Doctor Who Rewind - The Underwater Menace
Doctor Who Rewind
The Underwater Menace
I'm part way through a particularly challenging sequence of Troughton stories that are either completely missing or have one or two surviving episodes. As with this story, which has one surviving available story.
The Doctor, Jamie, Polly and Ben are captured by survivors of the land of Atlantis. They narrowly escape being sacrificed to the god Amdo when mad Professor Zaroff, a renegade scientist, who wants to raise Atlantis, turns up.
Jamie and Ben are sent to work in the mine but poor old Polly is selected to be converted into a fish person, who farm plankton for the city. Luckily, the Doctor manages to postpone the operation by cutting the electricity supply.
Zaroff tells the Doctor that he intends to drain the sea into the Earths core in order to restore the landmass back to the surface.This will generate huge amounts of steam which will crack the earths core and destroy the planet. Sounds like a watertight plan to me.
Polly is freed by a servant girl and the Doctor escapes from the laboratory.Ben and Jamie, with the help of two sailor friends, find a secret mine shaft and get to the surface.
The Doctor is informed, by a priest called Ramo, that Zaroff means to destroy Atlantis. With a plan like his, he'll destroy everything no doubt!!
The Doctor pleads with the king of Atlantis and warns him of Zaroff's plans but he's having none of it. The Doctor is handed over to Zaroff, who sends him for execution in the temple.
Thanks to Polly, who climbs into the head of a statue of Atlantean god Amdo, Lolem (the high priest) and his workers think the god has passed judgement, and accordingly low their heads in praise. While this is going on the Doctor is taken to another room. When Polly stops her little ruse, Lolem thinks they have been taken by the god.
The Doctor then decides to create a food shortage, getting the ludicrously looking fish people to stop production of plankton. He heads off to tackle the mad professor Zaroff, and using one of his disguises, an old soothsayer, he manages to create a ruse and capture him at the market.
When taken by the Doctor to a secret room, Zaroff manages to escape by faking his own seizure.He rejoins his followers and they march to the Royal Court where he tries to kill the King.
The Doctor finds the king bleeding and has him taken away to safety. He decides to flood the lower level of Atlantis and to trap Zaroff. The companions warn the people while the Doctor heads to the generator station. He sabotages the reactor and the sea walls around the city start to fail. Ben confronts Zaroff in his laboratory and manages to trap him there with the water level rising.
The Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie all return to the TARDIS, which dematerialises.
The best thing about this story is the performance by Joseph Furst as Zaroff. It's a performance worthy of any Bond villain. You can truly see the delight in Zaroff's wicked face as he executes his evil plan. And when he shouts those immortal words, "Nothing can stop me now", the sheer delight and smirk on his face are priceless.
It was a pleasure and a relief to actually see the characters moving images with the surviving third episode. Much needed I can tell you.
The rest of the story is pretty forgettable, except for the laughable fish people who looked very very silly swimming around whichever swimming baths it was filmed at.
And the mock swimming scene in which the actors are suspended on wires and slowly projected through the air doing some kind of slow mo swimming looks more like an experimental community dance workshop gone horribly wrong.
Next time on Doctor Who Rewind we travel to the Moon and meet some old friends.
The Underwater Menace
I'm part way through a particularly challenging sequence of Troughton stories that are either completely missing or have one or two surviving episodes. As with this story, which has one surviving available story.
The Doctor, Jamie, Polly and Ben are captured by survivors of the land of Atlantis. They narrowly escape being sacrificed to the god Amdo when mad Professor Zaroff, a renegade scientist, who wants to raise Atlantis, turns up.
Jamie and Ben are sent to work in the mine but poor old Polly is selected to be converted into a fish person, who farm plankton for the city. Luckily, the Doctor manages to postpone the operation by cutting the electricity supply.
Zaroff tells the Doctor that he intends to drain the sea into the Earths core in order to restore the landmass back to the surface.This will generate huge amounts of steam which will crack the earths core and destroy the planet. Sounds like a watertight plan to me.
Polly is freed by a servant girl and the Doctor escapes from the laboratory.Ben and Jamie, with the help of two sailor friends, find a secret mine shaft and get to the surface.
The Doctor is informed, by a priest called Ramo, that Zaroff means to destroy Atlantis. With a plan like his, he'll destroy everything no doubt!!
The Doctor pleads with the king of Atlantis and warns him of Zaroff's plans but he's having none of it. The Doctor is handed over to Zaroff, who sends him for execution in the temple.
Thanks to Polly, who climbs into the head of a statue of Atlantean god Amdo, Lolem (the high priest) and his workers think the god has passed judgement, and accordingly low their heads in praise. While this is going on the Doctor is taken to another room. When Polly stops her little ruse, Lolem thinks they have been taken by the god.
The Doctor then decides to create a food shortage, getting the ludicrously looking fish people to stop production of plankton. He heads off to tackle the mad professor Zaroff, and using one of his disguises, an old soothsayer, he manages to create a ruse and capture him at the market.
When taken by the Doctor to a secret room, Zaroff manages to escape by faking his own seizure.He rejoins his followers and they march to the Royal Court where he tries to kill the King.
The Doctor finds the king bleeding and has him taken away to safety. He decides to flood the lower level of Atlantis and to trap Zaroff. The companions warn the people while the Doctor heads to the generator station. He sabotages the reactor and the sea walls around the city start to fail. Ben confronts Zaroff in his laboratory and manages to trap him there with the water level rising.
The Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie all return to the TARDIS, which dematerialises.
The best thing about this story is the performance by Joseph Furst as Zaroff. It's a performance worthy of any Bond villain. You can truly see the delight in Zaroff's wicked face as he executes his evil plan. And when he shouts those immortal words, "Nothing can stop me now", the sheer delight and smirk on his face are priceless.
It was a pleasure and a relief to actually see the characters moving images with the surviving third episode. Much needed I can tell you.
The rest of the story is pretty forgettable, except for the laughable fish people who looked very very silly swimming around whichever swimming baths it was filmed at.
And the mock swimming scene in which the actors are suspended on wires and slowly projected through the air doing some kind of slow mo swimming looks more like an experimental community dance workshop gone horribly wrong.
Next time on Doctor Who Rewind we travel to the Moon and meet some old friends.
posted by Nic Treadwell at 5:18 pm
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