SEASON TWENTY-ONE AT FORTY: 'WARRIORS OF THE DEEP'

Aquatic powerplays and Armageddon games in Warriors of the Deep. Art composition by Will Brooks Design.

The year is 2084, and two power-blocs are poised on the brink of war. Using a series of undersea complexes and deep-space satellites, each bloc carefully monitors the other's movements, slowly edging towards the moment when one will launch an all-out nuclear attack on the other.

Arriving on Sea Base Four, the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough are rapidly drawn into the web of intrigue which enmeshes this era's paranoid political manoeuvrings. Not everyone on board the base is working for the same team, and the officer directly responsible for implementing the base's nuclear capacity has died in mysterious circumstances.

Amid this already tense atmosphere, the crew of Sea Base Four faces an even greater threat linked to mankind. The Silurians and Sea Devils, prehistoric reptile men who went into hibernation millions of years before, have reawoken and intend to launch another attempt to reclaim the Earth from humanity. The Doctor must tackle enemy sabotage and face the Myrka, a giant marine monster - but can he prevent their "final solution" - launching the missile to start a war that threatens to wipe out the human race?

Original 1995 VHS release sleeve synopsis.

I had been enjoying the in-full-swing celebrations for Doctor Who's Twentieth Anniversary during 1983. So far in my personal journey recollections there had been the satisfying but sadly Dalek-less Season Twenty, whilst the epic Longleat weekend of the Easter Bank Holiday had proved a momentous never-to-be-forgotten experience. The surely epic The Five Doctors wasn't far away when July saw the shock announcement that Peter Davison was leaving his title role after what would be just three seasons. The actor's reasons for departing (avoiding typecasting, wanting more diverse work, and listening to advice from former Doctor Patrick Troughton) were understandable, but that didn't mean that I wasn't absolutely gutted by the news that his tenure would be way too short for my personal taste- I was hoping for a minimum of four years from him at least. When 1984 arrived and Davison's finale story run was partially revealed in a special new year trailer airing across BBC 1, I was very impressed with what was revealed footage-wise, and it was thankfully clear from just these few minutes aired that the star was going to get a deservedly fine and diverse adventures end to his memorable run.

Peter Davison returns for one final season.

I wasn't prior aware that both classic villains the Sea Devil and their underground cousins, the Silurians, were going to be the primary foes of Johnny Byrne's season opener until I literally bumped into my regular school friend, and fellow Who fan, Stephen, in the busy corridors of our secondary school a few months earlier, where he excitedly told me the news of their return which he'd gleaned from the then latest issue of the DWAS newsletter, to which he was avidly subscribed to. Could this sequel tale top the originals, I wondered, especially after the redesigned and revitalized success of the Cybermen with Earthshock two year's earlier? Hopes were high for all fans with Warriors of the Deep when it debuted in weekly double episodes during early January 1984, especially for those die-harders from the seventies, but the final results would soon garner mixed emotions...

Special guest star Ingrid Pitt poses for a great publicity image alongside Davison. It's a shame that the two didn't share any full characters scenes together in the story.

But Warriors did start well enough, competently made (with a welcome return from Tom Baker later seasons directing regular Pennant Roberts), featuring nice production design (that ultimately went against the scripted descriptions of the Sea Base environment), a solid guest cast and lots of building intrigue and action on the Sea Base Four side of things, amidst a future Cold War scenario, whilst the reptilian Silurians prepare to awaken their Sea Devil warrior cousins. The designs of the shell-chest covered Silurians proved okay (at that point I had not yet seen Doctor Who and the Silurians on VHS for proper comparisons) but I preferred the new Sea Devils visual look, what with their clearly Samurai-influenced realisations, and featuring a lead warrior, played by Christopher Farries, who brought conviction and powerful body language (vital ingredients for any series monster to make an impact on screen) within his unique costume. No mean feat back in the day.

The infamous last stand between Dr. Solow and the Myrka.

Then, like the commencement sinking of the S.S. Titanic, things start to go wrong by Part Three. Behind the scenes woes, now legendary, would be the primary cause for such woes, linked to the loss of production preparation time (especially for the visual effects team - poor Mat Irvine, having to take responsibility for problems ultimately not of his making) and rushed studio recording. The infamous Myrka Pantomime horse monster is a partial let down by the time it's fully revealed - it should have remained just shot in close-ups/medium frame for the most part. And as for special guest Ingrid Pitt's infamous karate kick death against it? Well, I didn't know whether to laugh or shudder once I saw it on live transmission. I can only assume that the moment may have been improvised by Miss Pitt herself and was too late to be changed.

The Myrka behind the scenes, rushed into production before fully completed and dry painted.

To say that this third episode, with actors barely moving convincingly or wobbling under their bulky monster costumes, alongside a lack of good video effects in combat sequences, plus other moments clearly needing more rehearsal time than was available, would be the straw that broke the camel's back, would be an understatement, especially with the show now a visible target in the roving eyes of the BBC 1 channel's new controller, the venomous and loathsome (then and even more so now) Michael Grade. Oozing corporate sadism, the cigar-chomping, trouser braces-wearing Grade finally had the opportunity to get his revenge on the show whose once regular Saturday early evening seventies time slots regularly trounced his work for the opposition on ITV, of which he would soon order the show's axe after the completion of Colin Baker's eventual first season (the show couldn't be taken off air anytime before that, much to his frustrations). If the Who production team themselves had felt pangs of painful disappointment with Warriors, I personally was to suffer insult from it following the transmission of Part Three at school (a shame, really, as the opening Davison season had been enjoyed by my fellow class mates), with one super-intelligent British-Chinese associate (who was also clearly going to be a super-rich business man by the time he was twenty) happily telling me how stupid I was to still be watching such rubbish (though it didn't personally stop him from watching the very same episode the night before, to use as his evidence against me!)

Despite the outlined problems, and with the thankful demise of the Myrka, the story would get back up to speed for its finale, as the Doctor (Davison getting to echo Pertwee's often disdain for war and slaughter) once more tries hard to broker peace between the humans and the resentful aliens in a race against time before the potential nuclear holocaust. It doesn't end well, however, with both races on the base having near exterminated themselves. "There should have been another way," the weary and bruised Time Lord says in a genuinely sad finale.

The production team's early enthused hopes for an underwater Earthshock, in terms of status and production achievement, may ultimately have been denied them, but there's still enough quality material in Warriors of the Deep to launch the season in generally satisfying style.

Warriors of the Deep ★ | Radio Times