032 - The Underwater Menace

Broadcast:

14^th January - 7^th February 1967

Doctor:

Patrick Troughton

Companions:

Ben, Polly, Jamie

Adversary:

Mad Scientist

Written by:

Geoffrey Orme

Director:

Julia Smith

Music:

Dudley Simpson

Script Editor:

Gerry Davis

Producer:

Innes Lloyd

Average Viewers:

7.48m (8.3, 7.5, 7.1, 7.0)

Summary: The TARDIS lands on a stony beach but the Doctor can't determine where on Earth they are. However it soon transpires that they have arrived at the lost city of Atlantis in 1970 and a missing scientist is promising to rise it from the depths.

The Underwater Menace is an odd duck. Metaphorically. I've written about thirty one adventures so far and it seems that a significant number of them either hold honorary positions for various reasons, or are marked by dubious honour of some form. The Underwater Menace is yet another, but on multiple layers. Most importantly at the time of writing is the fact that it includes the only existing episode not to have been released on DVD, yet it has been due for well over a year and a few months ago appeared to be dead in the water (if you'll excuse the pun) It was one of the key arguments in support of the so called 'omnirumour' that many more 'missing' episodes, if not all of them, have been discovered and are secretly being withheld (for a number of suggested reasons). After all, why else would an incomplete story be so quietly delayed especially after being included in a "Coming Soon" trailer. A couple of hours after watching the recon, I read that BBC Worldwide had issued a statement hoping that The Underwater Menace would be released next year with the missing episode replaced by animation. This was quite a relief, but not concrete enough to quash the rumours...

Meanwhile, focussing on the serial itself, scripting issues meant that the episodes were only recorded the week before they were broadcast! News events at time of broadcast may never have been more relevant...

Just ahead of the first episode, Dr James Bedford died and became the first person to be cryonically preserved and there was a military coup in Togo. In San Francisco, a mass peaceful protest at the Golden Gate Park took place, partly in reaction to the banning of LSD, and was dubbed the Human-In. It included Timothy Leary's famous "Turn on, tune in, drop out" speech and set the stage for the Summer of Love as well as starting the -in suffix ("love-in" "sit-in" and even "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" comedy television show). Meanwhile in the UK, Parliament decided to nationalise 90% of the British steel industry, began negotiations for joining the EEC, and founded Milton Keynes as a New Town.

In Munich, the trial of Wilhelm Harster began, as leader of German security police during the occupation of the Netherlands he was accused of the murder of 82,856 Jews and would ultimately be sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin was in the UK for an eight-day visit including a meeting with The Queen on 9 February, while demonstrations outside the Soviet embassy in Beijing got out of hand, three US Astronauts died during a launchpad test of Apollo 1 on the same day that the US, UK and USSR signed the Outer Space Treaty.

In the entertainment world, news reported in the Daily Mail inspired the Beatles song "A Day In The Life" and The Monkees topped the charts with "I'm a Believer". Cinemas were full of spy movies The Quiller Memorandum, Murderers' Row, and The Spy in the Green Hat made up of two episodes from "The Man From UNCLE" that hadn't been broadcast in the UK. Other movies included the sequel Return of the Seven and The Night of the Generals.

In the Doctor's world, things were about to get a little odd and a new companion was having his first TARDIS experience"

Sadly, behind the scenes troubles gave The Underwater Menace a very uncertain start. It was initially dropped from the schedule due to concerns over cost but was reinstated when William Emms fell ill and was unable to complete work on its replacement. The relatively late addition of Jamie to the cast of travellers also meant the script needed to be changed to accommodate him. This primarily consisted of extra scenes at the very beginning and end and they do feel like filler scenes as they both reiterate the Doctor's inability to control the TARDIS. In the first, he claims that never knowing when and where he is going is what makes it fun, while in the last he protests that he can make it it go wherever he wants but he's never wanted to. He then tries to prove his point by setting a course for Mars... immediately followed by the TARDIS going out of control and the lights failing! The first also features Jamie's "bigger on the inside" moment since he was only just seen entering the Police Box at the end of the preceding episode, but it is slightly played down suggesting that at least a little time has passed. According to the TARDIS Data Core, we apparently also get a rare piece of internal monologue as Polly hopes they land back in Chelsea 1966, Ben hopes not to meet the Daleks again and the Doctor anticipates prehistoric monsters, though this isn't clear in the recon and sounds quite reasonably like a conversation. There are some playful moments between the characters as well; Ben affectionately calls Jamie "my old haggis" and as they are about to exit the TARDIS the Doctor shouts "Wait!" then sniggers and cheekily adds "... for me!"

The story that unfolds between these scenes feels less contrived, but there are some very dubious moments that do. For no given reason, the Doctor seems to take a nap shortly after they exit the TARDIS, much as he did in the barn in The Highlanders. This allows the others to explore on their own like kids and become separated from each other and get individually captured and taken deep into some caves. Meanwhile, more meaningfully, the Doctor gets up and examines the beach on which they have landed, finds a shard of pottery and says "Mediterranean. Oh no, tidal sea, can't be" which frankly left me puzzled - he seems to be saying they are on a tidal sea, but that would be correct for the Mediterranean. We next see Ben and Jamie captured and being put with Polly and completely unexpectedly, they are also joined by the Doctor despite there being an apparently sizeable distance between them all just moments before. Polly finds an Aztec style bracelet which clearly isn't that old (which could suggest they are in the relevant period but presumably it looks like a machine made replica so they aren't) and she surmises that it is from the Mexico Olympics of 1968 and that the condition of it suggests it is only a couple of years after that, though of course from Polly perspective they were still a couple of years away when she joined the Doctor and viewers would have to wait another year as well. There is a curious moment when Ben's ignorant side apparently shows as they try to communicate with their captor. He turns to Polly and says "'Ere Pol, you speak foreign...", but he is more correct than he sounds because Polly does indeed speak multiple foreign languages and tries French, German and Spanish. Jamie even joins in with some Gaelic but they get no response. This seems to be a completely lost plot moment though as throughout the remainder of the adventure there are no communication troubles between anyone so perhaps the guard was simply choosing to ignore them.

