Series 14 Appreciation Figures

The BBC have finally gotten round to releasing the AI figures for the last series of Doctor Who, after previously saying they were no longer going to publish these. Longer term readers will know that I've always found these to be far more interesting than the audience numbers, as they tell you how much the viewers actually enjoyed the episodes - especially now that things like overnights don't really mean the same as they did thanks to all the various catch-up options available.

The new figures might look okay at first glance, but when you consider that the BBC expects something around 85 to be a success for a drama production then you can see these aren't great. 

RTD's previous series in charge always saw mid to upper 80's figures, with certain event episodes getting into the low 90's.

Steven Moffat's Boom only manages a 78, matching his previous lowest AI score which was for Sleep No More. As he didn't actually write that story, this is his own personal new low. He has always been in the 80's for his own episodes.

Chibnall had quite a few episodes in the 70's, but the only series this consistently low since the revival was Flux.

The execrable Space Babies now has the lowest AI figure of the entire revived series.

Story 299: Legend of the Sea Devils

In which the Doctor encounters an old enemy when visiting 19th Century China...

A lady pirate arrives in a small fishing village in search of a statue depicting a strange creature. An old man named Ying Wai, who is sworn to protect it, challenges her - against the advice of his son Ying Ki. Having tampered with it, the pirate sees the statue break open to reveal a living Sea Devil entombed within. It kills Ying Wai. His son fails to see what happened as a storm has struck and assumes that the woman killed his father, and so vows revenge.

The TARDIS materialises on a beach nearby and the Doctor, Yaz and Dan make their way to the village after the Doctor discovers a powerful magnetic force emanating from the sea.

They witness the Sea Devil massacring the villagers. Only the pirate woman and Ying Ki survive. An attempt to capture the creature fails as it uses a glowing sword to cut the fishing net they have used, and then a huge sailing ship appears - floating through the air. The Sea Devil is picked up and the ship sails away.

The Doctor recognises the pirate queen as Zheng Yi Sao, the notorious pirate queen known as Madam Ching. She reveals that she is hunting for the lost treasure of the Flor de la Mar, which sank near here in the 16th Century. The wreck had been found by the famous captain Sin Ji-Hun, only for his own ship to sink soon after.

On the flying ship, the Sea Devil - Marsissus - takes command. It is a Chief Sea Devil who has been in hibernation for generations, trapped within the statue in the village. It orders the summoning of the Hua-Shen, a great sea serpent.

Madam Ching returns to her own ship, and Dan follows Ying Ki there, as the young man is still intent on killing her since she is still responsible for his father's death having awakened the Sea Devil.

They are quickly captured by the pirate queen and discover that she is alone on the ship. They must become her crew.

Knowing that Madam Ching will not negotiate with them directly, the Doctor decides that they should use the TARDIS to travel back in time to discover the whereabouts of the lost treasure, by finding out what happened to Sin Ji-Hun's ship. This will give them a bargaining tool.

They arrive on his vessel in 1533 and witness him forcing his crew overboard before Marsissus teleports on board. The captain is surrendering the vessel to the Sea Devil, and it begins to sink with only him and Marsissus on deck.

Knowing now where the ship went down, the Doctor and Yaz return to 1807 and the seabed location, but find no trace of the wreck. What they do find is the Hua-Shen, which attempts to devour the TARDIS.

Madam Ching discovers that her compass is acting erratically, and when they go to check their position by the stars they are shocked to see them moving around them. Dan and Ying Ki learn that her crew were abducted - including her two sons - and she must locate and hand over the treasure of the Flor de la Mar as ransom to get them back.

They are then attacked by the Huan-Shen, which has the ability to deflect cannonballs.

The creature had earlier taken the TARDIS to the Sea Devil base, where the Doctor is confronted by Marsissus. She learns that the reason they did not find Sin Ji-Hun's ship is that it was converted into the flying vessel they saw earlier. The Sea Devil seeks one further gem, known as the Keystone, which was supposed to be with the lost treasure, and which Sin Ji-Hun claimed to possess. When he failed to hand it over, Marsissus had him placed in a stasis chamber as punishment. He is here in the base, in enforced hibernation. 

The Hua-Shen has now located the Keystone on the surface nearby. The Doctor creates a diversion by forcing the Sea Devil ship to the surface and frees Sin Ji-Hun. They have surfaced next to Madam Ching's ship. The Doctor and Yaz swing over to Madam Ching's ship where they discover that the Keystone is actually being worn by Ying Ki as a pendant. It has been passed down through his family from the man who had been Sin Ji-Hun's first mate, given to him for safekeeping to prevent it falling into the hands of Marsissus.

