6x05. The Seeds of Death
Writer: Brian Hayles
Director: Michael Ferguson
Script Editor: Terrance Dicks
Producer: Peter Bryant
Synopsis: The Ice Warriors
preface an attack on 21st century Earth by taking over a lunar base
which oversees the use of the T-Mat, a method of instant teleportation
by which all major supply operations are now conducted. The Doctor,
Jamie, and Zoe become involved after arriving on Earth to find the
world on the brink of mass starvation due to the disruption of the
T-Mat. After this crisis is averted, the Ice Warriors use the T-Mat to
distribute lethal fungus spores around the world to pave the way for
their takeover.
Review: If "The Seeds of
Death" were a movie, I'd say it fell prey to sequel syndrome. It
features the same villains and some of the same themes as "The Ice
Warriors," but it has a somewhat routine, lackluster feel, not to
mention a couple of plot points that require enormous suspension of
disbelief.
Both serials seem to share a view of scientists as understandably
chafing under excessive bureaucracy and regulation, but also possessed
of a stubborn streak that sometimes verges on irresponsibility. This
was true of Penley in"The Ice Warriors," and it's true of Daniel Eldred
this time around. He laments that, since the invention of the T-Mat,
there has been a loss of interest in real space exploration, and the
government eventually stopped funding his research into rocketry. The
Doctor, himself a scientist and an explorer, instinctively relates to
Eldred, and their early interactions nicely emphasize their shared
intellectual curiosity. When Commander Radnor wants to use the rocket
which Eldred has been developing secretly to send a mission to the moon
and repair the T-Mat, Eldred refuses: the rocket is not yet 100% ready,
only he could handle all the contingencies of a flight, and at this age
he's too old. Eldred's reaction, however, comes off as more irrational
and foolish than Penley's similar refusal to work for Clent in "The Ice
Warriors." Penley had at least tried to work within the confines set by
Clent's rules and his reliance on the computer, and the team had proven
at least somewhat able to carry on without him. Eldred, unless he is
completely out of touch with human society, knows very well that mass
starvation and social chaos will erupt if the T-Mat is not repaired,
and while he does eventually relent, this knee-jerk reaction undercuts
whatever likeability he earns from his preceding scenes with the Doctor.
It doesn't help, of course, that this situation relies on an incredibly
dubious premise. Not only has the human race abandoned the use of
spacecraft altogether, but evidently no one has even built a backup
T-Mat system -- this despite the fact that the entire world's food
supply is dependent upon the proper functioning of the T-Mat. I suppose
one could argue that this is picking up on the theme of scientific
arrogance and overreaching from "The Ice Warriors," but it seems more
likely to me that it's just lazy writing and that this theme arises
mostly by accident. Showing an equal lack of foresight are the Ice
Warriors themselves, who apparently did absolutely nothing in the way
of reconaissance or intelligence-gathering before launching this
invasion. Because if they had, then presumably they would have
discovered that (a) Earth is mostly composed of water and is inhabited
by people who can control the weather, and therefore attacking with a
bioweapon that can be destroyed by water is probably a bad idea; and
(b) destroying the T-Mat would have seemingly starved out the
population, and simply taking over the T-Mat station on the moon and
disabling it would have been sufficient.
When the two groups in conflict are portrayed so illogically, it
becomes difficult to take the story very seriously, especially since
the script largely depends on one crisis situation after another. Which
brings me to my final complaint about "The Seeds of Death": there just
isn't enough plot for six episodes. The steady stream of twists and
surprises (the rocket can't find the homing signal and might miss the
landing, then they recover it and land and the Doctor sets out to
destroy the T-Mat in order to stop the Ice Warriors, but then it turns
out the rocket's out of fuel so they have to track him down before he
destroys their only transport back to Earth, etc. etc.) keeps the story
entertaining for a while, and at one point the script even seems like
it might be sending itself up, as Radnor has to explain to his confused
superior how the T-Mat has gone from malfunctioning to repaired to
malfunctioning again. But none of this is very original or imaginative
(a problem with some piece of fictional technology is perhaps the most
infamously lazy type of plot device in science fiction), nor does it
challenge many of the characters in a way we haven't seen before on Doctor Who. All they're doing is
jumping through arbitrary hoops, and I found that I eventually just
lost interest in what was happening.
That's not to say that "The Seeds of Death" is a total loss. The one
character who manages to remain compelling throughout is Fewsham, the
Assistant Commander of the T-Mat station whose cowardice leads him to
cooperate with the Ice Warriors and eventually renders him complicit in
a number of deaths. It would be easy to make him merely selfish and
despicable, but instead he's portrayed as horribly frightened after
seeing his superior murdered by the Ice Warriors, and I got the
distinct sense that he was always hoping that if he just cooperated a
little longer, perhaps someone or something else would manage to foil
the Warriors' plans and he'd escape with his life and without anyone
else getting hurt or killed. Rather than simply wanting him to go away,
I found myself rooting for him to finally get up his courage to resist
the Warriors (which he clearly wants to do), and when he finally does,
it's one of the few moments in the last two episodes that really
grabbed my attention. And I should give the writers credit for creating
a female character of distinct intelligence and composure as the person
most capable of repairing T-Mat, imagining a future of human gender
equality in a way that some other Doctor Who serials have failed to
do.
Unfortunately, this is one case where I'm afraid the bad outweighs the
good. The humans are mostly a pretty flat and uninspiring bunch, and
the Ice Warriors, while perhaps a bit more nasty and threatening than
your average Doctor Who
villains, still don't do much for me. Add in the plot holes that can
only be explained by spectacularly poor planning by both humans and Ice
Warriors and the general overabundance of obvious contrivances and
clichés, and you get a pretty mediocre outing.
Other notes:
- One contrivance they did manage to avoid is the one whereby the
Doctor can get the TARDIS to work when it's important to the plot that
he be able to do so; otherwise, they could have used it to get to the
moon without having to worry about the rocket.
Rating: ** (out of four)
Back to the main Doctor Who Reviews page.