PREVIOUS                                                                                  NEXT

Inferno

9TH MAY 1970 - 20TH JUNE 1970

(7 EPISODES)

Finally the crown jewel of Doctor Who’s seventh season comes to DVD, and once again the Restoration Team have outdone themselves. “Inferno” is presented as a lavish two-disc set, the first disc containing all seven episodes of the serial complete with commentary by Nicholas Courtney (the Brigadier), Barry Letts (Producer / Director), Terrance Dicks (Script Editor), John Levene (Sgt Benton) together with the customary (and wholly fantastic!) production subtitles. On DVD the serial itself looks superb – clearer and sharper than I am sure it was even on its original broadcast. The last of Doctor Who’s individual story title sequences really sets the scene for the grim tale that is to follow; the fire and the lava planting images of Armageddon in the mind of the viewer…

“48 hours closer to Doomsday…”

Like the rest of Doctor Who’s 1970 run, “Inferno” has a very adult feel. It is not adult in the sense that some of the 1990s Doctor Who novels were – there is no sexual content or anything like that – yet it does still have a more ‘grown up’ feel that some of the later

Pertwee serials lacked. Unlike “Doctor Who and the Silurians” and “The Ambassadors of Death” though, this serial really manages to sustain itself across the seven episodes. Essentially, “Inferno” is two narratives pieced together – the Doctor’s attempt to stop the dangerous Operation: Mole-Bore on the real Earth and his voyage to a parallel quantum reality where he witnesses the disastrous consequences of the completion of their slightly more efficient, slightly more advanced Operation: Mole-Bore.

Above: A contemporaneous Radio Times clipping

By this stage in the season, the Doctor and his UNIT companions had all settled into their roles well enough to be able to pull off a good old-fashioned Star Trek-style ‘miror universe’ story. The ‘warp 2’ universe is one of these wonderful “what if the Nazi’s won the war?” type worlds – very Orwellian. The clean-shaven, scar-faced Brigadier with that infamous eye patch; Liz with that daft wig; even Professor Stahlman, who is only introduced in episode

one of this story, is given a cleaner, sharper, fascist alter ego which works wonderfully. It is

a joy to watch the Doctor walk through this alternate reality working out who he can and who he cannot trust – there does not seem to be any real pattern; it is not a ‘mirror’ universe in

the strictest sense. For instance, in both universes Stahlman is bad; Sutton is the good, likeable, everyday bloke; and Petra is somewhere in the middle, yet in one universe the Brigadier is one of the most decent chaps one could ever hope to meet, and in the other he is his own antithesis! Wisely, the Doctor focuses on the alternate Liz and manages to bring out the good in her. Although her departure from the series was not planned, “Inferno” works out to be a nice little swansong (at least on television) for Liz Shaw as she is so integral to the story’s resolution in both realities.

Ironically though, “Inferno” is remembered most fondly for the ‘parallel universe’ element of the story, and in fact this was only introduced into the story late at the request of Terrance Dicks. Don Houghton’s original script was entirely Earthbound, and whilst I can see how it would have made an entertaining story itself – the Doctor / Stahman banter could have

easily carried a few episodes on its own - I doubt it would have been half the story that “Inferno” actually turned out to be.

My only real gripe with “Inferno” is that considering they had seven episodes to tell their

story, the ending still manages to feel rushed. From the superb, apocalyptic episode six cliffhanger onwards, the story rattles along at such a frenetic pace you cannot help but feel a little cheated when things are quickly and neatly tied up in our universe. Nevertheless, you still cannot help but unreservedly love the closing few minutes of the last episode. Believing that he has fixed the TARDIS console (which presumably, the Doctor was going to go gallivanting about on without the need for the rest of the ship) the Doctor finally loses his rag with the Brigadier, calls him a “pompous self-opinionated idiot” then dematerialises… only to come crawling back about a minute later covered in garbage, and asking for the Brigadier’s help in moving the console out of the rubbish tip next door! Sheer poetry.

“Nothing like a happy ending is there?”

The second disc contains the bulk of the special features, including the 35-minute showcase documentary “Can You Hear The Earth Scream?” which documents the rather troubled making of “Inferno.” It is produced with the same panache as the rest of the documentaries

in the DVD collection, and covers practically everything about the making of the story including Levene (in his first big, colour part) being taught how to salute like a soldier!

The other main bonus feature, “The Unit Family, Part I” is a wonderful little featurette that covers every UNIT story in quite a bit of detail from “The Web of Fear” in season five right up until “Inferno” at the end of season seven. Whether further ‘parts’ will be produced for each individual season or even for each UNIT era remains to be seen, but either way I am looking forward to further instalments.

The rest of the extras may not be mind-blowing but they comprise a completists dream. There is a deleted scene featuring Pertwee voicing a radio announcer that was deleted because his voice was too recognisable, a visual effects promo film that personally I was

not all that interested in, and a clip from the old Pertwee Years VHS which I appreciated as that particular video was lost to eBay a while ago now!

Believe it or not, I sat through both discs of "Inferno" in more or less one sitting and it held

my attention throughout. It is nice to see the BBC actually releasing some of the titles fans constantly pester them for, and the timing of this release also ties in nicely with the airing of the new series' parallel universe story, “Rise of the Cybermen.” Those marketing boys have certainly got their heads switched on.

On a final note, it was nice to see that recently on Totally Doctor Who a kid named Pertwee as being his favourite Doctor. It just goes to show that the new series is drawing children to the classic series, and if the DVD releases continue to be the calibre of “Genesis of the Daleks” and “Inferno”, then the popularity of Doctor Who – old and new – is only going to grow and grow.

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2006

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Unless otherwise stated, all images on this site are copyrighted to the BBC and are used solely for promotional purposes.

‘Doctor Who’ is copyright © by the BBC. No copyright infringement is intended.