DOCTOR WHO: JON PERTWEE'S THE GREEN DEATH & MY PORTABLE TARDIS

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dr_Who,_John_Pertwee_(10842597324).jpg?uselang=en-gb

Jon Pertwee as Doctor Who: Tribute

What is it about Doctor Who in general , and Jon Pertwee in particular, that is so captivating and iconic?

PAUL SCOONES: New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club, www.doctorwho.org.nz,

The appeal of Doctor Who is the broad format of the series - the lead character can change personality and appearance, he can go anywhere in time and space, and have adventures varying from hard science fiction to historical intrigue to gothic horror, to comedy, to ecological thriller - it is undoubtedly the least 'constrained' of any continuing TV drama series. Doctor Who has also transcended the television medium, finding commercial success as a long running series of original novels, full-cast audio dramas on CD and a comic strip which is almost as old as the TV series itself.

Every Doctor Who fan - and regular viewers as well - has their own Doctor; this is usually the current incumbent when they first started watching. So for New Zealanders who became hooked on the series during 1975-78, or 1985-86 (or even more recent repeats), Jon Pertwee is their Doctor because that's when he was on screen. Viewers who became hooked with that original run would - like me - now be in their late thirties. Pertwee was the second longest-serving Doctor, making five series (first screened in the UK 1970-74), beaten only by Tom Baker (seven years in the role, 1974-81). Most fans and casual viewers alike would probably place Tom Baker ahead of Jon Pertwee in the popularity stakes, but Pertwee still has a strong following. Pertwee's Doctor is a dashing, debonair figure who has frequently been compared to the Avengers' John Steed or the Roger Moore James Bond.

I appreciate that "The Green Death" is primarily about entertainment . But do you think it holds a prophetic message about the relationship between Big Business and the ecology today?

The appeal of The Green Death for many viewers is that they remember it fondly as "the one with the maggots". Even viewers with only a slight knowledge of Doctor Who seem to recall this story above all others. Perhaps there's something primal about our reaction to maggots that causes this one to lodge in the memory? The Green Death though is really a story about big business moving in and closing down the coal mines, destroying the community's well-being. This was very topical in the UK when the story was first screened in 1973, due to the pit closures and the miners' strikes. Unfortunately the story doesn't hold up all that well today with some very broad Welsh stereotypes presented on screen (including a rather notorious impersonation of a Welsh milkman by Jon Pertwee), and the perhaps disappointing revelation that it's not corporate businessmen but a megalomaniac computer called "BOSS" that is ultimately responsible for all the wrong-doing. Still, the story is memorable for both the maggots and the rather tearful departure of the Doctor's companion, Jo Grant, played by Katy Manning.

THE GREEN DEATH AND MY PORTABLE TARDIS

When Tony Blair refers to 10 Downing St as "the Tardis", because it's bigger on the inside than the outside, we see how ingrained into our lives the Doctor's space/time travelling phone-box has become. Perhaps this is because the Tardis- ( Time and Relative Dimension in Space)- may be more common than we realise.

Isasc Asimov wrote that we can all carry portable time machines in our pockets, which propel us backwards and forwards in time, while informing us about whole civilizations. They are known as "books".

My own portable Tardis takes the form of a VHS copy of the "Green Death", starring Jon Pertwee as the third Doctor Who. This release came out in 1996, as a tribute to Pertwee, who had recently died.

In "Green Death" , the Doctor is a scientific advisor to the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT) , led by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The Doctor's assistant, Jo Grant, is also attached to UNIT. Global Chemicals, the only employer in what once was a Welsh mining village, pours its waste, a green slime, into a disused mine, causing all who touch it to glow bright green before dying. The waste creates a by-product of maggots that break out of the mine. The maggots must be stopped before they mutate into giant flies that will destroy the world with aerial squirts of lethal green liquid.

The pestilence is not stopped by bullets but by a fungus designed to feed the starving, even though it poisons these mutant maggots. Our humble fungus is a metaphor: serendipity. The green death's antidote was discovered when slides were spilt, highlighting the happy accidents, and trial and error, of human progress as both art and science.

In marked contrast, BOSS, the "megalomaniac adding-machine", wants nothing or nobody to stand in the way of "efficiency". BOSS and the Doctor actually end up debating the age-old conflict between incomplete freedom ( tyranny) and inefficient freedom (democracy).

So I was inspired to take my portable Tardis went back to the Roman orator, Cicero; and the origins of the Western liberal tradition. Cicero argued against claiming certainty, preferring instead the most probable opinion, pursued in a spirit of free inquiry. The pursuit of truth should be the worthiest aim and the source of true happiness.

Moving thousands-of-years-a-minute, to Robert F Kennedy Jr, who warns against the trumping of science by money and political power..."The best scientists are moral individuals whose business it is to seek the truth. Corruption of this process undermines not just democracy but civilization itself"

By conveying a spirit of inquiry and joy of scientific discovery, Doctor Who has stood the test of time since 1963.

"The Green Death " is a fine illustration of that tradition.

-ADAM GREENWELL 2007