Doctor Who - Documentary s07e12 Episode Script

NARRATOR: Doctor Who's seventh season was one of the most important in the show's history.
Patrick Troughton's final year had suffered poor ratings and without significant improvement, Jon Pertwee's first season could've seen the end of Doctor Who.
However, the team of incoming producer Barry Letts, script editor Terrance Dicks and their new star made the series a tremendous success all over again.
One particular iconic moment from that year's first story fired the imagination of many a young future TVwriter or executive.
By the time production began on the fourth story of 1970, it had already been decided that the team would be free to further explore the worlds of Doctor Who.
You will take us to the nuclear generator or we will kill you all.
(SCREAMING) Listen to that! That's the sound of this planet screaming out its rage! NARRATOR: It was December of 1 969 before that fourth story was settled upon.
Early proposals included The Mists Of Madness by Brian Wright andThe Shadow People by the husband and wife team of Dennis and Charlotte Plimmer.
But as neither of these proved entirely satisfactory, Terrance Dicks turned to an old colleague.
When the first stories didn't work out, we turned to Don Houghton.
Well, in fact he turned to us because I'd got to know Don on Crossroads 'cause my first television job of any size was as a sort of resident scriptwriter for Crossroads, and I did a long stint on that.
I found I had this, sort of, ghastly talent for soap opera, you know.
And on that I met Don, who was story editor.
Now, you see, if you know anybody in the business, if you have a contact, you use it.
And as soon as he heard that I was taking over as script editor on Who, Don was bombarding me with ideas, you see.
One of those, you know, must have come up in a timely way as a replacement, you see, of this particular one, which we thought was an intriguing idea.
He said he was looking for an idea and he came across this thing that the Russians had tried to dig through the crust of the Earth, through the Earth, and the Americans had tried going through the sea, to the bottom of the sea, and both of them had stopped abruptly.
And he thought this was very interesting, so he rang up the American Embassy and said, ''Why?'' And they said, ''We'll look into it.
'' And they came back and said that's top secret information or classified information, they wouldn't tell him.
So he said, ''There's something there.
'' NARRATOR: Excited by wild imaginings of unnatural disaster and doomsday, Don Houghton began writing his seven-part story, originally entitled, The Mo-Hole Project.
But as the scripts came in, it was felt that something was missing.
Don's story about The Mo-Hole Project, Inferno, was, I'm fairly sure, a seven-parter, which was something that had been imposed on us by our predecessors.
Barry and I hated seven-parters.
I said, ''Well, to be honest, I don't think there's enough story in what Don has done so far ''to last seven episodes.
It needs something else.
'' They start drilling this hole, they run into trouble and then they stop.
You know, it would've made a nice four-parter.
But as these original scripts came in, we became aware, you know, that we'd still got three or four to go and it didn't look as if we were gonna make it.
And the next day, Terrance came back with the parallel universe idea, and it was a lovely idea and we went along with it.
Don went along with it.
The thing about the original story, you see, the story in our world, is obviously the project, you know, the effect was that if they went on drilling forever, they would blow up the Earth, you know, and the Earth would end.
So obviously that couldn't happen.
Which is something of an anticlimax in a sense, you see, seeing the world not being destroyed.
But in, um In the parallel universe we could destroy the world.
So I think it was the only time we ever managed to do it in Doctor Who, you see.
So that was actually a plus in dramatic terms.
NARRATOR: An exploding Earth and a parallel universe was still not enough, however, as the team decided that the story needed a traditional monster.
The Primords were included.
Houghton was also asked to include a martial art for the Doctor to use in hand-to-hand combat.
This was originally called Feltian karate.
It started with Barry, who is a very moral chap in many ways, much more moral than I am.
And anyway, that was his area, to see that nothing went too far.
And he was opposed to gratuitous violence and he hated the idea of karate.
People giving each other chops in the throat and kicks in the groin, you see.
He didn't want the Doctor doing any of that.
And so I suggested aikido, which has no attacking moves.
You can't set about anybody with aikido.
You can only wait till he sets about you and then tie him in knots.
So we thought this would be an ideal art for the Doctor to have.
Martial art.
And we made it Venusian aikido 'cause that was just more Doctor Who-ish.
NARRATOR: Series regular Douglas Camfield was assigned to direct the story.
I was really fond of Douglas Camfield, I'd known him for a long time.
I first met him when I was still an actor and he was, I think, an assistant floor manager, or second assistant director, or something like that.
