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Doctor Who - The Seeds of Doom [VHS]

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I have to admit that I'm partial to the Seeds of Doom because the fifth segment was the first episode of Dr. Who that I ever saw. I was only seven or eight at the time and the sight of evil, intergalactic plants taking over unwitting human beings was one of the most terrifying that I had ever seen. Well years later, the image isn't quite as scary but the story and the performances still hold up remarkably well as the Doctor (played here by Tom Baker) and Sarah Jane Smith (one of my favorite companions -- an opinion that is apparently shared by many fans) confront insane, plant-obsessed millionaire Harrison Chase (played to cold perfection -- and with an admirably serious air -- by Tony Beckley) and the evil alien fungus that he has unwittingly brought back to life. This seriel was written by a veteran of the Avengers and, as such, doesn't play so much as a traditional installment of Dr. Who but instead as an especially elaborate Avengers episode in which Patrick McNee has been replaced by Tom Baker and Diana Rigg by Elisabeth Sladen. As such, the Doctor is willing to engage in hand-to-hand combat with Chase's henchmen and more time is spent on espionage than the usual fantasy and philosophical metaphors than longtime Dr. Who fans might expect. No matter for the change in pace is handled well by both Baker and Sladen and the seriel comes across not as an abberation but instead just a rare chance to look at another side of the Doctor's universe. Even with a longer running time than most of the Tom Baker seriels, the Seeds of Doom is still a remarkably quick paced adventure that holds up remarkably well and is a great deal of fun for both fans of the show and, dare I say, nonfans as well. With its many twists and compelling cliffhangers, the Seeds of Dooms is reminiscent, in many ways, of the classic seriels from the early days of cinema and, for me personally, ranks closely behind The Talons of Weng-Chiang amongst the best of the Tom Baker years.

Is this the best episode of Baker's seven-year run as the Doctor? Quite possibly. Certainly it is up there with "Horror of Fang Rock" and "The Talons of Weng Chiang" on my list of personal favorites. All of the elements which made the series so good are here -- terrific chemistry, Gothic horror, campy dialogue, over the top villainy, and of course that all-purpose English manor, which appeared in about 17 episodes and which I think actually belonged to Mick Jagger (it gets blown up at the end, but that doesn't mean we've seen the last of it).

I have to say the criticisms of this episode that I've read seem silly to me. Bad special effects? When were the effects in this series ever good? In my view it has only two flaws -- it's too long to watch comfortably in one sitting and there are way too many escapes and recaptures, the Doctor & Sarah spend half the episode getting tied up and the other half escaping, and there is a ridiculous Dr. Evil moment where the villain, Chase, devises an elaborate and horrible death for the Doc and then leaves the room, allowing him to escape, instead of just shooting him....sigh...don't these crazy bad guys ever learn?) -- but they are pretty minor in compared to what works.

"Seeds" begins at a lonely scientific research station in the Antarctic, a la "The Thing." And just like "The Thing" the bumbling scientists unearth something from the ice that would better have been left alone. In this case, a large seed pod. They send pics back to London, where the Doctor identifies the pod as a sentient alien plant called the Krynoid, which has unlimited growth potential and a big appetite for human flesh. He and Sarah make tracks for the South Pole to make sure the ticking green bomb stays frozen and harmless. Unfortunately, the bumbling scientists put the thing under a lamp, and before you can say "Good god, what is that thing?" one of them is infected.

More unfortunately, a flora-crazed English millionaire named Harrison Chase (beautiful performance by the late Tony Beckley) has also learned of the pod's existence and sends a sneering mercenary named Scorby (another terrific turn by big John Challis) and a biologist named Keeler to collect it by force.

"Who" always excelled at loosing multiple plot elements at each other like bumper cars, and the crash-bang of the first two episodes of "Seeds" is great, creepy fun, as the good and bad guys square off while the infected scientist, now essentially a large angry yucca plant, wanders around strangling people and not caring whether they are good or bad. And just when you think it's over -- bingo, another pod appears. D'oh!

Eventually the action shifts back to England, where Scorby has delivered the second pod to the crazy Chase. He orders Keeler to feed it, and poor Keeler ends up doing just that, in a nasty case of "being consumed by your work." Meanwhile, the Doctor and Sarah blunder around the huge mansion and grounds, getting captured and escaping so many times, you wonder why Scorby doesn't just shoot them. Eventually, however, the Krynoid (nee Keeler) gets loose, grows to gigantic proportions, and starts eating Chase's employees en route to germinating hundreds of pods which will destroy the world (or at least everything not made of salad materials). The climax comes with the Doc, Sarah & Scorby trapped inside the crumbling mansion being hunted by the completely loco Chase, while UNIT soldiers fight the Krynoid outside. One small drawback is that while this is another UNIT episode, once again, there's no Brigadier and no Benton -- that's kind of like a peanut butter sandwich with no jelly. You can do it, but why?

