| Production Code TTT
First Transmitted:
Crew
Plot Outline from Wikipedia The Welsh mining village of Llanfairfach has little initial interest for the Doctor, who prefers a challenging visit to the blue planet of Metebelis Three to a trip to South Wales. However, Jo Grant is keen to go to the village to meet the acclaimed environmentalist and Nobel Prize winner Professor Clifford Jones; while Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is intrigued enough by the death of a bright green miner to drive her down. The miner was found in a disused mine, and the main source of employment in the village is now the Global Chemicals plastics factory. Its boss, Stevens, promises prosperity for all, but Professor Jones and the other environmentalists at his “Nuthutch” are unconvinced. In light of the protests, Stevens accepts the Brigadier’s offer of additional security at his factory. Stevens is well connected and even enjoys Cabinet support for his factory and its new plastic production process. Jo is not impressed with the Brigadier’s siding with the corporate giant against the protestors and decides to venture down to the mine herself, accompanied by a friendly miner called Bert. One of the Global Chemicals employees cuts the lift cable and this imperils their journey and leaves them stranded in the mine. By this time the Doctor has reached the village, with just a blue crystal to show for his visit to Metebelis Three, and goes into the mine in search of Jo. She and Bert have found Dai Evans, one of the other miners, glowing bright green. It seems there is some serious pollution at work in the mine and head off to find a way out. Things get even worse when Bert finds a slick of green slime and touches it, he too seems to contract “the green death”. By the time the Doctor finds Dai, the miner is dead, and the Time Lord becomes very worried for Jo’s safety. He ventures in deeper and finds Jo and Bert near a vast lake of green slime filled with giant maggots. Back at Global Chemicals, Stevens is behaving very curiously. He is using strange headphones to listen to calming messages and when one of his employees, Fell, looks helpful to the environmentalists, he is somehow reconditioned with the same headphones and shortly afterward kills himself. Another staff member, Elgin, saves the Doctor and Jo from drowning in the green slime when he helps them out of a shaft that links the mine and the factory complex – proving the link between the two. The Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier end the day with a nourishing meal of fungus at the Nuthutch, but the frivolity is cut short when they hear Bert too has died. The Doctor has brought a maggot egg back from the mine and it hatches but the maggot escapes before any full analysis can be made of it. He is further infuriated when the Brigadier seals the mine with explosives and clears the area using UNIT troops. This fails and the maggots simply burrow through. At Global Chemicals events are taking an even more sinister turn. Mike Yates has been sent in undercover by the Brigadier and is contacted by the Doctor, who dons some improbable disguises to get through the gates and move freely. Having liased with Yates the Doctor learns that Stevens take his instructions from the top floor of the complex, and heads there to find out who is in charge. The BOSS, or Biomorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor, turns out to be a super-computer with its own meglomaniac personality. It runs the company, controls Stevens and other key staff members, and is responsible for the polluting chemical process. The Doctor rejects the brain-washing technique that Stevens, who now returns to BOSS, subjects him to – but Mike Yates is more susceptible and is converted into one of the computer’s slaves. After the Doctor escapes, Mike is sent to the Nutchutch to kill the Doctor. His conditioning is deep and only broken by the Doctor’s use of the blue crystal he brought from Metebelis Three. Jo has meanwhile alienated Cliff, with whom she is falling in love, by ruining one of his slides. Determined to make amends she heads to the sealed mine in search of a maggot to run some tests on. He works out the fungus she spilt on the slides is actually a curative and then sets off to stop her, but they are both caught in an RAF bombing raid intended to kill the maggots. Cliff is also infected with a maggot and begins to turn green – and all before he was able to share his knowledge of the cure. Fortunately the Doctor is able to replicate the tests and arrives at the same conclusion. He and Sergeant Benton drive around the slag heaps and the mine, liberally scattering the fungus which proves deadly to the maggots, and disposing of a deadly giant fly which attacks them. Luckily they get to Jo and Cliff in time and Professor Jones is given the antidote. The Doctor returns to Global Chemicals to confront BOSS. The computer plans to link up with others and effect a corporate takeover of the human race. However, Stevens, whose conditioning is partially broken by the Doctor using the crystal, tells him to get out while he triggers an explosion which destroys himself, the computer, and the company headquarters. The menace defeated, UNIT troops and environmentalists gather at the Nuthutch for a celebration made all the more special when Jo and Cliff announce they are getting engaged and then plan to travel the Amazon looking for a rare fungus. The Doctor offers his blessing and gives Jo the blue crystal as a present, but is evidently very upset by the situation and quietly slips away while the party is in full swing.
Analysis by Cuisle The Green Death is one of those seminal episodes from the ‘Golden
Age’ of Doctor Who. If you were old enough to have watched it,
this is one of the ones that sticks in your mind. And the bits everyone
remembers are much the same. The people with glowing green patches
on their skin that grows until they die, the maggots the size of a
puppy that spread the infection, the Doctor fighting a giant fly that
one of the maggots has pupated into.
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