The crystal can trigger a device that would cause the Earth's oceans to rise and sink all landmasses - freeing the planet for the Sea Devils alone. Before Marsissus can sink his ship and return to his base, a swordfight breaks out. The Sea Devil commander is killed by Sin Ji-Hun, but not before the Keystone has been transported to the base.

The Doctor therefore sinks the ship to stop the rest of the Sea Devils activating their device. She will cause the entire base to increase its density so that the weight will cause it to collapse in on itself. To do  this she will have to remain behind. Sin Ji-Hun elects to sacrifice himself in her place and the base is destroyed.

Fortunately, the treasure of the Flor de la Mar has been moved into the TARDIS before the sabotage begins. Madam Ching can now free her crew and sons. She regrets not having helped save Ying Ki's father earlier, and so offers the young man the chance to stay with her as part of her crew.

Legend of the Sea Devils was written by Chris Chibnall and Ella Road, and was first broadcast on Easter Sunday, 17th April, 2022.

It is the second of the trio of Specials which would see out Chibnall as showrunner and Jodie Whitaker as the Doctor. Unusually for a special it runs to less than an hour in duration, clocking in at 50 minutes - the same as any normal episode since Chibnall took over. This might suggest that the script was originally going to form part of Series 13 until the Covid pandemic forced changes.

However, there are some jarring narrative leaps on show which suggest that the episode was supposed to have been longer, and has simply been badly edited to get it to fit the shorter time slot.

The fight at the village near the start jumps to the Doctor and her companions having a complicated trap set up only seconds after they have walked through the gates, and the story entirely fails to set up the Keystone, so its significance comes out of nowhere.

If the story seems rushed and disjointed, it at least looks great. VFX and character costumes are excellent. The ship was the largest set built for the series up to that point. Thankfully, the Sea Devil design has been kept faithful to the original John Friedlander masks, and he is given an on-screen credit. The costumes are far better than the padded Samurai outfits they were given on their last outing - way back in 1984's Warriors of the Deep - and the original, but impractical, "fishing net" look has also been ignored. The new period costumes look fine, whilst the masks make use of modern techniques to look more natural.

As well as the Sea Devil / Chinese pirate adventure, the episode takes time to explore certain relationship issues which came to prominence through the recent Flux series, though they had their origins in the series prior to that. Certain sections of fandom refer to this as "Thasmin" - a merging of The Doctor and Yasmin, like "Brangelina" or "Bennifer". I've argued before that Chibnall failed to plan properly ahead, making his series look as though he's making things up as he goes along rather than spending time carefully plotting things out in the style of both RTD and, especially, Moffat. They could sow seeds that wouldn't bear fruit until four or more years later.

It seems apparent that Chibnall, who claimed never to read anything the press or fandom said about the show during his tenure, took on board what fans were saying and so co-opted it into his writing.

The cast is headed by Crystal Yu as Madam Ching. She has featured in the second season of Good Omens and Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Ying Ki is played by Marlon Chan-Reeves - only his first TV role. He has since appeared in crime drama Shetland.

Sin Ji-Hun is portrayed by Arthur Lee. He seems to do a lot of voice work for video games, but just before his Doctor Who role he featured in the Robert Pattinson Batman movie, and has done a stint on EastEnders.

Fresh from playing Karvanista in Flux, Marsissus is played by Craige Els.

You can tell that this episode was made under the strict Covid protocols as the guest cast is so small, with CG duplicating Sea Devils, and Madam Ching having her crew conveniently abducted and so never seen. The village complement seems to compose solely of Ying Ki and his dad.

Overall, you have to wonder how they could have got it so wrong. The return of the Sea Devils, coupled with Chinese Pirates, in a period setting, really should have been a classic. But the tiny cast robs it of its epic status, and the Sea Devils hardly feature. There's the issue of the editing mentioned above, and the narrative fails to flow coherently. Really ought to have been better.

Things you might like to know:

• The real Madam Ching was born c.1775. She was known as Zheng Yi Sao - "Wife of Zheng Yi". He was a pirate whom she married in 1801, and on his death in 1807 she took over his operations. She would later wed Zheng Yi's adopted son, who helped her run the pirate enterprise. This was said to comprise some 400 vessels, 24 of which she commanded personally. She died a wealthy woman in 1844, peacefully. She left behind a pirate code which was followed by many generations of successors. She has a climbing route named after her in the Austrian Alps.
• The Flor de la Mar - "Flower of the Sea" - was a Portuguese carrack which sank in November 1511. A nobleman was sailing home with a vast treasure destined for the Portuguese king when it sank off the coast of Sumatra. It was basically unseaworthy, having undergone continual repairs, and foundered in a storm with the loss of 400 men - though the nobleman survived. Some of the survivors were not found until a year later. The wreck has never been found.
• The overnight ratings were only 2.2 million, giving this the lowest viewing figures since the opening episode of Battlefield. The McCoy story's consolidated viewing figures actually beat those for this new Easter Special.
• In an interview later, Chibnall claimed that fans could consider the Myrka the offspring of the Hua-Shen.
• One of the costume makers used the codename "Green Gilberts" to conceal the return of the Sea Devils. This was a reference back to their first appearance, when one of the captured Royal Navy submariners calls them this.

