Production Code: TTT
First Transmitted
1 - 19/05/1973 17:50
2 - 26/05/1973 17:50
3 - 02/06/1973 17:50
4 - 09/06/1973 17:50
5 - 16/06/1973 17:50
6 - 23/06/1973 17:50
Plot
UNIT is called in after a miner from the Welsh village of Llanfairfach is found dead, his skin glowing bright green. Jo joins forces with a local environmental group, led by Professor Clifford Jones, while the Doctor investigates the nearby plant of a company called Global Chemicals.
They discover that the mine workings are full of giant maggots and green slime - both lethal to touch - that have been produced by chemical waste pumped from the Global plant.
Stevens, the director of Global, has been taken over by the BOSS - Bimorphic Organisational Systems Supervisor - a computer with a will of its own.
The BOSS plans to seize power by linking itself to every other major computer in the world, but the Doctor uses a blue crystal - a souvenir from a brief visit to the planet Metebelis 3 - to break its hold over Stevens, who then programs it to self-destruct.
The maggots, on the point of pupating into giant insects, are destroyed with a type of fungus. Jo falls in love with Professor Jones and decides to leave UNIT in order to accompany him on an expedition up the Amazon - and to marry him. The Doctor gives her the blue crystal as an early wedding present.
Episode Endings
Jo and a miner named Bert descend into the mine to help another miner who has got into difficulties. The Doctor and the Brigadier arrive at the surface and ask Dave, a third miner, to stop the cage's descent. Dave discovers that the brake won't work - the cage is out of control!
The Doctor meets up with Jo in the mine workings and she shows him a vast lake of green slime and giant maggots that lies ahead. They try to turn back but the tunnel collapses. From the rubble emerge several giant maggots, which advance on them.
Jo has decided to stay up late to read in the environmentalists' cottage. She is unaware that a giant maggot, hatched from an egg that the Doctor brought back from the mine, is making its way across the floor towards her.
The Doctor, having infiltrated Global Chemicals to investigate further, makes his way to a computer room. There the computer - the BOSS - introduces itself.
The Doctor has used the crystal from Metebelis 3 to free Captain Yates from the BOSS's hypnotic influence. Yates returns to the Global Chemicals factory and likewise uses the crystal to clear the mind of an employee named Mr James, who reveals that the BOSS intends to take over at four o'clock that afternoon. Suddenly James suffers an acute pain and falls dead to the ground. Stevens, who has entered the room unseen by Yates, coldly observes that no one can be depended upon.
A party is thrown to celebrate Jo's engagement to Professor Jones. The Doctor downs a glass of wine and leaves quietly, seen only by Jo. Outside it is growing dark and, with the sound of the party fading into the distance, the Doctor gets into Bessie and drives off.
Roots
Chamberlain's Munich speech ('I have in my hand a piece of paper... Wealth in our time!').
Don Quixote ('Are you going to join Professor Jones in his noble fight against the windmills?').
Shane ('A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!').
Doomwatch.
Emmerdale Farm.
Star Trek ('Return of the Archons', 'The Ultimate computer').
Timeslip ('The time of the Ice Box').
Bug movies of the 1950s.
Quatermass II.
BOSS misquotes Oscar Wilde and hums Wagner.
Dialogue Triumphs
The Doctor : "Metebelis 3, Jo? Or where else would you like to go? You choose for yourself."
Jo Grant : "But I've only got ten minutes."
The Doctor : "Jo, you've got all the time in the world... and all the space. I'm offering them to you."
Jo Grant : "But Doctor, don't you understand? I've got to go. This Professor Jones, he's fighting for everything that's important. Well, everything that you've fought for. In a funny way, he reminds me of a sort of... younger you."
The Doctor : "I don't know whether to feel flattered or insulted. It's all right, Jo. I understand."
Jo Grant : "Thanks Doctor. Thank you."
The Doctor : "Jo? Tell the Brigadier that I'll follow him down."
Jo Grant : "Right."
The Doctor : "Later."
Jo Grant : "Right... Bye."
The Doctor : "Goodbye..." [Jo exits.] "So... the fledgling flies the coop..."
