Review of The Seeds of Death (#48)

DVD Release Date: 12 Jun 12
Original Air Date: 25 Jan – 01 Mar 1969
Doctors/Companions: Two, Jamie McCrimmon, Zoë Heriot
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury
Preceding Story: The Krotons (Two, Jamie, Zoë)
Succeeding Story: The Space Pirates (Two, Jamie, Zoë)

When I first decided to finish off the blog with the Everything Else category of reviews, I had The Seeds of Death scheduled for October 2022. However, since we had the delight of Whittaker’s final episode last month, my October review slot ended up being filled by that instead. As I had no desire to shift my entire posting schedule, and didn’t want either to skip Seeds of Death or to move it to the very end, this month you get a bonus review instead of a confession.

It turns out that the timing couldn’t have been better. This past week has been a bit rough for me on a personal level, and so the gentler pacing of a black-and-white era story ended up being exactly what I needed. Even with a high body count, this adventure was well paced enough to feel relatively calm to me.

The Doctor, Jaime, and Zoë arrive on Earth at a time where space exploration has been effectively halted, and transport of both people and goods is accomplished almost exclusively by T-MAT, a high-tech matter transmission system. But there are weaknesses in the system that an enemy can take advantage of, which is how the Ice Warriors end up making a play to take Earth for themselves.

There is plenty of politicking, running around in danger, splitting up and reuniting of the TARDIS crew, and death of players on both sides of the conflict. Yet somehow, the details of the Ice Warriors’ scheme are revealed gradually enough both to retain viewer (at least my) interest and to keep from overloading us. The veteran Doctor Who viewer, even if they have never seen this serial before, can probably glean enough clues to predict the overall shape of the plot just far enough in advance to feel clever.

Our TARDIS crew functions like a well-oiled machine at this point, in their penultimate adventure together. They know how to take the initiative to help each other out when they are separated and things clearly haven’t gone to plan. And they can tell when someone else likely needs that help.

We also have the Ice Warriors in their second on-screen appearance. To the modern eye, the costumes look very clunky and awkward, and their characteristic hissing voices can grate on the nerves after a while (though that has not changed throughout their history), but I have to admit that the visual effect used for their weapons is still pretty awesome, even fifty-odd years later.

And speaking of effects, who doesn’t love an overwhelming amount of foamy soap bubbles fungus? When I pulled my DVD off the shelf and tried to remember what this story was about, the three things I could come up with were Troughton, Ice Warriors, and soap bubbles (I couldn’t even remember which Companions were involved). Clearly that part made a lasting impact.

One of my kids happened to walk past as I was watching the iconic scene with the Doctor nearly being overwhelmed. “Is that soap bubbles?” she asked, half incredulous.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “I mean, nominally it’s fungus…”

“It’s so obviously soap bubbles,” she said, then paused to watch another moment. “Really creepy soap bubbles, but still soap bubbles.”

And really, what better recommendation could you ask for?