A nugget of purest green...

Introduction

It's double dip time again.

The BBC have re-released another Doctor Who DVD, colloquially known as "the Welsh one with the big maggots" or "the one where Jo Grant leaves".



The Green Death was the third Doctor Who story to be released on DVD in 2004, the final story from season 10 of the show. It has returned in 2013 in Special Edition form. It`s the last story to feature assistant Jo Grant (Katy Manning), who had been with the Doctor since the season 8 opener "Terror of the Autons". She was replaced by Sarah-Jane Smith, who stays with the Doctor through his regeneration, and all the way to season 14`s "The Hand of Fear".

Another Earth-based story, this time in South Wales (these were the days before Doctor Who was made in Wales). The suspicious death of a miner at the inactive local pit owned by the mysterious Global Chemicals brings UNIT to sleepy Llanfairfach. There, a local green group - the Wholeweal Community under the leadership of the brilliant Professor Jones - are not convinced of Global`s innocence in the affair. Could the waste products from their revolutionary new oil refining process be at fault? Jones is convinced but the Doctor is not so sure. A dangerous expedition down the mine confirms his fears.



Inside the mine thousands of giant maggots lie gestating - a dangerously unknown terror waiting to be unleashed upon the world. But by whom? Just who is the power behind Global Chemicals? Who or what is the Boss? And what are his/its plans for the Earth? The Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier must move quickly to find the answers, for the death toll is already rising and the gestation period of the maggots down the mine is coming to an end.

Video

This story is 40 years old, so you might be forgiven for thinking that it will look like a 40 year old programme. And that`s almost entirely true. There are one or two good sets, but also some very unconvincing ones. There`s quite a lot of location work, which looks authentic enough, but unfortunately not all of the location work got shot, so you also get some studio work superimposed on the location shots, and this looks utterly fake. Some very early and bad CSO is to blame here.



And then we get to the maggots. Oh dear. They`re not scary, they`re not convincing, and the scene where the Doctor & Jo pilot an old mining cart through the middle of the maggot colony is utterly laughable. There`s much hilarity on the commentary track at this point. And don`t mention the giant fly, it`s awful.

However, the video quality itself is great given the age of the story. This is another story that has been cleaned up by the Doctor Who Restoration Team, and a fantastic job has been done as ever. It probably looks better now than it did when first broadcast.

Audio

A DD2.0 track is presented here, though it is just a mono track played through both channels. As with the picture, it`s good considering its age, and it has been cleaned up and tidied up. The soundtrack is a bit less stereotyped than some of the earlier Pertwee stories too.

Watch out for lots of Welsh accents and apparently lazy stereotypes, although the commentators (including Katy Manning who is half Welsh) have a bit of a debate about just how stereotyped some of them are.

Features

The original release was specified by the BBC to be a single disc release, so with six episodes crammed on, there wasn't lots of room for extras. This time round we get two discs, with all bar the commentaries moved to disc two.

First up we get a commentary track from actress Katy Manning, producer (and co-writer) Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks. This gives us three different views of the story. They all have plenty to say, and recall memories of locations and other cast members. Katy Manning is the entertainer, lapsing into impressions and amusing anecdotes, but also falling into an annoying childish voice all too often. She also lapses into Australian now and again, a product of having lived there for so long. A very interesting commentary despite the childish voice.



As with previous releases, there`s another commentary track which is the subtitle commentary option, which brings up production notes throughout each episode. Plenty of useful information is contained here, and lots of good bits of trivia, including a revelation about who was supposed to play Sarah Jane Smith.

New to this set is a bonus commentary track on episodes 3-5 featuring Colin Mapson (visual effects), Richard Franklin (Captain Yates) and Mitzi McKenzie (Nancy), moderated by Toby Hadoke. Finally for epsiode 6, Katy Manning and Russell T Davies provide a new commentary, which is full of their love for this show.



Also from the original release is "Global Conspiracy?" - a twelve minute spoof documentary about the mysterious events that occurred in Llanfairfach in 1973. Written and presented by long time fan and League of Gentleman star Mark Gattiss, it`s very funny and well worth watching.

There are also three separate interviews with actor Stewart Bevan, writer Robert Sloman and visual effects assistant, Colin Mapson. These all offer different perspectives and memories of the show.



There are also a couple of clips from Wales Today, whilst the Picture Gallery gives 4 minutes of photographs, and there are also a few easy to find easter eggs.

“Doctor Forever: The Unquiet Dead” is another entry in the series that is now accompanying the DVD releases. This is a good look into everything that went into the return of the show in 2005, and features all the main protagonists, apart from Mr Eccleston.



“What Katy Did Next” is a collection of short clips from Katy Manning’s arts and crafts series called "Serendipity". It's seventies-tastic!

Finally, there is the two-part story Death of the Doctor, filmed in 2010 for The Sarah Jane Adventures, where Katy Manning makes another appearance as Jo Grant, alongside the now sadly-departed Elisabeth Sladen. This is also available with commentary from Katy Manning and Russell T Davies, where they reminisce about Doctor Who, Elisabeth Sladen, and making this particular story.

Conclusion

Another excellent Doctor Who DVD from the BBC. As usual, picture and sound are as good as they possibly could be, and there are loads of quality extras including all those featured on the original release, and lots of new extras which really make it worth the upgrade from the original release.



The Green Death doesn`t always hold up as a story, and the very unconvincing maggots (and the subsequent fly) are a bit of a distraction which do spoil matters for me. It would have been nice if some new CGI could have been inserted as has been done with other stories, but budgets are tight. The story is rather typical of Jon Pertwee`s earthbound Doctor, but there are some interesting themes and threads buried in there (a fungus as a replacement for meat, anti-globalisation protests). However, it comes down to some unconvincing villains and some unconvincing monsters - in this case some terrible giant maggots (and a rubbish giant fly). There are some touching moments when Jo Grant leaves at the end of the story (and it caused Katy Manning to cry during the commentary), but at the end of the day it`s rather an average story for my liking.



This DVD is a chance to see a favourite programme looking and sounding better than ever, with even more great bonus features than before and an enjoyable pair of commentary tracks full of trivia for fans of the show. Definitely recommended if you enjoyed this story, more casual fans might want to check out other releases as a staring place for "classic Who".