Episode 147: The Underwater Menace (3)

Synopsis:

The Doctor and Ramo are summoned by Thous to learn if he will take action against Professor Zaroff - but he has betrayed them to the scientist...

The Doctor tries to warn Thous a final time, but he and Ramo are led away - to be handed over to Lolem. However, once they have gone the King catches a glimpse of Zaroff's obsession. The scientist assures him that Atlantis will rise again with his help, so Thous' concerns subside.

At the temple, the Doctor and Ramo find that they are to be beheaded in sacrifice to Amdo. His companions are watching from the secret chamber behind the idol and have discovered that there is a speaking tube leading into the temple. Polly pretends to be the deity, ordering Lolem and the assembled worshippers to bow their heads in supplication. The Doctor has recognised her voice, and he sees Ben open a door beside the idol. He and Ramo slip into the chamber - and Lolem believes that they have been spirited away by Amdo. He rushes to the throne room to tell Thous of this miracle, but Zaroff realises that the priest has merely been duped.

He orders his guards to search for the Doctor. He will lead them himself.

In the chamber, the Doctor tells his companions and their friends that the only way to prevent Zaroff's plan from being completed is to abduct the scientist, giving them time to come up with a permanent solution. At the same time they must cause a diversion which might help undermine Zaroff. Atlantis relies on the Fish People providing a constant supply of fresh produce from the sea. They cannot keep this long, having no refrigeration units, and the food spoils quickly and needs to be replenished. Were the Fish People to go on strike, it would bring the city to a standstill. Sean and Jacko agree to go and speak with them.

Zaroff, meanwhile, must be lured into a trap. The Doctor disguises himself and positions himself in the marketplace. Polly is given Atlantean clothing by Ara and they watch him from a nearby stall, run by a cloth seller named Nola who is a friend to Ara. Ben and Jamie don wetsuits and pretend to be part of Zaroff's own guard unit. 

Soon Zaroff enters the market with his men, and the Doctor lets himself be spotted. The real guards are diverted away and Ben and Jamie take their place as Zaroff pursues the Doctor. Once they have got him alone, the Doctor stuns him with a powder blown from his recorder and they take him to the chamber behind the idol.

Sean and Jacko convince the Fish People that they are being treated like slaves and should rebel for better conditions. They agree and spread the news amongst all of their kind. 

Word quickly spreads that Atlantis will shortly run out of food, which panics Thous.

Zaroff appears to collapse as the Doctor heads off with Ben and Jamie to permanently sabotage Zaroff's laboratory. Ramo agrees to remain behind with Polly to look after the stricken scientist.

However, this is all a ruse. After they have been left alone, Zaroff stabs Ramo then takes Polly hostage.

The dying Ramo is able to warn the others, and Jamie is able to rescue Polly - though Zaroff manages to escape.

Damon and Thous discuss the Fish People strike, and the King agrees that he must hear their grievances.

Just after the Labour Controller leaves, Zaroff marches into the throne room and refuses to heed the King's pleas that they should give in to the Fish Peoples' demands. His scheme is about to enter its final phase, and he no longer needs the support of the Atlanteans. Realising too late that the Doctor and Ramo were right to warn him, Thous and his guards are shot down by Zaroff and his men.

The scientist triumphantly declares that nothing in the world can stop him now...

Data:

Written by Geoffrey Orme

Recorded: Saturday 21st January 1967 - Riverside Studio 1

First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 28th January 1967

Ratings: 7.1 million / AI 45

Designer: Jack Robinson

Director: Julia Smith

Additional cast: Roma Woodnutt (Nola), Bill Burridge (Executioner)

Critique:

For many years this was the only surviving episode of this story - specifically preserved in the BBC archives as an example of the 1966/67 season.

Like Episode 3 of The Enemy of the World, it tended to inform opinion as to the serial as a whole.

It is a notable instalment for a number of reasons - primarily the underwater "ballet" of the Fish People, with its bizarre musical accompaniment, and Joseph Furst's scenery-chewing performance as the series' definitive mad scientist.

