 So, free will is not an illusion after all. |
| Review Date: October 21, 2001 |
| Reviewer: Daniel J. Hamlow, Narita, Japan |
| The last story of the Doctor's seventh season is the 7-part Inferno, one the best in the show's history. At a research facility, the Doctor is observing the efforts of the arrogant and unpleasant Professor Stahlman as he attempts to penetrate the Earth's crust in order to gain alternative energy source known as Stahlman's gas. The problem is, his efforts might lead to the destruction of the Earth, but it's all about him and forget the others, including Sir Keith Gold, the administrator in charge. Then there's a greenish ooze that when touched, causes people to turn green and into murderous ape-like Primords, and radiate such intense heat that whatever they touch feels as if it came from a furnace. That is what the Brigadier and UNIT are here for. All this time, penetration zero is hours away from happening, and to make matters worse, Stahlman is infected with the ooze and also sabotages the computer so he cannot be opposed by the Doctor, UNIT, or Sir Keith. During an experiment, the Doctor is propelled into a parallel Earth where Britain is ruled by a bureaucratic and fascist dictatorship: "Proper bureaucrat, aren't you? Can't shoot me unless you fill in all the forms?" He is horrified to see his friends Liz, Benton, and the Brigadier in Nazi-type uniforms, and far from the pleasant people he knew on his Earth. The most striking effect is the Brigadier, here the Brigade Leader, sans mustache, with a black patch over his left eye, a scar running down his left cheek. The Stahlman of that world succeeds in penetrating the Earth's crust, which eventually causes the planet's destruction. It is up to the Doctor to return to his Earth to avert such a disaster from happening. As he tells the parallel Earthlings, "compared to the forces that you've unleashed, an atomic blast would be like a summer breeze." Episode 5 is the most sobering one. The facility starts blowing up, green stuff oozes from the output pipe like a sore, and the fully metamorphosed Primords appear. They are frightening at times, goofy-looking the next, but when they touch someone, that someone becomes one of them, like the parallel Benton The chaos near the end of Episode 6 are also sobering. The atmosphere is tinted red, people are fleeing in terror or are dazed. And the rivers of molten lava starts flowing. Inferno indeed! Some of the cliffhangers are effective here. The one for Episode 4 has Stahlman pointing a gun at the Doctor while the countdown voice goes "5, 4, 3, 2, 1..." and then, end credits. The music is eerie and weirdly space-like, and that gives the story its ominous and gripping edge. All the regulars are terrific here, but Nicholas Courtney gets extra applause for playing the level-headed Brigadier and the vicious and cowardly Brigade Leader. Derek Newark as the authority-flouting Aussie consultant Sutton is particularly splendid, and Olaf Pooley pulls an extra-effective effort at making Professor Stahlman so petty, crazed, and dangerous. Incidentally, Sheila Dunn, who plays Petra Williams, is the wife of Douglas Camfield, who directed this masterpiece. 7-part episodes were abandoned because of their overlength, but it works for Inferno, mainly because of the story. Inferno warns of the dangerously obsessive egomaniacs like Stahlman and also of the terror of nuclear power, of abusing Mother Earth itself. But the story brings hope. When the Doctor learns that Sir Keith survived an auto crash instead of being killed like he was in the fascist Earth, he realizes, "so not everything runs parallel. An infinity of universes, ergo an infinite number of choices. So, free will is not an illusion after all. The pattern can be changed." I'm hoping that's what Nostradamus' prophecies of World War III are-a prediction for a parallel Earth that foolishly and tragically destroyed itself. Well, I hope it's not the fate of this Earth. With our free will, we can prevent that from happening. |
"Free will is not an illusion after all!"
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| Review Date: January 14, 2000 |
| Reviewer: Brian May, Australia |
| This could possibly be the best Dr Who story ever made. It's a compelling, disturbing and very human tale that, although 7 episodes long, never drags (in fact, it seems very rushed). The performances are all topline, the direction by Douglas Camfield superb and the music and sound effects very jarring. The parallel Earth scenes, in which England is run by a fascist government (a "what if the Nazis won" scenario), have a depressing, sterile, Orwellian feel; all the central characters have two roles, their "normal" selves and their parallel personas give them all added depth. Top marks to the Nicholas Courtney as the Brigade Leader. Small touches, such as certain pieces of conversational dialogue played out twice, once in the normal Earth and once in the parallel world, make a substantial impact on the viewer. The Doctor being placed in a situation where he cannot save the Earth (or one Earth) is quite haunting when you consider that "saving the day" becomes predictable to the point of cliche. At the end of the story you can't help feeling emotionally drained; the deaths of well defined characters and their parallel selves surviving plays with your feelings, making you both mourn and rejoice. Like the case with much of Dr Who, the monsters are not often well realised. The Primords have their moments, but just try not to think of the Bee Gees when they start rampaging in the later episodes! Best moments - the cliff hanger to episode 4 and the "doomsday" sequences at the end of episode 6. This is must own Dr Who! |
YOU REALLY DO LOOK BETTER WITH YOUR MOUSTACHE!!!
