Sunday 8th March 2015
As the year doth "March" on (see what I did there) it was time to meet -up again. Sadly Jim was still unable to join us (although I did see him on my way to our meet-up and he hoped to re-join us soon...!) and Shaun also couldn't join us because, in the words of Mark, he was "being gay". Such a shame as there's plenty of room for gayness in our little group - and the following tale could be seen as quite camp.
So the rest of us trooped over to Mark's to digest a feast of Cheese, biscuits and oven cooked duck-things! Very yummy indeed! All this was a prelude to another feast - a right piece-meal of a serial called "The Underwater Menace"!
Why do I call this a "piece-meal"? Well you may ask that, whilst stifling a yawn, and I'll tell you! Episode 3 happily exists on my "Lost In Time" DVD collection. Episodes 1 and 4 do not exist - fair enough, re-cons it is then. But Episode 2? Ahh yes, the earliest surviving Troughton does indeed exist and was re-discovered back in 2011 (along with part of "Galaxy 4") but it has still to be released! There have been hopes of a release with 2 animated parts, but sadly the classic Dr Who DVD is at an end - all other titles have been released and the BBC have dragged their heels with this release. I suppose, after the discovery of 2 (nearly) complete Troughton serials back in 2013 they wanted to hold off animating in case more came back. Well they haven't so far.....
So where does this leave us. Well thankfully someone has uploaded a rough pirate copy of the episode on the internet - so this is what we watched. 2 recons, 1 real episode, 1 rough online episode! Talk about a right kerfuffle!
Photo 1: Leigh (with the "Lost In time" DVD cover), Mark (holding the sign)
and MJ (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house!
and MJ (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house!
Anyhow our re-con of Part 1 starts with new crew member, Jamie, being quite confused by the inside of the TARDIS! This is soon interrupted as our crew land on a Volcanic island - where, of course, they are immediately captured and taken underground in a lift! As they descend further and further downwards they lose conciousness. When they awaken later, in a compression chamber, they work out that they must be on Earth sometime after 1968 (Polly finds a bracelet from the 1970 Mexico Olympics - so not a bad deduction. Although it does mean this could be 1970 or 2370! Anyhow moving on our crew are told they are to be sacrificed! The Doctor deduces that an amazing scientist called Professor Zaroff (a very clever chap who had done some renowned work but had disappeared...) must be here and gets one of the underground people (Ara) to smuggle a note to Zaroff. The note says "VITAL SECRET WILL DIE WITH ME. DR. W" - this intrigues Zaroff enough to get the Doctor brought to him! Jamie and Ben get put to work in some mines by a guy in charge called Damon. What about Polly? Well after being shown some underwater farming being done by the "Fish People" - she is informed that she is to have an operation to give her plastic gills, thus transforming poor old Polly into a fish person!
Meanwhile the Doctor with Zaroff discovers what this underground place is. Yes it's only the lost sodding city of Atlantis!! Zaroff intends to RAISE this country once again! The episode ends with Polly about to be anaesthetised by Damon....
Meanwhile the Doctor with Zaroff discovers what this underground place is. Yes it's only the lost sodding city of Atlantis!! Zaroff intends to RAISE this country once again! The episode ends with Polly about to be anaesthetised by Damon....
Photo 2: Leigh (with the "Lost In time" DVD cover), Mark (holding the sign)
and MJ (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house!
and MJ (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house!
So there we are and we're onto the earliest Patrick Troughton episode to exist! So after a right kerfuffle finding the leaked online version we see Part 2 starting with the Doctor fiddling with some controls which affect the room Polly is in - this stops the procedure and in much confusion Ara takes Polly and gets her away!
Meanwhile Damon is mad at the Doctor and Zaroff agrees - but still tells him of his plans! He's going to drill into the core of the Earth, drain the water into the core and let the Earth rip itself apart! Why? Because, according to Zaroff, it will be the greatest scientific achievement ever (although if he blows up the Earth who will be around to admire his work!!??). The Doctor, quite reasonably asks "Are you quite mad"? Anyhow to cut a long story short the Doctor manages to escape and, after finding Ara, hears that Polly is safe.
