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The Green Death

Doctor Who serial

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ1189490
Source-derived summary

The Green Death is the fifth and final serial of the tenth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 19 May to 23 June 1973. It was the last regular appearance of Katy Manning as companion Jo Grant.

In the serial, the alien time traveller the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and the organisation UNIT investigate a South Wales mine where waste from an oil plant has killed miners and made maggots grow to giant size.

Plot

The Third Doctor has a short misadventure after finally arriving on Metebelis 3, retrieving one of that world's psionic blue crystals. When he returns, he, Jo, and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart investigate the mysterious death of a miner in the abandoned coal mine in Llanfairfach in South Wales. The miner was found dead and glowing bright green.

Upon arrival, the Brigadier meets with Stevens of the nearby Global Chemicals plant. Meanwhile, Jo goes down the mineshaft with a miner called Bert to help another man, Dai Evans, who has called for help at the bottom of the mine. They find Dai, who is turning bright green and dying. Bert remembers there is an emergency shaft out of the mine, and he and Jo set off.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Green Death” is doctor Who serial. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Green, Death and Doctor, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1973—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Green, Death and Doctor is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “doctor Who serial” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1189490. The first chronological checks are 1973.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Green Death”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Green Death primary sources, The Green Death archive and Green research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Green Death”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Green Death” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.