Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace (BBC Audio Collection) [Box set] [Audio CD]

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2005

Patrick Troughton stars as the second Doctor in this 1967 adventure, which finds him stumbling across the lost city of Atlantis The TARDIS arrives on an extinct volcanic island, beneath which lies a fantastic subterranean world inhabited by the primitive Atlanteans. The Doctor and his companions move from the frying pan to fire when they are rescued, from death at the jaws of hungry sharks, by the mad Professor Zaroff - whose plans involve nothing less than the destruction of the whole world. Ben and Jamie are sent to work in the mines, and Polly looks set to be transformed into a water-breathing Fish Person unless the Doctor can intervene. Will the travellers be able to engineer the revolution which is needed to save Earth? This long-awaited release also features a bonus interview with Anneke Wills, who played Polly in the story and who also provides linking narration for the soundtrack. Only one episode of this story currently exists in the BBC Television Archives.

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: BBC Audiobooks (February 7, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0563535067
• ISBN-13: 978-0563535065
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,894,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny story but I doubt that it was meant to be this funny, April 15, 2010

By 

Dark Star-The Other One (The Bus To Never Ever Land) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace (BBC Audio Collection) (Audio CD)

Story #32 marks Patrick Troughton's third story as The Doctor and only episode 3 and some brief clips still exists in the BBC's video vault Doctor Who - Lost in Time Collection of Rare Episodes - The William Hartnell Years and the Patrick Troughton Years. The story revolves around fish people, Atlantis and a mad professor with The Doctor dressing in different disguises to free a companion from being turned into a fish person. This does come across as a parody of a b horror flick and is rather amusing in that aspect.

3.0 out of 5 stars A Fistful of Zaroff!, October 9, 2010

By 

S Maslin (Utsunomiya, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace (Audible Audio Edition)

On January 18th, 1967, the first blockbuster spaghetti western 'A Fistful of Dollars' was finally released in the US. It's hard to credit that this coincided with, of all things, The Underwater Menace. Sergio Leone had succeeded in resurrecting the moribund format of The Western in a harsh modern light but, as if to exemplify the gulf of expectation, the BBC showed that in spite of producing near-miraculous TV in some adversity week after week, they could still come up with baffling flights of fancy that just didn't work.

As an audio experience, TUM starts well, with some sparkling dialogue and the now familiar old chestnut of a new companion doing the "gosh" and "golly" routine. Yet as soon as the need for a plot arises, the script degenerates into ponderous cliché. (Zaroff is of course "the greatest scientific genius since Leonardo". Forgive The Second Doctor's deliberate hyperbole but how many scientific geniuses does that ignore?) The regulars are superb; it's just that everyone else is not. As a one-off entertainment for youngsters, there was surely enough feeling for The Doctor and his chums (whom Ben describes as "our lot") to maintain interest and the single surviving episode is surprisingly watchable but as a whole, it's a duffer. Over the top and corny, though not without a certain retro-charm.

Dr Who's most obvious B-Movie.