#13 (5.29 - 5.34): Fury from the Deep.

Maggie Harris (June Murphy) is menaced by
Mr. Oak and Mr. Quill (John Gill and Bill Burridge).

6 episodes. Running Time: Approx. 141 minutes. Written by: Victor Pemberton. Directed by: Hugh David. Produced by: Peter Bryant.


THE PLOT:

The TARDIS materializes near a Euro Sea Gas refinery, where the Doctor and his friends are quickly put under guard as potential saboteurs. All is not well at the refinery, which is steadily losing contact with its drilling rigs, even as the central line feeding gas from the rigs experiences an unexplained drop in output. Robson (Victor Maddern), the man in charge of the station, refuses to shut down the line to check for blockages, and ignores his experts when they advise him to do so.

The Doctor manages to gain the confidence of Robson's second-in-command, scientist Frank Harris (Roy Spencer). Investigating, he and his friends soon discover the cause of the gas drop. There is something in the line: Seaweed. Not normal seaweed, but a sentient life form, with the ability to take over the minds of those it comes in contact with. There are already workers at the refinery under its control - and as they lose communication with the other sea rigs, the Doctor comes to suspect that this malevolent force is preparing for a full-scale invasion!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: The seriousness of the situation is conveyed by the Doctor's own reaction to it. Starting in Episode Three, the Second Doctor's sillier side drops away almost completely, with him intently focused on the problem. At one point, he admits that he does not know how to proceed. Only in Episode Six, after he has figured out the solution, does his accustomed flippancy return.

The Second Doctor may be the most purely kind incarnation.  He observes Victoria's growing fear and her exhaustion at being afraid, and he realizes that she wants - maybe even needs - to stop traveling. When she seems reluctant to say so, he gently asks her if she wants to leave them. He also stops Jamie from pressuring her, telling him that Victoria must make that decision for herself. In every respect, he shows an understanding and maturity not always seen in the other incarnations.

Jamie: Remains absolutely protective of Victoria... which doesn't put him above teasing her. Before the story proper starts, Episode One features a wonderful family moment as the three play in the snow-like foam. As Victoria laughs at the Doctor's and Jamie's antics, the two exchange a glance, then pick her up and deposit her bodily into the substance. In Episode Three, as Jamie carefully bags a sample of seaweed for the Doctor, he pauses to tease Victoria with it, shaking the bag to create the illusion of movement. When Victoria begins to give voice to her fear and doubts, Jamie doesn't seem to truly comprehend - likely in part because he doesn't want to. Still, when she decides to leave, he is respectful of her decision, only showing his true level of upset once he is alone with the Doctor.

Victoria: Gets the best companion exit since Susan's. Victoria loves the Doctor and Jamie - they're her family, and potentially something more than that in Jamie's case. But being constantly under threat by monsters (who have a knack of regularly kidnapping her) has worn her down. The first two episodes see her behaving more or less as she normally does. But as the tension increases, she displays increasing unhappiness. "Every time we go anywhere, something awful happens!" she cries. "Why can't we go anywhere pleasant?" Deborah Watling's performance is her best of the series, and her entire farewell arc is startlingly well-scripted.

Robson/Harris: Somewhat reminiscent of The Ice Warriors, in that the two of them together would make for an ideal leader. Robson is mule-headed in his refusal to listen to anyone who contradicts him, but he does know his job - and the script wisely allows him to show it at one point, when he succeeds in preventing a gas explosion that others are certain will occur. Harris doesn't ignore inconvenient facts the way Robson does; but when he's actually put in charge in the later episodes, he lacks the ability to act decisively, with the Doctor and official Megan Jones (Margaret John) having to repeatedly talk him out of simply evacuating and leaving the refinery to the seaweed.

