Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...
Day 371: The Green Death, Episode Three
Dear diary,
I used to work in a shop in Norwich, where Doctor Who products formed a large portion of the stock. The five of us who worked there at the time were all big fans of the series, so we were always excited to have signings in store with members of the cast. Over the years we had numerous guests (a personal highlight was answering the phone to John Leeson and acting as his remote sat-nav as I guided him to the store - any time he followed a direction, he would reply ‘affirmative’ to me), and exactly five years ago this month, Katy Manning was in store, doing a signing with Richard Franklin.
The shop was busy (it always was on signing days), but about lunch time a man strode through the crowd and right up to the desk. I greeted him and he responded quite simply: ‘I’m here to see my wife.’
I didn’t get much time to process the slightly odd statement before Katy jumped to her feet and exclaimed loudly across the crowd of people there to see her ‘Stuart!’ You’ve probably all pieced this story together by this point - yes, the man in question was Professor Jones himself Stewart Bevan - but as I’d not seen The Green Death before, and some 40 years had passed since recording, I couldn’t have told you that I was watching the reunion of Jo Grant and her one-time husband.
He didn’t stay long - only passing through when he happened to spot Katy’s name on a poster up in the window - but it was lovely to see the pair of them together, and the fans there for a signing enjoyed chatting to the two for a few minutes.
Even though I’ve never seen the story before, I’ve always known how Jo departed the series. Just like Susan being left behind on a Dalek-torn future Earth, or Sarah Jane being left behind when the Doctor was called home, it’s one of those departures that’s famous, and it seems to be justly so. I’ve already mentioned that the ‘falling in love’ of the pair may be a bit flat after the bubbling feelings between Jo and Latep in the last story, but it’s striking just how real this relationship feels.
If I was impressed by the way the pair met in Episode One with almost an identical sequence to her first scene in the programme three years earlier, then today pushes that to a whole new level. At first, I thought cutting from a scene in which a character commits suicide to one in which the Doctor, Jo, the Brigadier, and the Professor laugh and drink and smoke was ill judged and somewhat upset the pace of the story… but then you realise that it’s actually vital to the plot, and it gives a chance to stop and take stock of the situation. It’s all laughing and joking until the Doctor returns from a phone call to tell us that another character - and a particularly likeable one at that - has died, at which point the scene and the tone of the episode shift again.
Suddenly, that scene has become a chance to see Jo and Cliff happy together, before seeing the way in which he comforts her. A close up of their hands as he takes hers and gives it a little comforting squeeze says more about their evolving feelings than any line of dialogue does, and I spent much of the next scene in which he consoles her longing for them to actually kiss… before it’s interrupted by the Doctor. It puts me in mind once more of Susan’s departure where I was sure we’d not see a kiss or any true emotions until the end, but then they start creeping in early just to surprise you.
It’s terribly exciting, if I’m honest, I’m only now half-way through the story, and yet already we’ve seen the seeds sown for Jo’s departure at the end. The idea of travelling up the Amazon has already started to take hold, and the beautiful moment where to Doctor tries to excite her about Metebilis III by showing her the crystal he’s managed to obtain - only for her to brush him off and return to a book about the adventure she could be having is magical. The Doctor knows that she’s leaving soon, and I can’t wait to watch how he reacts over the next few episodes as the end draws ever closer.
