Warriors of the Deep

When a story is so – shall we say – mixed that is has to be hidden in a boxed set in order to make people buy it (though this theory is often applied to the Sensorites video and I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want what is generally regarded as the best prequel to an online series every made), there can be a sense of trepidation (some say disgust) when popping it into the DVD player and giving it a spin. The internet was full of people proudly announcing that the first thing they did with their boxed set after unwrapping it was to put the Warriors of the Deep DVD on eBay. Pah. I have no time for such quitters. Such weakness of stomach and thigh is not in my vocabulary. Warriors of the Deep has some things about it. These are they.

  1. Peter Davison must’ve been delighted when he saw that he would finally get out of that bland beige outfit and into something new. Sadly, it turned out to be a bland beige uniform.

  2. Though with the lighting being so bright, beige did at least look dark and moody in comparison.

  3. People go on about the base being over-lit but I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing. For one thing, the main set is not bad at all and secondly, in an underwater base with no windows and no natural light, they would have to use strong artificial light to create an artificial day. And to prevent SAD (Silurian Affective Disorder?)

  4. I was thinking how nice Tegan looked in that wispy dress until I saw she had yellow tights on. Yellow tights – ask yourself if that can ever be all right? The answer is no if you’re struggling, Maybe you’re too distracted by the red shoes.

  5. Speaking of fashion, in the commentary Janet says future fashions are unrealistic because people don't like looking silly. Has she ever seen Tudor costumes? Or the 1970s? Or just about any decade in recorded history? The future fashions in the sea base are sane and rational compared with flares, ruffs and leather ties with piano keys on them.

  6. The amusing comedy in the humorous scene where the Doctor and Turlough can’t get the door open only for Tegan to hilarious open it with ease isn’t funny. They clearly push the wrong way – no one would ever push that door from left to right. There is absolutely no way, shape or form that the door could possibly open if you push it that way. We don’t chuckle at the gender-based amusement on display, we look up the name of the director and swear we will never watch a comedy series he’s directed.

  7. What is with the guards wearing those plastic head things? None of the important people on the base wear them so there can’t be any risk of chemicals or poisoned air. They are only slightly less silly than the nets worn in Timelash. When you are only slightly less silly than Timelash it is a worry.

  8. Listening to the commentary – as is my way – I’ve realised one thing. I’ll happily listen to criticism of Doctor Who from almost anyone involved in it from Mat Irvine to Peter Davison to Janet Fielding to Ed Stradling. But hearing Eric Saward criticise the show just annoys me. I think it’s the way nothing is ever his fault. It was JNT’s fault or the BBC’s fault or anyone else’s fault. But it was never a bad idea, a bad choice of script or a piece of bad editing. Unless it was bad video editing – that was rubbish.

  9. He even says of including the Myrka "I would’ve fought against it". Sorry, does that mean you did fight against it (and lost) or you would fight against it with hindsight (and were wrong at the time)?

  10. The disc which programmes Maddox is clearly not circular. It spins embarrassingly in its little reader thing and no laser on earth could possibly read it. You might as well try and read a book that’s being bounced up and down on a trampoline. Which isn’t easy.

  11. It still feels slightly odd to hear Janet Fielding being so nice about Doctor Who. I can remember when she was – shall we say – very anti-Who. And to her credit it isn’t just jumping on the new series bandwagon – it started before then, at about the time decent money was being offered to do commentaries. I don’t know what changed her mind but a jolly good thing it is. She much less dull than Sarah Sutton. Or Lis Sladen. But I've been told off on at least one forum for disliking Lis Sladen's commentaries so I'll stop now.

  12. How do these guards miss this man?

Unless of course men lying on the floor in their underwear is just something that happens all the time on this base. In which case, naughty men.

  1. The second episode ends with a tense cliff-hanger – would the director cut away before Peter and Janet burst out laughing at the floppy, soggy, lumbering panto monster in front of them or not? Tune in next week to find… oh he did. Good show.

  2. My first memory of this story – because I must’ve been elsewhere in 1984 – was the UKGold 30th Anniversary Weekend. The format was (as far as I remember) phone polls to choose each story – one would be favourite Doctor, one favourite companion, one favourite monster and so on. Warriors of the Deep was first up on Sunday morning and in the favourite monster poll. It was up against the Daleks and the Cybermen. It had no chance of winning. And yet somehow it won. Not that I’m suggesting the polls were rigged or anything but it may not have been the most honest and open use of democracy in television history. Like GMTV.

  3. So I wasn’t expecting it to win and sauntered downstairs late, only to find that the one story in the whole blessed weekend which I didn’t already have on video had started. For a long time I thought my dislike for WotD was based on the seven minutes I missed. I now know it was the ninety three minutes which followed which really appalled me.

  4. Ian Levine – the unofficial expert and now popular online Hutt – says in the DVD documentary that he spotted 28 continuity mistakes. As I am not an expert I can only spot two – everything to do with the Silurians and everything to do with the Sea Devils.

  5. It’s taken a while but we have to mention Ingrid Pitt. Her boobs were one of the many highlights of The Time Monster. So, fully clothed, she was going to have to do something special to be as outstanding in this serial. Having an undisguised enemy accent in a supposedly top secret base might just’ve done it had it not been for…

  6. People criticise her karate kick at the Myrka. Oddly, the kick is the least embarrassing part of that sequence – her attempt at a haka immediately before is infinitely more risible. She might even be attempting a version of the Timewarp – "It’s just a wave to the left (doo doo doo doo doo), and then a wave to the ry-ry-ry-ry-ry-right…"

  7. Michael Grade – loathed at the time but perhaps no longer quite the villain he seemed to be, despite the rumoured reason for his sacking Colin Baker – claimed he was embarrassed to watch Alien or Star Wars at the cinema and then come home to watch Doctor Who one television. Presumably he also felt the same way watching the Godfather at the cinema and coming home to Eastenders. But he never said so.

  8. It's taken 24 years but the DVD is finally a legally water tight excuse for absolutely everything that went wrong. It was Thatcher's fault. Hooray.

  9. People pour scorn on the Myrka being operated by the men who were the panto horse in Rentaghost. They say "Rentaghost" with such contempt that you wonder if they'd have pride were they the panto horse from "I Claudius".

  10. Why would evolution give the Silurians a flashing head lamp? It can only be to attract a mate (as with certain types of deep living fish). So does that mean lady Silurians can be found getting friendly with traffic lights if they wake up from hibernation and feel in the mood?

  11. Unless they are just there so we know who is talking. Which is silly as it doesn't matter which is talking - it is either obvious (or should be) from the direction or it doesn't matter because they have a single generic personality per species. At least they don’t bow like the Cybermen did in Wheel in Space.

  12. It’s not a great serial for big weapony plans - the Doctor sabotages a nuclear reactor as a distraction. Well done him. The Silurians want to destroy the world with a snow shaker. Well done them. The humans rely on an obviously insane young bloke to control their nuclear missiles. Well done man. The base uses a BBC micro to control its bombs. Well done it. And the monsters are all killed by a gas which is toxic to Silurians and Sea Devils but can be happily breathed by humans and Time Lords. Well done Johnny.

All things considered, not Doctor Who’s finest hour and a half. There is something in there but a jaded script editor, a blinkered producer, an unnecessary consultant and an unrealistic production schedule combined to make this pretty embarrassing. If he felt like it, I imagine Russell T could redo this as a decent three-quarter hour (albeit I’m getting images of 42 in my head so it depends whether you liked that). The DVD felt cathartic as everyone got it all out of their system. Now I have too.