DOCTOR WHO:  THE SEEDS OF DOOM

Commentary by Judy Harris

visit my home page at http://judyharris.net/index.htm

or E-mail me at foosie@bestweb.net

index of all Tom Baker WHO stories:  http://judyharris.net/whoindex.htm

#11:  SEEDS OF DOOM (6 Parts)	
ORIGINALLY AIRED:  1/31/76 to 3/6/76
WRITTEN BY:  Robert Banks Stewart	
DIRECTED BY:  Douglas Camfield
PRODUCER:  Philip Hinchcliffe		
SCRIPT EDITOR:  Robert Holmes
	

In the Antarctic, in the 9th layer of the permafrost, a scientific expedition discovers a pod the size of a coconut, which has been buried 20,000 years. They bring it back to their base camp and transmit pictures of it to London. Dunbar, of the World Ecology Bureau, shows the pictures to the Doctor, in his capacity as UNIT scientific adviser. SEEDS OF DOOM is the last UNIT story although, as mentioned in THE ANDROID INVASION, since there are no familiar faces, it hardly seems like UNIT at all.

The Doctor recognizes the pod as a Krynoid and worries "it might still be ticking" like a time bomb. He asks Dunbar to pass the word not to touch the pod; and says he's ready to leave for the Antarctic immediately. Why not? He has his toothbrush with him already.

Dunbar takes the pictures of the Krynoid to the home of Harrison Chase, an eccentric millionaire whose passion is plants. Chase lives on an enormous, old estate with elaborate gardens. He dresses impeccably and always wears thin leather gloves, even indoors.

Dunbar offers to steal the pod for a price, but instead Chase sends Scorby, a thug, and Keeler, a botanist to the Antarctic.

At the base, the pod germinates, sending out a tendril which infects Winlett. Almost immediately, he begins to mutate. Weather conditions in the Antarctic are bad, delaying the arrival of a medical team to treat him.

The Doctor and Sarah arrive in a helicopter; Sarah wears a fur parka, hat and mittens, but the Doctor has only his usual outfit on. Moberley tells the Doctor he was expecting someone much older. The Doctor replies, "I'm only 749 - used to be even younger."

The Doctor examines Winlett; his entire body is covered with a green growth. He tells the two remaining scientists, Stevenson and Moberley, "It's more serious than death; he's changing form." When Stevenson, the botanist, admits he subjected the pod to heat and light, the Doctor tells him, "What you have done could result in the total destruction of all life on this planet."

Throughout this story, the Doctor is very tight lipped, edgy, and short tempered, shouting quite a bit and even hissing some of his lines; totally unlike his usual sunny disposition.

The Doctor goes to where the pod was found and locates a second one, telling Sarah and the others, "They travel in pairs, like policemen." They put the second pod in the freezer.

Moberley, who's a geologist, prepares a specimen slide of Winlett's blood. Instead of platelets, Winlett's blood sample is swimming with plant bacteria. The Doctor tells Sarah Winlett is halfway toward becoming a Krynoid, "a galactic weed, except it's deadlier than any weed you know. On most planets the animals eat the vegetation; on planets where the Krynoid gets established, the vegetation eats the animals."

Winlett's transformation into a Krynoid is almost complete; the Doctor recommends amputating his arm, since it's the source of the infection. While everyone leaves to get ready for this operation, Winlett rises up and strangles Moberley, then heads out into the storm.

Scorby and Keeler have arrived by plane, pretending to be lost. While the others are busy with Winlett, Scorby locates the base's rifle and disables it. He tells Keeler he plans to steal the pod and kill everyone. If Keeler won't go along, Scorby will kill him as well.

John Challis is totally convincing as the Cockney mercenary Scorby; he's got a chip on his shoulder from the first, and believably conveys below-the-surface violence ever ready to erupt. Although his role is not as flashy as the Krynoid nor as central as Chase, SEEDS OF DOOM wouldn't be as effective without Scorby.

