“Inferno” is the last adventure of the seventh season of “Doctor Who” classic series which aired in 1970. It follows “The Ambassadors of Death” and it’s a seven parts adventure written by Don Houghton and directed by Douglas Camfield.

The story

Professor Stahlman directs a project called Inferno that has the goal to penetrate the Earth’s crust in order to each enormous amounts of gas which should provide cheap energy in abundance. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) and UNIT assist the project taking care of its security. The Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) takes the opportunity to use the nuclear reactor that operates the project’s equipment to try make Tardis console work.

A strange green slime starts emerging from the depths of the Earth’s crust and whoever touches it starts changing. While even Professor Stahlman is infected, an abortive experiment with the Tardis console sends the Doctor into a parallel universe in which there’s a fascist regime. The alter-ego of General Lethbridge-Stewart and Liz Shaw (Caroline John) interrogate the Doctor, who discovers that there’s an ongoing experiment similar to the one in his universe but it’s going to cause a catastrophe.

Extras

This DVD is rich in extras. There are typical contents such as production subtitles, Radio Time Billings and a gallery of pictures from this adventure.

There are comments in the adventure alternative audio track by actors Nicholas Courtney and John Levene, producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks.

Can You Hear the Earth Scream? A 35-minute documentary on the production of this adventure.

The UNIT Family (Part One). A 36-minute documentary about UNIT from its creation until the end of the Third Doctor’s era.

Deleted Scene. A scene, cut during editing, in which John Pertwee plays a radio announcer in an all too recognizable manner.

Visual Effects Promo Film. A clip showing various special effects created by the BBC department.

The Pertwee Years – Introduction. The introduction to the last episode of this adventure in the 1992 edition of “Doctor Who: The Pertwee Years”.

The Doctor Who Annual 1976. The 1976 edition of the magazine “The Doctor Who Annual” in PDF format.

The original idea was inspired to writer Don Houghton by the project Mohole, a program that actually started to drill into the Earth’s crust to reach the Mohorovicic discontinuity, a project abandoned later. However, that idea could be developed into a of four parts adventure while producer Barry Letts wanted to develop a seven-part one. Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks asked Houghton to develop his idea adding a sub-plot set in a parallel universe to reach the required length.

The result was spectacular. “Inferno” is a long adventure that manages to keep its tension through a good management of the dramatic moments and excellent performances from the majority of the actors.

Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks also asked Don Houghton to add some monsters in the adventure he was writing. At the beginning of “Inferno” one of the men working on the project gets infected by a strange green slime that pours out of a drill piple and turns into a “Primord”, a sort of sub-human regression. The werewolf look however was an idea of director Douglas Camfield, who managed to direct only the first two episodes because he suffered a heart attack. Barry Letts had to direct the rest of “Inferno”.

The Primords are considered a weak point of “Inferno” because they never explained the nature of the green slime or why its contact turns people that way. I’m OK with keeping some of the mysteries but I understand that some people prefer that all the elements that appear in a TV show get explained.

If there can be some doubts about the Primords, the rest of this adventure is for me and most fans just perfect. Actor Olaf Pooley is excellent in his portrayal of Professor Stahlman, egocentric and absolutely determined to finish his project in his own way, without listening to the advice of anyone even liquidating computer data as not sufficiently reliable.

Olaf Pooley manages to play Stahlman in a balanced way so that his character clashes with everyone else and pushes to speed up the drilling but at the same time he never goes over the top. This helps to keep the tension high throughout the adventure.

The part of the “Inferno” set in a parallel universe contains some iconic moments of “Doctor Who”. The Doctor is confused by the strange journey made experimenting with the Tardis console and can’t understand right away what happened to him. When he meets members of the UNIT, who are people he knows but at the same time are completely different from them he starts getting an idea of the situation. Surely, part of the success of this story is due to the skill of the actors in playing their usual characters’ alter-egos who work for a fascist dictatorship.

Even in the parallel universe there’s an ongoing project of drilling the Earth’s crust that is almost at its peak and it’s interesting that Professor Stahlman has virtually the same personality in the two universes.

In the parallel univers, project Inferno causes a catastrophe and the Doctor must return to his world to stop it from happening again. It’s the dramatic culmination of the story which, as if to give a little relief to the audience after much tension, ends with a comic duet between the Doctor and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

Some adventures of “Doctor Who” classic series suffer from the fact that the low budget didn’t allow them to create good special effects. Luckily, in “Inferno” they didn’t need many of them. The location shots were done in a refinery and the sets are limited but well made, with the added touch of the continuous drilling equipment’s background noise.

“Inferno” is the last Liz Shaw adventure. Producer Barry Letts thought that the character was too intelligent and cultured to simply be Doctor’s assistant so the following season she was replaced by Jo Grant. Unfortunately, Liz has no farewell scene.

“Inferno” is truly one of the best adventures in the “Doctor Who” history and the DVD contains several interesting extras so it’s a must-have for fans and the general I recommend buying it to anyone who wants to see the best of “Doctor Who”.