The Silurians | the m0vie blog

Doctor Who: Warriors of the Deep (Review)

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.

Warriors of the Deep originally aired in 1984.

“Release the Myrka.”

– three words to create dread in even the toughest Doctor Who fan

I’ve always been somewhat less fond of Johnny Byrne’s Doctor Who than most fans. I can never, for example, understand the high esteem generally reserved for The Keeper of Traken (although it is a better story than Logopolis), and I really disliked Arc of Infinity. So I suspect some of the problems with Warriors of the Deepwere quite fundamental. However, there’s also a sense that those flaws were only exaggerated by a combination of other factors, including a low budget, a tight schedule and a script editor who believed an adventure’s pathos could be measured by its bodycount.

Everybody's dead, Davison...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, Doctor (Doctor Who), doctor who, DoctorWho, Johnny Byrne, Jon Pertwee, Keeper of Traken, Peter Davison, Sea Devils, The Silurians, Warriors of the Deep | 2 Comments »

Doctor Who: The Sea Devils (Review)

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Darren

The Sea Devils originally aired in 1973.

If Horatio Nelson had been in charge of this operation, I hardly think that he would have waited for official instructions.

Yes, a pretty impulsive fellow, if one can believe the history books.

History books? Captain Hart, Horatio Nelson was a personal friend of mine. Come on, Jo.

– Namedropping? The Doctor? Never!

When it comes to Doctor Who, “sequel” stories get a bit of a hard time from fandom. It seems to be easy to dismiss Snakedance in favour of Kinda, and to praise Spearhead from Space at the expense of Terrors of the Autons and even elevate The Daleks above The Dalek Invasion of Earth. It seems that time, and conventional wisdom, tend to favour the original serials. Of course, there are undoubtedly examples where follow-up scripts have disappointed (the ridiculously padded The Monster of Peladon following The Curse of Peladon). Still, for my money, The Sea Devils represents a tighter, complimentary and ambitious sequel to Doctor Who and the Silurians, easily one of the most highly regarded adventures of the seventies. It’s a fairly impressive accomplishment, but The Sea Devils is more than up to it.