Sarah finds Moberley's body; the Doctor tells her and Stevenson that Winlett's been taken over and is now an alien. Stevenson, Sarah and the Doctor go outside looking for the Krynoid.

Scorby and Keeler search for the pod, smashing the radio in the process. They find the germinated pod but continue to look for the plant which was inside it.

The Doctor tells Stevenson the Krynoid is lethal: "On any planet where the Krynoid gets established, all animal life is extinguished." The Doctor and Sarah return to base and Scorby pulls a gun on them. When Scorby tells the Doctor to turn around, he rotates in a complete circle. When Scorby orders him to start talking, the Doctor recites: "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had perfect pitch." The Doctor tells Scorby about the Krynoid, but Scorby doesn't believe him, and forces Keeler to tie up both the Doctor and Sarah.

Scorby asks, "Where's the plant that came out of the pod?" The Doctor can't resist adding, "...that grew in the bed that was part of the garden close to the house that Jack built."

Stevenson arrives and pulls his rifle on Scorby, but it's the one Scorby disarmed. Stevenson lets slip there's a second pod. Scorby threatens to shoot Sarah, so the Doctor tells him it's in the freezer.

Scorby leaves a reluctant Keeler to watch the Doctor and Sarah, while he forces Stevenson to lead him to the pod. "Don't worry, you're alright with us. We won't hurt you," the tied-up Doctor tells Keeler.

After packing up the pod, Scorby takes Sarah to the base's power plant, where he sets a time bomb and ties Sarah inside.

Using his head, the Doctor knocks a hurricane lamp to the floor. With Stevenson's help, he uses a piece of broken glass to cut the ropes binding them, just as Scorby and Keeler take off in their plane with the pod. The Doctor rushes out to look for Sarah, and the Krynoid rushes in and kills Stevenson.

The Doctor gets to the generator plant and unties Sarah. The Krynoid follows, preventing the Doctor from disarming the bomb. The Doctor locks the Krynoid inside and the bomb explodes, killing the Krynoid and blowing up the whole camp.

The next day a rescue party from South Bend finds Sarah in the snow; together they find the unconscious Doctor. He opens his eyes and smiles at her: "Good morning."

Keeler and Scorby return and give the pod to Chase. Dunbar arrives and berates Chase for the carnage in Antarctica, and also warns him the Doctor and Sarah are still alive.

The Doctor meets with Dunbar and Sir Colin Thackery at the World Ecology Bureau. He wonders how Keeler and Scorby even knew of the pod's existence; he suspects someone has leaked the information for money: "Greed, the most dangerous impulse in the universe."

The Doctor and Sarah take turns getting excited at the bureaucratic calmness they're met with. The Doctor, moving about and tossing chairs, exclaims: "Action, action, that's what we need. If we don't find that pod before it germinates, it will be the end of everything, everything, you understand, even your pension."

Dunbar orders a limousine to take the Doctor and Sarah to the Botanic Institute. The chauffeur drives them to a remote location and pulls a gun. He's in the employ of Chase, and this limousine is Chase's Daimler. The Doctor and Sarah manage to escape and knock him out.

They find a painting of a flower in the boot of the car. The artist is Amelia Ducat (pronounced by everyone except the Doctor with the final "T" silent), one of the world's leading flower artists, and apparently a dotty old lady. They go to see her to find out who owns the painting. She recalls it's Harrison Chase, who never paid her.

Sarah and the Doctor drive up to Chase's estate (played once again by Stargroves House in Berkshire) in Chase's Daimler. The Doctor puts on the chauffeur's cap to get past the gate, while Sarah hides on the front seat. They leave the car and try to get in the back door of the main house, brazening it out in front of two armed security guards. The Doctor tells Sarah to act natural, but then grabs his cap and runs; Sarah dashes after him. They race through the grounds right into Scorby, who is aiming a gun at them. "Get our hands up," the Doctor says, raising his hands.