"Seeds" is a great episode with some tremendously wonderful dialogue ("Don't be silly, Sarah -- of course he has to kill us, we keep interfering!") that also brings up nostalgia/horror for 1970s fashion -- c'mon, where else can you see a bad guy in zippered platform boots, a turtleneck shirt and a jacket with a butterfly collar....without a time machine, that is?

Two alien plant plods are found frozen in the Antartic, and examining the pods might lead to the extinction of all animal life on earth. Like "Terror of the Zygons", Robert Banks Stewart dishes us out another masterpiece! There is an extreme urgency in this story to quell the problem, and keeps you the on edge throughout ALL six parts, an element missing in a majority of six-parters. Baker and Sladen are brilliant, Baker giving a dramaticperformance with hints of his own absurdity. Harrison Chase is an unforgettable character and is quite chilling! All actors involved give it their best. Some interesting video viuals are used for the Antartica location, really quite effective. Not only was the story influenced by "Day of Triffids", "Quatermass Experiment" and many others, it also echoes "Night of the Living Dead" as our heroes and outcasts nail and hammer themselves in Chase's mansion. A great way to end the season!

Here is the info for The Seeds Of Death DVD

DVD Description
When scientists unearth two seed pods deep in the arctic permafrost, the Doctor and Sarah Jane rush to investigate. Soon the Doctor's worst fears are confirmed: the pods house Krynoids, one of the most parasitic and dangerous life forms in the universe. One of the creatures has already infected a scientist and now a hideous monster is rampaging through the Base, intent on total destruction.

When the second pod is stolen amidst the escalating carnage, it is transported into the hands of insane botanist Harrison Chase. From his mansion in England, the plant-obsessed Chase will allow the pod to split open. Both the ruthless millionaire and the rapidly growing carnivorous Krynoid are intent on infecting and destroying our entire world...

Special Features
* Podshock Examining the making of The Seeds of Doom
* Playing the Green Cathedral The music of Geoffrey Burgon
* Stripped for Action A look at the comic strip adventures of the Fourth Doctor
* Now & Then Locations used in The Seeds of Doom, 24 years on
* So What Do You Do Exactly? The roles of the Production Assistant and Production Unit Manager, with Graeme Harper
* Isolated Score
* Trails and Continuity
* Radio Times Billings & Douglas Camfield's Paper Edit (PDF DVD-ROM - PC/Mac)
* Production Information Subtitles
* Photo Gallery
* Coming Soon Trailer
* Easter Eggs
* Digitally remastered picture and sound quality
* Commentary by Tom Baker (The Doctor), John Challis (Scorby), Kenneth Gilbert (Dunbar), Michael McStay (Moberley), Philip Hinchcliffe (Producer), Robert Banks Stewart (Writer), Roger-Murray Leach (Designer) and Joggs Camfield (son of Douglas Camfield, Director)

This isn't a terribly traditional Tom Baker story - it's six episodes long, it's got an unusually high quotient of action, and the action take place in plain old modern-day (well, modern at the time) England. It actually feels rather more like a high-quality story from Jon Pertwee's era, thanks to all of those elements as well as the environmental slant.

Even if the story is segmented (the first two episodes take place in Antartica and form a 'mini-story'), it's a rollicking good tale with lots of fun and excitement. Tom Baker is on the top of his game as an unusually fist-happy Doctor, and even Lis Sladen gets a good piece of the action. The guest cast are also of a high standard, and the music by Geoffrey Burgon is again a welcome change (his scores for both "Terror of the Zygons" and "The Seeds of Doom" are on the "Terror of the Zygons" soundtrack CD).

There are a few downsides to this adventure. The bridge from the Antartica episodes to the England episodes is rushed at best, leaving you wondering why the Antartica material was so necessary. UNIT is called in - for no readily apparent reason - in episode six, without any of the regular UNIT characters...and that's UNIT's last semi-regular appearance! What happened there? Also, the various growing forms of the Krynoid plant creature are rather negligible, particularly the gigantic version.

Overall, though, this a great story and well worth giving your time.

The final story of Season 13 more or less ends the Gothic motif of Doctor Who--well, not quite; there would be Season 14's Jack The Ripper story, The Talons of Weng Chiang. The Seeds Of Doom is a take on The Thing From Another World crossed with The Day Of The Triffids (murderous plants). It's also the last UNIT story until Battlefield (1989).