It is one of the criticisms levelled at this story, that it harks back to the sort of stereotypical science-fiction characters of the 1950's B-movies, which in turn owed their origins to the old Saturday matinee serials of the 1930's and early '40's.

As broadcast, Polly is assisted by both Ara and Nola - yet neither character featured prominently in the original drafts. There was another character named Ebon who was deleted in order to strengthen Ara's role, whilst Nola was almost written out altogether at one point, with her action given to Ara.

The Doctor was to be disguised in ragged clothes at the market (later described as sailor's garb), and he was seen to be playing his recorder by the fountain - though not any recognisable tune. The market sequence was longer, with a bit of slapstick thrown in as the Doctor fell over when nudged by Ben.

The Fish People sequence was left open-ended in the script. It could either be a single shot of one of the beings whispering to another, or expanded to multiple Fish People swimming about should the technical facilities be available.

The final scene had Zaroff in a jovial mood, joking with Thous who doesn't realise he is being serious about feeding his life to Amdo. The scientist's final lines, addressed to his guards, were more understated:

"Come, we have much to do. Kill these two men, and follow me to the laboratory. Nothing on Earth can stop me now".

The highlight of the episode is the aforementioned underwater sequence featuring the Fish People. This was filmed at Ealing on Thursday 15th and Friday16th December. After tests with the Kirby flying harness had been carried out on the Wednesday, the first day saw the actual swimming scenes filmed.

There were eight performers in all - four male and four female - and these were credited as either "Full-Fish People" or "Half-Fish People".

The performers were suspended on wires and floated above a seabed set, dressed with shells, seaweed and anchor chains. The cameras, with a soft focus lens, were positioned behind a 12" high fish tank, and the film slowed down to give a slow-motion look. 

More swimming scenes were filmed on the Friday, which was also the day on which the sequence with Sean and Jacko at the underwater grotto was shot.

For the "Full-Fish People", the costume was a fabric body stocking covered in sequins. A hood covered the head, covered in larger sequins and to which the plastic fins or gills were attached. This cowl included a half-mask which had the large staring fish-eyes attached, as well as other small sequins. The lips were made-up to give the upturned look of a real fish's mouth.

Two "Half-Fish People", a male and a female, wore simple tights and leotards, with swimming goggle masks. This was to illustrate the different stages people went through to be transformed into the Fish People.

Publicity images of the new creatures were taken on the Friday morning. The grotto was set up in the water tank which had been used to film Zaroff's flooded laboratory earlier in the week.

There are clearly two different kinds of guard in Atlantis - native ones and those presumably recruited from shipwrecks. Whilst the native ones have the distinctive bushy eyebrows of the Atlanteans and wear outfits derived from flotsam and jetsam, arming themselves with tridents, the others - which Zaroff seems to employ as his personal guard - are ordinary looking people, who wear wetsuits and are armed with revolvers.

Ben and Jamie are seen to impersonate member of Zaroff's guard. Polly, meanwhile, dons an outfit similar to that worn by Ara.

This is based on seashell shapes. Anneke Wills reported that the larger shells were repurposed plastic ashtrays which dug into the skin and were very uncomfortable to wear. There's a seaweed skirt, and a larger shell-shape used for a helmet, decorated with real shells.

The regulars missed some of the rehearsals for this episode as they were at Ealing filming sequences for The Moonbase.

BBC photographers were present during the afternoon of recording to take publicity shots of Furst with Noel Johnson.

Sandra Reid had stood down as costume designer on the story, to be replaced by a member of her team - Juanita Waterson - who continued to work to Reid's designs.

The sole recording break was scheduled just before the market scene, as this was when everyone would be seen wearing their different disguises. Troughton donned a short cape, head scarf and dark glasses.

This would be the last time he was seen to resort to costumed disguise, this aspect of the new Doctor's character being phased out. 

Before putting on his wetsuit, Jamie wears his original 18th Century Highland dress for the final time, as first seen in his introductory story.

The market set included a small fountain with electric pump, around which some Atlantean children play. They had also acted as child acolytes in the temple scenes. As with previous episodes, the extras were all called upon to play several different characters - priests, guards, market traders. Three of the people in the market scene had played Fish People at Ealing the previous month.

The fight scenes between Zaroff and Ramo, and between the scientist and Jamie, were staged by Derek Ware. 

Sound effects only were used for the pistol shots at the cliffhanger, with no blanks being fired in studio.

