After enduring The Devil’s Chord, it’s nice to get back to some first rate Who - Inferno really couldn’t be any further removed in either quality or tone. Things become ever more unremittingly bleak on the parallel Earth in this episode, and Benton’s transformation is horrific, though I am not overly keen on the Primords’ final werewolf look, as I think they are more effective in the green zombie phase. There isn’t an onscreen explanation given for why the goo turns people into Primords, though I interpret it as the Earth taking revenge for the damage that is being done to it. Behind the scenes, the production team felt the story needed some kind of monster, so the Primords were invented quite late in the day. I have no idea if zombie films influenced the look, but the highly influential Night of the Living Dead had come out two years earlier, so it is possible.
That's the great thing about Inferno. You see for the first time what happens when the Doctor fails and doesn't save the world. RTD didn't invent that scenario. This is such a chilling episode for so many reasons. My favorite scene is the one when Petra hears the voice of Professor Stahlman coming over the speaker, all distorted and eerie.
This inspired a dream I had (though, oddly, years after I first watched this episode) in which every planet in the universe had rock monsters in their cores just waiting to come out and kill all life on the planet when its inhabitants become too technologically advanced. The rest of the dream was about anthropomorphic squirrel people trying to fight back against the rock monsters with X-Wings.
There’s quite a grim scene earlier in the ep where Stahlman rubs one of his colleagues face in the goo, I suppose to explain the increased goon count we later see, but now I’m wondering why do they turn into wolves anyway? I’d have thought something simian would have been a more logical mutation🤔
I remember being on my own in the living room when this episode was broadcast, I was 7 years old, my mum was probably preparing tea - Benton’s transformation happened and when he pops up into shot, fangs and all I remember hiding behind an armchair! 🫣🤣
@@TheShallowProclamation it does look rather unintentionally funny now but the context helps pull it back. A cosplayer friend of mine did a brilliant Primord cosplay that essentially uses the same things; face paint, hairy monster hand gloves, joke shop monster teeth and a white boiler suit. Really looked brilliant!
2:06 Perhaps _Inferno_ should have been subtitled "Journey to the Centre of the Smurf" BTW, _An American in Paris_ is a famous orchestral work by Gershwin. I hope it's not a spoiler to say that Dudley Simpson plays homage to it in a celebrated Tom Baker story. I'm pretty sure the title of the "Werewolf" sequel is also a nod to the Gershwin piece.
@@anthonymunn8633 Indeed, and the musical was inspired by the Gershwin piece. I'm a big fan of both, but whenever I think of "American in Paris", it's the orchestral piece that first springs to mind. Oddly enough, the opposite applies to "On the Town". It's the movie (also starring Gene Kelly) which comes to mind before the original Bernstein musical, although I'm familiar with both.
Inferno is one of my favourite classic who stories I think part 6 and 7 in particular at some of the best who ever made. Was wondering if you guys are gunna continue doing videos for the news series ?
Thank god for classic who. A nice palate cleanser. I've been a Doctor Who fan for over 55 years, and I've never been more embarrassed by the show and the title character than after watching RTD's latest two efforts. As bad as the Whittaker era was, Ncuti's doctor and RTD's writing are somehow even worse.
I don’t know how any one can watch an episode of a Doctor who that features a monster made of snot. And I thought Erato from Creature From The Pit was bad.
I thought the Space Babies episode was horrible, the worst since Orphan 55, but I rather enjoyed The Devil's Chord. Of course, I knew RTD coming back was a bad idea from over 2 years ago, and I thought the Tennant specials were mediocre at best. He's become swept up in his own legacy. He sees his era of the show as the definitive one rather than anything in classic Who, and unfortunately all the NuWho fans tend to agree.
Obviously, it's your video, but I'm not sure what the sketch at the end was all about. Presumably, you thought it was worth sharing, although I can't be alone in thinking it wasn't very funny. That's purely subjective, of course.
The whole Parallel universe thing just leaves me uninterested - why should we care about these faux-copies of people we've spent the last 20 weeks getting to know? I feel that if a parallel universe about Inferno had to be told, then it should have been set in the trendiest nightclub in 1960's London (The War Machines). It would have been fab to see Kitty again, and I've a sneaky feeling that Dodo ended up working the bar.