On attachment, because he'd started as a trainee film editor, and we got to know each other then and liked each other very much.
And then I saw him develop as a director and I was very pleased that we were going to work together.
He was a very good action-adventure director, you see.
I mean, that's what he was famous for.
Being able to keep the show moving, handle very complex action sequences.
But Douglas wanted really to be Antonioni.
He wanted to do sensitive, moody pieces about unhappy lovers in Turin or something, you see.
And he said this to me once, he said, ''The trouble is, you know, ''I want to be Jean-Luc Godard or Antonioni, but everybody thinks I'm Don Siegel,'' who's a very fine Hollywood action director.
And I said, ''Dougie, it's a fine thing to be Don Siegel,'' who I like much better than these other people.
I had heard from other actors that he was quite a martinet, and you had to mind your p's and q's.
And it put the fear of God into me.
But, in actual fact, he was fine.
Very precise.
Everyone said, ''Well, he's like an army officer,'' you know, ''everything has to go clockwork.
'' He was quite military himself, he was always very militarily orientated in the studio.
Wanted to get rehearsals done, everything was dead on Everything was dead on time.
He expected people to do that.
He worked himself very hard indeed.
And he expected other people so to do.
Quite right, too.
And he was such a gentle person when you socialised with him.
He loved the guitar and he'd entertain us at late night parties playing his guitar away.
And very jovial and very warm and, uh Quite a human being, Douglas Camfield, quite a human being.
NARRATOR: Casting was begun in February, 1 9 70.
Camfield cast his wife, Sheila Dunn, in the role of Petra after first choice, Kate O'Mara, proved unavailable.
John Levene returned to play the UNITsergeant, who had not been named in Houghton's original script.
It was decided to promote Corporal Benton from the previous season's The Invasion and the character was included at the last minute in the third story of season seven, The Ambassadors Of Death.
Olaf Pooley was cast in the key role of Professor Stahlman with Derek Newark, who had appeared in the very first Doctor Who story as the caveman Za, playing Greg Sutton.
LETTS: Olaf Pooley was a little bit distant but he's a perfectly nice man.
He was perfect casting for Stahlman 'cause he was, as a person, very aloof.
Olaf, aloof, Olaf.
Oh, dear.
Absolute perfect casting for a rather arrogant Your concern is with such important matters as the canteen facilities and the new roster for the cleaners.
I don't think he liked dressing up in the Primord outfit when he had to change, he thought it was a bit infra dig.
I don't blame him, I wouldn't have liked to put all that stuff on my face, either.
Derek Newark, he played the younger guest star if you like, and had a almost a romantic interest in the part that was played by Dougie Camfield's wife, Sheila.
Er And he was a very strong actor.
NARRATOR: Christopher Benjamin played Sir Keith Gold and, in smaller roles, Camfield cast members of his regular repertory, including Walter Randall and Ian Fairbairn.
-Hello, John, how's it going? -Oh, we're still drilling away like mad.
You sound more like a flipping dentist.
Douglas just cast you Whenever you hadn't got a job, you seemed to think that Douglas would probably come up with something.
Which is why I did all sizes of parts.
Inferno was probably the largest of them.
I had very little dialogue, of course.
I had one speech on the telephone and a chat to Wally Randall.
I think that was it.
NARRATOR: Filming began on March 31, 1970.
Berry Wiggins and Company, an oil refinery in Kent, was felt to be a suitably apocalyptic location.
It was in Hoo! H-O-O, very appropriate.
Wrongly spelt, of course.
The location shoot was fascinating.
I was there for most of it.
Keeping an eye on things, naturally enough, 'cause I was still fairly new as a producer.
It was my first year.
JOHN: The location, cold, no lavatory.
Filthy.
And I had to look glamorous, and it was a curse.
And I do remember at that particular one, having to go to the loo.
I know there were some rats and I remember thinking, ''I got these boots on and this short skirt and this strange wig ''and me eyelashes going up and down like Minnie Mouse, ''and I'm crouching down ready to have my bum bitten by a rat.
'' I mean And that's filming.
NARRATOR: Douglas Camfield once again proved extremely well organised, as can be seen from his detailed film diary, which was copied for cast and crew.
FAIRBAIRN: He was the most meticulous director.
He really was.
He planned everything and nobody was ever left out.
The tea boy knew what he was doing because Douglas had it planned carefully, but he was also flexible.
He organised his filming with military precision.