Personally, I have always been rather fond of the Fish People ballet. Dudley Simpson's music is so odd, and the imagery so weird that I've always found the whole sequence compelling. It was the first scene I ever saw from the story, having featured prominently in the 30 Years in the TARDIS documentary back in 1993 as an example of the series' more surreal moments. One of its criticisms is the fact that it slows down the plot - but when seen in context it actually forms an important part of the narrative, with the Doctor trying to disrupt Atlantis whilst he tries to put a stop to Zaroff's plans.

The other criticism is the obvious use of the flying harnesses. Improved screen definition was only a few weeks away when this was broadcast, but this episode would only have been seen, just the once, on a tiny 405-line TV set, where things like harness wires would have been virtually invisible.

As for Zaroff's cliffhanger dialogue? It's perfectly in keeping with his descent into madness and absolute conviction that what he is doing marks the triumphant crowning glory of his career.

Context - be it narratively or in broadcast / production terms - is everything.

Trivia:

• The ratings continue to slide, as does the appreciation figure. However, in terms of position in the weekly Top 100 chart, there is actually a slight improvement on the previous instalment.
• This was Simpson's first attempt at electronic music on the series, and he collaborated with Brian Hodgson of the Radiophonic Workshop. Simpson used their new monophonic multi-colour tone organ.
• There was considerable interest in the Fish People from the general public - especially from girls wanting to know about their costumes. The costumes worn by Ara and Polly were also of interest.
• When recreated for the DVD making-of documentary (A Fishy Tale) the Fish Person outfit was predominantly orange. This is not reflected in the original costume designs.
• Bill Burridge is best known for playing Mr Quill in Fury From The Deep - his only credited role. He first featured in the series as a soldier in The Romans, with his final appearance in Frontier in Space when he portrayed a Draconian. It was later claimed by a fellow extra on that story that Burridge suffered from a brain seizure, brought on by the metallic make-up he wore entering his bloodstream - an incident which brought his career to an end.
• Most of the fight between Zaroff and Ramo was cut by the Australian censors.

The Art of... The Underwater Menace

With little visual imagery available from this story, and only one striking character design - the Fish People - there is a certain sameness to the various releases for this story over the years.

The Underwater Menace was novelised by range editor Nigel Robinson and released in February 1988 in hardback, with the paperback version following that July. 

The artist is Alister Pearson, and this was actually his first ever cover for the range. Thanks to the reprint programme of the 1990's, he would become the most prolific artist of the Doctor Who novelisations. 

Here he has concentrated exclusively on the Fish People, making use of the handful of BBC publicity images taken during the Ealing filming.

The reason why the book number appears in a small white box on the cover is because there was a late change in release schedule, and this was brought forward to plug a gap and they've had to cover over the original numbering.

 

The television soundtrack was released in February 2005, with linking narration from Anneke Wills. For once, the usual green / blue colour scheme for this range is fitting for an undersea adventure. The Fish People once again feature prominently, with two of the photos used by Pearson for his book cover. There's a Troughton image from The Power of the Daleks, and the Ben and Polly picture derives from The War Machines, though they've photoshopped their clothing. Jamie has also been given a wetsuit. The Zaroff image derives from a telesnap of his infamous Episode 3 cliffhanger moment.

The orphan Episode 3 was released as part of the Lost In Time DVD set in 2004, having previously been available on VHS on the "Missing Years" tape which accompanied The Ice Warriors.

Once the second episode turned up in 2011, a DVD release was planned, which would have seen the two surviving episodes accompanied by animated Episodes 1 and 4. However, the animation company went out of business. With work already underway, including artwork and extras, it was decided to push ahead and release the episodes instead with the soundtrack / telesnaps covering the missing instalments.

This October 2015 release was unpopular with fans as the missing episodes really needed some narration or subtitles to explain what what was going on half the time. For instance, we have several minutes of the Doctor leaning over a rockpool with his back to us, with unrelated dialogue-free noises going on.

The cover art is by Lee Binding. The Region 1 version really benefits from being free of the constricting TARDIS roundel panel at the top:

The story was eventually animated in time for the 60th Anniversary in November 2023 (or early 2024 in the US). 

For quite a while now they have not just been animating the missing episodes but offering the whole story in this form, both in colour and in monochrome, with the actual BBC episodes relegated to Extras status. The problem with this approach is that you cannot switch from animated to surviving episode to animated because they have taken such liberties with costume, make-up and set designs. The animation is a complete reimagining of the story, and simply fails to match existing footage. Not one of the Atlantean characters looks like the actor who played them, and the Fish People are particularly badly served by the animators. There's something really rather unnerving about the TV costumes, but here they have made them look like different tropical fish, wearing boring long robes. The infamous "Fishworker Ballet" is rendered unforgivably dull.

