The Seeds of Death

Your leader will be angry with you if you kill me. I can be of use to you. I'm a genius.

The Seeds of Death is one of those stories that doesn't really get talked about much. I think my only knowledge of it is that the title can sometimes be confused with the Fourth Doctor story, The Seeds of Doom, and a scene of the Second Doctor being attacked by foam is taken from this story. Other than that, I'm coming in pretty much a blank slate, which is good I think since it'll give me a fairly open viewpoint on it.

Plot Summary

In Earth's future, transport of people and equipment is done by a transport system called T-Mat. People who are working for T-Mat arrive at the beginning of their shift and set about to work. On the moonbase, as the shift begins, the base is overrun by an alien race. They kill one worker and threaten the shift commander to engage the system. The commander sabotages it instead and the aliens kill him.

On the T-Mat control station, the shift controller, Gia Kelly, observes the fault and sets the workers to determine it's nature. The overall commander, Radnor, gets after her but she is only able to tell him that the fault has occurred on the moon and they have no way to getting to the moon to help them. Radnor decides to ask the help of an old associate, Professor Eldred.

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe land in a museum devoted to space travel and begin to explore. They are caught by the museum owner, Professor Eldred. Eldred initially believes them troublemakers but he get swept up in the Doctor's interest in his latest rocket design. The two talk excitedly about it until they are interrupted by Radnor and Kelly.

Radnor tells Eldred of the trouble they have with the moon and appeals to him to help them with his latest rocket design. Eldred refuses but the argument between the two is interrupted by a signal from the moon. One of the technicians has repaired the video link and sends a signal for help. But before he can complete the message, the transmission is cut off. The link is damaged by the alien commander, revealed to be an Ice Warrior, who then has the technician killed.

The other technician, Phipps, manages to run for it and hides out in a spare parts room. He manages to hide from the searching Ice Warrior and then begins to build a transmitter and an energy device to act as a booby trap. Meanwhile, the Ice Warrior commander, Slaar, forces the remaining officer, Fewsham, to repair the back-up T-Mat but only to receive.

Back on Earth, Radnor implores Eldred to finish his rocket and fly it to the Moon. Eldred refuses due to his age and the lack of time. The Doctor steps in and offers to help with the repairs and also offers to fly it to the Moon with Jamie and Zoe. Eldred reluctantly agrees and they begin work. Kelly appeals to Radnor to go in place of Jamie, but Radnor refuses as she is the only one qualified to get the T-Mat working again.

The rocket successfully launches with the Doctor and his two companions on board. However, their communications with Earth short out shortly after lift-off leaving Radnor and his team in the dark.

Fewsham finishes the repair and sends a signal received by Radnor. This time he agrees to Kelly's request and she is sent with two technicians to the Moon. The Ice Warriors hide and Fewsham claims that it was damaged by the base commander after suffering a bout of space madness. Kelly is suspicious but sets about repairing the T-Mat anyway.

Phipps finishes his radio and begins to broadcast for help just as the Doctor's rocket enters Moon orbit. They lock onto a radio guide beam to lead them down. However, Phipps is forced to switch over the power to his booby trap when an Ice Warrior enters the room. Phipps device kills the Ice Warrior but it also knocks out the homing beam. Zoe pulls the rocket back into orbit and as they do they pick up Phipps renewed signal. From him they learn of the Ice Warrior invasion and after returning from the dark side of the moon, follow the signal from his radio down to the surface.

The Doctor leaves to find Phipps and has Zoe prepare the rocket for a return flight to Earth. Zoe however discovers the engine was damaged in the landing and unfit for take off. The Doctor finds Phipps and radios back to Jamie that he intends to destroy the T-Mat and then use the rocket to return to Earth. He cuts off before Zoe can tell him of the damage and they leave the rocket to find him.

Kelly finishes the repairs and the Ice Warriors emerge to take them prisoner. The two technicians try to run and are gunned down. Fewsham finishes bringing all the cities back on-line and Slaar prepares a cargo for T-Mat. He orders Kelly taken away and kept under guard. She however manages to escape just as the Doctor and Philips enter the same corridor. The group breaks up and Ice Warriors pursue them. They corner the Doctor who convinces them to keep him alive and take him to their commander.