Scorby brings the Doctor and Sarah to Chase. "How do you do," the Doctor tips his chauffeur's cap, "Have you met Miss Smith? She's my best friend." With Scorby pointing a gun at his head, the Doctor demands Chase hand over the pod.

Chase demurs; he's assembled the greatest collection of rare plants in the world inside his house. Chase enthuses, "When the pod flowers, I shall achieve the crowning glory of my life's work." The Doctor tries to take him down a peg: "Take care. I noticed a little greenfly here and there."

Chase gives the Doctor and Sarah a tour, during which the Doctor takes off his chauffeur disguise and puts on his own hat and coat. "Are we near the end?" the Doctor wonders aloud, "I do so hate guided tours."

In his greenhouse, Chase plays atonal music of his own composition to his plants: "The Hymn of the Plants" and "Floriana Requiem," dedicated to Carolus Linnaeus, a 16th century Swedish botanist who originated a system of classifying organisms in established categories. "The music's terrible," the Doctor tactlessly points out.

Chase has instructed Keeler to inject the pod with fixed nitrogen. Now Hargreaves the butler interrupts with a message from Keeler: the pod is growing. Scorby leads the Doctor and Sarah away, while Chase goes to the annex and orders Keeler to inject more fixed nitrogen.

The Doctor and Sarah give Scorby the slip. The Doctor plans to get a look at the pod. He finds some rope and ties it under Sarah's arms and then lowers her over a creeper-covered wall surrounding Chase's estate. Before Sarah can phone Sir Colin, she is captured in the woods by one of Chase's security guards.

The Doctor makes it back to the house. He climbs out a window onto a roof overlooking the skylight of the annex. Scorby brings Sarah there; Chase decides to use her to see what happens when the Krynoid touches human flesh.

The Doctor jumps through the skylight, grabs Sarah and leaves, locking everyone in. In the hubbub, the pod germinates, attaching itself to Keeler. He starts to mutate immediately; Chase is delighted.

The Doctor stashes Sarah in the garden and goes back for the pod but finds no one in the annex. Chase and Hargreaves take Keeler to a beautiful old thatched cottage on the grounds. Scorby recaptures the Doctor and takes him to the compost room, and demonstrates a machine which grinds organic matter into natural fertilizer. Scorby roughs up the Doctor a bit; then ties him up.

When the Doctor doesn't return, Sarah sets out to look for him. She goes to the cottage and discovers Keeler tied in bed. She hides when Hargreaves comes, bringing meat to Keeler.

Amelia Ducat shows up at the front gate, demanding the money Chase owes her. To get rid of her, he has her shown up to the house and writes a check for a thousand pounds, then has Scorby escort her out.

Chase puts the Doctor in the compost machine and sets it on automatic control; within 25 minutes, the Doctor will be pumped into the garden. When Hargreaves leaves Keeler, Sarah sneaks out behind him and heads back to the main house. She manages a quick word with Miss Ducat, who tells Sir Colin Thackery, waiting with Dunbar in a car outside the gates.

Dunbar confesses to Sir Colin his part in the pod theft and heads off to see Chase to try to set things right, as Keeler gets loose; he's almost all plant now.

Sarah discovers the Doctor in the compost room; she accidentally pushes the wrong button, which speeds up the machine before she gets him out and unties him. "Are you alright?" she asks? "Oh, Sarah," he replies, "it would have been such a waste!"

As Dunbar demands Chase abandon his research, Hargreaves bursts in to warn Chase that Keeler may be roaming the grounds.

The Doctor and Sarah search for the Krynoid. Scorby chases Dunbar, who runs into Keeler, now an 8 foot tall Krynoid. Dunbar falls and the Krynoid kills him. Scorby, Sarah, the Doctor and some security guards run into the cottage and barricade the door. The Doctor tells Scorby the Krynoid will become as large as St. Paul's Cathedral and then multiply a thousandfold until it takes over the Earth.  (It wasn't until I saw again as an adult THE CREEPING UNKNOWN also know as QUATERMASS XPERIMENT  (1954) that I realized this story bears a close resemblence to that Nigel Kneale plot).

