Inferno

I am reviewing the two disk DVD set of the Jon Pertwee Doctor Who story "Inferno"

As I was too young to remember Jon Pertwee as the doctor I managed to watch all of his stories from UK Gold at around 1993. There were some stories that stuck out in my mind that I thought were very good. Inferno was one of them.
The way that this story was thought out and made in 1970 was one of the first times it had been also aimed at an adult audience and with this storyline it was very entertaining. This is a seven part story but with this one you can understand why with all that is going on.

I shall now run through the two disks.

Disk 1 :

Inferno

Plot - The Doctor and UNIT are involved in a top secret project "Inferno" which is a secret drilling operation to the Earth's crust to release a new source of energy. Things start to go wrong when green toxic liquid is leaked from the pipes and systems and some of the scientists who have touched it begin to turn into werewolf looking like creatures. Meanwhile when the Doctor is at his Tardis console trying to stop it and find out what is happening he is transported to a parallel universe…

Summary - For 1970 this was a turbulent time for the programme which was one step away from being cancelled. The producer and director had to come up with a good storyline to finish this latest season with.
The idea they had come up with was at first a story about project Inferno which concentrated on drilling through to the Earths crust for a new source of energy, and when the Doctor steps in as all that is happening is going wrong.
They felt that this was not enough to warrant a seven part story that had been commissioned for and had to think of something else for the storyline to stretch it out nd make it more entertaining.
The very good idea of the Doctor entering a parallel universe worked very well on the script and even better when filming.

As for the actors I felt that this was one of Jon Pertwees best ever stories and due to the previous few stories being not as good he made this story one of the best to save the show from cancellation and I feel one of the very best as his career as the Doctor. Jon put a lot of effort into this story and he worked very well with this storyline being the best of the season.

Caroline John who payed the Doctors assistant Liz Shaw made an impact on this story by playing herself in two different roles, as her normal scientific self and her alternate parallel self. This was her best story as the ones before she hadn't really stood out as a great companion apart from just being in the office of UNIT and going on a few missions hat were never really that dangerous or much she could actually do there.
This story really did work well for her and it was a shame it was her last.

This story was produced by Barry Letts and directed by Dougles Camfield

This seven part story was transmitted on BBC1 from 9th May to 20th June 1970

Sound and vision - As with a lot of the other older stories this has had the picture cleaned up very well and removed the scratches from the older video recordings and a few bits digitally remastered.
The ratio is 4-3 as that is what was intended at the time and looks as good now as it was then.
The sound is in Mono and also been cleaned up without any distortion.

The commentary for all seven episodes is by Nicholas Courtney, Barry Letts, Terrance Dicks, and John Levine.
This is very entertaining and informative over all seven episodes as they give their thoughts on this story, and a lot of memories from the making of it.
Although this is one of the longer stories they do find a lot to talk about and make it very worthwhile listning to it.

The Doctor - Jon Pertwee
Liz Shaw - Caroline John
The Brigadier - Nicholas Courtney
Benton - John Levine

Disk 2 :

Can you hear the Earth scream ? -

This is a 35 minute documentary through the making of this story. This has comments, interviews, and clips from Inferno and the cast included in this are Caroline John, Nicholas Cortney, John Levine, Ian Fairbairn, Barry Letts, Terrance Dicks, and Derek Ware.

The UNIT family (part 1) -

This is a 36 minute feature looking at the role that UNIT had in the series from Patrick Troughtons doctor to the end of Jon Pertwees first year.
This has lots of clips from quite a few stories starting from comments about the missing "Web of Fear" story and clips of "The Invasion" It shows how the Doctor and brigadier first got to know each other and the Doctors involvement with UNIT.

Deleted scene -

This is a scene which was cut from the UK transmission and when returned from Canada it was included in the story. It was cut from UK screens because it contained a radio transmission that was easily recognizable as Jon Pertwees voice.

Visual effects promo film -

In the early 1970's the BBC put together a short film to show what they could do to show other countries what was possible and there are short clips from shows as "Doctor Who" "Marty Amok" "The caves of steel" and "Doomwatch"
This runs for six minutes.

Radio Times Billings -

This has illustrations, articles, and listings for this story from the BBC Radio Times magazine from 1970.
This is only on DVD-ROM to be viewed on a PC/MAC

The Doctor Who annual 1971 -

This has every page of this annual from 1971 to look at from your PC. These annuals were made every year from the 1960's until the mid 80's.

The Pertwee years - Introduction

This was Jon Pertwees introduction to the start of the tape that was made in 1993 dealing with episodes that were his favourite, showing his first appearance and introducing the final part of Inferno.

Photo Gallery -

This has quite a lot of photos from the making of the series, from outside shots, studio shots, action shots, and covers quite a range of material.

My opinion of the DVD -

As I had really enjoyed this story from when I fist saw it on UK Gold I was very pleased to watch it again and I found I enjoyed it a lot more as I couldn't remember that much of it. I found that this was one of Jon Pertwees best stories and had a very good storyline. This was the first time that a parallel universe had been used in Doctor Who and was a good chance to see a story like this.
I thought that the acting was very good as Caroline John and Nick Courtney stood out as they had to play their other counterparts.

With the special features I enjoyed the UNIT family which takes you back to the Patrick Troughton era and shows you how things started.
Also the making of Inferno was good to hear the actors experiences of this story.
I also enjoyed the commentary on this story as always. It's always good to hear a bit of background information from the actors, producer and director and very informative.

The sound and vision is important for me. I don't like all scratches on the picture and distorted sound, and with this they cleaned up the video release very well for the DVD and the picture does stand out with good colour and good sound.

It's a shame that Jon Pertwee is not alive to contribute to these, as I'm sure that he would have done. But this is a great story with some very good acting and one of the very best from the Pertwee era.

I managed to pick up this DVD for £6.99 at WH Smiths, but it is normally around £10 on web sites

I hope you have enjoyed this review,

Ian.