The steelbook cover for the animated release is odd, showing a submerged TARDIS - which doesn't feature in the story at all - and a big menacing face which is actually just the statue of Amdo from the temple. We see a claw creep into shot on the left, but we all know that the Fish People aren't remotely threatening - especially in their bland animated form.

Robinson's novelisation arrived as an audiobook in December 2021, with Anneke Wills as reader. Alister Pearson took the opportunity to completely rework his original book cover, retaining the pyramidal compositional shape but repainting the right-hand figure entirely and adding a background.

The narrated soundtrack was re-released in vinyl form in the Spring of 2020. These record releases tend to use imagery which has very little to do with the actual TV episodes, but in this case they have obviously looked at a publicity image for the face of the Fish Person, even if they've then gone and created a different body of their own.

The discs themselves had a colourful yellow / blue / green splatter pattern described as "Volcanic Eruption Vinyl".

Episode 146: The Underwater Menace (2)

Synopsis:

Polly is to be surgically altered to become a Fish Person. Labour Controller Damon bears down on her with a hypodermic to sedate her when the lights begin to flicker in the operating theatre. The Doctor has sabotaged the power supply in Zaroff's laboratory, pretending to have done so by accident.

Damon goes to confront the professor, suspecting that he has diverted the energy away from the rest of the city for his own grand scheme. Ara seizes the opportunity to free Polly in his absence, and hides her in a secret chamber hidden behind the huge stone face of Amdo in the temple.

The Doctor learns of Atlantis' history - of how a few of its people survived in air pockets when the city flooded. The city continues to be ventilated by the volcanic shaft.

Zaroff's plan is to bring the city to the surface once more. Rather than raise the land mass, however, he intends to lower the ocean. He is drilling a shaft designed to drain the sea. 

The Doctor spots an obvious flaw with this, and realises that the Professor is well aware of it himself. If a mass of cold sea water flows into the Earth's molten core, there will be an explosive reaction which will split the planet in two.

It is clear that Zaroff is quite insane, determined to destroy the world purely because he can.

Elsewhere, Ben and Jamie are taken to the mine workings where they meet a couple of shipwrecked sailors - Sean and Jacko. When the newcomers help them hide a compass from their overseer they decide that they can be trusted. It transpires that they have an escape plan. Ben and Jamie ensure that they are paired with the sailors on a work detail.

The Doctor is left alone with Damon in the laboratory and uses a mix of chemicals to overpower him and escape.

He needs to warn the Atlanteans that they are being led to destruction by Zaroff. As he hides from Damon and his guards, he comes across Ara and asks her for her help. Whilst she diverts his pursuers, he will have the opportunity to speak with Ramo at the temple. He had earlier observed how the High Priest had resented Zaroff.

He is able to convince Ramo that Zaroff's plan will not only destroy the city but threaten the entire planet. The priest agrees to take him to see their ruler, King Thous.

Ben and Jamie escape the mines with Sean and Jacko, and find themselves in a series of tunnels. They split up to explore. Jamie almost falls to his death now a deep crevasse, but is rescued by Ben.

Following another passage, they find themselves at the secret chamber behind the idol, where Ben and Jamie are reunited with Polly.

The Doctor has been given some temple robes in order to impersonate one of Ramo's colleagues, and they are able to gain an audience with Thous in the throne room.

The Doctor gives him the same warning about the professor as given to Ramo. The King listens then has them withdraw, telling them that he will consider what the Doctor has said and inform them shortly of his response.

Ara brings food and a change of clothes for Polly to the secret chamber. The fugitives will use this as a base whilst they work out a plan to reunite with the Doctor and escape the city all together.

Thous summons the Doctor and Ramo back to the throne room and gives them his answer. 

The doors are pushed open and Zaroff marches in with his guards...

Data:

Written by: Geoffrey Orme

Recorded: Saturday 14th January - Riverside Studio 1

First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 21st January 1967

Ratings: 7.5 million / AI 46

Designer: Jack Robinson

Director: Julia Smith

Additional cast: P G Stephens (Sean), Paul Anil (Jacko), Noel Johnson (King Thous), Gerald Taylor (Damon's Assistant), Graham Ashley (Mine Overseer)

Critique:

With Frazer Hines coming on board the TARDIS as a regular, and contracts having been issued to Anneke Wills and Michael Craze for a further three serials, Innes Lloyd now approached Gerry Davis and instructed him that Ben and Polly be written out at the end of these contracts. The reasons are several, and contradictory, and we'll look at them when we get to The Faceless Ones.

