Michael E Briant, “Doctor Who: The Green Death” (1973)
Many of the stories featured during Jon Pertwee’s tenure as the Third Doctor in the old classic series of “Doctor Who” had strong environmental themes, due in large part to the then producer Barry Letts embracing ideas and concepts considered to be of global importance in the 1970s: ideas such as care and concern for the environment, and dealing with pollution and the causes of pollution, and criticisms of Britain’s imperialist past and the harm imperialism and colonisation did to societies. “The Green Death” is one story with a particularly strong – some might even say, heavy-handed – emphasis on pollution and its effects on particular environments and the human communities living in those environments.
So it is that “The Green Death” begins with a series of strange deaths that must be investigated by UNIT, the international organisation tasked with investigating and combating alien threats to Earth, in which various miners have been found dead with glowing green skin in an abandoned coal mine in the rural Welsh town of Llanfairfach. The Doctor’s assistant Jo (Katy Manning) eagerly seeks out local environmentalist Professor Clifford Jones (Stewart Bevan) who believes that Global Chemicals is responsible for the pollution causing the miners’ deaths while UNIT head Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) meets with Global Chemicals head Stevens (Jerome Willis). Jo later goes down the mine with a local miner, Bert (Roy Evans), to help another miner, but a series of mishaps causes the two to be stranded in the mine. After Bert touches some icky green stuff, he falls ill and he and Jo separate so Jo can get help for him. The Doctor himself, returning from a quick trip in the TARDIS to nick a blue crystal from the planet Metebelis 3, rescues Jo but not before they discover that the wastes on which maggots are feeding and growing to unnaturally large size are indeed coming from Global Chemicals; moreover, the maggots themselves are toxic to touch.
From there, the plot develops into a number of parallel sub-plots: the Doctor sneaks into Global Chemical’s offices and discovers the entire corporation is run by a supercomputer called BOSS, which controls Stevens and other company employees’ behaviour. Operating on criteria of profit, ruthless logic and efficiency, BOSS uses humans like tools and cares nothing for Global Chemical’s polluting impact on Llanfairfach and the surrounding region in south Wales. Meanwhile, Professor Jones discovers that the fungus he is studying as a potential food source can kill the mutant maggots. The Brigadier, compelled to act on orders from Stevens and the government despite his own suspicions, blows up the coal mine but this causes the maggots to emerge into the open. Later, when the Brigadier orders RAF jets to bomb the maggots, Jo and Professor Jones happen to be in the area where the bombing takes place and the couple take cover in a shaft. An explosion close by rocks the shaft and the Professor ends up being bitten by a maggot – before he is able to share his discovery about the fungus.
Despite its 150+ minutes, “The Green Death” rockets along at a brisk pace, with one twist coming after another, and the story expands from its initial environmentalist theme into a more complex tale of a dysfunctional corporate culture ruled by a repressive regime based on technology and a set of beliefs and values that exploits humans and the environment for profit, and of individuals caught up situations in which they may have no control and are forced to act against their better judgement. At an abstract level, this is a story about how the decisions people make can create far-reaching and grave consequences that cannot be undone. At a more personal level, the story is also about the eventual break-up of UNIT: after many adventures with the Doctor, Jo has become a more independently minded woman and chooses to leave UNIT so she can accompany Professor Jones, with whom she has fallen in love, on a trip to the Amazon region; and Captain Michael Yates, who infiltrates Global Chemical to find out more about its operations, ends up being tortured and brainwashed by Stevens and turned into a potential assassin. This brainwashing sets up Yates for a future Doctor Who story in which he betrays UNIT. The Doctor is given plenty of warning by Jo that she will eventually pursue her own path in life when she declares she will not accompany him to Metebelis 3: a trip he rashly makes that he may eventually rue, even though the crystal he stole proves useful in breaking BOSS’s control over Stevens and Yates.
The story ends a season (Season 10 in the classic Doctor Who series) on a strong note, with good writing and pacing, excellent character development and plot lines that, however minor they appear, will gain prominence in the following season.