It’s
been said that atypical Doctor Who
often works best – and unconventional stories such as `Caves of Androzani` or
`Blink` often appear to poll highly - but `Seeds of Doom` might seem to be an example
where the reverse is true. It shows what the series can do well and what its
strengths are. It’s a variation of a story that’s been told often in the show
yet something special comes together to make it a prize specimen. No doubt a
modern take on this story would highlight the ecological issues and perhaps
even delve into Harrison Chase’s undoubtedly colourful past but such depth is
not needed for what remains at its heart an adventure yarn with a threat our
confined heroes have a limited time to sort out.
Utilising the team that delivered `Terror of the Zygons` at the start of the season, this story adopts a similarly atmospheric template and the results are excellent even at fifty year’s distance. I’ve never felt that the first two episodes seem like a separate story really as some claim, rather they are like the first act of a film which can often take place somewhere different. It certainly feels connected to the rest of the story.
A race against the clock is always the most dramatic of stories and Robert Banks Stewart’s taut script sketches just enough character for us to remain interested in what happens to these people. He draws exaggerated and not especially deep characters that become fascinating despite their relative simplicity thanks to all round good performances. Despite his reputation as an action director Douglas Camfield draws some exquisite detail from his talented cast.
Stevenson’s academic ambition is present in actor Hubert Rees’ detached stare. Dunbar gets one line about resentment due to “time serving nonentities” being promoted above him to explain his aiding of Chase. Scorby is all bullying bluster waving a gun around even though you know he will never shoot anyone with it while Keeler’s nervy presence marks him out as potential Krynoid food from the first time you see him. In the fury of the Kyrnoid siege Scorby outlines the perils and the survival instinct he’s followed as a mercenary. Keeler’s lack of appetite for Scorby’s approach come across in actor Mark Jones’ jittery performance as if the character is afraid of most things.
Though Harrison Chase has a lot of screen time his botanical obsession played up to the nth degree we learn very little about him and it’s hard not to smile as he plays his discordant symphony declaring “I could play all day in my green cathedral”. It is this forensic attention to details which raises this story above the average pot boiler. A few examples- Hargreaves’ raised eyebrows as he hears Chase’s music again, Sir Colin Thackery’s reaction to hearing his pension might be under threat, the Doctor mouthing the correct pronunciation of Amelia Ducat’s surname. There are lots of these, all underpinning the bold action that drives the story forward.
On the other side though this detail does mean you spot things like characters placing themselves in just the right pose so a Kyrnoid root can bite them or the strange quality of those polystyrene snowflakes and even the unexpected sight of grass in the Antarctic! They production does a good job in conveying that arctic feel with wind machines having the fake snow blowing about like a blizzard and sound effects doing the rest. The inside of the arctic base looks great though would metallic walls offer much warmth in such conditions? There’s also an awkwardly arranged scene when the Doctor and co are taking plants from the house and somehow all manage to get locked outside plus a very rubbery looking wrench sees off poor Sgt Henderson.
It is a great story though drawing from obvious antecedents in mainstream
sci-fi but populating it with interesting people. It rollicks along with everything making sense even down
to Amelia’s small but pivotal part, the way Dunbar has a through story and the
choreography being paced more like a film than a TV
series. Episodes four to six largely take place in Chase’s house and estate, a beautiful
location that along with Geoffrey Burgon’s rich music gives the story its unique
bouquet. Cliffhangers are however variable- the infected Winlett throttling
Moberley (who had seemed the most pleasant of the three scientists) is gruesome,
caught in half shadow. It’s a rare example of neither the Doctor nor his
companion at direct risk when the credits role. Later on, it is difficult to manipulate
the larger Krynoid especially when its loose in Chase’s grounds.
The
Doctor’s part in the story oscillates considerably- early on he is a step
apart; “you must help yourselves” he intones as the base crew debate about who
will operate on Winlett. Here, Stewart uses Sarah as a more mature sounding
board, almost an equal of the Doctor’s. The only thing that really galvanises
the Doctor is when Sarah herself is in danger (something Scorby soon picks up
on) otherwise he seems satisfied to play the role of observer even though he’s
been asked to go to Antarctica. Why he goes by plane rather than TARDIS is
never explained and the story’s curious coda, suggesting he was planning to,
only confuses the issue. The Doctor also displays a lot more physical violence than we
might expect; leaping through a glass canopy or slugging it out with a
chauffeur. There’s more than a touch of James Bond about it all, notably
Harrison Chase who could easily be a Bond villain lurking in his green cathedral.