A mysterious pod found by a research team in the Antarctic draws two parties. One is the Doctor and Sarah Jane, sent there by Richard Dunbar of the World Ecology Bureau. He feels sure he recognizes the pod, and says "it might still be ticking." The other is Scorby and Keeler, respectively a ruthless and armed thug and squeamish botanist. However, an accident has happened. Winlett, one of the base personnel has been attacked by a shoot from the pod and transformed into a monster, half man/half plant. Actually, Winlett was halfway towards turning into a Krynoid, an alien plant. And that's bad, because as the Doctor says, "On most planets, the animals eat the vegetation. On planets where the Krynoid gets established, the vegetation eats the animals."

After a narrow escape, the Doctor and Sarah trace another pod back to England and to the estate of millionaire Harrison Chase, someone's who boasts the finest collection of plants in the world. He's such a plant-lover he calls bonsai "mutilation and torture" and calls it "the hideous, grotesque Japanese practice of miniaturizing shrubs and trees," and his mission is to protect the plant life of Mother Earth. Not only does he play some hideous music to his plants, but he has a composting machine that pumps all organic matter into the garden. As Sarah says, "I've heard of flower power but this is ridiculous."

The process starts all over again when Keeler gets attacked by the pod, and here, Chase's fanaticism to his plants is evident, as instead of taking Keeler to the hospital, keeps him under observation, feeding him raw meat so he can evolve into a full-grown Krynoid. And how large do those things get? About the size of St. Paul's Cathedral, according to the Doctor, and when that happens, the Krynoid will germinate, and it's up to the Doctor to prevent that.

There is one unforgivable goof at the end of the story. Sarah mentions the Doctor forgetting to reset the TARDIS coordinates, but they arrived in Antarctica by helicopter, not by TARDIS.

The giant-sized Krynoid and the humanoid variation are well-realized design effects. The latter kind, where the human features are totally gone and tentacles sprout, is actually one of the costumes of the Axon monsters from Claws Of Axos painted green.

Of the guest stars, Tony Beckley comes out on top as Harrison Chase, a totally ruthless plant-lover who puts the survival of Krynoid above his fellow man. "Yes, the plants must win. It will be a new world, silent and beautiful" he says, which is topical to the 70's with its smog, traffic jams, and noise. His trance-like communication to the plants shows him totally gone.

Chase's mansion was actually Athelhampton House in Dorset and was also the same place used in Sleuth starring Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier, and the on-location shooting on the grounds made a good change.

This is one of the more violent stories, with guns fired, brandished, or pointed in threatening positions, mostly by Scorby, and even the Doctor carries a gun (though he doesn't use it). And the Doctor gets embroiled in some action and fisticuffs. In one scene, he crashes through a glass skylight to prevent Sarah from being tortured, punches Scorby, and rescues his friend. Chase wryly asks, "What do you do for an encore, Doctor?" The Doctor answers, "I win." Which he does, of course. Still, a great story with good location and the end of a season that consolidated Tom Baker as the Doctor.

A rich and unscrupulous plant collector acquires an alien seed pod (after the first one is destroyed) from an Antarctica scientific outpost which, of course, subsequently invades the bodies of human victims, developing them into botanical monsters.

One could rightly compare certain elements of this fine entry to various and sundry other programs and films including The Day of the Triffids, The Thing from Another World, Little Shop of Horrors, Alien, Quatermass & The Pit, The Man-eater of Surrey Green [found in Avengers '65 - Set 2, Vols. 3 & 4], and so on. But don't think for a moment that this notable Doctor Who entry lacks for originality in any way. This particular episode incorporates some fine cinematography and great locations into a notably compelling yarn.

In overall quality and cozy ambiance, I would compare this episode to Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars (Story 82), particularly in regard to the time spent by the characters inside the mansion, and on the estate of, an old English manor house property. In any case, the sets are terrific and the story never lags. Certainly the villain comes off in attitude as the ultimate sociopath as his own joy blossoms when the hormonally-driven alien pod reaches out to touch his scientific minion, relegating the poor devil to life as a fast-growing plant monster.

This is certainly one of Tom Baker's best performances as The Doctor and I can highly recommend it.

"The Seeds of Doom" hails from a golden age in the history of Doctor Who, a period when the show's producers raided the toy box for virtually every classic sci-fi monster ever created and presented their own distinctive versions of them. "Seeds" borrows heavily from "The Thing from Another World" and "The Day of the Triffids": scientists uncover two alien seed pods under the Antarctic permafrost, and a genteel but utterly deranged plant collector sends his henchmen to steal one of them and almost unleashes a worldwide apocalypse.

