Warriors of the Deep

really kind of depressing and pointless? face it tegan, he’s drowned. some iconic scenes here though

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

Previous Story: Ringpullworld

After the fairly dire Season 20, this is an excellent return to form. This story seems to have somewhat of a bad reputation, which I don't understand. It's a tightly-written and action-packed story. It's great to have a proper base-under-siege story again and to have it set in a submarine makes it all the more claustrophobic and intense. The set design for this story is really great, it looks significantly less flimsy than usual. While I'm disappointed that the Silurian mask is unable to talk, it looks phenomenal in this and a lot easier to picture as a real alien.

The main cast here are similarly great. Mark Strickson coldly reminds you that Turlough is not human throughout this story. It was great to witness him go all out to save the Doctor and Tegan however, really cementing him as a genuine companion. Janet Fielding is also really good, she bounces off Peter Davison really well and really grounds both him and Turlough. Speaking of Peter Davison, this might be his best TV performance yet (though I'm sure that will change). He's a lot more present here and is a really driving force in this story. His sarcastic wit is a great way to further differentiate himself as the Doctor, though it's a shame that's only coming towards the end of his run. Similar to Turlough he gets his own alien moment where he scolds the humans for wanting to commit genocide, absolutely selling his disappointment.

This is a terrific start to Davison's final season as the Doctor. For once the cast of companions feel fully fleshed out and are just really enjoyable to watch onscreen. The ending was fairly tragic, though I much prefer how it was handled here than say, Horror of Fang Rock which ends in a similar way. In a way I suppose it's a great way to highlight the differences between Davison and his immediate predecessor. Aside from a few stilted action sequences and a lacklustre cliffhanger to Episode 1, this adventure is fantastic from start to finish and I sincerely hope the rest of the stories in this season can live up to it.

Next Story: Meanwhile Turlough

Warriors of the Deep successfully goes full on action adventure across its first two parts. Guns! Violence! Underwater sequences! It’s best attributes come from these sparky James Bond-esque encounters that we’ve not seen from the show since the Third Doctor’s time - and these sequences feel significantly more modern.

There are a lot of focal points. Three malicious forces including nefarious, scheming crewmates who want to sabotage this secret underwater mission. Despite some unconvincing guest actors taking up the parts of these spies, their scheme still flows nicely. The story is significantly more hampered by the poorly realised Silurian and Sea Devil costumes which look hopelessly out of date for the 1980s. You have to feel sorry for the actors trying to get a story across in a costume when they can’t move their mouth. Any alien that has lips should be able to move them - they should not instead have lamps on their head that light up when they're talking. They look like they have a permanent, cute little smile on their face which diminishes any drama they try and create.

This is all before you get to the lumbering Myrka which looks frankly like a huge and ridiculous party costume. At the beginning of part three it very slowly makes its way towards The Doctor whilst he tries to free Tegan from underneath the world’s heaviest Styrofoam door. Later we see the Silurian’s “manipulator” stuffed full of cotton wool and colourful plastic straws. If only they’d had a budget to realise some of this stuff!!

It’s a real shame when the key thing holding a story back is it’s production values, something Doctor Who was historically able to handle quite well. Warriors of the Deep, if you strip away all of the visual failure is a very interesting story with a neat, if over ambitious script.