Review: Story Number 048 – The Seeds of Death

From The Edwardian Adventurer
Written by Brian Hayles Directed by Michael Ferguson
From the back: In the late 21st century, the human race has become totally dependent on T-Mat, a revolutionary form of instant travel. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arrive on Earth just as T-Mat is suffering a malfunction. Sinister Ice Warriors from Mars have seized the lunar T-Mat station to launch an invasion of Earth.
“Your leader will be angry if you kill me! I’m a genius.”
Here we have our second meeting with The Ice Warriors, only this time the Martians are operating from a stronger position. Unfortunately, I didn’t find this story as engaging as The Ice Warriors, which, if you recall, I was conflicted over. In the original story, the Earth was slowly being covered in glaciers and a band of scientists were attempting to find a way to push the ice back. In The Seeds of Death, humanity is somewhat better off, merely having food supply issues–as if that is a minor problem in comparison. More so than previous Doctor Who stories, I had difficulty with the chronological placement of this conflict Ice Warrior history. Was this after The Ice Warriors? Before? If the former, has it been long enough that humanity has forgotten about the previous Ice Warrior encounter? These questions continually popped up as I watched this story, which means I wasn’t entirely engaged. Following the tight pacing of The Invasion, this story drags quite a bit. It would have been interesting to see what Camfield would have done with it. Not that Michael Ferguson does a bad job. His camera-work is quite inventive in a number of scenes.....
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