeable from the very moment that we meet him. He’s the leader of the project and feels like there is a conspiracy to stop him from project from reaching its goal. This is going to be a good source of tension in the story. Slocum is the first victim and it happens in record time. We’re just over the four minute mark before he gets infected. It’s quite a quick transformation as by the end of the episode, he’s turned into what looks like a werewolf. There are moments where he comes across as quite aggressive and would be more than a match for the Doctor.

In my regular Liz rant, its fifteen minutes before Caroline John gets to appear on screen. It’s perhaps no surprise that Caroline John decided to leave the show at the end of the story because she came to the conclusion that she wasn’t going to be used very well and its clear that behind the scenes they must have wanted someone who was more of a screamer than Liz. When Liz does appear she is quite good and it just makes me more annoyed when

The Doctor is trying to get off earth even when he just has the console and during this episode he goes for a test run and during this it doesn’t go very well. It’s the first time really since the opening story that the Doctor has tried to be so open about leaving earth. It’s almost like there was a feeling that this might be the final season and it could have been the case that at the end of the story the Doctor would go off into the cosmos but obviously that didn’t happen. What does happen is that there is an awful lot of talk about drilling and a tiny bit about a nice guy that commits a murder. That’s it really as far as a narrative goes. I thought that this was a very good opening episode. It introduces all the various elements rather well and I think that the seven episode running time is just the right length. As we embark on the final story of the season, I find myself feeling a little bit sad knowing that we will soon be out of my favourite era of the show.