We now complete a trifecta of TV comics before moving onto a different medium. Meine Damen und Herren, better living through chemistry. Er, I mean "Insect".
A farmer in the West Country innocently dusts his crops with a new-fangled insecticide which doesn't work very well. Instead of sending the pests to meet their maker, it has the effect of making a pair of caterpillars grow to gigantic proportions. Thanks, Monsanto. But rather than taking their situation with a bit of pantagruelian good cheer, they go on a rampage.
U.N.I.T. is alerted and the Brigadier tries to enlist the Doctor who is, like last comic, grumpy and resentful of being disturbed when he's trying to repair the TARDIS with household chemicals, Bunsen burners, and surplus vacuum tubes. Thankfully strange happenings in the West Country pique his interest and away our heroes go.
One of the creepy crawlies meets its demise after being hit by a lorry while the other is captured after the Doctor douses it with riot gas. I don't know what this stuff is but score another point for the chemists as it knocks out the second creature which is taken back to a facility for study.
Cue giant ants. Who says they only have Them! in New Mexico? The pair get into a slugfest in the center of the village of Cragwell, which does not appear to be a real place. I smiled when I saw that one of the ants was wielding a cross as it went mandible a mandible with its foe.
The Doctor and the Brig get in the former's helicopter to investigate when they become the hunted. A "daddy-long-legs of horrifying size" gives chase. I did a double take because, while the text says "daddy-long-legs", the picture is of a beastie with wings that looks suspiciously like a mosquito instead of the spidery creature that I know by that name. My country and England are truly divided by a common language.
The Doctor studies the captured caterpillar and comes to the conclusion that there was a freak error in the production of the insecticide that led to this outbreak of entomological gigantism. He hastily devises an antidote just as the creature breaks its rusty cage and attempts to run. This new formula is used to dust the infected fields and all of the insects return to their normal size.
I noted that the hitherto unknown exclamation "Great powers!" has been replaced by the more natural "Great Scott!". I also felt that "Insect" presaged "The Green Death" with its giant insect beasties. If the caterpillars had been left to their own devices, would they have turned into Mothra's?
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