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| Sutton and the Doctor take down the Primordized Professor Stahlman. (Inferno Episode 7) ©BBC |
Still, there's enough going on that the Doctor's odd behavior (even if he has been under a lot of stress) ultimately doesn't matter. People seem inclined to listen to the Doctor, even if only Professor Stahlman can apparently give the order to actually halt the project. Fortunately for the planet, he comes out of the drilling room as a Primord, so his opinion doesn't carry much weight anymore. The Earth is saved (once some last-minute rewiring by the Doctor happens).
But really, this episode succeeds because of the little moments. Everyone justifiably mentions the "free will" scene ("So not everything runs parallel... Yes, of course, of course. An infinity of universes, ergo an infinite number of choices. So free will is not an illusion after all. The pattern can be changed."), which really is a nice moment (and, fannishly, one might suggest that this is the moment where he really realizes that maybe you can change history, even one line -- compare with his position in The Aztecs back in the first season). But there are smaller moments that are just as nice: Petra's growing affection for Greg; Sir Keith's reaction upon being told it's "excellent" that he's still alive ("Well, yes, yes, I think so too"); the Brigadier's response to the Doctor's claims of being of sound mind and body ("I'm not sick, I'm not in need of a doctor, and I'm not a raving idiot!") being exactly that of someone humoring a person who is in fact a raving idiot; and the lovely little hug that Liz and the Doctor share after the drilling has been stopped. Add to that the tension of the clock running in the background before the drilling stops, where we know what will happen if penetration zero is reached, and this is quite a good episode -- not quite the equal of the "disaster movie" of episodes 5 and 6, but still very good.
Inferno is really a game of two halves: the first four episodes are primarily arguments in various forms and in two separate places, which allows some of the arguments to be repeated across episodes. They're not the most exciting thing ever, and frankly this story is lucky to have Douglas Camfield and Barry Letts directing things, as in lesser hands these episodes would probably fall very flat; as it is, they manage to stay entertaining even if a bit repetitive. But the second half of Inferno is where things really shine. The end of the world sequences are very well done, and the tension is ratcheted up to a high level and maintained throughout, to the point that there's a bleed-over of this into episode 7 that also benefits that part, even though there the world is simply in danger of being destroyed rather than past the point. It's because of these last three episodes, combined with the aforementioned excellent direction, that Inferno ultimately succeeds. Everything before is simply building up to the moment of penetration zero and the end of the world.
It's also a moment of transition; Inferno is the last story of season 7, which means it's our last look not only at Arabic numerals for episode numbers (they're all spelled out from here on out) but also, more importantly, our final look at Liz Shaw (which may not be apparent, as she doesn't get a leaving scene). She'll be gone next season, partly because she's pregnant here and so wouldn't have been able to return anyway, but mainly because producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks have decided that they need an assistant for the Doctor who's, to be frank, not very bright -- someone who the Doctor can therefore explain the plot to. To be honest, they didn't seem to be having any problems doing that during this season, but nevertheless, it's the end of Liz Shaw, one of the smartest companions the Doctor ever had. She really will be missed.
And so we say goodbye to season 7. The shiny new color, new Doctor, and new format seems to have largely worked -- certainly they've largely halted the slow ratings slide the series had been experiencing prior to season 7, even if they haven't yet gained ground in this regard. But more importantly, season 7 has shown that a new direction, with a different focus than before, can still be made to not only work but still be called Doctor Who. It's not quite the same as it was, obviously, and it won't really be like '60s Who ever again, but that's one of the benefits of Doctor Who's format; even when they're essentially making a series of action-adventure serials in the same time and place instead of adventures throughout space and time, there's still enough there to maintain good faith with the show as it had been, while pointing the way forward for the future. Season 7 had four strong stories (even if some people might complain that three of them are too long -- those people are wrong, by the way) to successfully relaunch Doctor Who in the 1970s.
Actually, there are quite a few introductions to be made in Terror of the Autons. We're introduced to not only Captain Yates of UNIT (although the dialogue suggests he was around before -- apparently he was in charge of cleaning up after the Autons after the events of Spearhead from Space), but, more strikingly, to Miss Josephine Grant, who is the Doctor's new assistant -- and about as much the opposite of Liz Shaw as you can get. Jo is rather clumsy but very perky and eager to help. Even the Doctor doesn't find her a suitable replacement for Liz at first (Liz having apparently returned to Cambridge between seasons), but he can't bring himself to tell her this, and so her position with UNIT is secure.
But it's the Master who dominates proceedings here, as he hypnotizes people, kills others, breaks into a museum and steals an exhibit, sets up booby traps, and takes over a plastics factory, looking cool and collected all the while. That said, although we find out a bit by watching his actions, there's a really bizarre bit where a Time Lord appears to give a great big info-dump. We're sort of used to this now, 43 years after the fact, but it really is astonishingly crass. Time Lords can apparently transport themselves "29,000 light years" and hover in mid-air before giving huge amounts of exposition to the Doctor about how the Master is a fellow Time Lord, but a renegade who always causes trouble and wants to kill the Doctor. There's a clear implication that the Doctor already knows the Master, or at least knows of him. But it's odd how the production team clearly wants to get the backstory of the Master out of the way as quickly as possible. He's clearly set up as the Moriarty to the Doctor's Sherlock Holmes, albeit without as much thought put into him. Still, in the hands of Roger Delgado the Master is incredibly watchable.
The other thing to note about this episode is how fast-paced it is. Barry Letts' direction is fairly workmanlike here (even if there is an incredible abuse of CSO in this first episode alone, with all sorts of backgrounds and camera tricks CSO'ed in), but the editing is extremely frenetic, jumping from scene to scene to scene with barely a chance to catch your breath in-between. It certainly gives things a tremendous amount of energy and hurries them along impressively, such that by the end of episode 1 we go from Jo Grant being discovered by the Master to being hypnotized to opening a bomb in the Doctor's lab, all in the space of five minutes, and with intervening scenes also included. So far, Terror of the Autons feels more like a 60s comic book than a typical Doctor Who story -- not that that's a bad thing, mind.