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| Review Date: June 18, 2006 |
| Reviewer: Kevin J. Loria, New Orleans, LA USA |
UNLESS WE ACT NOW THERE'S GOING TO BE THE MOST TERRIBLE DISASTER IMAGINABLE...I'VE SEEN IT HAPPEN!
JUMPING JEHOSOPHAT! Imagine a sci-fi story with twice the potential for world armageddon, and that's what you have in INFERNO, a 7 part Dr. Who serial from Jon Pertwee's run as the interfering Timelord. Usually the story arcs longer than 4 parts, suffer from attempts to stretch out the episodes with padding and material that neither advances the story nor does it serve any real purpose. INFERNO, I'm happy to say is not one of those stories.
The top-secret drilling project called "Inferno", is intended to penetrate the Earth's crust and release limitless energy for the world. Hungry for success the "powers that be " ignore warnings about the possible dangers of the project, some warnings coming from the Doctor, currently in his 3rd incarnation and exiled by his people, the Timelords,to Earth of the 20th century. While the Doctor still hopes to escape the confines of one planet, one time, by borrowing some of the power from the "Inferno" project. As unpaid scientific adviser to the paramilitary organization UNIT, or the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, he is frequently in the position to help them save the human race, most often from themselves. Although this is one time he only half-succeeds in averting world destruction. While the project proceeds in its attempt to drill over 20 miles through the Earth's crust, to tap the gas beneath it, a series of events begin leading to the end of the world, maybe two. A technician's contact with an enigmatic subterranean ooze, followed by a motiveless murder and a madman on the loose are mere opening clues for the Doctor, his brilliant assistant Liz Shaw and the project's head of security and UNIT's CO the Brigadier, to solve the unfolding mystery. But the Doctor's own agenda has him distracted: he is testing the console from the TARDIS (his immobilized time/space ship).
More attacks occur involving the altered technician, through some "retrogressive mutation" he and anyone he's touched suffer a transformation into animal-things. More of the ooze is discovered from the drilling outpipe, at first the substance defies analysis, while the project head, Prof. Stahlman conceals that he has touched it. He continues to ignore all warnings to stop drilling, those from both the Doctor and the computer, the later which he sabotages himself. Becoming increasingly obsessive as he regresses further, he orders the Doctor's power supply cut-off at a critical juncture in his experiments with the TARDIS console. This caused the Doctor to travel "sideways in the time/space continuum" to a parallel universe. He's on earth right when and where he was but things are a bit askew, UNIT is not longer managing security, replaced by RSF (the Republican Security Forces), the Brigadier is now the eye-patched and mustacheless Brigade-Leader (scars and facial hair are always major factors in reality shifts), Liz is now Section Leader Shaw. As it happens the project is marginally more advanced than the Doctor's universe, Prof. Stalman is just as dangerously obsessed and infected, but the Doctor never existed, so he is promptly thought a spy, a saboteur, arrested and tossed in a cell with an infected technician. After the Doctor escapes, he tries again to stop the countdown, but it is too late Prof. Stalman is to far gone and others don't believe him until it is too late, as the Doctor puts it, "Listen to that, it's the sound of this planet screaming out its rage!...Compared to the forces you've unleashed, an Atomic blast would be like a summer breeze!"
What is always Dr. Who at it's most frightening is when the Doctor, the ever-present voice of optimism and internal hope ...when the Doctor gives up. That is when Dr. Who is just plain spooky. The Doctor says: "Sorry, we're past the point of no return, you've uncorked the genie from the bottle and there's nothing I can do." The parallel players consign themselves to try to help the Doctor to escape. Seriously, that's it, they begin hoping against hope that they just might be able to send him off alone on the off chance that his Earth might avoid the same catastrophic blunder (except for the Brigadier's counterpart, who hopes to force the Doctor into using the TARDIS as a interdimensional lifeboat).
INFERNO really is one of the best that Jon Pertwee's era has to offer. Thankfully BBC video has taken this opportunity to really clean up the footage (most color originals of Inferno were listed among the BBC fire causualties, the American reruns most of us saw in the 80's were all shaky BLACK & WHITE back-up reels, AND WE WERE THANKFUL FOR IT!).
INFERNO'S length allow for a greater development of character and relationships that serve the dual roles of the major and minor players, while confirming their natures by contrasting them (like the hot/cold between the crass but brave, in any universe, Drilling Consultant SUTTON and the all-business Assistant Director Dr. PETRA WILLIAMS.
Like the Doctor says, "Fascinating, so many similarities, yet so many differences."
The Liz Shaw and the Brigadier of "Universe B" are really just versions of themselves behaving as they would in a world dominated by fascism, but no one is "evil" in this story. Even Project Director Prof. Stahlman, the man whom which this disaster(s) would not be possible without, is merely obsessive and arrogant, then out of his mind, but even the monsters aren't evil, just kind of "hot & bothered."
