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Doctor Who Spin-offs
Unofficial Doctor Who videos and CDs

Title

The Green Man

When was it made?

2002

Who made it?

BBV

What format was it on?

Compact Disc

Familiar voices

Bizarrely, Earl Godfrey was played by Arthur Bostrom - the English policeman from 'Allo 'Allo.

Familiar names

None

The blurb

Medieval legends tell many tales of the Greenwood: magical tales of King Arthur and the Fair Folk; rousing tales of Robin Hood and his Merry Men; and harrowing tales of a monstrous plant demon that could possess men, corrupting their very beings.

When alien pods land in an English forest, will the Krynoids claim another world, or can medieval might and wisdom triumph?

In a nutshell…

In ye olde Englande there is something strange in the woods. Not quite a plant, not quite an animal. Some kind of vegetable possession and it's eating anything it can get his leaves on. Meanwhile, the local land owner won't stop banging on about herbs until the monster is literally laying siege to his castle. It's a sequel to the classic “Seeds of Doom” featuring the return after all these years of everyone’s second favourite vegetable Doctor Who monster.

Is it any good?

It has its strengths and weaknesses. It’s a pretty good old-school base-under-siege drama. The menace grows (literally), there is an early victory which lulls the locals into a false sense of security, ingenuity is stretched and eventually they all pull together to defeat it. The victory of thirteenth century man against an alien menace they don’t understand is entirely believable and works against a menace like the Krynoid when it wouldn’t have against a Zygon, Cyberman or Auton. Aside from the obvious predictability of a sixty minute format where we know everything will be wrapped up neatly because this is a one off drama and thirteenth century England wasn’t actually taken over by plant monsters, it maintains a reasonable amount of suspense. The odds do genuinely feel overwhelming at times and these men who only know fighting with swords and honour seem inadequate against a menace more relentless and unstoppable than a Saracen hoard. It’s nice that it ends up as a victory for nascent science over brute force and never feels that it’s “convenient” that a man with the right skills is in the right place at the right time. Everything builds nicely and fits together logically.

On the downside, it is not terribly well performed. The tiny cast is achingly obvious – there only seem to be about four people in it and most of the action is conveyed via conversations between them. There are dodgy French accents too which was a terribly idea given the main star in the cast. And then you have Arthur Bostrom as Earl Godfrey. In Allo Allo he is fantastic – his dead pan delivery of lines such as "I was pissing by the door, when I heard two shats. You are holding in your hand a smoking goon - you are clearly the guilty potty” make him one of the great comedy characters of British television. It is impossible to imagine anyone doing that part justice after seeing Arthur Bostrom at work. However, his delivery of those lines – careful, deliberate and wooden – is how he delivers his lines in other things too. He is no more convincing in “The Green Man” than Officer Crabtree was in Nouvion police station. He just has healthier sounding vowels. It is heartbreaking to discover that a gem of a comic performance was actually just a bad actor learning his lines and getting the delivery spot on by accident. I remember now that he was dreadful in the Big Finish play he was in as well.

The characters are fairly one dimensional. The Earl is always banging on about the herbs he needs to cure his miscellaneously ill wife. Herbs, herbs, herbs. That’s the first fifteen minutes of the play right there. Then you have the noble knight of the temple who makes speeches about having honour and never running away except when he has to. The other character to be identifiable is the Jew. Sorry but that’s what he’s referred to as for much of the hour. “Where is the Jew?” they might say. It would be unrealistic if they’d not commented upon it of course – Jews were singled out and mistrusted in England pretty much since the Romans put up the ‘for sale’ sign and moved out in the something hundreds. Maybe it was meant to be more subtle but Bostrom’s delivery punched you in the face with it. Anyway, it made sense for his character to be Jewish as they needed someone from the middle east with knowledge of the new sciences as yet untested in Dark Ages England. The new Robin Hood did must the same with Djaq.

Overall, it isn’t a very good play. It is logical and well structured but there is too much talking and describing what is going on. The performances range from the invisible to the wooden and this doesn’t help – skilful performances could’ve masked the rather rough script but these were not skilful performances. I’m always willing to give BBV the benefit of the doubt because this was probably made with no time and very little money and, like so many of these spin-offs, it’s worth lies in the fact that it was made at all but it reads better than it sounds. A better cast, a script polish and more emphasis on letting the sound effects tell parts of the story and it would probably be very good.

Anything for the BBC to object to?

Nope - the Krynoid was presumably licensed from the estate of Robert Banks Stewart. Though I'm not sure why they bothered - the plant monster was generic enough and has been done often enough in horror films that they could probably have done it without paying for the name.

Did it help fill the void?

It filled the gap between the end of Allo Allo and the Return of Allo Allo special for those who want more Bostrom.

Would it work on TV?

The New Series could do something similar - castles are always popular, a CGI plant monster that eats people would work in droves and they do like to go back in time once a series to show children that the past was in colour too. Of course, the story works better for not having the Doctor in it because they have to save their lives without the benefit of advanced technology from the future so it might have to be made on Matt Smith's day off.

Verdict

Production 2/5

Entertainment 2/5

Whoishness 2/5

Overall 2/5