The final draft of this episode was delivered on Monday 28th November. Geoffrey Orme had rethought the main Atlantean characters - Thous, Lolem and Ramo - in order that it should be the latter who is the one to be convinced by the Doctor and join forces with him. Interestingly, one Atlantean who seems equally antagonistic towards Zaroff - Damon - wasn't considered for this role.

Zaroff was eager to have the Doctor be impressed by his scheme for Atlantis. The Doctor's penchant for dressing up was to continue, with him being highly pleased with his temple robes. Sean was always intended to be an Irishman, with Jacko described as "dour".

Polly was originally supposed to faint when she heard someone enter the temple, which would prove to be Ben and Jamie with their new friends.

Zaroff's female assistant Steen would have featured prominently in this episode, but the character did not survive the rewrites. 

The only filming required for this episode was completed at Ealing on Friday 16th December. These were the cavern scenes in which Ben rescues Jamie from falling into a crevasse. Only Craze, Hines, Stephens and Anil were required, with the regulars missing rehearsals on the third instalment of The Highlanders.

Joining the cast this week was actor Noel Johnson, who had become famous as the voice of secret agent Dick Barton on BBC radio, and "Pilot of the Future" Dan Dare on Radio Luxembourg.

This instalment saw the debut of the professor's laboratory set. Shawcraft Models of Uxbridge provided an illuminated model of Atlantis in cross-section, which the scientist used to illustrate his ocean-draining scheme to the Doctor. This prop can be glimpsed, in colour, in the 8mm movie "Follow That Dalek" which can be seen on the DVD of The Chase. 

The other new sets included the mining chamber and rock tunnels. King Thous' throne room was a redressed set from the first episode (the reception room) which had a raised dais added.

On the temple set, the Doctor used a sealed clay pot filled with water to illustrate to Ramo what would happen if Zaroff succeeded. The exploding pot was achieved with the use of a small blast charge. Look closely on the cleaned-up DVD and you will spot the wire.

Only a single recording break was planned on the evening, just before the Doctor and Ramo enter the throne room.

At one point the Doctor is seen to disguise himself with oilskins and a sou'wester. This action was ad-libbed by Troughton during the afternoon's camera rehearsals.

One cut was made prior to broadcast - a scene between Ben / Jamie and Sean / Jacko. In this the Doctor's companions discovered that this was the lost city of Atlantis, which Ben had always assumed to be a legend, and the sailors believed that they had been prisoners here for around two years. Sean also explained that there were many shipwrecks in the vicinity of the island - not all of them accidental. 

This idea of ships being deliberately wrecked is never developed in the story, which would have given an added dimension to the plot.

The first and second instalments of The Underwater Menace were cleared for wiping in July 1969. 16mm film prints had been sold to only a handful of countries. In the 1980's, a copy of this episode was purchased by a film collector - a copy which had seen cuts made by the Australian film censor. These included further shots of Polly being threatened with a hypodermic syringe, as had been removed from the close of the preceding instalment.

In 2011 the collector returned this copy to the BBC. It was shown at a "Missing Believed Wiped" event at the BFI in London that December. The rediscovery of the third episode of Galaxy 4 (Airlock) was announced at the same time.

In the same way that opinions about The Enemy of the World were influenced by its then sole-surviving third episode, so fans had always judged The Underwater Menace by Episode 3.

When we were able to see this episode - the earliest surviving Troughton instalment - we were pleasantly surprised. What written synopses and soundtracks can't give you are moments of visual comedy, visual effects, some sets and costumes, and physical performances by cast members.

Here, we get to see things like the Doctor's attempts to sway Ramo - including the facial expressions and the knocking on his skull to indicate Zaroff's madness. We also got to see the Doctor indulging in his love of costume disguises. We knew he dressed up, but never got to see the delight on his face when he did so. It should be noted that Joseph Furst also delivers a more restrained performance as the mad scientist.

It's a far superior instalment to the third, but not quite strong enough to raise the status of the story overall.

The Morning Star reviewed the story not long after the second episode had aired. The critic described the writing as "increasingly painful" and disliked Troughton's clowning.