Robert A. Heinlein author of "STRANGER in a STRANGE LAND" and the universe-shifting novel "JOB: A COMEDY OF JUSTICE" cites H.G. WELLS as having invented all of the basic fantasy themes, including the parallel universe, specifically: MEN LIKE GODS. Of course, the Sci-Fi channels loaded with them, including spoofs in Futurama, and just this year (probably the BBC's real motivation behind this release) the brilliant second season of the new Dr. Who features the 2 parter "AGE of STEEL/RISE of the CYBERMEN" in which the Cybermen are reborn (or rebuilt) on an alternate Earth. My point is INFERNO is a good story in good company, but not without it's clichés & faults.
The monsters in this one are alittle on the poor side of Lon Chaney and the Doctor, literially defeats the same ones over and over again, but I recommend adding this DVD to your Dr. Who collection.
One of my favorite experiences linked w/ DW is gathering w/ friends to watch, debate & other nefarious purposes.... So here is some INFERNO clichés for drinking games. Drink when:
--Someone is accused of traitorous talk/ behavior or sabotage
--The Doctor drives "Bessie" seemingly w/out purpose
--You see possible stock footage (of molten materials)
--The universe changes P.O.V. to an alternate one
--The Doctor calls authoritarian figures rude names
--You experience any feeling of Déjà vu (in any universe)
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(very likely) the Best Doctor Who story ever! It doesn't get any better than this!!!!
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| Review Date: November 6, 2005 |
| Reviewer: Neburo, |
It's been a while since I saw this, but I thought it would be blasphemous if I didn't have a review on this amazing story!!!
It's such a chilling story about an insane (not mad!) scientest at a lab drilling the earths crust to supply more energy resources for the country. And something starts going horribly wrong when the green slime reaches the surface in one of the rooms of the lab headquarters when one of the easy-going technicians touches (yuck!) the green slime -- and turn into a extremely vicious and wild creature -- very similar in appearnace to the Incredible Hulk -- except in this story this heaps of them!
While, in a shed at the complex, the doctor experiments with his tardis consul, and in he experiments and then instructs Liz to put the power on, gets zapped and has quite a mind-splitting experience until Liz turns the power off! To cut it short, he ends up in the parrallel universe where they encounter similar problems with men also turning into "hulk men" and bad tempered pompous, stuburn (to say the least) scientest like Stahlman -- I am happy I still remember his name. :) But it's all quite scary as Britain is a republic and is controlled in a nazi-style resume much similar to the 3rd Reich! I can't tell you much more because it would spoil this quite superb story that is so original, inspiring, scary to watch! I was at the end of my seat with this story, with a great cast of actors. The Brigadier did a marvellous job as pseudo-Hitler, Olaf Pooley (Stahlman) is so hated in this real -- you really want to punch him in the face, but is very realistic quite reminiscent of real life with how demanding bosses are in the workplace getting you to do impossible things -- even if what you are doing is destroying the earth! Caroline John (Liz Shaw) was great -- she should have won the award for her 2 part role. Very likely actor as she has to put with everybody and won't listen to her because of her association with the so-called insane "Doctor." She really does look quite an intelligent woman and this is her best story. This would more than likely be the best Doctor Who story I've seen!
I would recommend this story to anyone who loves the show. Even to Tom Baker-only people as well and beg and plead to them to watch this insanely brillant 7-part epic! If you could tell those people to watch one story that's not Tom's -- this is the way to go. But in reality, Tom Baker was somewhat similar to Jon. The only major difference was Tom was brought the jokey, humorous role to the show.
IT MUST COME ON DVD SOON!!!!!!!!! HURRY UP PEOPLE!!!!!!!! |
"Listen to that! It's the sound of the planet screaming out its rage!"
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| Review Date: February 14, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Crazy Fox, Chicago, IL USA |
No Daleks, no Cybermen, and "Inferno" is still a prime example of "Doctor Who" at its best, combining an intelligently speculative science-fiction storyline with suspense, action, and a bit of horror. The storyline itself succeeds admirably at the daunting task of interweaving three rather different concepts: the drilling deep through the Earth's crust in search of cheap energy sources, driven by shortsightedness and scientific hubris and ultimately threatening the stability of the planet; accidental displacement into an alternate, parallel timeline, one in which history has run along a recognizably similar but ultimately different track (one in which England is a fascist, 1984-like society); and the retrogressive mutation of people into green, super-strong, savage monsters (admittedly the weakest link of the three, but serving a role to the story as a tangible threat, in any case). And underlying these disparate strands and unifying them is a timely ecological theme handled with judicious, understated subtlety.
Everything else falls into place, too. There are some thrilling action sequences (something we hadn't seen a lot of in "Doctor Who" before), with Jon Pertwee doing many of his own stunts a la Jackie Chan and a fine, professional stunt team handling much of the rough stuff. Jon Pertwee is in top form anyway as the swashbuckling, anti-authoritarian third Doctor, and the acting by the rest of the cast is absolutely top-notch--with some of the series regulars playing their alternate, fascist selves very convincingly. There are inspired bits of dialogue throughout, too. The Primords look a bit funny in their wolfish final form, but the special effects have for the most part held up pretty well (which is saying a lot for a 1970 BBC production). Plus we're treated to fine demonstrations of Venusian karate. What more could you ask for from an earth-shattering classic? |
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