He used to say, you know, it's not quite, ''At 1 1 :22 and a half, we shall be moving locations,'' but it was very, very like that.
He always visualised what he wanted.
He spotted lovely shots.
Doctor, I need some answers.
COURTNEY: The Brigadier is looking very alarmed by the story that Jon Pertwee is telling him about, you know, Krakatoa, Earth's crust.
And I'm looking very concerned.
I think I was more concerned about that I wouldn't fall off the top of the high platform I was on.
This was the first time that Jon Pertwee showed any doubt about doing his own action.
'Cause he was a martyr at the vertigo.
And while we were up there working on the very top, I said to him, ''Now just keep looking at me, keep looking at my eyes.
''Don't look at anything else, look at me.
'' Pertwee was running up and down.
I didn't know he was as scared as I was.
But he had to look like a proper Doctor.
And Douglas kept shouting at me, ''Let go of the rails, Ian!'' I said, ''I can't, Douglas.
'' He said, ''Come on.
'' So I let go with one hand and hung on.
But the worst bit was on a very nasty water tower, lots of steam everywhere, and all there was to get up there and get down was a virtually vertical metal rung ladder.
And I had to run backwards round this being pursued by Pertwee with a fire extinguisher.
And the BBC, in all its glory, put two little pieces of loose wood over the hole.
I was petrified I was gonna hurtle down.
It was about a 20-foot drop if I went.
And the fire extinguisher they used was a real one, and it was CO2 in it and it was very cold.
And I end up on the floor looking very green and very sick.
It didn't feel that good, but it was fun, basically.
We had a lot of fun doing those things.
NARRATOR: The Havoc stunt agency run by Derek Ware was brought on board to perform a series of ambitious stunts for the programme.
Originally, I wasn't supposed to play Private Wyatt.
I was supposed to effect the stunt sequences and pull the team together.
But they'd said they wanted a very high fall, and Douglas Camfield, the director, had found this wonderful location and he said, ''This is 90 feet.
'' And I said, ''My goodness, 90 feet.
'' I said, ''Well, I'm going to get the best high-fall man in the business,'' which was Roy Scammell.
And we went down and had a look at it.
And it was quite high, it wasn't actually 90 feet.
But it was pretty high and I said, ''What do you think?'' And Roy said, ''I can do it.
'' So we went away and Roy signed his contract and everything, and then I was a last-minute replacement for Private Wyatt.
And I said, ''Well, what are we gonna do about the fall? Roy has signed a contract to do it.
'' So they said, ''Oh, well, Roy better do it, then.
'' There was The first huge stunt I'd ever seen on top of, I suppose it was like a huge concrete cylinder.
It was a spectacular fall, it really was.
And the Evening News, I think, came and it was pictured Jon had to go up there 'cause they had a scene at the top and it was very high, very windy, always raining and, I would say, quite dangerous.
I was sitting in the bus watching this and I'd never seen a drop or a fall.
Mattresses, great boxes for them to fall on, and it's like a doll being chucked over the top and it's quite nasty, actually.
And you think, ''Thank'' They come up, they know how to do it, but you watching it It's pretty horrendous.
When you see him, shoot.
(GUNS FIRING) (SCREECHING) Derek was a very good stuntman, he had a very good team working for him.
So we just quite ruthlessly, you know, with the writer, put in all kinds of things, you know.
On the assumption they'd be able to cope.
That's their job to cope, you know.
If they've gotta jump over cliffs, or drive burning cars, or be up to their neck in bubbling lava, well, that's what they're paid for.
And they are, you know.
They're mad, stuntmen.
WARE: The first fall off the gantry was quite easy to do.
It was certainly not much more than 20 feet.
And when you do a 20-foot fall, you used to do, in those days, into cardboard cartons.
And you'd have a layer of cartons for every 1 0 feet you were going to fall.
So, in fact, for 20 feet one merely needed two layers of cartons with a couple of mattresses on the top.
So it was quite easy to spin over.
But Doug was a very in-tune-with-action kind of director and he knew how to use a wide-angle lens, for instance, and get the camera right on the ground with just the tip of one corner of the boxes just below the lower frame, so that he got the best amount of the body falling without showing that the body was only falling about 1 0 or 1 5 feet.
I had to twist because you could only land on cardboard cartons spread-eagled.
If you had an extended limb, it would burst through the boxes and ruin the effect.
You'd just plough straight the way down to the concrete.
So you had to hit them flat.
