I'll have to admit, I'm a little surprised that this six-parter arrived on DVD before, say, Death To The Daleks or The Sea Devils. Not that The Green Death isn't memorable - it's rightly remembered as being one of the more graphically disturbing of the third Doctor's adventures and certainly one of the most topical - but I have a feeling that it wound up moving up in the DVD restoration and production order for the simple reason that it's Jo Grant's last appearance in the series, and Katy Manning happened to be in town participating in some other DVD featurettes for future Pertwee-era releases.

Also on board for the commentary this time around are Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts, the script editor and producer (respectively) who helped to make Pertwee's reign as the Doctor work as well as it did. The commentary is actually fascinating stuff, as the two people most responsible for the tone of the Pertwee era talk about the show's gradual transition into more overtly topical storytelling. The Green Death's characters and situations aren't shy about passing along the unerlying environmentalist message of the story, and while Dicks and Letts plead guilty to some less than subtle character-as-author's-mouthpiece moments (as well as some less than spectacular special effects), they're also justifiably pleased with getting an unabashedly liberal anti-corporate storyline on the air in a high-profile series during an early 70s political climate that was beginning to swing back toward the conservative resurgence that would put Margaret Thatcher in office.

Not that either Dicks or Letts are necessarily the authors, however; while both took a hand in tightening The Green Death's focus, the six weeks worth of scripts were penned by Robert Sloman, who is interviewed in his own featurette. Sloman, too, cops to some of the script's more message-oriented excesses, but stands by that message. Another interview featurette gives actor Stewart Bevan a chance to look back at his guest-starring role, and yet another featurette sees special effects artist Colin Mapson building an authentic Green Death giant maggot with the same materials and techniques he used in 1973. Even fresh out of the BBC's low-budget special effects oven, these critters still give me the screaming heebie-jeebies. (Whatever other criticisms I may have about The Green Death, I can never accuse it of holding its punches on squirm-inducing horror. I couldn't watch all six episodes in one sitting.)

A final featurette, the tongue-in-cheek investigative news parody Global Conspiracy?, is hosted by an intrepid - and entirely fictional - BBC reporter (actually League Of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss, who's recently become a bona fide Doctor Who scriptwriter himself), revisiting many of the locations used to film The Green Death and even some of the actors (in character). It's an amusing approach to the "let's revisit the shooting locations" chestnut that, on some of the other recent Doctor Who DVD releases, has seemed a little dry.

Overall, The Green Death is still a bit of a mixed bag, but it's also still quite entertaining as well, and it's packaged here with a nice suite of bonus features that are informative without requiring an overwhelming investment of viewing time.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com webmaster / editor-in-chief