By Jessica Holmes

We last left the Doctor trapped on a parallel world, surrounded by fascists, monsters, and fascist monsters. Does the final serial of this year’s run go out in a blaze of glory, or does it all go up in smoke?

Welcome to the end… of Inferno.

Everything will be just fine…

In Case You Missed It

It’s the beginning of the end for the parallel world, and nothing can stop it now. Against the Doctor’s pleas, the drill breaches through the Earth’s crust, unleashing the power of the core. Before long, the Earth will literally tear itself apart, dissolving into a ball of molten rock and gas. They’re all going to die, and there’s nothing that anyone can do about it.

There’s a great scene shortly after the revelation that everyone’s doomed where Stahlman’s assistant Petra attempts to get the equipment working again, hoping against all odds that the authorities are going to send someone to help fix the problem. Sutton watches her, initially irritated at her faith in the government, but turning more gentle as he understands that she’s just trying to cling to any hope of survival. It finally sinks in for her that they really are all doomed, and they cling to each other. In this reality that so discourages connection and compassion, it’s a beautifully human moment. A pity that it could only happen at the end of the world.

The Doctor’s only hope is that he can get back to his own reality and stop the same thing happening there.

That’s easier said than done, because the Brigade Leader’s busy threatening anyone who tries to leave, and Stahlman goes and locks himself in with the drillhead, soon to transform into a monster like the other technicians. (Once the credits rolled, I learned they’re called Primords. I still think 'Stahlman’s Monsters' is a better name, but alas.)

The Brigade Leader turns out surprisingly willing to aid the Doctor in getting back to his own reality, but don’t mistake it for some deeply buried streak of altruism. He’s just hoping to hitch a lift and save his own skin. The fact that the Doctor says it’s impossible and would collapse both universes isn’t going to stop him trying.

Nice of Stahlman to wear that massive nametag so we can tell which one's him.

Transformed by the heat, the now-Primordial Stahlman tricks Petra into letting him and his fellow transformed technicians out of the drill room, where they proceed to terrorise the survivors until the Doctor closes the door behind them, cutting them off from the heat.

As the temperature continues to rise, Petra works her backside off trying to restore power to the Doctor’s work shed, and the Brigade Leader makes himself less than useful as he keeps screaming at her to hurry up. Under all the bullying and bluster, this version of Lethbridge-Stewart is a weaselly little coward.

Stahlman finds them before Petra can finish the job, forcing them to flee and break the bad news to the Doctor. With no hope of escape, the Brigade Leader completely goes to pieces. While he’s busy fighting Sutton (and losing), Petra doubles back to take another crack at restoring power.

Things like this are what I think makes this serial work so well. Yes, this is a terrible universe, and the people in it are very much products of their environment. And yet, faced with imminent death, there are still people like Petra, Elizabeth and Sutton who choose to spend their final moments trying to save someone else. It would be easy to write off the destruction of this world as no great loss, but did its people deserve to die with it? I don’t think so. It’s honestly tragic that saving them isn’t an option.

Knocking the Brigade Leader out cold, Sutton rushes after Petra, fending off the Primord Stahlman as she works. Successfully restoring power, they rush back to the Doctor, urging him to leave while he still can. The Brigade Leader isn’t done causing trouble yet. In a last-ditch attempt to save himself, he threatens to kill the Doctor. He can leave with Lethbridge-Stewart, or not at all. He has to the count of three to decide.

The Brigade Leader doesn’t finish his countdown. Elizabeth sees to that. As he falls down dead, the TARDIS whirrs to life… and the world comes to an end.

A final series of massive explosions sends molten rock and ash spewing high into the sky, pouring down on everything. We see a couple of workers sheltering from the blaze, a small window into the last moments of the untold billions who had nothing to do with Stahlman’s folly and yet are damned to suffer the consequences. The last thing we—and the Doctor—see of this doomed world is the terrified figures of Elizabeth, Petra and Sutton, trapped in the work shed as a river of lava advances on them.

Between the lava and the gun, I'd take the gun.

On returning to his own universe, the Doctor is immensely relieved to learn that Sir Keith is alive in this timeline, having merely sustained a broken arm from his road accident. What’s more, he’s spoken to the Minister, who wishes to see Stahlman immediately and halt the project pending an investigation. Well, that should be it then, shouldn’t it?

