"The Seeds of Death - Episode Four"

Doctor Who
Airdate: February 15, 1969
Patrick Troughton¹, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury
Written by Brian Hayles
Produced by Peter Bryant
Directed by Michael Ferguson

Radnor has the lethal smoke from the seed expelled out of the building. Autopsy reveals that Brent died instantly of oxygen starvation. Seeds appear in other cities around the world, causing a few more isolated deaths. Once the spores are expelled into the air, however, seeds begin growing across the countryside. The Ice Warriors order Fewsham to place the Doctor's unconscious body in the T-Mat cubicle and send him into open space. Jamie and Phipps open the back of the cubicle and get him out just in time, then return to the solar energy store. An Ice Warrior is then sent to London, where it kills the guards and makes its way outside. Phipps and Zoe return to the control room to take another crack at reaching the heating controls. They're discovered by an Ice Warrior, Phipps is killed, and the Warriors turns to fire at Zoe...

This story has two major locations at this point: the moonbase, and T-Mat control on Earth. The progress of the story on the moonbase basically comes to a halt here, because without Patrick Troughton, there isn't much to be done. Also, the Ice Warriors are basically just waiting for the seeds to spread across the Earth. So everything on the moonbase is basically just padding, including one scene in particular where Phipps just starts bitching about how stressful everything is right now. Scenes like this, done well, can bring home to the audience just how frightening it is for regular people to face off against space monsters (which is something that it's easy to lose sight of when you're watching the Doctor run rings around them every week). This, however, is just there to take some time off the clock.

However, the episode isn't completely stuck in a holding pattern. Wisely, the script shifts the action mostly to Earth (which was a bit neglected in the previous episode). These bits really start establishing and developing what the Ice Warriors are up to. What's unfolding here is actually a very interesting plan. First, the seeds arrive, and start spreading all over the place (this is represented through liberal use of the BBC foam machine, and we'll be seeing a lot more of that tomorrow). The arrival of the Ice Warrior provides a bit of action, and kills off quite a few unnamed extras. Thanks to all of this, for an episode that is mostly concerned with marking time until Patrick Troughton gets back, there's actually quite a lot going on here.

Including my favorite moment: the Ice Warrior starts doing a little dance as soon as he arrives in London. At least, that's what it looks like. He's just standing there, shifting from foot to foot, and turning in place every few seconds. The kicker is that he's clearly a much better dancer than I am.

¹ Credited, but does not appear. This was another holiday week for Patrick Troughton. If I'm not mistaken, the last of his tenure.