Doctor Who: The Seeds of Doom (parts one and two)

Lots of little things help us suspend disbelief in television, and one of them is that the protagonist and his antagonists need to be participating in the same balancing act. Here’s an illustration: there have been all sorts of westerns at all levels of melodrama. Marshal Dillon from Gunsmoke needs a certain type of villain who plays by the rules of his world’s narrative, and Bret Maverick needs a different type of villain for his, and the Man With No Name needs another one for his. If you break those rules and give one of those heroes a villain who plays the game a different way, the narrative will jar. It’s not only the mix in appropriate acting styles for the production, the whole world will seem off.

That’s what happens when the Doctor meets Scorby, a henchman played by John Challis. You’ll occasionally find critiques of “The Seeds of Doom” that say it feels wrong. That’s because Scorby has wandered in from an entirely different program. The Doctor has met “ruthless” characters before, but they’re Doctor Who ruthless. The Doctor disarms them with witty banter and makes them respond with television tough-guy language like “Have a care, Doctor!” Even while that ruthless henchman is pointing a gun at him, the Doctor is the hero who’s still in charge waiting for the last minute rescue. (Think Mailer back in “The Mind of Evil” for a good example.) This is the Doctor’s show, and these are the rules of this world.

But Scorby doesn’t play by those rules. The Doctor quips and jokes in the face of death and it doesn’t work. Scorby might have come from The Sweeney, where a hero figure like the Doctor wouldn’t be any more successful than DI Regan would have been at foiling any phase of the Kraals’ invasion. And since Scorby has the upper hand, he ignores all the Doctor’s tricks and leaves with Sarah – not as a hostage, just to kill her after she leads him to another point in the plot – and the Doctor, helpless and desperate, is reduced to screaming after him. It’s an amazing moment, but anybody who says the show feels “wrong” is quite correct. I think this is the reason why.

Anyway, our son remembered that an earlier story was called “The Seeds of Death,” and he decided, in his inimical fashion, that the two stories would be very similar, except the first one would have more death and less doom, and this one would have more doom and less death. He’s actually right, because the tone of the two productions couldn’t be more different. Tom Baker is playing the Doctor as genuinely scared for the first time, and the whole thing, even with the horrible plant-man stomping around an Antarctic research base, feels doom-laden, but it won’t have quite the body count of the Patrick Troughton story.

“The Seeds of Doom,” written by Robert Banks Stewart, is another one with a great reputation for scaring younger viewers, but fortunately ours is actually young enough to not really be bothered by the body horror aspect of it. Nor was he concerned by the exceptionally grisly suggestion in part one that a character’s arm might have to be amputated. Actually, the really grisly aspect was convincing a character that he has no choice but to perform that surgery, but that’s more frightening to adults! Both cliffhangers had him hiding, but these are more traditional monster scares.

Once again, and sadly for the final time, the direction and the music are from the dream team of Douglas Camfield and Geoffrey Burgon. In the role of master villain Harrison Chase, whom the Doctor has yet to meet, it’s the great Tony Beckley, who had played Camp Freddie in The Italian Job, which is probably another reason why I should show that fun film to our son when he’s a little older!