3. The Transformation Of Keeler - Seeds Of Doom (1976)
There's no getting around it: Krynoids are the floral equivalent of Cybermen. Or door-to-door missionaries, whichever one is the hardest to get rid of. Of all of the various alien species that possess humans and covert them into versions of themselves, the Krynoids have to be the worst. They don't just take you over, they feed on your very body in order to make themselves stronger, just as humans eat vegetables. The worst part, though, as we discover in the later episodes of Seeds of Doom when a Krynoid pod infects the botanist Arnold Keeler, is that it doesn't just feed on the body but on the mind. Keeler keeps his sense of self well up to the point that he's given...nourishment, and it's only then that he loses any semblance of humanity. Of course, then the Krynoid starts to talk, and we realize he's still in there, probably screaming. Sure, the cliffhanger to episode four makes the Krynoid look like an overweight man in a muumuu racing up to an all-you-can-eat buffet, but everything else about this transformation is simply terrifying. What could be more horrifying than this...?
Tony Whitt has previously written TV, DVD, and comic reviews for CINESCAPE, NOW PLAYING, and iF MAGAZINE. His weekly COMICSCAPE columns from the early 2000s can still be found archived on Mania.com. He has also written a book of gay-themed short stories titled CRESCENT CITY CONNECTIONS, available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle format. Whitt currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.
