The Green Death - Episode 3

Here come the maggots is what I was thinking when I started episode three. I am still looking forward this story and think that I am going through a new enthusiasm with these stories. It’s hard for me to believe that since mid-January I have been enjoying (mainly) the Pertwee stories and since February I have been enjoying Jo Grant and so I realise that with every episode I am enjoying the story more but realising that the number of Jo episodes is reducing.

I am getting frustrated with the rather inconsistent CSO that has been used in this serial. The shot of the Doctor and Jo going back the maggots is rather dodgy. The Doctor and Jo make their way to Elgin and during this period is one of the best moments in the episode where there is tremendous tension in whether the Doctor and Jo would make it out before the pipes are filled with the horrible sludge. The CSO used to make the maggot moved at the end was the only bit of saving grace for the technology but its still frustrating that it is used in the way that it is.

I quite like the Brigadier out of his army uniform and into civvies. He looks like he should be shooting pheasant on some country estate. His involvement in the episode begins with Stevens and having a telephone conversation with the Prime Minister who is called Jeremy however the PM in 1973 was Edward Heath.

I like how Stevens shows a more human side than we have seen before and its good because it will make his demise all the more striking. The way that he reacts to Fell’s death is what makes the character more interesting and not just a rather two dimensional villain.

The story stops for a moment where we learn a bit more about the wholemeal community and the different people there who started off in the city but have become different people. It’s almost as if Robert Sloman (and Barry Letts) are trying to say to the viewers that there is a better way of life from what is currently been experienced.

I like the line that the professor gives about there never having been a person like Bert, not will there ever be. It comes in the final stages of the episode which shows just how far Jo has drifted towards the Professor and away from the Doctor after Jo’s rather poor attempt at a positive response to the Doctors revelation to getting to Metebelis Three.

This is another great episode and it continues to move along at a good pace and I never found myself bored or my attention wandering. Apart from the occasional iffy CSO, the quality of the story holds up rather well over 40 years after it transmitted. Second half should be just as good as the first.