Next to be thrown into the mix is Professor Zaroff (who's name was inspired by that of Hans Zarkov from the "Flash Gordon" adventures) of whom the Doctor is aware. He was a specialist in "food from the sea" who went missing and was presumed dead for 20 years - the Soviets blamed the West and vice versa. The details of those 20 years in unclear since Zaroff never returned, so perhaps the Doctor means they meet him twenty years after he disappeared... It's that kind of loose detailing that holds The Underwater Menace together. It is presumed and confirmed that they are in the lost/sunken city of Atlantis and Zaroff is there perfecting his technique of producing delicious food from plankton which the locals need to survive, as well as giving them gills so they can work on underwater farms (for him), all with the promise that he will raise the city from the depths (despite there being access to the beach on which the TARDIS arrived) while his real goal of drilling through the Earth's crust is to not just to drain the water but for it to become superheated by the Earth's core and cause the whole planet to explode, simply for the achievement and sense of power! Needless to say, the plot is as bonkers as Professor Zaroff himself. The adventure is an enjoyable ride as long as you don't examine any of the details. The regulars befriend a pair of enslaved minors who were originally sailors who apparently found themselves in Atlantis after being shipwrecked. One called Jacko who is presumably from an unspecified former British colony and Sean who's accent leaves a lot to be desired. In the mining context it initially sounds like an attempt at Welsh but drifts all over the place and is eventually confirmed two episodes later to actually be Irish. Various other performances seem under-rehearsed, presumably because they were, and there is a whole chase sequence that just looks, sounds and feels messy. It's great to see all the lead characters in disguise and there is a lot of fun involved but it is both a blessing and a curse that the sequence is within one of the surviving episodes - we get to see it, but we don't get to imagine that is probably better than it sounds!

Details of the 'fish people' working on the underwater farms seems completely at odds with what Polly is told. They are apparently humans with plastic gills surgically added (an operation that Polly is prepared for in the first cliffhanger), yet they seem to be like a subspecies who can't talk other than a generic dolphin/whale like aquatic chirp and have curious eyes and either scale-like clothes or actual scales on their bodies. The also don't seem to be very intelligent and are easily lead into rebellion as if they understand it but weren't able to think of it themselves.

The Underwater Menace seems to represent both what can be done with Doctor Who and how badly it can go, whilst still looking and feeling great. There are a good number of nice clever moments amongst the flawed script. These include the Priest Rano admonishing Zaroff with "May the wrath of Amdo engulf you!" to which Zaroff replies simply "I'll take my chance". When the companions are threatened with a shark pool Polly despairs "Ben, the Doctor isn't coming!" and Ben's reply is a curious and thought provoking "Don't worry. As long as he's not here, there's still hope." You'd normally want the Doctor to be there for everything to be OK but Ben manages to turn his absence into a positive that is shattered when the Doctor instantly appears, also tied up! There's a less clever, more groanworthy "You and I have other fish to fry" and confusingly silly password related moment when Ben and Jamie try to bluff their way passed a guard. Some how they manage to persuade him to let them pass and taunt him by saying "You don't know the password either" to which he feels obliged to shout out the password to prove that he does, thus allowing them to use it on the next guard! These moments are save by the better lines though as Ben shortly mocks the Doctor by asking "Do you know what you're doing?" to which our hero cheekily retorts "What a stupid question! Of course I don't! But there's no harm in trying." The highlight of the whole script, however is the most quotable "Nothing in the world can stop me now!" screamed maniacally by Zaroff at the end of episode three by Joseph Furst giving his strongest performance.

Sadly, but rather fittingly for this serial, the reprise of that moment is far less dramatic in its recreation. There is a very 1950s B-Movie feel about the who story. The production team did a very good job with the time and financial constraints but the cracks are sadly too big in places. This is the first time the show mixes a classic story, albeit legend rather than proven history, with both science and adventure with a quick science lesson included as the Doctor explains the principles of steam pressure, but it also manages to balance that with humour and fun by immediately following the lesson with a musical interlude as the Doctor, for no reason, starts playing his recorder! The music is brilliant but sparse, the swimming 'fish people' are very effectively represented via wire work but the sequences are just a bit too long. The hubbub and chaos of the market is well represented but the limited space makes the scene a confusing farce. There are more line fluffs than any serial since William Hartnell's The Gunfighters but also some spotless deliveries.

Love it or hate it, The Underwater Menace will be hugely welcomed when it finally gets released on DVD because it has the earliest surviving footage of Patrick Troughton as the Doctor (excluding a few brief seconds of poor quality telerecordings from his very first scene that really aren't watchable) and while it scores very low in some areas, it scores very high in others resulting in a 63% from me. It's he story we love to hate.