Inferno

Doctor: I keep telling you I'm not from this world!
Brigade Leader: Then you won't feel our bullets when we shoot you.

Inferno is pretty good. It's one of the best stories I've ever seen in terms of creating tension. But I'm not ready to call it the be all and end all that other fans declare it to be.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and UNIT are assisting in a scientific en devour to drill down through the Earth's crust to tap potential energy reserves. As the drill nears the end, a green ooze begins to seep out and a technician in infected. It transforms him into a beast who attacks others workers. The beast increases the power to the drill, trying to accelerate it. The power surge causes the TARDIS console (which the Doctor has removed for experimental purposes) to surge into the vortex before being returned. The Doctor and UNIT stop the beast and drilling resumes. The Doctor attempts to recreate the surge and ends up sending the TARDIS console and himself into a parallel universe where Britain is run by a Fascist regime.

The Doctor is captured and interrogated as a spy. He attempts to escape but is recaptured when he attempts to stop the drilling. The drill breaks through the crust shortly before the Doctor is to be shot and the well explodes. The program leader, Professor Stahlman, who had already been infected, seals technicians and converts them into beasts as his own process is accelerated. The breakthrough is also causing violent earthquakes as magma rushes to the surface. The Doctor realizes that the parallel world is doomed and urges them to help him return to the other world so he can stop that drill. They agree, although the Brigade Leader is planning on forcing the Doctor to take them with him. The team manages to get power back to the TARDIS console while holding off the beasts. The Brigade Leader is shot by Liz Shaw when he tries to stop the Doctor and the Doctor disappears as a wall of lava approaches the shed where the console was. Back in original universe, the Doctor recovers and tries to stop the drilling. Professor Stahlman completes his transformation before the drill breaks through but with only one of him, he is subdued quickly, the drilling stopped and orders given for the shaft to be filled immediately.

Analysis

This may be one of the bleakest and intense Doctor Who stories I've seen. The end of episode six with the Doctor about to leave and the others turning to see the wall of lava approaching them is genuinely sad. It's a lot like The Fires of Pompeii except that the Doctor can't even save those that helped him. He can only leave to ensure that the tragedy doesn't happen to his universe.

In addition to the quality of the acting, one of the things that helps add to the tension is the absence of music. Instead, all we are given is the sound of the drilling and the occasional blaring of alarms. The intensity just builds from that background rhythm and without music to break that tension, even if in an attempt to build more tension, there is little to take you out of the story. It is reminiscent of The Birds in that respect.

As noted above, the acting is stellar. Nicholas Courtney especially takes the slightly stick-in-the-mud but endearing Brigadier and turns him into a cowardly bully in the alternate universe. Likewise, Liz Shaw's turn as an authoritarian who would just as soon shoot the Doctor as help him is also impressive.

However, there are a few flaws in this story as well. At seven episodes, it is a bit too long. There are enough points of running around and exposition that if that had been trimmed, it could have been turned into a very tense six-part story. Also possible for trimming would have been the elimination of the beasts. They don't make a lot of sense in the story as a whole and they function more as a visual threat and something that has to be fought off since the volcanic shaft is a bit too abstract a threat for younger audiences.

Another thing that bothered me was the forced romance shoved in. In episode one, a drilling expert named Sutton arrives to help in the final phases of the project and he gets very 70's fresh with Dr. Williams, Professor Stahlman's assistant. She blows him off at first but from then on we are treated as through Sutton is madly in love with her and she is just resisting him because of her work. In the alternate universe it is a little easier to buy this because the impression is given that Sutton has been on the project longer (as a form of prison sentence), giving him more time to interact with Williams, and the constant threat of death to either Sutton or both of them can accelerate passions. However, in the original universe, their romance carries on in just the same manner and it just comes across as unbelievable. It takes you out of the story when they try to play it up.

The shaft destroying the Earth is also something that bugged me. There are hundreds of cracks in the Earth's crust and we call those volcanoes. While I could see that what the alternate universe had done would be destructive to them personally and potentially Britain as a whole, I don't buy the idea that it would have increased to the point of destroying the whole planet. But the destruction of an entire planet was a fairly common trope in those days without much consideration as to how impossible that would actually be, so I can turn off that bit of logic without hurting the story too much.

This is not quite a criticism as it is an observation, but with the contrast in UNIT personalities it demonstrated that the Third Doctor is a bit of an ass. I was already aware of that, but his negative aspects were diminished when dealing with the Fascist universe jumped boldly outward when back to dealing with the original universe. Again, not a criticism but it does give me a bit of understanding as why despite the more action oriented plots, I find myself a little less interested in the Third Doctor than some of the others.

I think the grand summary of this one is a bit of a flawed masterpiece. If a few minor changes were made, this could have been one of the best stories made. But those flaws are there and cannot be swept away. They wouldn't stop me from watching this one again but it is not going to be the story I instantly gravitate to either I think.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5