Four Episodes
Aired between 5th January 1984 and 13th January 1984
Written by Johnny Byrne
Produced by John Nathan-Turner
Directed by Pennant Roberts
Synopsis
The superpowers of the human race are locked in a cold war, pushing humanity closer to Armageddon with threats of nuclear obliteration. A number of undersea bases are in operation and have the capability of launching nuclear weapons. It is aboard one of these bases that the TARDIS materialises.
The Doctor is still having trouble with the controls, but Tegan and Turlough agree that it's worth looking around the ship, just to ask their permission to stay for a while and repair the ship.
Two things are happening at the same time however. First, two traitors from the enemy superpower have infiltrated the base: Doctor Solow and Nilson - the second in command, conspire to gain control of Maddox, a young Ensign who's mind is made to control the nuclear weapons.
Second, a trio of Silurians named Icthar, Skibus and Tarpok glide their undersea cruiser towards the base.
Icthar gives the order to waken an army of Sea Devils that they carry in their hold with the intent to invade the base.
The humans pick up signs of their approaching craft and launch an unmanned probe, so Icthar orders that the Myrka destroys it.
The Doctor and co. in the meantime are discovered but with the loss of their probe, the base staff believe they are spies and they try to apprehend them, knocking the Doctor into a tank of water in the process.
The others continue to run, but it results in Turlough getting captured to allow Tegan to escape.
The Doctor finds a way out of the water tank and disables a guard, taking his uniform and infiltrating the bridge where he sees Turlough being questioned by the commander - Vorshak. Turlough tries to tell the truth about their presence, but nobody believes him - things are made even more suspect when Tegan is captured herself. Suspicions continue until the Silurians start to invade and storm the airlocks. The Doctor reveals himself and tries to convince Vorshak to stand down, but Vorshak refuses and sends his crew to defend the airlocks.
Meanwhile, Solow and Nilson succeed in controling Maddox's mind with a simple device and begin to sabotage the base.
The Doctor and Tegan go down to the airlocks and see that the crew are getting overrun as the Myrka - a fearsome beast, attacks and devastates the crew. Elsewhere, the other airlocks are assaulted by Sea Devils. The Doctor claims he knows a way to defeat the Myrka and convinces Vorshak to let him try.
Meanwhile, Solow and Nilson realise that aliens are attacking and discuss what to do. Nilson tells her to escape in a pod whilst he continues the sabotage. She tries, but is killed by the Myrka as she nears the airlocks.
The Doctor ultimately gets hold of an ultra-violet ray and kills the Myrka.
Vorshak heads to the bridge and orders Nilson via radio to get in touch with their superiors and inform them of the attack. When he arrives, he finds Nilson has not completed that order. Nilson reveals himself as a traitor, kills Maddox so they can't use their weapons and tries to escape by taking Tegan hostage. The Doctor blinds Nilson with the ultra-violet ray and Tegan escapes. Nilson stumbles into a bunch of Sea Devils and is killed.
A valiant defence is put up, but ultimately, the rest of the base falls to the Sea Devils and Vorshak cannot contact his superiors because of Nilson's sabotage and he can't use nuclear weapons because Maddox is dead.
When the Doctor is brought as a prisoner to the bridge, he recognises Icthar from the last time he met them (see Doctor Who and the Silurians). He tries to broker peace, but Icthar doesn't trust the humans to keep it. He intends to use the bases missiles to start a nuclear war in which all the humans will be wiped out, then the Silurians can live in peace.
The Silurians are an advanced race and find it easy to undo the sabotage caused by Nilson and connect their own device into the system.
Turlough and Tegan escape, finding their way to a storage area. They manage to get the Doctor in there and look for ways to defeat the Silurians. A Sea Devil finds and attacks them, but accidentally shoots some Hexachromite Gas cylinders that spray on it and turn it to mush.
The Doctor refuses to use the gas, believing it will be committing genocide, but he's forced into it as the Silurians will destroy humanity if he doesn't. He connects the Hexachromite to the air vents and pumps it around the base.
As the reptiles begin to die, they set off the missiles. The Doctor hooks himself up to the missile system to stop it, but as he does so, Icthar in his dying gasps kills Vorshak. The Doctor stops the missiles with just a second or so to spare, but he laments all the loss of life, saying there should have been another way.
Trivia
- Even before production started on this story, Peter Davison announced that he'd be leaving, spurred on by Patrick Troughton's advice to him at the start of his tenure to "do three years then get out". He said many years later that if the earlier quality of stories had been as good as his third seasons run, then he might have changed his mind. This meant that the recruitment for the next Doctor was ongoing at the time of this filming
- The filming itself was problematic as Margaret Thatcher had called an election early, the BBC were forced to cover the events, and the studios booked for this serial were in use. It caused many delays and left the crew with very little time to make this story - a knock on effect that would be very visible after the fact.
- To add to the frustrations, bureaucracy got in the way - the lighting crew for example refused to make the sea base dark and foreboding, as there was a belief that dark sets would make it impossible to see things and viewers would believe there's something wrong with their sets. That's why the base is so incredibly white - for what it should have looked like - think Ridley Scott's Alien
- Speaking of Aliens, the Myrka was another nightmare in production. It was huge, it was uncomfortable and it wasn't even ready to go until the day of actual filming, giving the people who wore it (co-incidentally they were the same people who played Dobbin the pantomime horse in Rentaghost) no time to get used to it. The paint on it was still wet and transferred to walls and Tegan's outfit. It was so bad that the special effects unit went to John Nathan Turner and asked him to cut it from the script. He refused and said it was one of the unique selling points of the story (Jar Jar Binks anyone?).
- Ingrid Pitt was also a late addition as Doctor Solow. Her karate taught by Elvis was one of the key scenes that executives would look at (along with the bendy foam doors and the Myrka) when deciding to axe the show
The Review
So as mentioned in the trivia, what was meant to be a dark, brooding telling of Cold War tensions ended up as a rushed and badly put together hash of foam and paint. But was it only that? I don't think so. Taking a look back at pieces like the Curse of Pelladon, we can see the story's good enough to see beyond the pr**k in a cape - Alpha Centauri and praise it all the same. The Warriors of the Deep not so much.
It's not necessarily the story that's bad, but everything around it. In other words it's badly visualised. The costumes although as 80's as you can get, are worse than the ones in Robots of Death. The acting on just about everyone is terrible and would look overboard even in the 60's. Even dark sets wouldn't get around that.
The sentiment behind the story is good, but every step of the process to get there is so drawn out that it's just....tedious. That's the best word I can find for it. Tedious.
The Silurians don't really look like the Silurians we know and love. Neither do the Sea Devils (although the Samurai Armour is a nice touch). They don't even act like it. The Sea Devils are more than happy to be minions and cannon fodder for Icthar and his band. It just doesn't ring true - it's convenient for the sake of plot.
The only one who's even remotely convincing is Peter Davison himself and for that, the rating will go up a couple of points because the end scene where everyone's dead and he says there should have been a better way is the entire point of the story and he delivers it with pathos. You're right, Doctor, there should have been a better way....a better way of making this story.
Rating
5 out of 10
Re-Watchability Factor
4 out of 10
Watch this if you liked...
- The Zygon Inversion (Doctor Who series 9)
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