Oak and Quill: Seaweed can't convey the personality, or malice, of a human villain. That's where the seaweed-controlled Oak and Quill come in. Bill Burridge and John Gill make an intensely creepy pair; the old Tom Baker-narrated audio compared them to "Laurel and Hardy," but their presence is far too malevolent for that. The clip of the pair subduing Harris's wife, Maggie (June Murphy), still exists - ironically saved from oblivion by virtue of being cut by Australian censors. It's easy to see why the scene was snipped. The imagery evokes a sexual assault, from the way the two grin at their victim through to the close-ups of their opening mouths and the cutaways to Maggie's reactions as she struggles and collapses. I'd rank it as easily the most disturbing scene of Classic Who - and it would give much of the New Series a run for its money, too!

Victoria is attacked by seaweed in the animated version!

THOUGHTS:

"Doctor Who Versus the Killer Seeweed!" By all rights, this story should be either laughable, or tedious, or both. It's yet another base-under-siege story from a season that's arguably delivered a couple too many of them. It replicates the formula of the pig-headed base commander who refuses to listen to his advisors. The monster is seaweed. The way it's defeated... Well, I won't spoil it, but if I were to write it here it would sound silly on the face of it.

Fury from the Deep doesn't overcome these issues; rather, it transforms them into integral parts of the whole. Victor Pemberton's scripts weave each of these potentially silly components into a slow starting but steadily building thriller. The atmosphere is strong throughout, and comes through (and in places, is likely enhanced) in the animation as well. The entire serial is carefully structured, with elements that play major roles in the final two episodes carefully planted in the first two parts. Even the cliffhangers add to the atmosphere, with Episode Three's quietly eerie ending, as a possessed character walks out to sea, leaving viewers on a disquieting note.

Sadly, this is another missing story. Even in audio-only form, I found it to be one of Troughton's best, and it has long ranked near the top of my "Most Wished For" returns list. Well, it hasn't been found... But it has been animated, and quite well too. I'm happy that this story was held back until the animation team had time to hone their craft, because this is by far the best missing story animation to date. The Macra Terror and The Faceless Ones were effectively brought to life, but both stories had occasional moments that looked stiff or awkward. Those moments are all but nonexistent here. The animation team clearly realized that this story's effectiveness came from its atmosphere, making choices at every turn to build and enhance the sense of eeriness. Skewed camera angles, careful intercutting between events and pulsating bits of seaweed, and (in the color version) use of green hues all make this Earthbound tale feel decidedly otherworldly.

The battle with the seaweed ends with almost ten minutes left in the story. This allows multiple scenes to focus on Victoria's exit. Classic Doctor Who rarely focused on emotional exits; really, only Susan's, Victoria's, and Jo's spring to mind as receiving this level of focus. By reserving more than a third of the final episode to the departure, as well as building it throughout the preceding episodes, Fury from the Deep manages a strong, emotional finale, with the Doctor's and Jamie's final exchange closing it out perfectly.


Overall Rating: 10/10. I've changed my mind. The Power of the Daleks remains exceptional... But I would rank this as Troughton's finest story.

Previous Story: The Web of Fear
Next Story: The Wheel in Space



Review Index

#2 (4.15 - 4.18): The Highlanders.




The Doctor, making new friends.

4 episodes. Approx. 97 minutes. Written by: Elwyn Jones, Gerry Davis. Directed by: Hugh David. Produced by: Innes Lloyd.


THE PLOT

The Doctor, Ben, and Polly find themselves in Scotland during the bloody aftermath of the Battle of Culloden. The Doctor and Ben are soon captured by British redcoats, along with an injured Scottish laird and his piper, Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines). Though initially marked for execution, they instead end up at the mercy of the self-serving Solicitor Grey (David Garth).