And that was why I did the twist.
LETTS: There were a lot of very good stunt people playing the soldiers, the UNIT troops.
One of my first feelings of being a little masculine, I wasn't much of a butch bloke, and the Havoc boys used to give me a bit of drill because most of them had been in the army.
Jon was absolutely marvellous, I've never seen a fellow so enthusiastic.
He just adored being on the set.
He always wanted to look good.
He pulled his hat on right, he's made sure his belt buckle was in the right place and he handled his gun superbly.
You lot! Fall in on the double! They gave me a bit of square bashing because they played a lot of soldiers and one of my biggest problems in those days was being a little shy.
And I had There was one scene in Inferno where I had to order them, you know, ''Stand to attention!'' ''Relax,'' whatever.
And they had to teach me how to do that.
LETTS: We had a couple of ex-military men on the team, and we had one person who was in the territorial army.
Squad, 'shun.
As you were.
'Shun! Stand at ease! And when you watch the scene, you can see that they knew more about the military than I did.
But once I got the hang of it, I think we looked pretty good.
WARE: Jon Pertwee said to me, ''I want my Doctor Who to be an action Doctor Who.
'' He said, ''I drive.
I drove at Brooklands race track before the war.
''I can ride a motorbike, I can drive a motorbike and sidecar.
''I can drive a speed boat.
'' He said, ''And I like to do all my own running about and jumping about.
'' So we knew that the action sequences were going to really broaden.
The car-driving sequence where the Doctor's trying to get away from this squad of assassins, as it were, was done entirely by himself.
Nobody was behind the wheel except him.
And he even managed to control the car when he'd got hold of Roy Scammell, who jumped on the back of the car and was struggling with him, and he threw him over his shoulder out of the car.
That was all done by Jon himself.
I remember Alan Chuntz, who was one of the stuntmen, was supposed to be knocked out of the way by the Doctor when he was trying to escape in Bessie.
And he really was knocked out of the way very badly, and his leg was split.
And he said, ''No, no, I'm all right.
I'll do it again.
'' Because the It'd got to be done.
He did it twice more and then passed out and had to go to hospital.
Doing a near-miss car, you know, getting out of the way, but I didn't get out of the way fast enough.
I was wearing very big jackboots, you know.
Wasn't particularly helpful for me in getting out of the way.
And I did, I actually mistimed it myself and I done it for real.
It was as simple as that.
A so-called easy job.
-How many stitches do you have? -Eighteen.
He was round and about inside of a month.
But it was just one of those things that you You see, you cannot cover all avenues.
That's what they pay you the money for.
NARRATOR: The delay caused by the accident meant that some planned scenes went unfilmed.
Including one dramatic moment featuring the Slocum character attacking and killing a UNITsoldier called Collins.
Ealing Television Film Studios were the venue for a three-day shoot, involving some of the potentially more problematic special effects scenes.
These included the graphic transformations of Benton and Stahlman into Primords.
Plus the Doctor's journey between the two alternative dimensions.
The 23rd and 24th of April saw the studio sessions for the first two episodes of Inferno.
As large chunks of these episodes had already been completed on film, Camfield elected to spend the Thursday on camera rehearsals, with recording taking place on the Friday.
Looking back at the rehearsals and the actual shooting with the actors, like most of the Doctor Who sessions in rehearsal rooms and on the floor, it was very good-natured and very good-hearted.
FAIRBAIRN: And Wally Randall was the practical joker.
And he knew that Patrick He had a reputation of being, you know He worked seven days a week, he never stopped working.
He was an amazing worker, for his very young family.
And so they played a naughty trick.
They put a half-crown piece, that shows you how long ago it was, on a piece of cotton and put it where Jon would see it.
And he went down to pick it up, as he would instinctively do.
He wouldn't leave a half-crown on the floor.
And the cord pulled.
And they'd done it round the legs of chairs and all manner of things, the most extraordinary game.
Well, Wally was very naughty, but very funny at those stages.
Of course, the regulars, like Carrie John and Nick Courtney playing the Brig, and the others were very pleased to play the little games.
Nick came into the rehearsal room one day or perhaps in the studio, I think in the studio, and everybody was sitting there with a black eye patch on, and they expected him to crack up.
But Nick being the great old pro that he is simply went on playing and everybody else cracked up.
NARRATOR: Camfield began rehearsals for the second production block, but on the 2 7th of April, a huge problem arose.
