Product Details

• Actors: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison
• Writers: Sydney Newman
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• VHS Release Date: May 6, 1997
• Run Time: 97 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304432445
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #181,620 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars There should've been a better way, January 23, 2004

By 

Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doctor Who - Warriors of the Deep [VHS] (VHS Tape)

In Warriors Of The Deep, which follows the 20th anniversary story, The Five Doctors, the Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough land on a Earth Sea Base in the year 2084, which comes under attack of two Earth Reptile races he encountered before in his third incarnation--the misnamed Silurians and the Sea Devils. This time, the Earth Reptiles have abandoned the way of mediation and are out to reclaim the Earth, which was theirs when man was just an ape. To them, men are "ape-descended primitives, an evolutionary error they obviously mean to correct."

The Earth Reptile attack is not the only crisis. As in Tegan's era, the 1980's, there are "still two power blocs, fingers poised to annihilate each other." And there are two members of the Sea Base, Nilson, the second-in-command, and the psychosurgeon Dr. Solow, who have an agenda of their own involving Maddox, the base's synch-operator, the person who links up to the computer to fire the base's missiles. Maddox's mental state is such that he'll suffer a mental collapse if untreated. To that end, they brainwash him to do their dirty work.

Playing Dr. Solow is Hammer star Ingrid Pitt, who is stout and bearlike here. I was shocked--this was the sensual Elizabeth Bathory in Countess Dracula and Carmilla/Mercalla in The Vampire Lovers? She also came out as Galleia in the Who story The Time Monster in 1972.

The action starts when the Earth Reptiles and the Myrka, a giant quadrupedal sea dragon that has been modified into a cyborg, invade the base and with their superior technology, start killing the base's personnel. It is up to the Doctor to simultaneously save the Base and to negotiate with the Earth Reptiles.

The tension of nuclear war explored in Fail-Safe and Wargames is touched on here. There are three stages, green alert, yellow, alert, and red alert, with two possibilities, a computer-simulation to keep the personnel on their toes, or worse, a real attack. Maddox, the sensitive synch-operator, tells Lieutenant Karina in a stricken voice that yes, it is the commander who gives the orders, "but I still have to press that button." He simply finds the prospect of pushing the button impossible for his conscience.

The design and continuity people should've watched The Silurians story, as the third eye on the Silurians' forehead was a weapon. Here, it's a light that blinks on and off when they speak. And they speak in a more mechanized voice here. Also, they are tan rather than green. Icthar, the leader of the Silurians, says "twice we offered the hand of friendship." He can't count the Sea Devils encounter, so there must have been an untelevised second encounter with the Silurians. And the Myrka is clearly a variation of a pantomime horse, requiring two people, one playing the front, the other the back.

The Doctor keeps referring to the Silurians as a noble race, but here, they have had enough. "There can be no alternative to peaceful coexistence," says Icthar, who horrifically adds in a reference to the Third Reich, "There is a final solution." Humans too have their good and bad sides. When one of the crew sees the Silurians as invaders rather than the noble race the Doctor knows them as, the Doctor bitterly says "I sometimes wonder why I like the people of this miserable planet so much", yet later, when Tegan and the others decide to risk a rescue of the Doctor, Turlough says in exasperation, "What is it about human beings that make them think a futile gesture is a noble one?"

Influences include The Manchurian Candidate (Maddox's brainwashing), and nuclear war films like Fail-Safe. The appearance of the robot weapons system in space at the beginning echoes Reagan's SDI plan of an anti-missile system. And the invasion of the base's airlock doors is reminiscent of the stormtroopers attacking Princess Leia's Blockade Runner at the beginning of Star Wars.

This has one of the highest bodycounts of all Dr. Who stories, with only one character other than the Doctor and his companions surviving. While continuity lapses and design flaws abound, Warriors Of The Deep is a worthy story with Cold War influences and race relations. The final line, spoken in an angst-ridden voice by the Doctor, is tragic but universal: "There should have been a better way."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Absolute s**t!, January 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Doctor Who - Warriors of the Deep [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Eighties Doctor Who always contains more style than plot, and in this area, Warriors Of The Deep is a disaster. The sets are so brightly lit the place CAN'T be underwater. The guest cast are so appalling they're painful to watch. The costumes (when properly fixed on) are just silly. The Sea Devils do little more than blink, and they walk like Ballroom Dancers. All the men in the story wear eye-shadow for some reason. The plot is okay, but the casting and special effects are just so awful - even the famous Ingrid Pitt is terrible. The Myrka is literally a green pantomime horse, and the Silurians.... An absolutely appallling start to season 21.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "What have you been eating?", April 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Doctor Who - Warriors of the Deep [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"Warriors of the Deep" has always been highly criticised for being too cheap, too slow, and just down right bad! But it really isn't. It's one of the last of the 5th Doctor stories to have that Davison charm. The Silurians and the Sea Devils aren't that bad(even if they are slow moving, and their masks are coming loose), they appear right at the beginning of the story, rather than the end of episode 1. Although, the Myrka is better as an idea rather than a realisation. Nice cold war irony, nueral imputs, and some silly gun play add up to fun runaround with the regulars. An interresting story, often neglected.