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Saturday, January 18, 2014

Doctor Who Rewind - Fury From The Deep




Oh no, the plant life is plotting to take over the world and everyone is in danger of being destroyed by rivers of soap suds. It must be, Fury From The Deep, the totally missing (apart from a few clips) sixth story from the fifth season of Doctor Who.

The TARDIS manages to dump its crew just off shore of the east coast, right in the sea. Once ashore the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria find an abundance of foam and a pipeline marked Euro Sea Gas. Jamie and The Doctor, waste no time in playing about in the white stuff like a couple of kids. The Doctor then hears something inside the pipe, like a heartbeat. During this scene, the Doctors legendary Sonic Screwdriver makes its first appearance. Though it looks just like an ordinary screwdriver and he only uses it to release a screwed panel on the pipe.

Later, the crew are captured by Robson (played by well known English actor Victor Maddern), a gas refiner, heading a pumping operation of rigs in the North Sea. He is worried about a sudden drop in pressure in the feed line and a loss of contact with one of his rigs. Mmmm could this have anything to do with noises in the pipeline?

The Doctor certainly thinks so, and it isn't long before things start going from bad to worse. Robson's assistants wife Maggie, gets infected with some seaweed and starts to act very strangely indeed. In perhaps one of the most odd and spine chilling scenes of Doctor Who so far, Maggie is visited by two very strange looking men, Mr Oak and Me Quill. Only Mr Oak speaks, explaining they are maintenance men who have come to repair her cooker. A likely story!

When Maggie tries to escape they stop her by opening their mouths impossibly wide to emit a toxic gas. The effect is like something out of Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers, and is very disturbing.

Meanwhile, Robson is only convinced of one thing. That the Doctor and co are responsible for the pipeline problems. However, when the Doctor examines Maggie, and the seaweed. He discovers the seaweed is emitting a noxious gas and is still alive. The Doctor also consults the TARDIS library and finds a similar creature, identified by Mariners in the North Sea.

After that all hell breaks loose, nod every other scene seems to contain gallons of foam and suds, not to mention writhing seaweed creatures.

Maggie goes AWOL, wading into the sea, Robson is exposed to the weed and turns into some kind of zombie (like Quill and Oak), the Doctor and Jamie narrowly miss being drown in the stuff, and Victoria screams her way through most of the proceedings.

Talking of which, hinted through out the story is Victoria's growing discomfort with her travels with the Doctor and Jamie. Yes, she's turning into a nervous wreck at having to put up with Daleks, Yeti's and god knows what else. Which can only mean one thing.

I have to say she isn't one of my favourite companions by a long shot. So having her go won't be that much of a loss.

Actually it turns out that her screams are the catalyst for the end of the sea weed creatures. With all the rigs and the base seemingly overtaken with foam and spindly weedy creatures, and all hope nearly lost, the Doctor realises it is noise that kills the creatures. If only he can bottle Victoria's screams and use them against the creatures?

Well, using the pipeline, a couple of speakers and some sticky back plastic he does just that, and guess what, Victoria ends up saving the day with the very thing that is making her want to end her journey in the TARDIS, her fear. It kind of a poetic end to Victorias run on the show.

After the final act, we have a couple of awkward scenes where Victoria is deciding her future. At one point you start to think that maybe the sea weed is going to make a come back just like in all the best horror films. But, nothing happens, except Victoria watching on the beach as a confused Jamie makes his way back to the TARDIS with the Doctor.

Next time on Doctor Who Rewind, a rocket, a space base and metal Micky!

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