Ahhh, the one with the maggots – the staple of the Not-We when it comes to remembering Doctor Who. Although I’m sure, of course, that many fans remember it just as well, because it’s a story that I was aware of and eager to watch when the BBC repeated it at the start of 1994: I knew it was a classic, I knew it had maggots in it, but I didn’t know it was Jo Grant’s last story – or just how much of a classic it actually is.
Pertwee’s 5 year stint in the TARDIS was bookended by two very different companions in Liz Shaw and Sarah Jane Smith – the two of which we’ll have the chance to talk about again before this list is done. But it’s the one that fills the middle three years that he is most closely associated with, and for very good reason.
Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks decided after one season that they didn’t want the character of Liz Shaw to continue; they didn’t feel having someone as intelligent as The Doctor made for good story telling – despite Terrance having spent two years showing just how well this type of character worked as a companion – and with Caroline John’s pregnancy meaning that Liz’s departure was mutually beneficial, in came Katy Manning’s Jo Grant to hold the test tubes & exposition in a more traditional role.
Which is how she starts off, at least: despite her obvious skills & talents, Jo is a liability more than an asset in her first season, running off, getting captured & rescued left, right and centre. There’s an attempt to set her up with Mike Yates – and Bill Filer – which sets up a trope of Jo getting proposed to by every other supporting character (still, better than getting leered at like Peri I suppose…) but as S9 progresses we get to see how capable she is, and how she’s less prepared to play second fiddle to The Doctor & put up with his nonsense. And so into S10: by the time we reach this story she’s a fully fledged time & space traveller, easily able to carry the show through one of the 3rd Doctor’s frequent bouts of narcolepsy & still fending off marriage proposals every other story.
But all good things come to an end, and the writing’s on the wall from the very first scene of The Doctor & Jo together: Jo’s found something she cares more about that The Doctor’s jackdaw meanderings, and there’s a very good sense that this will it it for them from the off. Much is said of the final scene of The Green Death, as The Doctor slips quietly away from the party, unable to deal with the fledgling flying the coop after all and the tragic figure he cuts as he drives Bessie off into the sunset – and rightly so. It’s one of the best departure scenes that we get from the Classic Run, with only The Hand of Fear & Fury From the Deep coming close, but we also get a perfectly good departure scene right at the start. If you’re sad that The Doctor didn’t say goodbye to Jo properly; well he did, right at the top of Episode 1 – they just go and have an adventure afterwards, that’s all. It’s a phenomenally clever bit of writing to put the goodbye first, after being teased with Jo’s departure in the previous story, it lulls us into a sense of false security, as well as giving us the best of both worlds.
Jo’s departure is the cornerstone of this story, and it’s dealt with incredibly well. It’s not quite foreshadowed rather than telegraphed with that scene from the start, but it’s then built on superbly throughout. Jo’s first meeting with Cliff is a reproduction of her first meeting with The Doctor, as she stumbles into his lab in full hamfisted bunvendor mode and wrecks his experiments. Cliff Jones is the perfect Doctor substitute for Jo, exhibiting many of the same traits: he’s a stubborn, anti-authority authority figure with a dry sense of humour, but also young and good looking – and more importantly the sort of person she can settle down with. It’s the same trick Moffat does with Clara and Danny Pink in Series 8, but with much better results here. That proposal at the end of Planet of the Daleks makes us think that Jo will always knock other men back in favour of The Doctor, but by the time it comes at the end of this story it feels perfectly natural, like the stranger thing to do would be for Jo to say no. Katy Manning & Stewart Bevan’s obvious chemistry helps a lot in this respect, but this is really just the Katy Manning show, as Jo bows out in a way that means we’ll miss her just as much as The Doctor does.
But, there’s still that adventure to be had in between the goodbyes: and this one is a belter! I’ve spoken before about the blend of light entertainment & drama that Barry Letts & Terrance Dicks built the success of their era on, and it’s nowhere more apparent than here. The Green Death is a story with a powerful message that it doesn’t shy away from – pollution is bad, we’re killing the planet, stop it now – and one that is just as important today as it was then; in fact you can imagine Jo running off to join Just Stop Oil as much as the Nut Hutch. There’s drama, scares & tension throughout, with the Part 1 cliffhanger, Jo getting stuck in the mine with poor dying Bert, the maggot attacking at night all being moments of high drama, tension & scares; but there’s levity and comfort throughout to balance this. The Doctor’s trip to Metabelis III never fails to make me chortle, as does his cosplay as Dilys Price from Fireman Sam. BOSS is quite the pantomime villain by the end, but scenes like the Brig in a kilt having a dinner party at the Nut Hutch just make you smile. It’s that blend of silly & scary that makes this era so good, so popular, and one that you can come back to again and again and again.
Of course, the UNIT family was such a big part of that. Between the 5th & 6th episodes of this story airing, Roger Delgado sadly lost his life; if Katy leaving the show was the first step towards Pertwee handing over the keys to the TARDIS, that sealed the deal. There was time for one more season to give Pertwee the send off he deserved, but this is the one Manning deserved. Without Jo to bounce off, this Doctor could have went down as grumpy as the 1st; but Katy Manning’s natural energy and sunshine overcame any and all obstacles. Katy continues to be a force of nature all these years later: she’s an intergalactic treasure, and if you ever get the chance to meet her then I suggest you do. Her & Jon Pertwee worked so well together I can’t complain at all about only getting one season of Liz Shaw, I wouldn’t take any time away from Jo. At all.
COMING TOMORROW: “We play the game again, TimeLord…”
Skies Full of Diamonds 