Douglas Camfield’s full blooded direction is defitintely an asset with realistic machine gun fire (about the only time till `Androzani`), while the
compost machine and Krynoid transformation scenes are designed to underline the
drama without showing too much. Camfield places quite a lot of
emphasis on realism, shooting with the same sharp video cameras that made 1980s Doctor Who look false yet somehow
managing to keep matters convincing. Faced with the rubbery Krynoid he wisely
uses shadows and interesting camera angles to make it look reasonably good. As
with the brilliant `Terror of the Zygons`, Geoffrey Burgon’s music
becomes an organic part of the story; not till Murray Gold has a composer
written such an intuitive incidental score for the show. Compared to Dudley Simpson’s
standard electronic trills and bleeps, Burgon is symphonic as you’d expect from
a composer of his reputation and there are moments where the sound and music
combine to powerful effect.
Like
all the best Doctor Who, casting is
key. Every one of them is superb, especially some of the smaller roles; Michael
Barrington’s wonderfully harassed Sir Colin Thackery, the delightfully dotty
Amelia Ducat played by Sylvia Coleridge on a Miss Marple trip and even Major
Beresford (John Acheson) who is a far more convincing military type than the
series normally had. The main characters
provide some of the most watchable moments in the series’ history. The Doctor’s
brooding and Sarah’s loyal intuition play so well together. John Challis lets
rip as Scorby, a character written and played with few limits. Tony Beckley is
as camp as you like one minute yet insanely vicious the next with his henchmen
indulging in what was for the timeslot some strong violence.
The climax visuals impress with the many tentacled Krynoid astride the house but its destruction by RAF missiles,
while undoubtedly spectacular, seems out of place. Would it have been too much
for the Doctor to have whipped up something they had to spray on the Krynoid?
Nonetheless `Seeds of Doom` is a superb conclusion to what is one of the best classic
seasons of all.
What did fandom make of this story when it was first released. This is a review from the DWAS Yearbook in 1976-
Season 13 Rankings
So, just for fun, and calculated with a lack of any scientific rigour, this is how I would place the stories for this season, a tricky choice to make because they are all so good. (My reviews of the other half of this season's stories can be found posted in 2020 on this blog)
Tony Beckley
In
an age when we can find out most things, information about Tony Beckley is at a
premium but I did unearth a 1979 interview he did with the New York Times. It
doesn’t mention Doctor Who (the show wasn’t much known in the US at the
time) but it does offer a small insight into this enigmatic actor whom most
people would know from The Italian Job. As it turned out When a Stranger
Calls was his last job; he died in April 1980.
Tony Beckley in When A Stranger Calls.
“I do tend to get these
rather quirky, offbeat people to play,” says Tony Beckley. But he doesn't quite
know why. “I would be surprised if you could see anything psychotic in my
behavior,” he added.
Clad in jeans, sneakers
and a T‐shirt bearing a picture of Popeye's first mate, Olive
Oyl, the English actor sought to counteract a screen image made vivid as the
maniac in the film “When a Stranger Calls” as he spoke on the telephone from
what he described as his “Day of the Locust” apartment with its Hollywood
Spanish exterior, its patio abd its bougainvillea in West Hollywood.
His manner — frank,
humorous, reminiscent — was a far cry from that of Curt Duncan, the homicidal
psychotic who uses the telephone as an instrument of terror in “When a Stranger
Calls.”
Mr. Beckley conceded,
though, that he had wanted to play the role ever since he was shown the script
last year while visiting with Doug Chapin, one of the film's producers, during
a trip to the United States for some work on “The Revenge of the Pink Panther.”
A Chance for Bravura
Work
“He said to me would I
read the script and let him know what I thought about it. At that point there
was no question of my playing the part or anything. Once I'd read the script I
just wanted to play it very, very badly. thought, as I read it, it was probably
the most frightening, scary thriller of its kind.”
