*End-of-serial spoilers.*
There are several big environmental-themed serials during Three’s tenure, but this is the most overt, I’d say. It can be decidedly heavy-handed, but it’s also entertaining and fun with some good scares and strong character moments.
In the Welsh mining village of Llanfairfach, a clash has broken out between the miners, the corporation Global Chemicals, and a group of environmental activists. Nothing unusual or alien about that—until, that is, the body of a dead miner is recovered and it’s glowing bright green. That gets the attention of UNIT. The Brigadier heads down with Jo, who’s eager to do her bit to fight corporate polluters, while the Third Doctor is roped in more unwillingly. However, the glowing body is just the tip of the iceberg, and things get wilder and weirder as they go on.
Good gracious, where to start? We’ve got an artist/scientist/activist colony, horrifying giant maggots, “the boss,” undercover agents, mind control, disguises, underground adventures, and more. I really enjoy this story. Even though the basics of it are very familiar— evil company does something terrible Because Greed, allowing nasty creatures to take a foothold and nearly take over the earth—the execution is well-done. The side characters are engaging, the monsters are disgusting, and the overall progression of the story just feels tight.
All kinds of good stuff for the Doctor, Jo, and the UNIT crew, both in terms of contributing to the adventure and just generally fun moments. The whole Metebelis Three thing is a hoot, as is the Brigadier’s ongoing reactions to Professor Jones’s fungus experiments. We don’t often see Three going the full-on disguise route, but he pulls it off twice in this serial, to great entertainment value both times—not to mention some Venusian akido and stumping a hyperintelligent computer with brain teasers. Yates is the man throughout much of his time inside Global Chemicals, and I get a kick out of Benton working with the Doctor to save the day at the end. In many stories, it seems that Jo causes more trouble than solutions, and she does get into some unfortunate scrapes here, but it’s always in aid of trying to do some important, and once she does get in trouble, she manages to keep her head and press on even though she’s scared.
This is Jo’s last serial, and while the opening—with her and the Doctor talking at cross purposes about environmental activism and Metebelis Three respectively, signifying a growing disconnect between them— is way too on-the-nose, I ultimately think they set up her parting fairly well. This is probably the best of the “companion decides to stay behind to get married” storylines the show has done, because the groundwork for Jo/Professor Jones is nicely laid. They’ve got a little charged bickering, some bonding, and a near-death experience or two: the perfect recipe for love, right? At any rate, the relationship doesn’t feel like it comes out of nowhere, and the goodbye between the Doctor and Jo is lovely, sweet, and sad. I know not all the classic Who companion exits are winners, but for the most part, I prefer them to the often-overwrought endings we can get in new Who—sometimes, less is definitely more.
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