Friday 17 August 2012

Fury from the Deep



1 comment:

  1. And we kick off Fury from the Deep with an actual shot of the Tardis landing from space, rather than materialising! And on the ocean itself, no less.

    It doesn't take long before the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria are on the beach and in the middle of a foam fight. It's just like Ibiza! Only with fewer banging tunes.

    Also notable for the introduction of the sonic screwdriver (used here as, er, a screwdriver), this story seems to have quite a bad rap in fandom, based (as far as I can tell) purely on the fact that a girl screams in it.

    But for me, this is one of the best of the Troughtons. It features a bunch of classic Doctor Who fears (The mundane seaweed featuring a poisonous sting. The ominous heartbeat sounding throughout the pipes.) together with some marvellously spooky moments - the possessed woman walking calmly into the sea springs to mind.

    The menace grows, as it should, and there are some lovely spooky moments with the heartbeat, and the half-glimpsed seaweed monsters attacking from the foam.

    Strong characters such as Megan Jones, the woman from the Ministry (a character who will keep everyone in the compound at the risk of their lives now in order to try and save lives later) also help this out. A lovely little touch is that Megan lapses from RP into a welsh accent when she's under stress.

    Although it's a tragedy that so much has been lost, I find it darkly amusing that pretty much the only parts to survive of this serial are those which were cut by the Australian censor as being too terrifying for Australians to see.

    It also has a lovely little exit scene for Victoria, with Jamie trying to convince her to stay and the Doctor insisting that it must be her decision. The last line of the story, too, echoes. When asked where they would like to go next, Jamie says that he couldn't care less, and the Doctor gently remonstrates: "I was fond of her too, Jamie."

    An excellent, unjustly overlooked story that doesn't get the love it deserves.

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