Whilst there he overhears Ramo (a priest who distrusts Zaroff) talking to Damon. The Doctor manages to get to talk to Ramo and tries to convince him that Zaroff is bad. They decide to take this information to Thoris - King of Atlantis. He mulls it over but, deciding he wants Atlantis to be raised again, hands them over to Zaroff! Clearly he doesn't know the Earth will blow up - I think Zaroff left that tiny detail out....!
Meanwhile Damon is mad at the Doctor and Zaroff agrees - but still tells him of his plans! He's going to drill into the core of the Earth, drain the water into the core and let the Earth rip itself apart! Why? Because, according to Zaroff, it will be the greatest scientific achievement ever (although if he blows up the Earth who will be around to admire his work!!??). The Doctor, quite reasonably asks "Are you quite mad"? Anyhow to cut a long story short the Doctor manages to escape and, after finding Ara, hears that Polly is safe.
Whilst there he overhears Ramo (a priest who distrusts Zaroff) talking to Damon. The Doctor manages to get to talk to Ramo and tries to convince him that Zaroff is bad. They decide to take this information to Thoris - King of Atlantis. He mulls it over but, deciding he wants Atlantis to be raised again, hands them over to Zaroff! Clearly he doesn't know the Earth will blow up - I think Zaroff left that tiny detail out....!
Photo 3: Leigh (with the "Lost In time" DVD cover), Mark (holding the sign)
and Jason (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house!
and Jason (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house!
So the existing Part 3 starts with the Doctor and Ramo being taken to High Priest Lolem (played by the same chubby actor who was Cyril in "The Celestial Toymaker"). Before they can be be-headed the temple idol of Amdo booms out that they should all bow their heads. They do this and the Doctor, recognising the voice as Ben's (played through a microphone and speaker system) takes Ramo and escape into the Idol! Inside here the Doctor starts to organise his plans. Sean and Jacko (a couple of Irish shipwrecked sailors who also became slaves) are to insult and goad the Fish People into going on strike. Meanwhile Ben and Jamie are to disguise themselves as guards and Doctor and Polly are going to disguise themselves as regular Atlantean shoppers - here they manage to trick Zaroff away from his guards and capture him. However he manages to escape by stabbing Ramo and taking Polly hostage - Jamie manages to get her back but Zaroff still escapes!
We then go back to Thous wondering if they should have a nice chat with the Fish People and sort things out. Zaroff comes in and disagrees with all that, so Thous tries to have him arrested but Zaroff is having none of this and shoots Thous! The episode ends with Zaroff's glorious line:"Nuzzink in the World can stop me now!!!"
We then go back to Thous wondering if they should have a nice chat with the Fish People and sort things out. Zaroff comes in and disagrees with all that, so Thous tries to have him arrested but Zaroff is having none of this and shoots Thous! The episode ends with Zaroff's glorious line:"Nuzzink in the World can stop me now!!!"
Photo 4: Leigh (with the "Lost In time" DVD cover), Mark (holding the sign)
and Jason (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house!
Here I asked them to pose with a "Nuzzink in ze Vorld can stop me now!" pose!
and Jason (with the DVD cover) around Mark's house!
Here I asked them to pose with a "Nuzzink in ze Vorld can stop me now!" pose!
Back to recons for Part 4 and we begin with the Doctor and Ben finding the guards killed by Zaroff, but Thous is still alive. They decide to take the wounded Thous to the temple. The Doctor then comes up with his grand plan - he is to flood Atlantis to stop Zaroff! He gets Jacko
and Sean to move the people while he and Ben will begin the flooding process. A bit much but hey, being flooded is what Atlantis is famous for!
Zaroff starts hearing of reports of the chaos occurring and decides to bring his plans to destroy the World forward! However he gets locked in his laboratory by Ben and, as Atlantis starts to flood, he slowly drowns! Thanks to those Aussie censor clips we have this grisly demise of Zaroff!
Zaroff starts hearing of reports of the chaos occurring and decides to bring his plans to destroy the World forward! However he gets locked in his laboratory by Ben and, as Atlantis starts to flood, he slowly drowns! Thanks to those Aussie censor clips we have this grisly demise of Zaroff!
