Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Doctor Who: 042 Fury from the Deep

After defeating the Great Intelligence and the Yeti for a second time in The Web of Fear, the TARDIS crew lands on the ocean near a beach. Using an inflatable raft, they come ashore near a pipeline coming out of the ocean. While investigating some odd sounds in the pipeline, they are captured and mistaken for saboteurs. Thus begins Fury from the Deep, the penultimate serial from Season 5.

Sadly, this entire serial is missing although there are reconstructions available. I watched the Loose Cannon reconstruction as well as the Joint Venture one. As always, Loose Cannon makes good use of existing material as well as other sources to give an idea of what the story might have been like.

This serial features intelligent seaweed and lots and lots of of soap suds masquerading as sea foam. Sounds like an episode of Spongebob Squarepants, huh? ;) Actually, as silly as it may sound, the story is actually pretty good and the seaweed monster is very believable, based on the little footage that exists. Oddly enough, this is one of a handful of stories where nobody dies: all the people that were taken over by the seaweed creature or sucked into the sea (or in one case walk into the sea) turn up on the main platform at the end of the serial safe and sound. :) This is also Victoria's last story. She repeatedly questions why they always turn up in the middle of trouble and eventually decides to stay behind when Jamie and the Doctor leave.

With all 6 episodes of this story missing, our total missing episode count for season 5 climbs to 23 and Troughton's totals are: 4 missing stories, 8 incomplete stories, and 51 missing episodes. Next time, season 5 comes to an end with another encounter with the Cybermen and the introduction of a new companion, Zoe Heriot, in The Wheel in Space.

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