A Krynoid shoot, which resembles a tentacle, breaks in but is repulsed. The Krynoid demands the Doctor come out and join it. Scorby is ready to turn the Doctor over to save his skin, but the Doctor talks him into making a molotov cocktail to distract the Krynoid while everyone slips away.

Sir Colin Thackery phones up UNIT. The Brig is still in Geneva, so he is passed along to Major Beresford.

By morning the Krynoid towers over the cottage. Scorby lobs his fire bomb and the Doctor dashes out. The Krynoid follows him, enabling the others to escape. The Doctor gets to Chase's Daimler and drives off to the World Ecology Bureau.

While Scorby boards up the ground floor windows at the main house, Chase goes out to take photos of the Krynoid.

At the World Ecology Bureau, Major Beresford refuses to mount a raid without evidence. Where is the Brig when we need him? The Doctor bustles in and tells Sir Colin and the Major: "Somehow the Krynoid can channel its power to other plants; all the vegetation on this planet is about to turn hostile." He reads them a report he picked up from Sir Colin's secretary of a number of people being strangled to death in their gardens, all within a one mile radius of Chase's estate.

The Doctor phones Sarah at Chase's house; but while they are speaking some vines creep up the roof and disconnect the phone lines. Then they smash the windows.

Chase has gone completely round the bend, lying on the lawn communing with nature, contemplating the impending "new world, silent and beautiful."

After the security guards run off, Hargreaves hears a shout from the garden. Sarah and Scorby investigate and find the body of a guard strangled by a vine. Chase addresses his plants in his "greenhouse cathedral;" he's in a trance and Scorby can't get through to him. The greenhouse plants attack Scorby, Sarah and Hargreaves.

The Doctor returns with Sgt. Henderson from UNIT, and the latest military defoliant, which they spray at the plants and rescue Sarah and Scorby. It's too late for Hargreaves, however. Chase also escapes, ranting.

The Doctor and the others barricade the greenhouse doors and remove all the plants from the lab because they're the eyes and ears of the Krynoid. Chase locks the Doctor and the others outside as the Krynoid looms over them.

UNIT arrives in force and fires at the Krynoid with a laser gun, distracting it, allowing the Doctor and the others to get back in the house by another door. They search the house for Chase, who gets into the lab and damages the radio link to UNIT.

The Krynoid is now as big as a cathedral, and is seen mainly in stop motion animation, perched on a miniature reproduction of Chase's enormous house, its tendrils waving like tentacles. It breaks a window in the lab and knocks a hole in the ceiling. Sgt. Henderson goes for more timber and is knocked out by Chase and fed into the compost grinding machine.

Scorby gets claustrophobic stuck in the house and dashes into the grounds, but is strangled by weeds and drowned. Surprisingly, the vegetation never seems to attack the UNIT soldiers, who are roaming freely around the grounds.

The Doctor repairs the radio and sends Sarah to search for Sgt. Henderson, because he needs Major Beresford's wavelength. Everyone seems to forget there's a maniac lurking in the house. Chase nabs Sarah.

The Doctor contacts Beresford without the wavelength and tells him there's only 15 minutes until the Krynoid reaches the point of primary germination, ejecting pods and dooming the Earth. He recommends aircraft attack using high explosives. This will destroy the house, so the Doctor and Sarah must quickly figure out a way to leave.

The Doctor goes looking for Sarah and finds Chase tying her up in the compost grinder. The Doctor fights with Chase, turns off the machine and rescues Sarah, but before he can untie her, Chase comes at him again. They fight in the machine; Chase is caught in the mechanism and mangled before the Doctor can save him. The Doctor unties Sarah.

