Customer Reviews

Doctor Who: Fury from the Deep

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I'm 30, and Spanish. These two facts made absolutely impossible for me to have seen Fury from the deep on the screen, and so many other sadly missed stories from Hartnell's and Troughton's Doctors. I have no memories of wobbly sets, hilarious monsters, and very bad special effects in black and white, so I'll just talk about this as an audiobook. And it is really good. Funny, tense, entertaining troughout. Frazer Hines' narration is very good, it's clear how much he enjoyed the series, so he gives his best to make the final product the best possible. The sound effects are very effective, specially that of a heartbeat when something's going to happen. The cast is impressive. Only with the voices you can realize when someone's under the spell of the weed. I have several BBC radio collection Audiobooks from Doctor Who's lost stories, and this is the best so far, followed very near by The Daleks' Master Plan.

Fury from the Deep is widely acknowledged as one of the classic Dr Who stories. Now sadly missing from the BBC archives, only the audio soundtrack survives.

Previously released on cassette in the early 1990s with a rather whimsical narration by Tom Baker (acting as the 4th Doctor looking back on a past adventure) - the sound quality of this edition is much improved and now features a rather more sober narration from Frazer Hines (Jamie in the story). There are even a couple of nice touches in the form of a trailer for the next adventure "Wheel in space" and the original continuity announcement for episode 6.

The plot itself is the oft-used base-under-seige variety with bucket and spadefuls of atmosphere piled on. For once, all of the regular cast are on fine form and given plenty to do. Patrick Troughton, as the second Doctor, is particularly good.

Add to this a (still) contemporary sounding location and realistic supporting characters - and the six episodes just fly by to conclude in a fairly poignant ending.

"Instead they opened their mouths and emitted a burst of toxic gas..."

"Someone amongst us here is under the control of the weed..."

In Watling's final turn in 'Doctor Who,' the TARDIS lands on a blue planet orbiting a...Yes, it's Earth...in a country called...Yes, it's England again...on a beach -- The staggering BBC budget extended to an outing further afield than the chalk-pits apparently -- where the Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria stumble upon a North Sea Gas-Operation (*Yawn*) which is apparently in the process of being taken over by a deadly seaweed (Yes, SEAWEED !!!) giving off toxic gas, taking over people's minds, etc., and...Seriously, do you actually care ?

For me, this is pure delight. These shows are the reason we gave for cancelling 'Who' in the first place. But that aside, this particular outing stands out for two reasons: One is that Victoria in this story brilliantly points out the obvious fact that the Doctor seems to be continually putting his companions in trouble and that something goes terribly wrong in every trip they make (Really ?). Like other future companions whose actors have a sudden desire to exit the series, Victoria undergoes this awakening without any prior indication of dissatisfaction, declaring that she is "fed-up." Amen. The other and most wonderful thing about the audio-production of this particular episode of 'Who' (I won't go into the Beeb's fantastic policy of recycling videotape just now) is that the narration is provided by none other than Tom Baker. Tom is getting old now and is clearly none too happy that his entire life and career is publicly gauged by a silly role in a children's programme he played back in the Seventies. His acid sarcasm is evident throughout as he stumbles through this narration, pausing only for another swig of gin. The abundance of alcohol evident in his narration is presumably the explanation for his seemingly inexplicable confusion of the Doctor's second incarnation with his first... I just live for this stuff ! That, and perhaps, guest-appearances on 'Jonathan Creek'...

- M. Grade, professional Who-hater Esq.