Boss's Voice : "You disappoint me, Doctor. I should have thought you'd have guessed. I am the BOSS. I'm all around you. Exactly. I am the computer."
The Doctor : "Stevens, listen to me. You've seen where this efficiency of yours leads. Wholesale pollution of the countryside. Devilish creatures spawned by the filthy by-products of your technology. Men... men walking around like brainless vegetables. Death. Disease. Destruction."
Jo Grant : "You don't mind, do you?"
The Doctor : "Mind? He might even be able to turn you into a scientist."
Jo Grant : "Don't go too far away, will you. And if you do, come back and see us sometimes."
Boss : [Taunts Stevens] "Living dangerously? That's how you get your kicks like the good little Nietzschean you are."
Dialogue Disasters
Jo Grant : "I'm up on the slag heap with the professor."
Double Entendre
"Come on, get it up!"
Continuity
The Doctor finally makes it to Metebelis 3 and returns with what is described as a blue sapphire (see Planet of the Spiders).
The Brigadier (who was once stationed at Aldgate) attempts to quote from article 17 of the Enabling Act, but is shouted down by the Ecology minister who helped to draw up the act, and quotes from article 18, paragraph 3 (cf The Time Monster).
QV
Location
Llanfairfach, Wales, February 1972 [A calendar is visible on the Global Chemicals security gate, which is for a 29 day month, with the first and last days being a Tuesday. The only relevant leap year February that this can refer to is February 1972. Unless it is an old calendar.]
Links
Jo's uncle at the UN gets the Nut Hutch declared a Priority One research complex. 'It's only the second time I've ever asked him for anything.' (See Terror of the Autons.)
Trivia
The Doctor finally gets to visit Metebelis 3, which he first indicated an intention to do in Carnival of Monsters.
The Doctor disguises himself as a Welsh milkman and a cleaning woman.
Tony Adams, better known for his role as Adam Chance in Crossroads, plays Elgin.
The Brigadier takes a phone call from the Prime Minister, who is named as 'Jeremy' - a joke by the production team intended to suggest that the Liberal Party, then led by Jeremy Thorpe, could win the next General Election.
Some of the giant maggots were created from inflated condoms.
For Episodes Two, Five and Six, the title sequence film over which the closing credits were superimposed was played backwards and upside-down (a result of the film being played backwards through the projector in order to save time during recording).
Goofs
In episode one, when Dai Evans in on the telephone in the mine, an arm appears to the bottom right, giving him his cue to speak.
In episode five, the Doctor escapes from Global during the day. When Yates is caught it's dark, but the next scene, on the slag heap, is in daylight again.
Episode four's end credits list 'Yate's Guard'.
The dodgy CSO in episode three results in the cart bottom vanishing.
Professor Jones' veggie followers appear to be wearing sheepskin coats.
Why is the mine still being checked if it's been closed down as an uneconomic pit (cf. the sealing of mines in 1992)?
Why is there a camera in a pipeline?
The function (and lines) of Elgin are taken up by James half way through the story.
Fashion Victim
Jo's trouser suit makes her look like a member of Mud.
The Doctor wears a vulgar red waistcoat, [and probably smells of Hai Karate aftershave].
Cast & Crew
Cast
The Doctor - Jon Pertwee
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart - Nicholas Courtney
Captain Mike Yates - Richard Franklin
Jo Grant - Katy Manning
Sergeant Benton - John Levene
Bert - Roy Evans
Boss's Voice - John Dearth
Cleaner - Jean Burgess
Clifford Jones - Stewart Bevan
Dai Evans - Mostyn Evans
Dave - Talfryn Thomas
Elgin - Tony Adams
Fell - John Rolfe
Guard - Terry Walsh
Hinks - Ben Howard
Hughes - John Scott Martin
James - Roy Skelton
Milkman - Ray Handy
Minister of Ecology - Richard Beale
Nancy - Mitzi McKenzie
Stevens - Jerome Willis
Yate's Guard - Brian Justice [sic]
Crew
Director - Michael E Briant
The Green Death