The Doctor has encountered many strange plant creatures during his travels in time and space in Doctor Who. The most deadly were the terrifying Krynoids that the Fourth Doctor and Sarah-Jane Smith battled in Antartica and at the British Country Estate of Harrison Chase. The Doctor battled bravely to prevent the germination of the Krynoid seed pods, to avert the destruction of all life on Earth! In the future, the Sixth Doctor and Melanie Bush encountered the Vervoids, which were humanoid killer plants that had been genetically engineered by Professor Lasky and her team. The Doctor and Mel used Vionesium (a substance similar to Magnesium), which produced intense sunlight that accelerated the Vervoids’ life cycle to the point of death. Charles Darwin was a genius and his theory of evolution was groundbreaking. I worked at Down House, Kent where Darwin grew up. In many ways, Classic Doctor Who is better than Modern Doctor Who, and people need to be less put off by some of the low production values, pacing and dodgy special effects of the old series because that was all part of its charm and gentle nature. The Classic Series of Doctor Who was also generally more suitable for children than the New Series is. The Modern Series of Doctor Who has become increasingly aimed at adults. Mary Whitehouse would be turning in her grave if she saw some of the horror scenes in Modern Who, i.e. the notion that corpses remain conscious after death (Dark Water) and I am certain that she would have taken issue with Adolf Hitler appearing in Doctor Who too (Let’s Kill Hitler). Mary Whitehouse was right about Doctor Who being too violent for children back in the 1970s (i.e. The Deadly Assassin and The Talons of Weng-Chiang), and we saw that again in The Seeds of Doom when the Doctor breaks Scorby’s neck.

The Seeds of Doom

★★★★★

TX: 31/01/1976 – 06/03/1976

Written by Robert Banks Stewart    Directed by Douglas Camfield

The Fourth Doctor and Sarah-Jane are told that a polar expedition has been sent to Antartica to recover two extraterrestrial seed pods that have crash landed there. Unfortunately, one of the seed pods has infected a member of the scientific team, mutating him into a humanoid plant monster called a Krynoid. The Doctor and Sarah-Jane narrowly avoid being killed by the Krynoid and escape just before the scientific base explodes. The other seed pod has been stolen by the thug Scorby who is a henchman of mad aristocrat Harrison Chase. Chase wants the seed pod for his plant collection. He decides to test the seed pod’s capabilities on one of his employees. The humanoid Krynoid mutates, overwhelming the country estate that Chase owns. The Fourth Doctor, Sarah-Jane and a few other survivors flee from the gigantic Krynoid. The Doctor has no choice but to call U.N.I.T and ask them to bomb the huge Krynoid, which destroys it.

The Trial of a Time Lord: Terror of the Vervoids

★★☆☆☆

TX: 01/11/1986 – 22/11/1986

Written by Pip and Jane Baker    Directed by Chris Clough

The Sixth Doctor presents evidence from his own future as part of his defence in his trial by the Time Lords. The Doctor attests that his behaviour improves in the future. In the evidence presented, the Doctor and his future companion Mel respond to a MayDay call by the intergalactic liner Hyperion III. Onboard are a group of Vervoids, genetically grown humanoid plants created by Professor Lasky and her team. The Vervoids escape and begin killing the crew and passengers of the ship one by one and putting their corpses on a compost heap. Events take a turn for the worse when the ship is hijacked, first by Lasky’s terrified assistant Bruchner and later by a couple of rogue Mogarians and Rudge. Mel is almost pulverised when she is kidnapped from the gym. I go to the gym in my block of flats every morning. The Doctor discovers that the element vionesium, which is onboard, has properties similar to Magnesium and that when exposed to oxygenated air it produces incredibly intense light and carbon dioxide, which can be used to defeat the Vervoids. The Doctor and Mel destroy all the Vervoids using the vionesium, however this leaves the Doctor open to the charge of genocide back at his trial.