Doctor Who: Inferno (Story 54)
by Douglas Camfield
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DVD details
Actor: Caroline John, John Levene, Jon Pertwee, Nicholas CourtneyDirector: Douglas Camfield
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Unknown; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Unknown
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 166 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-09-05
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: E2667
Studio: BBC Worldwide
Product features:
- An unsuccessful trial run with the Tardis console throws the Doctor into a parallel universe where his old friends are rather nasty characters.Running Time: 166 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY Rating: NR Age: 794051266729 UPC: 794051266729 Manufacturer No: E2667
DVD Reviews of Doctor Who: Inferno (Story 54)
DVD Review: YOU REALLY DO LOOK BETTER WITH YOUR MOUSTACHE!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
UNLESS WE ACT NOW THERE'S GOING TO BE THE MOST TERRIBLE DISASTER IMAGINABLE...I'VE SEEN IT HAPPEN!
JUMPING JEHOSOPHAT! Imagine a sci-fi story with twice the potential for world armageddon, and that's what you have in INFERNO, a 7 part Dr. Who serial from Jon Pertwee's run as the interfering Timelord. Usually the story arcs longer than 4 parts, suffer from attempts to stretch out the episodes with padding and material that neither advances the story nor does it serve any real purpose. INFERNO, I'm happy to say is not one of those stories.
The top-secret drilling project called "Inferno", is intended to penetrate the Earth's crust and release limitless energy for the world. Hungry for success the "powers that be " ignore warnings about the possible dangers of the project, some warnings coming from the Doctor, currently in his 3rd incarnation and exiled by his people, the Timelords,to Earth of the 20th century. While the Doctor still hopes to escape the confines of one planet, one time, by borrowing some of the power from the "Inferno" project. As unpaid scientific adviser to the paramilitary organization UNIT, or the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, he is frequently in the position to help them save the human race, most often from themselves. Although this is one time he only half-succeeds in averting world destruction. While the project proceeds in its attempt to drill over 20 miles through the Earth's crust, to tap the gas beneath it, a series of events begin leading to the end of the world, maybe two. A technician's contact with an enigmatic subterranean ooze, followed by a motiveless murder and a madman on the loose are mere opening clues for the Doctor, his brilliant assistant Liz Shaw and the project's head of security and UNIT's CO the Brigadier, to solve the unfolding mystery. But the Doctor's own agenda has him distracted: he is testing the console from the TARDIS (his immobilized time/space ship).
More attacks occur involving the altered technician, through some "retrogressive mutation" he and anyone he's touched suffer a transformation into animal-things. More of the ooze is discovered from the drilling outpipe, at first the substance defies analysis, while the project head, Prof. Stahlman conceals that he has touched it. He continues to ignore all warnings to stop drilling, those from both the Doctor and the computer, the later which he sabotages himself. Becoming increasingly obsessive as he regresses further, he orders the Doctor's power supply cut-off at a critical juncture in his experiments with the TARDIS console. This caused the Doctor to travel "sideways in the time/space continuum" to a parallel universe. He's on earth right when and where he was but things are a bit askew, UNIT is not longer managing security, replaced by RSF (the Republican Security Forces), the Brigadier is now the eye-patched and mustacheless Brigade-Leader (scars and facial hair are always major factors in reality shifts), Liz is now Section Leader Shaw. As it happens the project is marginally more advanced than the Doctor's universe, Prof. Stalman is just as dangerously obsessed and infected, but the Doctor never existed, so he is promptly thought a spy, a saboteur, arrested and tossed in a cell with an infected technician. After the Doctor escapes, he tries again to stop the countdown, but it is too late Prof. Stalman is to far gone and others don't believe him until it is too late, as the Doctor puts it, "Listen to that, it's the sound of this planet screaming out its rage!...Compared to the forces you've unleashed, an Atomic blast would be like a summer breeze!"
What is always Dr. Who at it's most frightening is when the Doctor, the ever-present voice of optimism and internal hope ...when the Doctor gives up. That is when Dr. Who is just plain spooky. The Doctor says: "Sorry, we're past the point of no return, you've uncorked the genie from the bottle and there's nothing I can do." The parallel players consign themselves to try to help the Doctor to escape. Seriously, that's it, they begin hoping against hope that they just might be able to send him off alone on the off chance that his Earth might avoid the same catastrophic blunder (except for the Brigadier's counterpart, who hopes to force the Doctor into using the TARDIS as a interdimensional lifeboat).
INFERNO really is one of the best that Jon Pertwee's era has to offer. Thankfully BBC video has taken this opportunity to really clean up the footage (most color originals of Inferno were listed among the BBC fire causualties, the American reruns most of us saw in the 80's were all shaky BLACK & WHITE back-up reels, AND WE WERE THANKFUL FOR IT!).
INFERNO'S length allow for a greater development of character and relationships that serve the dual roles of the major and minor players, while confirming their natures by contrasting them (like the hot/cold between the crass but brave, in any universe, Drilling Consultant SUTTON and the all-business Assistant Director Dr. PETRA WILLIAMS.
Like the Doctor says, "Fascinating, so many similarities, yet so many differences."
The Liz Shaw and the Brigadier of "Universe B" are really just versions of themselves behaving as they would in a world dominated by fascism, but no one is "evil" in this story. Even Project Director Prof. Stahlman, the man whom which this disaster(s) would not be possible without, is merely obsessive and arrogant, then out of his mind, but even the monsters aren't evil, just kind of "hot & bothered."
Robert A. Heinlein author of "STRANGER in a STRANGE LAND" and the universe-shifting novel "JOB: A COMEDY OF JUSTICE" cites H.G. WELLS as having invented all of the basic fantasy themes, including the parallel universe, specifically: MEN LIKE GODS. Of course, the Sci-Fi channels loaded with them, including spoofs in Futurama, and just this year (probably the BBC's real motivation behind this release) the brilliant second season of the new Dr. Who features the 2 parter "AGE of STEEL/RISE of the CYBERMEN" in which the Cybermen are reborn (or rebuilt) on an alternate Earth. My point is INFERNO is a good story in good company, but not without it's clichés & faults.
The monsters in this one are alittle on the poor side of Lon Chaney and the Doctor, literially defeats the same ones over and over again, but I recommend adding this DVD to your Dr. Who collection.
One of my favorite experiences linked w/ DW is gathering w/ friends to watch, debate & other nefarious purposes.... So here is some INFERNO clichés for drinking games. Drink when:
--Someone is accused of traitorous talk/ behavior or sabotage
--The Doctor drives "Bessie" seemingly w/out purpose
--You see possible stock footage (of molten materials)
--The universe changes P.O.V. to an alternate one
--The Doctor calls authoritarian figures rude names
--You experience any feeling of Déjà vu (in any universe)
Description of Doctor Who: Inferno (Story 54)
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