Jamie and Zoe meet up with Kelly and Phipps and the group decide to try and get into the station core and raise the overall heat to disable the Ice Warriors. Jame and Phipps begin to work a grate to allow them to go through the access ducts and avoid patrols. However, an Ice Warrior enters and they are forced to kill that one with the same booby trap device as before.

Back in the control room, the Doctor uses Fewsham to investigate the cargo that the Ice Warriors are preparing to T-Mat. Slaar sees the Doctor and forces him to examine the cargo. He picks up a pod within and it expands at his touch, bursts and then knocks him out with the vapor inside. Slaar then T-Mats pods to various stations, including where Radnor is preparing a technical crew to head to the Moon and assist Kelly. They are surprised when the pods arrive and it expands at their touch. The pod explodes, killing the technician and choking the others. They vent the smoke into the outside to clear the air.

Jamie and Phipps crawl through the access ducts and see the pods being loaded into the T-Mat. They also see the Doctor passed out. Slaar orders Fewsham to drag the Doctor into the T-Mat and transport him into space. Fewsham objects but cowers into agreement. He resets the controls to do so and as he does, Jamie and Phipps drag the Doctor into the vents. Jamie takes him back to the supply room while Phipps tries to get to the temperature controls, but can't as he is too large to fit through the access duct.

Slaar sends one of his warriors through the T-Mat to Earth to monitor the progress of the pods, which have released fungus spores that are now germinating outside. The warrior kills the guards and ignores Radnor as he tries to attack before heading outside.

Zoe convinces Phipps to take her back through the ducts as she is small enough to pass through. They are slowed by Phipps having an attack of claustrophobia and the delay causes Jamie to start worrying about their safety. Zoe pushes Phipps on and passes through the duct exit. Fewsham sees Zoe and distracts the guard while she increases the temperature. The guard however does see Phipps and shoots him before spying Zoe as well. Fewsham jumps on the warrior and distracts him before he passes out from the heat.

Another Ice Warrior enters the supply room. Jamie and Kelly try to kill it with the booby trap but find the power has failed. It hears the Doctor waking up and tries to grab him but both Jamie and Kelly attack him. The Ice Warrior is stronger than both of them but he too passes out from the heat as the Doctor come fully to.

Zoe returns to the supply room and the group heads to the control room where Fewsham has brought T-Mat back on-line. He offers to transport the group back and then follow using a time delay. Kelly is skeptical as she was under the impression that the time delay was broken. Fewsham claims to have repaired it. He ends up sending back the four of them but does not bother to try himself and Kelly confirms back on Earth that the time delay is still broken.

On Earth, the Ice Warrior who had been sent down enters a weather control station. He kills the technician on duty and then locks and destroys the controls to ensure that rain cannot be artificially produced.

The Doctor brings Radnor, Eldred and Radnor's superior, Sir James Gregson, up to speed. He collects a sample of the fungus to examine it. It absorbs oxygen, leading the Doctor to figure that the fungus will reduce the oxygen content on Earth, killing all humans and leaving it more like Mars, perfect for Ice Warrior colonization. During his experiments, he also discovers that the fungus is vulnerable to water.

The Doctor relays this information to Zoe and to have her tell Radnor. However Radnor is in a meeting so she and Jamie head over to the weather control center to tell them about needing rain as they are not answering their communicators. They discover the dead technician and the damaged controls and are forced to hide from the patrolling Ice Warrior.

Slaar manages to get to the control room and reduce the temperature of the base before he passes out. Fewsham pretends to have been knocked out and offers to continue to help the Ice Warriors. Slaar has Fewsham connect a homing signal to T-Mat while he communicates with the fleet commander. After doing so, Fewsham turns on the video link, allowing the Doctor, Radnor and Kelly to overhear the Ice Warrior plans. Slaar discovers this too late and kills Fewsham.

The Doctor has Radnor stop a satellite launch they had planned to redirect control of T-Mat to reconfigure it so they can misdirect the Ice Warrior fleet and have them crash into the sun. The Doctor also discovers that Zoe never gave Radnor the information about the rain and assumes that she and Jamie went to the weather station themselves. He heads over but cannot get in as Zoe had locked the door. He is nearly overcome by the encroaching fungus and bangs on the door. This attracts the attention of the Ice Warrior, Zoe and Jamie. Jamie runs in front of the Ice Warrior, distracting him and allowing Zoe to open the door before the Doctor is overcome.