Trivia:

• After a strong start, the ratings take a sizeable dip of almost a million, and the show slips from 43rd most popular for the week to 64th.
• Noel Johnson will return to the series to play MP Sir Charles Grover in Invasion of the Dinosaurs.
• The P in P G Stephens stood for Peter, giving him the same name as the actor playing the priest Lolem in this story. He used initials as Equity rules prohibited actors having the same name, professionally. Often called upon to play doctors or Irish priests in comedy shows such as Only Fools And Horses, he also featured in the films Oh! What A Lovely War and Burke & Hare drama The Doctor and the Devils.
• The scripts for the story were typed up phonetically for both Zaroff and Jamie. The latter had words or phrases like "Ye canna'" instead of "You can't", whilst Zaroff's had "zem" and "ze" instead of "them" and "the".
• Cliffhanger recaps were generally a mixture of restaging the action in studio, or simply replaying a telerecording of the closing moments of the previous week's episode. For this story all of the recaps were restaged at the beginning of the following week's studio.
• It has been pointed out that Zaroff's scheme would not, in fact, destroy the world. That might only happen if the entire ocean went into the magma at the exact same moment. Drilling a shaft and letting the sea flow in gradually would only create a "singing kettle" effect - a giant steam whistle.
• The January edition of the BBC's staff magazine Ariel featured an image of the Fish People in their undersea grotto, with a jokey caption about it being a club holiday resort.

Tom Baker MBE

Congratulations to Tom Baker on being awarded an MBE in the New Year's Honours List. A knighthood would have been nice, but a step in the right direction, and so much better deserved than many of the honours they dish out.

Joy To The World - Further Thoughts

The internet is back on, so here's some belated afterthoughts about Joy to the World...

I understand that a lot of people did like the episode - generally talking about the "heart" of the episode, tears in the eyes etc.

That's all very well, and we have come to expect this emotional manipulation since the series came back in 2005, but I do expect a lot more. For me, Doctor Who is an action / adventure series, and any plucking of the heartstrings has to emerge from the drama. Above all, an episode should be exciting - more so the festive special.

The only element of this special that was remotely exciting was the dinosaur segment, which we had already seen as a CiN preview clip.

Otherwise, the episode was devoid of jeopardy or threat. The whole business of the star seed potentially blowing up the Earth went absolutely nowhere. There wasn't even a threat to Joy in the end, as she simply absorbed the sun into herself and became part of it. This, of course, made no sense whatsoever. How can a person, even if they've been mentally conditioned, absorb a sun?

How could she disintegrate her dear old mum and make her part of this sun? And if she knew she did this back in 2020 how can she not have known about it in 2024?

There was zero logic behind the plot. It simply wasn't thought through. Criticise the classic series all you want, but the writers between 1963 and 1989 at least spent some time thinking about story logic. They might not always have got it right (see my regular "What's Wrong With... posts for starters), but at least they tried.

Moffat claimed his starting point was the mysterious door in your hotel room which is always locked. Clearly he has the money to stay in very large apartments on holiday which might have a connecting door (that's probably all it is) but I've never come across such a thing. 

The whole plot involves Villengard making use of the Time Hotel to send the star seed back 65 million years so that there will be power source for them to exploit in the future.

Last time I checked, there were billions of stars already kicking about the universe, so what was the point of going to those lengths to make another one? Why not just use an existing one?

If time travel is so common in the future that a hotel can use it for holidays, then why does big capitalist arms manufacturer Villengard not have access to time technology of its own?

Why resort to hypnotised people to act as couriers, when you can simply get one of your own loyal employees to check-in and deposit the seed in the room that links to 65 million years ago?

Why kill the couriers, only to have their consciousness uploaded into the case? Isn't having someone you've just murdered become part of the security system a bit of an accident waiting to happen?

And why is Villengard even a problem when we know from The Doctor Dances that the Doctor blew it up and it became a banana plantation, and the only time we've ever actually seen it it was a wasteland overrun with Daleks, with "Rusty" in residence.

If you want to bring something back from your era which you left unresolved, Mr Moffat, then why not GUS?

The Doctor claims that the Time Hotel is paradox-proof, yet we see him involved in a bootstrap paradox. Why is he not even remotely bothered about a commercial organisation which permits tourists to travel to any point in history they wish, including key moments in history such as the assassination of Julius Caesar?

And why would the hotel have a room in which its occupants can so easily be eaten by dinosaurs?

I've already mentioned the stupidity of him remaining for a year in the Sandringham when he has UNIT to call upon, or any one of his 21st Century companions. He works in the hotel because he needs to earn some money. But in a previous Christmas Special we saw how he could access cash machines with his sonic. Illegal, but he's done it before.

And why could he not summon the TARDIS with his sonic - or have his other self send the TARDIS back to him? It's that paradox which the hotel isn't suppose to have again.

Going back to some of those positive reviews, if the highlight was a few seconds glimpse of the old companion then there's something seriously wrong, both with the episode and your take on it.

As I said, a little heartstring-pulling is only to be expected at Christmas, but when you have an episode that's nothing but, then I've a problem with it. 

At least Chibnall gave us Daleks.