Tony Beckley turns in one of the iconic performances in the series' history as Harrison Chase, the megalomaniacal botanist determined to free the world's vegetable life from human oppression. The seed pods infect humans, transmuting them into giant carnivorous plant creatures that feed on human flesh and bend other vegetation to their destructive will. The first of these Krynoids is blown up before it can escape the Antarctic, but Chase unleashes a second one back in England where it soon engulfs his stately mansion (shot on location at Athelhampton House in Dorset, then owned by a prominent MP and formerly used as the setting for the 1972 film "Sleuth").

"Seeds" is loaded with uncharacteristically strong violence, with even the Doctor packing heat and characters being fed into a mulcher like something out of a Coen Brothers movie, but there's no denying this is classic Who. The Special Features include a 37-minute "making of" documentary as well as informative pieces about the story's musical score by Geoffrey Burgon and the behind-the-scenes roles played by the production assistant and production unit manager. Also included is a continuation of the "Stripped for Action" series, looking at the development of Doctor Who comics. The Doctor really broke out during this period, going from a crude, one-page feature in TV Comic to a full-blown weekly comic magazine by Marvel U.K.

Way to go Tom(Tom Baker), you did a fine job. This adventure was really something to admire from start to finish. It was an incredibly well written biogical masterpiece. The doctor battling against killer plants, there just are no words to justifiably convey how cool that really is. -(Triffids anyone?)

A point of interest pertaining to this adventure, is that it was produced during the height of Doctor Who. That high status started right at the end of Jon Pertwee's reign, and continued to about the mid-point of Tom Baker's tenure. Subsequently, each adventure during that time period are a must see, and quite possibly a must own for collectors. If you like your DW adventures a little on the dark side, you won't be disappointed. This adventure in particular has a serious and sinister tone throughout the entirety of the show. While, even though Doctor Who targeted the horror section, it rarely was very scary. But this one actually was a bit. A rare and interesting trait of this Tom Baker adventure. Simply a classic.

-Sir Josh

Ask someone who is not a great fan of Dr Who - but who nevertheless watched some of it in their childhood - what stories they vividly remember, chances are this story is one of the three or four that stand out. "The Seeds of Doom" is deservedly memorable. It is a terrific, gripping story that is more than a little inspired by The Avengers and Quartermass. The story is well developed, with the first two episodes taking place in the Antarctic (with the exception of a few close-ups of styrofoam, most of the snow shots are passable). Episode three sees the action change to England and the grounds of Harrison Chase's mansion. This shift in action keeps the basic plot fresh, simply transplanting the location. Indeed, the scenes in the Antarctic are probably the most gripping, while Harrison Chase's presence is virtually kept in the shadows for these two episodes, before he is presented as the main enemy. Tony Beckley's performance as the obsessed millionaire is wonderfully camp. The story also has other well acted characters. John Challis is brilliant as the cynical mercenary Scorby. He is sadistic, ruthless and determined; when he has to join forces with the Doctor and Sarah in episode five, Challis shows a new side to his character without compromising his self-centredness. The cautious botanist Arnold Keeler is another well portrayed character - in particular the scenes when he is slowly changing into the second Krynoid are disturbing. He pleads with Chase, but the millionaire is prepared to sacrifice him in order to see the monster develop. Kenneth Gilbert as the embittered Dunbar is the other standout performance. He sells the secret of the Krynoid to Chase; his realisation that what he has done was wrong is a quiet moment that says a lot. He has caused all this and it is up to him to do what he can to redeem himself. These individual quirks, which ensure the characters are not just catalysts of the action, is one of the core reasons "The Seeds of Doom" works so well. Added to this, the regulars, Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen are also at their best. Baker in particular has some extremely physical moments you would not expect from his laidback, humorous Doctor we are all used to. Two scenes in episode three spring to mind vividly - when he knocks out the chauffeur and when he twists Scorby's neck in a headlock. The whole story is also suspenseful - when Keeler says "It's like waiting for a time bomb to explode", that about sums up the atmosphere. There are some brilliant cliffhangers (episode three especially!) and the Krynoid monsters are quite well done. The scenes of it atop the mansion in the final episode are particularly remarkable. There is only one problem with the story - the final two episodes seem to sag. They are not as gripping or exciting as the first four. There is less suspense and more action, when the reverse is far more fitting for this type of story (and indeed what makes the first four episodes so good). The ending is also very rushed, and quite a disappointment - the final outcome seems all too easy. However, as a whole, "The Seeds of Doom" is very worthwhile.