Well our TARDIS crew, the Irish pair and the Atlanteans all seem to make it to safety!
Thous wants to raise a stone for our Doctor in a new temple, but Damon says there will be no temples in the new Atlantis! So lessons are learned and our TARDIS crew head off with the Doctor being mocked about his lack of control over the TARDIS! The Doctor takes umbrage to this and sets co-ordinates for Mars. I won't say if he makes it or not, but the next serial is called "The Moonbase" so I'll let you make your own guess....!
So overall I enjoyed it - we had a proper mad scientist in it! Plus we had some other nice characters and it all seemed well costumed with nice sets! This story hasn't the greatest reputation on the world of Who - but I thought it rather good (so did "The Book")! Still that's what I thought - how about Jason?
Jason:
My review of 'The Underwater Menace'.
It was fun to finally see a good chunk of a 2nd Doctor story moving as intended. And move along it did, as I didn't feel it dragged at all with pointless filler. The set up is established quickly with the Tardis crew immediately being captured and whisked straight into the adventure on Atlantis.
Polly's character seems a bit inconsistent with how we last saw her. In 'The Highlanders' she was all gung-ho / waving knives / blackmailing / say exactly what she thinks to anyone. Here the first episode began with her asking 'the boys' if they can take a break after they've been walking up a hill for less than ten seconds and later she frets, but doesn't help at all, while her friend is being attacked in front of her.
I note that so far the 2nd Doctor has at some point used a disguise or false identity in each of his adventures and also seems to enjoy starting rebellions.
What was great about this weeks episode was that the reasoning behind the enemy's actions was simply that he was a 'Mad Scientist (™)'. He knew full well his plan would destroy the Earth and he didn't care. I loved it! Zaroff's plan to 'RAISE' Atlantis is up there with Ian's understanding of scale. He would 'raise' it by lowering the sea. As a by product this would cause the end of life on Earth which he seemed very excited about.
I thought there were some good ideas in this story and a good balance of action, characters and humour. The mutant slave race were well-realised for the time and did not overshadow the human drama.
9/10
*************************************************************************
Shaun did catch up with the story on his own and said:
"I would have watched it sooner if I knew it had a SHARK PIT!!! :D
The setting was forgettable, could have been anywhere really, but Zaroff was superb. Especially his insane motivation."
So I think that was positive!
Well that's all for now - next time we have a four-part that's fully moving! 2 parts animation - 2 parts real! So join me us next time when we take a trip to the Moon....!
Until next time, I shall return, yes I shall return!It was fun to finally see a good chunk of a 2nd Doctor story moving as intended. And move along it did, as I didn't feel it dragged at all with pointless filler. The set up is established quickly with the Tardis crew immediately being captured and whisked straight into the adventure on Atlantis.
Polly's character seems a bit inconsistent with how we last saw her. In 'The Highlanders' she was all gung-ho / waving knives / blackmailing / say exactly what she thinks to anyone. Here the first episode began with her asking 'the boys' if they can take a break after they've been walking up a hill for less than ten seconds and later she frets, but doesn't help at all, while her friend is being attacked in front of her.
I note that so far the 2nd Doctor has at some point used a disguise or false identity in each of his adventures and also seems to enjoy starting rebellions.
What was great about this weeks episode was that the reasoning behind the enemy's actions was simply that he was a 'Mad Scientist (™)'. He knew full well his plan would destroy the Earth and he didn't care. I loved it! Zaroff's plan to 'RAISE' Atlantis is up there with Ian's understanding of scale. He would 'raise' it by lowering the sea. As a by product this would cause the end of life on Earth which he seemed very excited about.
I thought there were some good ideas in this story and a good balance of action, characters and humour. The mutant slave race were well-realised for the time and did not overshadow the human drama.
9/10
*************************************************************************
Shaun did catch up with the story on his own and said:
"I would have watched it sooner if I knew it had a SHARK PIT!!! :D
The setting was forgettable, could have been anywhere really, but Zaroff was superb. Especially his insane motivation."
So I think that was positive!
Well that's all for now - next time we have a four-part that's fully moving! 2 parts animation - 2 parts real! So join me us next time when we take a trip to the Moon....!
MJ - 12-03-15
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