He did the first studios because, you know, we used to film all the exterior stuff and then go and do the interiors in the studios as a multi-camera effort.
And he did the first studio, so he did the first episode.
And then, I was in my office, getting on with whatever producers get on with and I had a phone call.
He started being ill in rehearsals, I think, and actually collapsed.
I think he fainted, you know, people were trying to revive him.
He worked himself so hard, Douglas.
He drove himself, he really did.
And I remember when Barry was called in.
LETTS: ''Please come down to the rehearsal rooms, Douglas is clearly very ill.
''He's absolutely white and he can hardly stand, but he insists on going on.
'' And, yes, it was perfectly true.
Douglas looked terrible.
And I said, ''Douglas, don't just go home.
You're going to hospital,'' you know.
And he went to hospital and, in fact, was admitted straightaway.
He'd got a heart condition, atrial fibrillation, you know, a fluttering heart.
And suddenly there was nobody to direct it.
Thank God, you see, Barry started out as a director.
Barry never really wanted to be a producer, he was kind of forced into it, but what he loves doing is directing.
And he was able to take over, you know, so that kind of saved the day for us.
So I took his camera script that he'd worked out and we rehearsed to that and shot to that.
And then the rest of it I had to do from scratch.
I had to work out my own camera script and everything for the other five episodes afterwards.
I think it must have been quite hard on Sheila, his wife, because she was obviously torn between going to see her husband and Number 2 output pipe again.
And he swore to me that I had to keep quiet about it afterwards 'cause he felt that if it got around, he'd never get another job.
So we never told anybody why he'd gone into hospital.
-I see.
-Trouble? NARRATOR: Production recommenced on the 7th and the 8th of May, now with Barry Letts in charge.
LETTS: I think I can see quite clearly the difference in style between Douglas' shooting and mine, his directing and mine.
I think his is better, to be honest.
To me it looked seamless.
To Barry, who was on the other side of the camera, obviously, but to my way of thinking, it did look seamless, it didn't look as though there was The same pace.
It was because I wasn't so experienced as a director, I was very experienced as an actor, but I'd only been a director for a couple of years.
Whereas Douglas had been doing it for some considerable time at that point.
NARRATOR: With work concentrating on episodes 3, 4 and sections of episode 6, the cast were now able to explore their characters' alternative selves.
Look, may I ask what is going to happen to me? You'll be shot, eventually.
-Without a trial? -This is your trial.
LETTS: One of the things that actors love doing is, in effect, being Alec Guinness.
They love to say, ''Look, I can play anything, ''you know.
I mean, I did myself when I was an actor.
It's not necessarily true.
But it does mean that if they're given an opportunity to play something a bit different, they leap on it with glee.
I was thrilled because I had the chance, as did Nick Courtney, of playing a baddie.
And It's wonderful to be in a story and to be able to be one side of the coin and the other.
So I was really thrilled.
I would have just liked more scenes.
But I think many actors would say that.
Enough! Now I want the truth.
The idea of playing the Brigadier as we were used to, I had established that, and to play completely different facets was a wonderful opportunity to play two parts.
Particularly since, when I was a young actor, I used to play a lot of villains, but I hadn't played any villains for a long time and they're such good parts to play.
And I remember thinking about it and I thought, ''Well, I want to base this Brigade Leader'' Because he's a braggart and more a Mussolini than, for example, Hitler, assuming it was a fascist state, because he's a boaster and he's And like all bullies, once it comes to the end, he's a coward of course.
-Hysteria won't help us, Brigade Leader.
-Nothing will help us.
That bore's gonna blast any minute and we'll all be roasted alive.
Look what's happening to our hard man.
You were all tough when you were backed up by a bunch of thugs.
-How do you like it on your own? -I warn you Both Nick and I had a ball with it because you had so much more freedom.
And I really rather hated going back to ''goody'' Liz.
The scar which had to be put on for the Brigade Leader used to take a long time and Judy Cain, who was the most attractive make-up lady, used to look after me and do the scar, and it took a lot of time to do.
And Douglas had the idea that the Brigadier had had a duel with someone once.
A duel whereby his eye had been gouged out bya sabre sword? I don't know what weapon he'd have been using.
But Douglas always called it the Heidelberg scar because of duelling.
You're gonna take us with you, Doctor.
NARRATOR: The Big Brother-style images adorning the walls in the alternate world were actually pictures of Jack Kine, head of the BBC Visual Effects Department.