They reunite with Jamie and barricade themselves in a power room. Inside, the Doctor builds a portable version of the solar trap used on the Moon base. The Ice Warrior is distracted by a group of guards sent by Radnor, but they are beaten back. Instead the Doctor emerges and kills the Ice Warrior with his weapon. He then hot wires the weather controls to allow the formation of rain clouds.

The trio heads back to the T-Mat station just as the rocket carrying the satellite with the mimicking homing signal is launched. Once in orbit, the Doctor is sent to the Moon base to kill the signal on the Moon. Upon arriving at the Moon, the Doctor kills one guard and cuts the power to the signaler so that it only broadcasts to the base. With the signal gone, the satellite signal is activated.

Slaar enters and captures the Doctor. He is tricked by the fact that he can see the machine still sending the signal and orders the Doctor to operate the T-Mat for invasion once the fleet has arrived. However, the Grand Marshall soon signals that they are off course and are being destroyed by the sun's heat.

On Earth, Jamie, concerned that the Doctor hasn't returned, has Zoe T-Mat him to the Moon. He arrives just as Slaar, in a fit of rage, orders the Doctor killed. Jamie's arrival distracts the guard just enough for the Doctor to grab his arm and aim the gun at Slaar who is killed. Jamie then attacks the guard allowing the Doctor to grab his portable solar device and kill that guard as well.

The two return to Earth and with Zoe sneak back to the TARDIS just as Radnor and Eldred begin to argue over whether a backup fleet of rockets should be built.

Analysis

I think overall this story gets a middling rating. At it's core, it has an interesting idea. It is reasonably well acted, the settings are interesting and most of the characters, especially the villain are at least somewhat engaging. But it also is very heavily padded and the drawing out of the story slows the action down badly. Worse, the padding points are almost painfully obvious with Phipps' random attack of claustrophobia being the most painfully obvious. They don't kill the story, but there are moments where you can find yourself distracted by something else, look up and realize that while several minutes have passed, the story has gone nowhere and you've missed nothing.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a Second Doctor story where I didn't like him so I again will say that I liked the Doctor, even though he is clearly on hiatus in Episode Four. One of the more enjoyable things about the Second Doctor is how much joy he takes in little things, such as getting into the rockets with Professor Eldred (who must live). It makes his disappointed reaction to the lack of flash with the T-Mat process rather comical. I also appreciate how he doesn't apologize for the necessity of using violence. Fans get up in arms about the idea of the Doctor using a gun or killing randomly, but here, the Doctor kills Ice Warriors with very little compunction. He doesn't even both with the idea of negotiating with Slaar and instead simply sets about destroying the fleet and killing the base invaders. Granted, Slaar had made all the aggressive moves by this point, but it's still nice to see a Doctor recognize that both negotiation and remorse are pointless and simply get on with it. In fact, the Doctor is arguably at his coldest when he delivers a point by point summation as to how Slaar has been defeated at the end, almost taking pleasure in dashing his hope as Slaar grasps at each individual straw.

Jamie and Zoe were okay in the story but they weren't used particularly well. I thought they were nearly pointless and given rather poor dialogue at the end. Zoe especially got better as she was actually utilized in the later episodes, although she had a really bad moment with the Episode Four cliffhanger. The Ice Warrior is distracted by Fewsham and still she just stands there and holds position as though frozen in place. She should have been directed to run a little further and least look like she was trying to hide from him. I also think she would have been well within her right to slap Phipps across the face to get him to snap out of his fear after having already been in the ducts once with Jamie. But it was an obvious time-killing moment so I tried to let it go as best I could.

Jamie was close to useless in this story. He had a couple of moments of lunging bravery where he would attack an Ice Warrior long enough for someone else to finish it off, but his overall performance was very limited other than expressing concern for the Doctor and Zoe. Probably his deepest moments were his scenes of exposition with Zoe where he brought her up to speed on the Ice Warriors, but even there he had to share explanation time with the Doctor. With as many characters as there were, it's not surprising that someone was going to get the short end of the stick and Jamie clearly drew that one here.

