Who Review: Warriors of the Deep

Turlough has decided to stay on board the TARDIS with the Doctor and Tegan, as opposed to going home, so the Doctor decides to take Tegan for a promised trip into Earth’s future. A run-in with a remote weapons system in space forces the Doctor to dematerialize on what appears to be some kind of deep-sea station. Meanwhile, the crew of the station, Sea Base 4, are part of a nuclear stand-off with a rival power bloc. To safeguard their weapons, a member of the crew, Maddox, must “sync” with the computer via a port in his head before they can be activated. Maddox, however, isn’t sure he could do the job if the time came, a fact demonstrated when he collapses during a test. Senior officer Nilson, and the medical officer, Dr. Solow, take charge of Maddox, promising to help him resolve whatever issues he has. The TARDIS crew, meanwhile, explore the base, trying, and failing to remain undetected. When they are brought up to meet the crew, they manage to convince the officers that they aren’t saboteurs, but then the Base comes under attack from what the Doctor identifies as Silurian vessels. The Doctor tries to convince the officers to negotiate with the Silurians, but no-one is listening. Unable to escape, the Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough, need to find a way to make peace between the humans and their reptilian co-inhabitants before the situation goes nuclear. A problem only exacerbated by the fact there are real saboteurs on board…

SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen this serial. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!

Season 21, Doctor Who’s 1984 season, begins with the return of some old friends. We haven’t seen either the Silurians or the Sea Devils since the Third Doctor era (“Doctor Who and the Silurians” in 1970, and “The Sea Devils” in 1972). Producer John Nathan-Turner gave the task of returning them to writer Johnny Byrne, previously responsible for “The Keeper of Traken” and “Arc of Infinity.” Johnny’s idea was to project the current Cold War situation between the US and Russia 100 years into the future. In the 2084 setting of “Warriors of the Deep,” two unnamed power blocs have their weapons pointing at each other, poised to use them if the other blinks. The Silurians and Sea Devils, meanwhile, are set to recapture the Earth. In previous stories, these reptilian cousins are generally peaceful (albeit with hawkish factions), and only strike out if driven to do so. In this story, however, they seem to have renounced their former conciliatory ways, though they don’t want to get their hands dirty. Hence they send giant beasts in to do their dirty work, and ultimately scheme to have the Earth’s inhabitants wipe themselves off the face of the Earth so they don’t have to do it themselves.

It’s a good plot, and a very workable story. However, the production of the show ran into all kinds of issues which left it in a less than desirable state. But more about that in a moment. Let’s first consider some notable story points. First, at the end of the last story, the 20th anniversary special, “The Five Doctors,” Turlough expressed a desire to go home. At the beginning of this season, he says he’s changed his mind, and he wants to stay on the TARDIS and learn from the Doctor. I’m not sure if the Doctor’s reaction is one of lingering distrust (Turlough was trying to kill him last season), or of awkward acceptance of the flattery. Either way, Turlough stays, and will for most of the season. When the TARDIS crew arrive on the Sea Base, the Doctor finds canisters of hexachromite gas, which he says is lethal to reptiles. This is an important plot point in episode one that will bear fruit in episode four, following Chekov’s famous dramatic principle (“If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off”).

There were a couple of odd points in the script. First, the Doctor tells the commander of the Sea Base that the Silurians are “honorable” and “want to live in peace.” And yet in the next breath he says they intend to “correct” the “evolutionary mistake” that led to mankind being the dominant species. That’s hardly a peaceful attitude! I’m not sure how the Doctor thinks those two thoughts co-exist. Then there’s the fact that the Silurians and Sea Devils call themselves by those names, when originally, those were the names given to them by the humans. “Silurians” is actually a misnomer, at least according to evolutionary theory, since they wouldn’t have actually been from the so-called Silurian period (the Third Doctor says they should properly be called “Eocenes”–see “The Sea Devils”). And “Sea Devils” is clearly not something those creatures would have called themselves. Why they have adopted these inaccurate and non-flattering titles for themselves is anyone’s guess.

As I said, the script is good, and the story has a lot of promise. The final production of the serial, however, leaves a lot to be desired. The Silurian and Sea Devil costumes are pretty much as they were back in the early 70s, without much of a redesign. Sadly, there’s not much the special effects team could do with them given their very limited budget, which means they have static mouths and eyes, and don’t look either very convincing or very threatening. But they aren’t the worst. The Myrka, a giant monster set upon the Sea Base by the Silurians, is, frankly, ridiculous. A cross between a Sesame Street Muppet and a pantomime horse is about the best I can do to describe it. And it’s about as terrifying and dangerous as a Muppet. The soldiers fighting it have to get really close to be clobbered by its stumpy arms, and apart from shuffling slowly forward, it doesn’t do much else. Whatever menace Johnny Byrne intended the monster to have is totally undermined by the production. To be fair, the production team had very little time to put it together, but, from a viewer’s perspective, that’s irrelevant. It’s what goes on the screen that matters, and if they can’t do at least a passable job, they shouldn’t bother. Spend the money on proper mouths for the Silurians and Sea Devils.

The fight sequences are a bit of a disaster, too. At one point, the Sea Devils and members of the Sea Base crew line up and shoot at each other. There’s no running for cover, or taking strategic shots at the enemy. It’s like medieval warfare, only these people have lasers and they are barely twenty feet away from each other. And they still miss! That fight should have ended with both sides wiped out. But no! Maybe as bad, perhaps worse, is Ingrid Pitt’s battle with the Myrka. For a woman of Pitt’s stature in the sci-fi/horror film world, this was quite an undignified way to go. She makes some ludicrous and ineffective kung fu-type moves, and is immediately zapped because she gets too close to the Myrka. Sad, sad, sad. Finally, I have to ask: what’s with the green goo? When a Sea Devil first gets hit with the hexachromite gas (his own fault–he shot one of the canisters by accident), he falls to the ground choking, then his face crumples, and green goo pours out of his eyes. Why is it when a monster dies, there’s always green (or sometimes red) slimy goo pouring from their orifices? We saw something similar when the Mara died in “Snakedance.” I understand they can’t be too realistic (this is 1980s family tea-time viewing, after all), but couldn’t the Sea Devil just lie stiff on the ground? Do we need the goo to get that he’s dead? I don’t think so.

The best part of the whole serial for me was the ending. It is so very unlike Doctor Who. Everyone dies. The Silurians, the Sea Devils, even the commander, who was shot, but held on to the end. The Doctor surveys the resolution, and says, “There should have been another way.” And he’s genuinely sad about all the death. Ending the story there was quite bold for Doctor Who; it’s not at all a happy ending, even though the Silurian threat has been eliminated (for now). It underscores the generally anti-war theme of the story, and how sad it is when sides can’t negotiate peace, and death is the only way to achieve a resolution.

In short, the last couple of minutes is really the only reason to watch “Warriors of the Deep.” I wish it was better because Johnny Byrne’s script has so much promise. But alas, it is what it is, and that’s missable. In fact, if you’re not a die-hard Whovian, I respectfully ask that you skip this one, unless you can overlook the worst of production values to enjoy the acting and the story.