Fury from the Deep - Episode 1

Fury from the Deep is the final story to feature Victoria Waterfield but more importantly it’s the story which introduces the Sonic Screwdriver for the first time. For the second time in three stories, the TARDIS arrives on the coast on Earth and there is a bit of dialogue from Victoria and Jamie about how the TARDIS seems to be coming here on purpose. This might have been deliberate by Victor Pemberton because other would have realised this fact. The way that the sonic screwdriver is introduced is as subtle as you would want it but considering how important a part it plays in the show it seems like a very low key debut.

This story is basically playing with the idea of Seaweed going bad. Now I have never been a big fan of seaweed and so normally I wouldn’t warm to the idea but I think that in the context of Doctor Who it works. Only in Doctor Who could they get away with this. The problem with this opening episode is that it doesn’t seem to have the fizz that ‘The Web of Fear’ and ‘Enemy of the World’ had. In particular the last of those titles is what I would compare when talking about this episode because the opening episode had a lot of action and that was largely due to Barry Letts. This story is directed by Hugh David who previously directed ‘The Highlanders’ so we are definitely not going to get an action packed feel to it. Even if it were a James Bond script this wouldn’t help matters.

As this is Deborah Watling’s last story I would expect that Victor Pemberton would be allowed to begin paving the way for her exit. She is given some good stuff to do compared with ‘The Web of Fear’ where she picks locks and goes against what the Doctor has told her. I couldn’t tell you really what Frazer Hines was doing during this episode and Patrick Troughton doesn’t have a great deal to do either.

Another bit of stats information. This is Patrick Troughton’s 63^rd episode as the Doctor (excluding the episodes he has missed). This is also Frazer Hines’ 57^th episode as Jamie and he is the third longest serving companion in the show and is 17 episodes behind Jacqueline Hill and 20 behind William Russell and with another season to go its clear that he will become the longest serving companion before the sixth season ends. Finally this is the fourth six part story in a row, though based on this opening episode and the fact that its on audio does mean that the good run that the show has been experiencing may be coming to an end.

As for the cliffhanger, it’s only redeemed by the fact that Deborah Watling’s screaming which is loud and then goes worryingly quiet at the end. It’s almost like Watling herself has been really attacked by proper seaweed. Apart from that it’s an normal cliffhanger to a normal episode. It doesn’t have any of the good points of the previous two stories and I worry that the fact that none of the six episodes will be any good which is pretty much how I think of ‘The Abominable Snowmen’ and it’s a shame really because the form so far has been quite good.