Things I've Learnt from Watching My Favourite Doctor Who Stories: Part 44 - The Seeds of Death

 44: The Seeds of Death

You can never trust the weather!

I'm of the generation that first experienced the Seeds of Death as a 135 minute compilation, in the early years of the BBC Video. Six black and white episodes with varying degrees of picture quality, edited together into one homogenous lump. (To see how variable the picture was, go to the wonderful Pip Madeley's YouTube video (https://youtu.be/kj-_UFyhp94?si=Aqq6CepbD-9h-vij) 

Whole others of my generation were enjoying Hollywood blockbusters or video nasties, I was content to sit and watch over two hours of Patrick Troughton, Ice Warriors and actors like Ronald Leigh Hunt and Philip Ray having the indignity of wearing costumes that made it look like they were wearing underpants on the outside. Imagine the cast of Last of the Summer Wine dressed as the Incredibles...

Brian Hayles and Terrance Dicks (who heavily rewrote the last half) gave us an invasion of earth story that demonstrates the dangers of over -relying on technology with T-Mat, a sort of teleport/transporter that's instantaneous. As with the Ice Warriors first story, Hayles gives us the shouty commander (Radnor not Leader Clent), the ice maiden in charge (Miss Kelly instead of Miss Garrett) and the regressive scientist who's fallen out of favour (Eldred who's sticking to his rockets rather than TMat, as opposed to Penley who's discarded science altogether!) 

Because of the similarities, fans often compare and contrast the two stories declaring one better than the other. Like many fans, I've been fascinated by the recent Doctor surveys in DWM. In the various polls they've run over the years, Seeds has been steadfastly midtable while the Ice Warriors seems to have fallen from grace going from 7th in the 1998 poll, to 15th in this year's, two places below Seeds.

That's the fickleness of fandom I guess, but when the 1998 poll was done, the Ice Warriors had yet to be released commercially (it released a few months after the survey results had been published.)

One character that doesn't have an equivalent in the Ice Warriors is Fewsham, a rather pathetic character who sides with the Martians simply because he's seen what they can do and he wants to live. The series, especially the modern era has always had an ethos of try to be brave, and do your best. Occasionally, you have a character who doesn't and they usually end up dead. That's what happens to Fewsham but he dies giving away vital information about the Ice Warriors plans and he is killed by Slaar for his betrayal. It's quite a powerful moment in what is essentially a runaround battle against the monsters episode. 

But is this the only Doctor Who adventure where the villains' plans are defeated by rain? As plot twists go, it's quite novel and sadly overlooked by the plot device of the Doctor zapping Ice Warriors with what's basically a gun. There are some silly bits such as the wimpy weather control guy who's OTT panicking is exactly what non fans think hiw everyone acts on Doctor Who,. There's also the ships wheel control of the temperature gauge on the moon base and the fact that at 50°C, everyone would be fainting in the heat, not just the Ice Warriors. 

Despite the simplicity of the plot (or maybe because of its simplicity!) Seeds has always been one of my favourite Troughton adventures, the Doctor Who equivalent of a favourite old jumper, mainly because it was the first that I could rewatch (and boy, did I rewatch it!) However the episodic version on DVD scrubbed up nicely so we can see Michael Ferguson's inventive direction clearly, including one of my favourite sequences, the wonderful chase in episode three. The three regulars are wonderful together, I love the look of disdain from Zoe when she asks Jamie if he can switch off a button on the rocket especially. Some fans say the show was running out of steam at that time, but I think that's utter nonsense and a reason why this is in my Top 60!

Next Time : It's not always about saving the World!