The Doctor and his companions arrive in an undersea base in the future to find something fishy going on. Before long the deep-sea station is invaded by the Silurians and Sea Devils, who have now teamed up to rid the Earth of the nasty apes known only as Mankind. Sorry if that introduction sounded jokey, but this story inspires little but humour. Worse still, it's unintentional humour. There are some positive points. The interior of the reptile-peoples' craft looks impressive, the Sea Devils' voices sound suitably sinister, and they've thankfully abandoned those string vests they were wearing in the seventies. But apart from that, the production values are pretty sub-par. The Silurians look like they're wearing flared trousers, it's painfully obvious the heads of the actors playing the Sea Devils are inside the creatures' necks, and the story's 'big beast' is a lumbering pantomime horse-like creature. The base is far too brightly-lit. There's nowhere anything could be hiding in the shadows, and there's no real feeling of being in an undersea base. It could just as well be a space station. I can still picture that scene in which Tegan is trying to make it look as though a piece of painted cardboard is actually very heavy. For the benefit of anyone who hasn't seen the seventies Silurian and Sea Devil stories (and that includes anyone working on this story, so listen up) the reptile-people were presented as perfectly reasonable beings who felt the same kind of xenophobia towards mammals that humans felt towards them. Here the reptile-people are nothing more than stock Dr Who monsters, killing everything that moves because they're 'evil'. It's just that if you're going to bring back old enemies, at least do it properly.
Review of Warriors of the Deep: Part One
