What's Wrong With... Underworld

Just like The Space Museum, you could recycle the old joke about this story having only three things wrong with it - episodes two, three and four...

Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first. After its opening instalment, Underworld looks terrible.

Basically, inflation in 1977 was running rampant. Producer Graham Williams took a short holiday and came back to find that this story had run out of money, with only one main set built and paid for. This was the Minyan spaceship. A large part of the action was located in a cave system. Filming at Wookey Hole or Chislehurst Caves would have been great - but the budget wouldn't stretch, so the plan had been to build cavern sets in studio.

Problem was, the money had already run out. Williams was advised by his superior to consider scrapping the story altogether, but as the series' new producer he did not want to leave his first season in charge unfinished.

It was already a budget-saving decision that the spaceship set could be used twice, redressed to be the interior of the P7E as well as the R1C. 

For the caverns, it was suggested that a model could be used, with the actors placed in scenes using them via Colour Separation Overlay (CSO). Convinced it might work, and keen to present a full season, Williams agreed.

The results are there for all to see on screen. CSO just about gets by in small doses, depending on how scenes are lit and what the background image looks like.

As well as looking false throughout, Underworld also sees figures lose body parts, especially their extremities, due to the process.

Bob Baker and Dave Martin did do their research, such as visiting a nuclear power station prior to writing The Hand of Fear, or reading up on Black Holes for The Three Doctors - but at the end of the day they were dramatists rather than scientists. This story has more than its fair share of bad science.

Whilst you would get gravitational equilibrium at the centre of a planet - where up and down are the same - the notion of floating towards it is silly. (And just look at Tom Baker in the scene. He looks utterly bored and appears to be only grudgingly participating, giving the ends of his scarf the odd flap).

The rocks smother the spaceships despite them not being that big. The Doctor talks about these rocks forming out at the edge of the universe, where there shouldn't really be such large solid objects. More likely to have gases and microscopic material where the universe is dispersing into a void.

Matter is much more likely to form at the core of things, which are newer, than out at the edges, which must be older to have already travelled out that far.

The other Graham Williams space opera based on Greek myth - The Horns of Nimon - at least gives a reason for a spaceship attracting matter towards it (the Hymetusite crystals), but here gravitational forces seem to be confused with magnetism.

The Doctor may be a clever Time Lord, but he has only been travelling the universe for a few hundred years. Jackson has been a space captain for thousands of years - yet the Doctor has to explain some very basic scientific concepts to him.

What's the point of the Quest? There is a Minyos II. What have the Minyans been doing all this time whilst Jackson and company have been away? Have they been procreating naturally, or have they also been having to rejuvenate all this time? Might they not have adapted or found alternatives in all this time, and no longer even want the race banks? 

Why does the Oracle defend the race bank? It doesn't seem to have any understanding of it, nor need of it. Why not just give it away and get rid of these troublesome visitors?

If the P7E was heading for the same location, at what point did the Oracle go mad and take the ship off to the edge of the universe? What was it doing out here in the first place? We can understand the computer going crazy and developing this oppressive society after a great length of time, but not way back when it was on its way to Minyos II with the R1C right behind it.

Wasn't it a bit of a mistake to give Herrick unopenable grenades, when the possibility was very high that the R1C might not be able to get away in time before they exploded?

The Doctor is dealing with a computer which, as I've mentioned, ought to have just given away the race banks to get rid of those disrupting its ideal society. This would have been logical - yet the Doctor is suspicious of it. Just because he's proved right doesn't explain the initial decision.

The Minyans do not appear to have mastered faster than light travel, so it's going to take a few hundred years to finally get to Minyos II. You'd think the Time Lords would have given them that back in their interventionist phase. Why does the Doctor not offer the services of the TARDIS to get everyone to Minyos II quicker? It's going to be very cramped on the R1C with a hundred or so Troggs on board as well. Hopefully there's enough food and water onboard to last 370 years.

The Doctor picks up an object which has "Made on Minyos" written on the base. It's supposed to be a joke - and a quick way of establishing the crew and the Doctor's foreknowledge of them - but it's like having an object marked "Made on Earth". Unless the story is set in a time when our produce is sold to other planets, it doesn't make sense.

At one point the P7E guards chase the Doctor and Leela who hide in an ore truck. The guards run into a dead end in which there are only these trucks - but don't have the sense to suspect that their fugitives might be hiding in one, under a sheet. They just have a glance round then walk away...