Grey has made arrangements with the evil Captain Trask (Dallas Cavell) to transport Scottish prisoners to the West Indies as slaves... which will ultimately mean a lingering death for the Scots. The Doctor uses his wits to escape and plot his next move. Meanwhile, Polly teams with Kirsty McLaren (Hannah Gordon), the Laird's daughter, to attempt a rescue - if her headstrong nature doesn't get them captured first!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Patrick Troughton's second story. After his phenomenal debut, you'd think that all the writers would need to do is maintain and fine-tune that characterization. Unfortunately, the script for The Highlanders doesn't seem to quite know what to do with him. There's an attempt to use Troughton's background as a character actor by having him don a series of comedy disguises. This results in one highly amusing scene in Episode Two, as he gets the better of Grey and his hapless clerk Perkins. But after that, the parade of outfits becomes increasingly tired.

Polly: Polly, however, gets probably her series-best showing, as she pushes Kirsty to action in rescuing the Doctor, Ben, and Jamie. After Kirsty begins to give up and sob early in Episode Two, Polly responds with disgust.  "Don't the girls of your time do anything but cry?" she demands. Her teasing relationship with Lt. Algernon Ffinch (Michael Elwyn) is a particular highlight, as she blackmails him into assisting her at several points throughout the story.

Ben: Plays the "action hero" role, using a Houdini-inspired trick to escape from Trask and then helping to lead the charge against Trask's men at the end. His role is the least interesting of the regulars, though he is proactive throughout and remains likable.

Jamie: Frazer Hines' Jamie wasn't really intended to become a regular when this story was scripted, and it shows. Though Hines is perfectly fine, Jamie isn't afforded much characterization beyond simple loyalty to his Laird. Hines does show some decent comic timing in some of Jamie's exchanges with the Doctor and Ben, though, and he plays well opposite Troughton and Craze, which is likely why his tenure was unexpectedly extended.


THOUGHTS

The Highlanders is a noteworthy story for the series for two reasons. It represents both a last and a first. It was the last historical story until Season 19's Black Orchid. With that one exception, every Dr. Who story after this one would feature some science fiction elements, occasionally to the stories' detriment.

The other item of note is the introduction of Frazer Hines as Jamie, the second doctor's definitive companion and (in terms of number of Doctor Who episodes) the longest-serving Who companion to date.

The story itself is largely unremarkable, and suffers from mining Robert Louis Stevenson territory so soon after The Smugglers (which was also, in my opinion, better). Still, there is plenty to like here. There's a real sense of danger as Polly and Kirsty first hide from the English soldiers, then push themselves to interact with them. No bones are made about the conduct of the English toward the Scottish rebels; despite a strong vein of humor running through the Doctor's disguises and Polly's scenes with Ffinch, the overall tone is effectively grim.

One thing this story does very well is to develop a steady theme of greed and corruption. Every representative of the British government seen in the story is corrupt to some extent. The British soldiers are combing the Scottish countryside, looking not just for wounded Jacobites to slaughter, but also for any plunder they can walk away with. Ffinch and his men are first seen complaining about how little the army has left for them to loot. When they capture the Doctor, Ben, and Jamie, their first expression is disgust at the slim pickings.

Even pettier are the soldiers working under Solicitor Grey, who eagerly extend their palms at virtually every interaction. Trask betrayed the Annabelle's true captain to seize the ship and use it for his own profit. But the ultimate face of corruption is that of Grey himself, who has sold out his office to cash in on the slave trade. Appropriately, it is the greed of Trask and Grey that the Doctor uses to create the opportunity for their undoing.

Guest performances are generally good, with Michael Elwyn's Ffinch and David Garth's Solictor Grey standing out. The script even gives some strong characterization to Willie Macay (Andrew Downey), a minor character who nevertheless gets an excellent scene in Episode Three as he talks to the other prisoners about the conditions in the West Indies plantations. Less good is Dallas Cavell, whose Trask is so overexaggerated that Capt. Jack Sparrow appears positively subdued by comparison.

The Highlanders is better than it probably should be. It's one pirate-themed story too many for Season Four, and the writers are visibly struggling with Patrick Troughton's Doctor. But if it's unremarkable, it at least deserves credit for being entertaining.


Rating: 6/10.

The Highlanders Missing Episode Notes

Previous Story: The Power of the Daleks
Next Story: The Underwater Menace


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