The role of Curt Duncan,
he said, offered a chance “to do something that had never been able to do with
any psychotic before.” He added, “I thought that there ought to be a lot of
sympathy going for him in spite of the terrible things that he'd done. I felt
there were opportunities for one or two kinds of bravura work in it in a couple
of scenes.”
But Mr. Beckley confined
himself merely to dropping hints about playing the role. But one night at a
party, he met Charles Durning, who had already contracted to play the part of
the detective who pursues Duncan.
“Charlie is a great
movie buff,” said Mr. Beckley, “and he'd seen quite a lot of the films that I'd
done in England. He said I'd be absolutely perfect for the killer. It so
happens that the director (Fred Walton) and the writer (Steve Feke, co‐author with Mr. Walton) were at the party. Charlie voiced
his opinion to them. It seems to have carried some weight.”
Though forthright about
many things in his career, Mr. Beckley is secretive about one: the exact date
of his birth. “It's taken me a long time to get here,” is all he will say. But
he gives his place of birth as Southampton, England, and his full name as Derek
Anthony Beckley. He did not know his father. “I was born out of wedlock and
that's that,” he said. His mother. born Beatrice Mitchell, worked for a time as
a stewardess on such liners as the Mauretania and the Aquitania and was away a
lot of the time. Mr. Beckley was reared, he said, mainly by “another lady I
used to call my aunt.”
When he was 5 years old,
he and his mother moved to Portsmouth, and when World War II broke out, he was
packed off for most of its duration to Winchester, where he attended a school
called Winton House.
There he was first drawn
to dramatics. “There's nothing in my background to explain it,” he said.
“Perhaps a desire for some attention, which I really didn't get much of as a
kid. don't know.
“I liked the sort of
things kids who turn out to be actors usually like. I liked reading a lot. I
liked English a lot. liked painting a lot.”
While Mr. Beckley was
still only vaguely conscious of his future career, his mother had other ideas.
“She wanted me to do something nice and safe,” he said, “with a steady future
and good pension at the end of it, like something in the civil service.”
At 16, he left school.
“I could have gone on to other things, but by that time I decided no. I was
going to go into the theater.”
The turning point came
one day on the pier at Portsmouth, where the local repertory company, the Court
Players, was presenting Emlyn Williams's “The Corn is Green.”
“I remember I just
didn't sleep all that night. I thought I had discovered what it was that was
going to make me be happy ‐ to
be a part of that kind of life.”
He applied for a job,
which consisted of making tea and sweeping the stage and which paid about El a
week. “It was heaven to me just to be there,” he said. To take the job, he
turned down a “rather good” post of the sort that his mother favored ‐ with the local planning department.
He spent two or three
months as a stage sweeper and tea maker before moving on to London. “I didn't
realize how tough it was going to be, of course,” he said. There was no work in
the theater for him. He became a waiter; he tidied up restaurants; he worked in
an ice cream factory. And he went to the theater. It was just after World War
II. He haunted the gallery of the New Theater, watching Old Vic Company
productions and actors like Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson and Alec
Guinness.
Just before he turned
18, he entered the Royal Navy for two years, and found time during service as a
seaman aboard the destroyer Scorpion to prepare for — and ultimately win —
admission to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
After two years, he
entered the world of professional theater, “the long treadmill, really, of
working all the provincial repertory companies in England.” When he wound up
with company not far from London, the way was open for him to find roles in
television, to make his movie debut in “Chimes at Midnight,” with Orson Welles,
to play his first leading role in movie opposite Suzy Kendall as a psychotic in
“Penthouse” and to appear in the West End in Tennessee Williams's “Small Craft
Warnings” with Elaine Stritch and in “Snap” with Maggie Smith.
Aside from that “Day of
the Locust” apartment in Hollywood where he has spent a good portion of the
past year, Mr. Beckley has a house back home in Fulham, and a garden; and he
lives alone, except for three dogs.
It was in that house,
last year, that he learned of the reaction of Mr. Walton and Mr. Feke to Mr.
Durning's suggestion that he play the killer in “When Stranger Calls.”
“They sent me a telegram,” Mr. Beckley said. “From Fred. He said, have seen lots of actors, but I want you to be my killer “
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