The supporting human cast was alright but not much to write home about. Both Radnor and Eldred started as though they might be a bit more developed in the later action, but their involvement died off to not much more than commentary after Episode Two so they didn't really register much. Kelly was a bit better, at least being used through the whole of the story, but she could have done with a bit more personality. She was strangely robotic through most of the story, even when people were dying around her, she had this detached quality that just made her seem out of place. Her closest moment of real emotion seemed to come when she was modifying the satellite to recreate the homing signal for the Ice Warrior fleet. That was when she actually seemed to show concern and strain at trying to beat the Ice Warriors.

The one human who did stand out was Fewsham but even his arc was a bit oddly done. In the first two episodes, he is shown to be someone not quite qualified for his job and then someone who values his life more than anything else. That's not a bad thing since many a quisling have done so out of fear of death or torture so to see that is more realistic. I wish he didn't whine quite so much and I'm a little surprised the Ice Warriors didn't kill him out of annoyance at one point. But by the middle episodes, Fewsham changes so that while he is still afraid, he seems to become more accepting of the possibility of death. To the point that he opts to sacrifice himself by not leaving the Moonbase when the others do because he knows the Ice Warriors have something else prepared that Earth needs to be warned about. That's a very sharp contrast from the Fewsham that starts the story and I think this change should have been a bit more developed. As it was, I didn't really buy his sacrifice. I bought his fear of death and going along to stay alive. I didn't see enough in the course of the story that made me think that he wouldn't be the first one to jump into the T-Mat when they prepare to evacuate the base, even if it meant spending decades in prison.

I did like the Ice Warriors in this story. Slaar especially made for a good villain. He was ruthless and actually seemed to have a fairly well developed plan for getting his objectives accomplished. I also liked that he actually had legitimate reasons for keeping certain humans alive, rather than just the standard "I'll kill you later" motivation that comes so often with entertainment villains. There were shortcomings though as I didn't really understand why Slaar didn't stay in the control room the whole time. I'm assuming he went back to the Ice Warrior ship when he wasn't in the control room, but you would think that he would want to stay at the nerve center most of the time to ensure things got done. I also don't understand why he didn't seen more warriors down to Earth to guard the weather controls. If a single warrior was strong enough to hold off the human forces, why not invade conventionally since they are so outmatched? But if they knew that the fungus must avoid rain, then why not send three or four warriors down? Multiple warriors would make the bunker unassailable and ensure plenty of time for the fungus to expand to the point of human suffocation.

Something also must be said for the peripheral vision of the Ice Warriors. Obviously this is a kids show filmed in tight sets so a certain amount of disbelief has to be suspended when it comes to hiding spots. But you help that out with good direction to make it look like the hiding spot is a bit more obscure. This story did not do that and there was more than one occasion where the Ice Warrior was practically looking at someone and yet had to pretend they didn't see them. Of all the little problems that cropped up here and there, I think it was those moments that took me out of the story the most. I will say that other than that, I thought the direction seemed pretty good for the most part. There were a couple of other scenes that did look bad (the Doctor running to the weather station was particularly janky) and there were also a couple of points where he should have reigned in the performances as they started going over-the-top, but these were more exceptions and by-products of someone trying to get more than the story was able to deliver on the surface.

But the thing that must be noted is just how slow this story can be. I learned after watching it that although Brian Hayles is credited with the story, Terrance Dicks had to do major rewrites from Episode Three onward. Given that Terrance was also desperately trying to finish The War Games with Malcolm Hulke and looking for anything to fill the episode shortfall they were experiencing, it's not surprising that this story was a drawn out as it was. It didn't help that Patrick Troughton had a vacation in Episode Four. Any time the Doctor goes on holiday, the action always stops and the wheels spin and that didn't help matters either. I think in an ideal world, this story could have been cut to four episodes with a lot tighter action. It possibly could have been stretched to five, but I think each episode would have needed to be trimmed down to closer to twenty minutes to keep the same decent pacing. But that obviously wasn't going to happen.

In the end, I think this is a decent story but it's flaws do drag it down a bit. Those flaws aren't killers but this story can easily slip away from you if not fully invested. When I was watching it, I had to take a couple of days off in the middle due to other obligations and I recall not being overly bothered. The story was entertaining but not grabbing me in a way that made me want to pop the next episode in right away to see how it progressed. Not every story can be like that, but you always wish it could be. This one is a decent exposure to the Second Doctor and a story to have in the background, but it's nowhere near the best offerings of the Second Doctor era, though it is a step up for the Ice Warriors in general.

Overall personal score: 3 out of 5