If only it were that easy.

Despite having the backing of the minister, it turns out Sir Keith is a bit toothless, unable to force the project to shut down without proof of an emergency. Apparently the computer warning of imminent doom and all the Primords running about the place don’t count.

It doesn’t really help that the Doctor, traumatised by what he saw in the other universe, goes for a ‘smash equipment first, explain later’ approach to stopping the project. Even his friends think he’s gone mad.

Stahlman inadvertently saves the day with his impeccable sense of dramatic timing, completing his transformation into a Primord moments after Sir Keith says that there’s no evidence of an emergency warranting an immediate shutdown. But the Doctor subdues him with a fire extinguisher, so that’s that.

Petra assumes control of the operation, ordering an emergency shutdown. It takes some fast work from the Doctor and Sutton, but they manage to stop the drill with mere seconds to spare.

He died as he lived: being a complete pain in the neck and ruining everyone's day.

As the Doctor and Liz return to work on the TARDIS, Sir Keith pops in to say that the project is officially being abandoned and they’ll start filling in the borehole right away; Sutton and Petra are heading back to London—sharing a car, no less. Looks like happy endings all around.

And it’s about time the Doctor was moving on, too. With the TARDIS console working again, he’s off on his travels in time and space. He’ll miss Liz. The Brig, well…he’s tired of the ‘pompous, self-opinionated idiot’.

It’s not that it’s untrue, but glass houses and all that.

He vanishes along with the console, leaving Liz and the Brig dumbfounded at the sudden farewell. But he’s not gone for long. They turn around to find a very disheveled Doctor standing in the doorway, having travelled a whole three hundred yards… straight into a rubbish tip. It’s a nice, lighthearted end to a serial that is anything but.

Poor baby.

Planet or Profit?

So here we have a pair of worlds where despite a growing consensus of experts warning of a great risk to the planet, a drilling operation ploughs on ahead in a quest to quench our ever-growing thirst for energy and ignoring every warning sign until the problem becomes irreversible and everyone is doomed. It’s hard not to see it as a metaphor for our overreliance on fossil fuels. Every day we’re burning more, and every month more and more papers are being published warning us to rein it in. And yet we continue to pump the atmosphere full of fumes that trap heat, turn rain to acid and smother cities in choking smog.

The good news is that we still have time to do something about it. We just need to decide to put life on this planet ahead of profit.

Which is easier said than done, of course. Environmental destruction might be the big obvious allegory going on here, but it’s not the only layer of applicability to be found in this story. Who are the first victims of the green goo? It’s the workers. It’s made clear that in both universes, Stahlman’s insistence on ignoring safety protocols and bullying his subordinates is what imperils his project and his world.

The issues aren’t separate. It’s the sin that has followed humanity from the first cities to the modern day: prioritising the desires of a few at the cost of the wellbeing of many.

One of the key differences in outcomes is that while the Doctor’s world is too passive to rein Stahlman in, the parallel world actively encourages him. Their culture of efficiency and obedience to authority leaves him accountable to nobody and empowered to remove ‘obstacles’ to his work with extreme ruthlessness. That’s why the project in the parallel world was closer to completion, and why that world was destroyed. It’s not surprising that the Doctor couldn’t save it. It’s one thing to save the world from the whims of a lone egotist. It’s a far harder task to save a society from itself.

No wonder it proved too much for one man.

Final Thoughts

What an absolute cracker of a final serial! I will say that the story does lose a little momentum on the Doctor’s return to his own world, but on the flipside for once we got a pretty satisfying denouement and it all had room to breathe without being overstuffed.

The regular cast really got a chance to shine and stretch their acting muscles a bit. I’m sure I said this last time, but Nicholas Courtney really stole the show. That’s not to say that the rest of the cast aren’t pulling their weight—he just does a fantastic job.

Speaking of fantastic jobs, I am very much enjoying Jon Pertwee in the role of the Doctor. Though more action-oriented than his predecessors, he’s still got the compassion and curiosity we’ve come to expect, even if he can be a bit impatient and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. It’s just a shame that with the series now only running for half a year, I’ll have to wait another six months to get to see him again.

In the meantime, I’m sure I’ll find something else to witter on about. Watch this space!

4.5 stars out of 5 for “Inferno”