Underworld

AI gone wrong, Spaceship, Caste Society, Edge of the Universe, Breaking the Fourth Wall, Mind Control, Non-interference policy

Runtime

100 minutes

Time Travel

Future

Tropes (Potential Spoilers!)

Location (Potential Spoilers!)

R1C

Synopsis

On the edge of the universe, the Doctor, Leela and K9 encounter a Minyan ship on an epic quest to find their race banks... but their people have encountered the Time Lords before.

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4 Episodes

Part One

First aired

Saturday, January 7, 1978

Runtime

25 minutes

Written by

Directed by

UK Viewers

8.9 million

Appreciation Index

Synopsis

Deep space, an unknown time. The Doctor encounters the Minyans, survivors of a race the Time Lords unwittingly obliterated early in their own history. The Minyans are searching for their race's lost gene banks, a quest which takes them to the edge of the galaxy…

Part Two

First aired

Saturday, January 14, 1978

Runtime

25 minutes

Written by

Directed by

UK Viewers

9.1 million

Synopsis

After 100,000 years, the Minyans have found the long-lost P7E. But what awaits them on the ship, long buried in the core of a newborn planet?

Part Three

First aired

Saturday, January 21, 1978

Runtime

25 minutes

Written by

Directed by

UK Viewers

8.9 million

Synopsis

The Minyans have, at long last, found the P7E. But a host of guards and robotic seers stand between them and the race banks.

Part Four

First aired

Saturday, January 28, 1978

Runtime

25 minutes

Written by

Directed by

UK Viewers

11.7 million

Synopsis

The Minyons struggle to gain the precious race banks from the Oracle. But perhaps it is giving in a little too easily ...

Characters

Fourth Doctor

Tom Baker

Leela

Louise Jameson

How to watch Underworld:

Watch on iPlayer

Blu-Ray

The Collection – Season 15

DVD

Myths and Legends (The Time Monster, Underworld & The Horns of Nimon)

VHS

Underworld (VHS)

Reviews
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4 reviews

This was terrible.
The First Episode is decent and the idea behind it is probably solid, but I have no Idea what they thought with the other three Episodes. I do think the concept is very solid and could have worked perfectly, but even if you look aside the terrible CSO Effects, the Story doesn't offer much. Not even our two brilliant leads can save this rather boring and uninspired story.

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Review last edited on 4-08-24

This review contains spoilers!

By far the worst episode of the season, it had cool concepts but an overall dull execution.

The sets look good, and the redressing of the ship into the citadel was gorgeous. Unfortunately, all that is overshadowed by over-reliance on green-screen for all of the underworld scenes. It looks bad, especially for something that could have easily been a set - they could have reused one from a previous season, even!

Leela is back in her new dress, though it fits a little better this time and that combined with the lack of bun makes it much nicer to look at. I enjoyed the huge sleeves on the bad guys, too.

I think the best part story-wise was when the bad guys were really willing to just let the ship go with the cylinders. I was really hoping they would go through with it, but of course there had to be a twist, so they would save the slaves. I'd love to see more villains that aren't caricatures or doing it out of the evilness of their hearts, and could just sit down and have a conversation with the good guys and come to an agreement where everyone is happy.

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Review last edited on 28-05-24

This review contains spoilers!

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The Time Vampire

Well that was difficult. It was a story that was great in concept - but absolutely failed in the execution. Even if you put the infamously bad CSO aside (with great difficulty), this story just has nothing to it. The guest cast don't stand out, the action doesn't stand out, the few sets there are are fairly basic, not bad but again, they don't stand out. The only thing that really stands out in this serial are the model shots, they are absolutely incredible. It's reminiscent of "The Space Pirates", brilliant model shots in an absolute slog of a story.

It started to pick up a bit towards the end of part 4, and I liked the Doctor's speech about how the people on the ship were Jackson's people, not the race banks, and that he should take them with him. Unfortunately, one good speech is not going to save a dreary story.

Next Story: The Sons of Kaldor

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Review last edited on 16-05-24

This review contains spoilers!

Each of these episodes are a bit shorter than typical Who and the reprizes last longer than usual too - which screams production issues. When you’re dealing with as much green screen as on Underworld, perhaps that should be expected.

There are some interesting ideas at the centre of this story. Spaceships which become the core of planets, the soft planet, “the pacifier”, Time Lords being the gods of another race of regenerating beings, beings who can live too long, regenerating thousands of times over. By and large I can’t fault the writing on this one, but it's an ambitious thing to try and put into production.

Things look good on the spaceship. When you move into the underworld, whether on a set or in CSO land, you move into a brown landscape with uninspiring visuals. Whilst a lot of the CSO sits remarkably well considering what they were trying to do, it is so reliant on it that you get bored of the special shots and all too often they are a little off. The costumes on the baddies are very funny, a couple of zips away from gimp suits.

The futuristic gravity lift scene is hilarious, the muzak is a nice touch and pulls the concurrent sacrifice scene into sharp contrast. Everything comes together very well there. Though when our heroes pull the victim away from his certain fate it all seems a little too easy. Tom Baker’s performance when he comes up against The Keeper is phenomenal. He still feels at the height of his powers here. He is an inspiring Doctor.

Like most of season 15 so far, despite all of its promise, the results are totally “fine” and a bit forgettable. I think season 1 and 2 were similar in terms of quality, but at least those had high heights and low lows. So far, bar from the excellent opening story, this season has just been a bit meh.

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Review last edited on 8-05-24