The Doctor and Sarah try to leave but the doors are blocked by impenetrable plants. The Doctor loosens a hot water pipe, which gushes steam. He covers the steam with his hat until he gets to the door, and then uses it to force the plants back. Just as the Doctor and Sarah dash out of the house, the UNIT planes drop their bombs, destroying the Krynoid and the house.

Later, back at the World Ecology Bureau, Sir Colin tries to talk the Doctor, who is President of the Intergalactic Flora Society, into addressing the Royal Horticultural Society, but the Doctor tells him he's fully booked for the next two centuries.

The Doctor promises Sarah a holiday on Cassiopeia, so off they go in the TARDIS, which instead winds up in Antarctica. The Doctor isn't sure whether just the space or also the time controls have gone wrong. Sarah says, "You forgot to cancel the coordinate program, didn't you?" "Yes," the Doctor replies, "Have we been here before...?" Sarah completes his thought, "...Or are we yet to come?"

This cute ending is really a continuity error, because when the Doctor and Sarah arrived in the Antarctic in part #1, they came by helicopter, not TARDIS. SEEDS OF DOOM was meant to be a 6-part story, with the action entirely set on Chase's estate; however, this original script was cut back to a 4-parter; and then the 2-part prologue in Antarctica was added, so perhaps in an earlier draft, the Doctor and Sarah came to the Antarctic in the TARDIS, and no one caught this error, or else hoped no one would notice.

Writing in her posthumously-published autobiography (Aurum 2011), Elisabeth Sladen noted, "Tom and I came up with a few nice line adds that pepped things up a bit.  When Tom is told, at gunpoint, to turn around, I don't think anyone expected him to do a full 360-degree pirouette.  How John (Challis) kept a straight face in recording, I don't know."

"Introducing us all to Chase, Tom decided unilaterally that Sarah was 'my best friend'---completely unexpected, but it gave the scene a jab of emotion.  During our escape from the killer chauffeur, I ad libbed, 'Over here, cloth-eyes!'  It seemed a very 'Sarah' thing to say."

It was during a break on one of the unscheduled Saturday shoots for this story that Tom famously knocked on the door of a complete stranger to ask if they could watch the latest episode (ANDROID INVASION) on TV with the family.  And got away with it!

Lis also reports that the TARDIS prop fell down on her and Tom during the Antarctic sequence (shot in a quarry in Surrey), but the brunt of it fell on Tom, who was much taller than Lis.  "The odd time machine malfunction aside, I can honestly report that the whole SEEDS OF DOOM experience was a joy from start to finish."

Tony Beckley contributed enormously to the effectiveness of SEEDS OF DOOM with his chillingly believable, singleminded and ruthless Harrison Chase. He played similar cold blooded, crazed killers in two films, BEWARE THE BRETHREN (1972) and WHEN A STRANGER CALLS (1979). He died in 1980.  Writing in her posthumously-published autobiography (Aurum 2011), Elisabeth Sladen said, "Tony Beckley... was so prim and perfect, not to mention sinister with this black gloves and smart suits."

John Gleeson, who plays Charles Winlett, played a Thal Soldier in the previous Tom Baker story GENESIS OF THE DALEKS.

Hubert Rees, who plays John Stevenson, played the Chief Engineer in FURY FROM THE DEEP and Captain Ransome in THE WAR GAMES (both Troughton stories), and Hardy in the Pertwee story FRONTIER IN SPACE.

Ian Fairbairn, who plays Dr. Chester, played Bromley in the Pertwee story INFERNO; and Questa in THE MACRA TERROR and Gregory in THE INVASION, both Troughton stories.

Seymour Green, who plays Hargreaves, plays the Chamberlain in the Colin Baker story THE TWIN DILEMMA.

Alan Chuntz, who plays the Chauffeur, played a Guard in the Pertwee story THE GREEN DEATH, and a Guardian in a future Tom Baker story, STATE OF DECAY.

Harry Fielder, who plays a Guard, also plays a Guard in the future Tom Baker story THE ARMAGEDDON FACTOR.