Barry Letts had thought his demeanour appropriate and Kine was happy to play along.
-What's the noise all about? -This man is sick.
He needs medical attention.
If you don't shut up, I'll shut you up.
Pertwee hears me groaning in the next-door cell, 'cause they'd locked him up as well, and he calls for a guard.
The guard comes in, and I couldn't believe I did it when I've seen it now at this age, I grab the guard, pick him up physically, throw him onto the bed, strangle him, and then go and rip the bars apart.
We had terrible trouble with the bars 'cause you only had to touch them with your two fingers and they bent.
So I had to do all this Looking as though I was pulling them.
NARRATOR: Episode 1 of the story was transmitted the following day, on Saturday, the 9th of May.
On the 2 1 st and the 22nd of May, episode 5 and the remainder of episode 6 were recorded.
-Well, where is he? -I'm sorry, sir, but he just won't come.
You know, the army salute for the British soldier is the longest way up and the shortest way down.
And then one day, I'd saluted very badly in one of the episodes and the Brigadier General of Edinburgh Castle phoned up the BBC and said, ''We'd like to invite John Levene, Sergeant Benton, ''to Edinburgh Castle to show the bugger how to salute.
'' And he used those exact ''We want to show the bugger how to salute, man.
'' Anyway, I went up to Edinburgh Castle, you know they love their whisky up there I don't drink.
I'm not much of a drinker.
Well, this bloke got so drunk and I ended up, one hour, with all these great big, butch Scottish soldiers trying to learn how to salute.
I eventually got it down, which you will notice in Inferno.
I had by then learned to salute that, ''Whoa!'' That really stiff NARRATOR: Jon Pertwee recorded the voice of a radio announcer impersonating wartime Nazi propagandist William Joyce, otherwise known as Lord Haw-Haw.
Jon said, ''Oh, let me do it.
I can disguise my voice well enough.
'' And so we said, ''All right.
'' So we recorded Jon's voice during the studio time, reading it, and I was quite happy at the time.
But when I came to try and put it on to the show, it was so obviously Jon Pertwee we had to cut it completely.
PERTWEE: In London today, the Minister of Energy and Resource has made a statement about the disaster at the drilling project at Eastchester.
NARRATOR: Although excised for the British broadcast, this scene remained intact on the version sold for overseas distribution.
Who would always be about something very You know, it's always the aliens invading or the Master taking over the world.
Something pretty grim and dark has got to happen to provide fear and tension and danger for your characters.
Inferno was basically dark in tone because you're talking about the destruction of the world, you know.
This is in fact a fairly serious topic.
Listen to that.
Do you want to end your lives fighting like animals? In the ''baddie'' Liz Shaw, you see a grain of where she came from originally, the situation, why she's become bad.
But her decision at the end to do what she does (GUN FIRES) Now's your chance, Doctor.
is because Liz Shaw and the human being that she is, still prevails despite the world she lives in.
-Go on, Doctor.
Go now! -I can't! It's still too erratic! Greg! NARRATOR: The final episode's studio scenes were recorded on the 27th of May, just three weeks and three days before transmission.
Do you hear me? Close down this operation now! -Brigadier, arrest this man.
-Listen to me, all of you! You are not to attempt to penetrate the Earth's crust! I've always been very concerned, like most people, about the way the world is run and the way it goes wrong, usually through human greed.
Though usually, too, through human ignorance, not realising what can be the consequence of their acts.
It's what you do, I suppose, if you muck around with nature.
You've got to be a bit careful.
I think you know what I mean when I'm saying that.
And there are these people who go, ''Cheap energy,'' you know.
''Fine, fine, fine.
'' So that pleases the government who've got to provide the budgets, so go ahead, cheap energy.
In the meantime, you're dealing with matters of which you know nothing.
I was very pleased that Inferno definitely had this, uh, attitude towards things which, of course, Don Houghton shared.
I just wanted a cracking good show moving along.
I didn't much care about saving the world, you see.
But Barry was always concerned about the ecology, you know, and I mean, he was going on about things like global warming, being mocked by me about it, back in the '60s, late '60s and '70s, and I've had to say to him since, ''Look, I'm sorry.
You were right.
We should have listened.
'' One of the things that I always liked to feel was that the show, without having an overt message, was about something other than just being an adventure or a chase about.
And at the end you think, ''Well, that was fun, but what was it all about?'' That at least there was an underlying theme.
That, um, the story was not just attached to but motivated by.