The Series:

Broadcast in 1970 from a script by Don Houghton and directed by Douglas Camfield, Inferno stars John Pertwee as The Doctor. The story takes place on Earth where a cantankerous Professor Stahlman (Olaf Pooley) overseas a drilling project that should hopefully provide access to a recently discovered fuel source dubbed Stalhman's Gas. Project Director Sir Keith Gold (Christopher Benjamin) expresses his concern about Stahlman's obsessive behavior to Petra (Shiela Dunn), Stahlman's assistant, and he then brings in a drilling expert named Greg Sutton (Derek Newark) to make sure that everything Stahlman is doing is safe. While all of this is going on, The Doctor, who is acting as a consultant of sorts, is using the power generated by the projects reactor to power the TARDIS' console which he is in turn using to conduct various experiments that he hopes will allow him to fix the TARDIS proper, as at this point in the series he's still in exile on Earth at the behest of the Time Lords.

Meanwhile, the good people of UNIT are overseeing security on Stahlman's project. This becomes important when a worker named Harry Slocum gets some strange green goop on his hands and quickly transforms from a regular man into some sort of monster that promptly goes on a killing spree. Stahlman also comes into contact, and around this time The Doctor's experiments send him into an alternate dimension where England has been overrun by fascists. UNIT's Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) and The Doctor's companion, Liz Shaw (Caroline John) witness his disappearance and set about to make things right. The Doctor, however, is trapped in a world where the Stahlman Project has taken on a life of its own and where evil, fascist versions of those involved with it in the ‘real world' are running things their own way. In order to correct things The Doctor must return to the original ‘reality' from whence he came and change things connected to the drilling project that could result in the end of the world as we know it... this will not be easy, however, not if Stalhman has anything to say about it.

Inferno is pretty solid Seventh Season Doctor Who, the kind of story that lets Pertwee do what he does best and amp up his own take on The Doctor in ways that the series hadn't really seen before. If nothing else, the man has loads of charisma and brings an enjoyably manic enthusiasm to the role in this serial. He brings that ever so slightly caustic attitude to the character well, not at all above rubbing it in when he's right and not without some arrogance, but somehow never losing sight of the character. Olaf Pooley is also great as Professor Stahlman, stealing a few scenes from Pertwee even and really getting into his role with a whole lot of energy and spirit. The rest of the cast are also good here. Caroline John is not only as pretty as ever but her performance and her back and forth with Pertwee makes for some fun dialogue. Nicholas Courtney is also as dependable here as he ever was and once The Doctor travels to the alternate dimension and starts dealing with ‘evil' versions of some of these familiar faces the story is able to go in some interesting and fairly subversive directions.

The production values, sets and locations are decent here as well. There isn't really a whole lot of ‘space' going on in this episode as The Doctor is still exiled to Earth so maybe in some ways this storyline is a little more restrained than others but we get some fun monster effects courtesy of the mysterious green slime and the transformations that it brings on and of course the aforementioned ‘evil versions' of characters that appear in the alternate reality. The sets look fine, there's some fun design work on display and a few decent stunts too. As far as the pacing goes, the first couple of episodes are a little slow but once the basics of the plot and characters are properly established, things definitely pick up nicely. Once that happens, Inferno turns out to be choice entertainment, a great mix of science fiction, action horror and drama done in that inimitable classic Doctor Who style and with a great job done across the board by all involved.

Video:

This installment of Doctor Who arrives on DVD in its original fullframe aspect ratio. This transfer was obviously taken from tape masters, so the image is a fair bit softer than some of the other releases that the series has enjoyed. There are moments where the picture is muddy looking and fairly murky and detail is generally below average throughout playback. It's all watchable enough though and scenes shot inside tend to look cleaner and clearer than those shot outdoors (the stage lighting probably helps here), but this isn't really a great transfer even if it's obvious that the powers that be have done their best with the material that they had available. The disc is well authored in that there are no problems with compression artifacts and as soft as it all is, at least it's clean in that there aren't any nasty issues with print damage.