Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3672 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-06-19
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 167 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
An experiment gone awry sends the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) to a parallel universe where his friends and companions are members of a fascist regime in this thrilling and popular episode from the long-running science fiction series Doctor Who. Inferno is the name of a project designed to drill into the Earth's core and release a powerful energy source called Stahlman's Gas; what's yielded instead is an insidious substance that transforms men into monsters. The resulting chaos interrupts the Doctor's travel in the TARDIS and knocks him into an alternate Earth run by a military dictatorship, and where Project Inferno's progress threatens to bring about an apocalypse. This seven-part story arc from 1970 is a high-water mark for the already superb Pertwee-era Doctor, a tense, imaginative adventure that evokes the U.K.'s chilling Quatermass TV productions and movies in its mix of science fiction and horror. Fans will particularly appreciate the opportunities afforded to longtime Who supporting players Nicholas Courtney (as the Brigadier) and Caroline John (as the Doctor's companion Liz) to step outside their usual roles and essay memorably villainous turns as their parallel-Earth selves.

The double-disc presentation of Inferno offers the by-now-standard wealth of extras, including commentary by Courtney, script editor Terrance Dicks, producer/director Barry Letts, and co-star John Levene (Sgt. Benton) and lengthy featurettes on the making of the story and the UNIT brigade during Pertwee's tenure (the latter featuring interviews with much of the supporting cast and crew). A short deleted scene from the episode (featuring Pertwee in a rare second turn as the voice of a radio announcer), a promo film for the BBC Visual Effects Department (which features clips from the Who stories Ambassadors of Death, Caves of Steel, and a missing episode from Doomwatch), and PDF files of the 1971 Doctor Who Annual and Radio Times round out the supplemental features. --Paul Gaita

Synopsis
John Pertwee stars as the Doctor, who is called to Earth to oversee the secret drilling operation conducted by mad scientist Stahlman.

Customer Reviews

A Classic .....But Not 5 stars.
The 3rd Doctor is at his best here- grumpy but gallant in the midst of an apocalyptic trip into an alternate dimension. Often Who portrays comfortable threats that are compromised by the viewers calm acceptance that the Doctor will prevail in the end. But, for once, the Doctor must just survive and escape the death of one Earth to save ours. There is also a great portrayal of the late 60's/early 70's ambivalence towards scientific and technological progress.

But I can't give it 5 stars: even its exciting plot is just a little too thin for 7 episodes, the Primords are great villians but the makeup suggests a Crufts competition not lupine menace, the alternate universe plot is good but slight costume changes don't hide the fact that this idea was conceived to limit the requirement for new sets in a marathon seven-parter and I,at least, find Pertwee's Doctor just a bit too snooty.I keep expecting him to say "The name's Smith, Doctor John Smith". Dr Who can be a man of action but the 3rd incarnation often looks like an older man desperately trying to prove he is still virile. I must accept that for many fans his is THE definitive portrayal; sorry if I sound harsh

The extras are a lovingly assembled but not always really linked enough to this story: I can't be the only one who feels that the documentary on UNIT would look more comfortable on a new version of "The Spearhead from Space". The production subtitles are also a little too focussed on pointing out differences between the script and the finished show.

Overall, a worthy entry in a list of the top ten Who adventures along with "The Daemons" and "The Green Death".

Spectacular: The best of Doctor Who
This was one of the first classic Doctor Who episodes I watched, and after viewing more than 40 others, this is still my favourite.

The Doctor is being provided with the means to experiment with his TARDIS console in exchange for him working as a scientific advisor at a drilling project. But when he goes into a parallel universe using his TARDIS, he discovers the horrors that will take place if the drilling on our world isn't stopped...

This episode is fantastic. It was the last episode to be recorded without incidental music, but the ever present sound of the drill reminds us constantly of the danger the Earth is in.

If I had to point out one bad point of this story, it would be that LIz does an awful lot of running between the drill and the Doctor's hut, even in the parallel universe. However, the acting is superb, and although the sound effects of the monsters aren't very convincing, it still deserves five stars.

My final point is that the cliffhanger to episode six is the best I have ever seen in Doctor Who.

Ultimate Pertwee
Jon Pertwee IS The Doctor for me. His era is imply the greatest for me. Woth Pertwee, we get UNIT, the Brig, Jo Grant (lovely) and Sarah-Jane. And now, at last, Inferno is finally available for us all to enjoy.
Inferno takes a truely brilliant idea and goes places were Doctor Who never went before. If ever you thought Pertwee just and average Doctor, wait and see all of the action scenes (in which there was no stunt double) for Pertwee. Pertwee is at his wittiest and cleaverest here, with Liz Shaw (for once) getting some interestng lines.
I would urge all new to 'Who to start here with this seven-part, brilliant, amzing serial. It's Doctor Who (with the odd exceprtion overall) at it's best.
Also, the extra two Documentaries (Can You Here the Earth Scream? and The UNIT Family) are of the usual high quality of Doctor Who. This is a great release for the Pertwee era just to show you how good Doctor 3 is. Enjoy!