Fury from the Deep is quite an important story in the history of Doctor Who. There are two things that make it stand out. The first being that it marks the end of Victoria Waterfield who had been with the show since The Evil of the Daleks. It also marks the first appearance of the Sonic Screwdriver. An item of the Doctor’s repertoire that has divided fans since it was introduced. The main villain of this story is seaweed. The thing about introducing everyday items and turning them into evil things doesn’t always work and it wouldn’t be the first thing that I would think of but credit to Victor Pemberton (writer) for making it work. The departure of Victoria is well set up. It seems obvious to do a companions exit but actually it’s often not handled well. After around a year, Victoria has decided that the life she currently has might not be the one for her. There is the realisation that Victoria is starting to get tired of being in fear and it’s odd that its seaweed that made her think of it. I have to admit that Victoria hasn’t been quite the companion that I would hope for. The story moves in the latter stages of the Doctor and Jamie trying to rescue a fed up Victoria who has made several blatant desires to leave perhaps not the Doctor but definitely the situation they are in.
With seaweed not being the best monster and the thought of a bloke in a seaweed costume clearly being a bad one it was down to humans being controlled by the green stuff. It seems like a bit of an unoriginal idea considering in the previous story (The Web of Fear), Travers was for a while under the control of the conscious. That said I forgive Victor Pemberton because of the result that we got. Mr. Oak and Mr. Quill are intended to be a serious and scary menace but unfortunately I did find them to be the exact opposite. I remember the first time that I saw these two opening their mouth to vent this gas out and the look on their faces was one of comedy and to be honest it loses a bit of drama.
Victoria’s departure has an almost new era feel to it and by that I mean how it’s handled. The seaweed is defeated quite early on in the final episode and the last part is held over for her leaving. This is classic Russell T Davies stuff but he should have watched this final episode to see how it’s done. Victoria can’t make up her mind whether she wants to stay or not and the Doctor decides to give her the time to make her mind up. It’s very sad and well played by all Troughton, Hines and in particular Watling. There’s no gushing music or over the top performances but three very emotional performances.
The thing however about the story is that its one that suffers from just being on CD. I imagine that seaweed which can terrorise people is quite a good idea but when you just have your imagination to work with then it doesn’t quite have the same effect. That said, Fury from the Deep is a fairly average adventure which deals with being six episodes better but unfortunately does feel at times that it’s padded quite a lot.
With seaweed not being the best monster and the thought of a bloke in a seaweed costume clearly being a bad one it was down to humans being controlled by the green stuff. It seems like a bit of an unoriginal idea considering in the previous story (The Web of Fear), Travers was for a while under the control of the conscious. That said I forgive Victor Pemberton because of the result that we got. Mr. Oak and Mr. Quill are intended to be a serious and scary menace but unfortunately I did find them to be the exact opposite. I remember the first time that I saw these two opening their mouth to vent this gas out and the look on their faces was one of comedy and to be honest it loses a bit of drama.
Victoria’s departure has an almost new era feel to it and by that I mean how it’s handled. The seaweed is defeated quite early on in the final episode and the last part is held over for her leaving. This is classic Russell T Davies stuff but he should have watched this final episode to see how it’s done. Victoria can’t make up her mind whether she wants to stay or not and the Doctor decides to give her the time to make her mind up. It’s very sad and well played by all Troughton, Hines and in particular Watling. There’s no gushing music or over the top performances but three very emotional performances.
The thing however about the story is that its one that suffers from just being on CD. I imagine that seaweed which can terrorise people is quite a good idea but when you just have your imagination to work with then it doesn’t quite have the same effect. That said, Fury from the Deep is a fairly average adventure which deals with being six episodes better but unfortunately does feel at times that it’s padded quite a lot.
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