OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 313
STORY NUMBER: 062
TRANSMITTED: 04 March 1972
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Beneath the Surface (The Silurians / The Sea Devils / Warriors of the Deep)
Episode Format: 525 video RSC
The thing that the Doctor & Jo could here turns out to be the surviving injured crew member. Finding the radio communications damaged the Doctor hunts in the crew quarters for a transistor radio to modify but encounters the creature which shoots at him. He retreats and barricades himself in with Jo & the crewmember, electrifying the door to drive the creature off which escapes & jumps into the sea. Captain Hart, having lost contact with the fort, sends air sea rescue to see what's going on. The Doctor compares the creature he's seen to the Silurians. The Doctor signals the rescue helicopter which lands and takes them back to shore. Colonel Trenchard arrives at the naval base, bringing with him the Master, disguised as an Admiral. The Master raids the Naval stores for supplies while Trenchard distracts Hart with talk of a golf tournament. Jo spots the Master and an alert is called when the guard at the stores is found unconscious. Jo & The Doctor return to the prison finding the Master still there. Guessing Trenchard is under the Master's influence the Doctor sends Jo to contact UNIT to have him & his staff replaced. The Doctor comes to see the Master who draws a stolen gun on him. The Doctor & the Master fight with fencing sabres stored outside the Master's room, with the Doctor overpowering his foe. However as he turns away the Master hurls a knife at his back.......
I found this episode a bit plodding, it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere particularly fast. The Doctor, having seen the creature is a Reptile, is quick to link it to the Silurians we saw 2 years previously in the show providing this story's third link with the past. The Sea Devil itself doesn't look bas but the blue string vest it's wearing does look a little silly. Then we have the fight scene.... I know the Master's prison is a converted castle but why in the world are they storing fencing sabres right outside the room where their prisoner is kept? That's just asking for trouble!
Many of the cast of this story we know from elsewhere: Edwin Richfield playing Captain Hart returns as Mestor in The Twin Dilemma. Declan Mulholland, sea fort crew member Clark returns as Till in The Androids of Tara but he's most famous for something he didn't appear in: he was the original human Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars which was excised from the original film. The footage is reinstated for the special edition but Mulholland is covered by a CGI Jabba creature. However some of the making of material on the special edition DVD does show him in sequences showing how the scene was built up. June Murphy, 3rd Officer Jane Blythe, played Maggie Harris in the Doctor Who serial Fury from the Deep. Terry Walsh - Castle Guard Barclay is a stuntman who's been in more Doctor Who than I can count as has Pat Gorman, the Sea Devil. Eric Mason, playing C.P.O. Smedley the officer the Master knocks out in the stores, was Senior Prison Officer Green in The Mind of Evil. He's in one of my favourite films, Hot Fuzz as one of the older characters involved in the action finale. Clive Morton, as George Trenchard, had an extensive acting career but this is his only who appearance while Hugh Futcher, here playing Hickman the other sea fort crew member, was later seen for the role of the Seventh Doctor!
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