User Reviews

The Doctor, Furlough and Tegan land on an underwater base in trouble, with threats coming from The Silurians, Sea Devils as well as some internal enemy agents.

The return of two sets of beings, The Silurians and Sea Devils, totally exciting you'd think.

It's a fair opening episode, it's a bit slow, and full of dialogue, there is a whole lot of explaining going on, the main excitement coming when the cloth Doctor falls into the water. The base looks good, the costumes don't.

It doesn't have the best reputation, and that's somewhat fair, this should have been a classic.

Best scene has to be where we first see the dormant Sea Devils, held in that chamber they look really rather good, mainly due to the lighting. The cliffhanger is decent, but why is Turlough convinced The Doctor is dead?

Not a fan of Maddox, but I adore Ingrid Pitt here, she saves it.

It's ok, 5/10.

Review of all 4 episodes:

It is very nice to get a return for the Sea Devils and the Silurians who had been in great 3rd Doctor stories. Here they meet the 5th Doctor as he arrives and is caught between the reptile races and the humans on a future Earth. The adventure starts very well but has issues along the way that are disappointing.

The best aspects are the ideas from writer Johnny Byre with returning 'monsters', a future Earth setting, themes of war and peace and some nice intervention work by the Doctor. Those ideas if presented really well and allowed to be shown to their full potential would give a really good adventure. Unfortunately, this story is not executed on screen as well as it could have been. Director Pennant Roberts manages to achieve some great scenes such as the excellent cliffhanger at the end of Part 1 but overall has too many clumsy scenes with some very dodgy action sequences which mainly occur in Part 3. The creature the Myrka, which would be fine on paper, is terrible. The budget and technology available is the main problem. It could have been done better with more skill, care and imagination but they were up against it. I do not judge this harshly in itself as it is not something that was easily remedied at the time and could be retrospectively improved with added effects. However, it does not help and the problems with the action scenes with the Myrka are poorly directed and have dodgy acting from guest actors which is something that really detracts from Part 3. Parts 2 and 4 also have some unimpressive scenes with actors doing poor falling over etc. It is a real shame because I actually think the story ideas could have made for a strong adventure.

As it is the first episode especially is still very good in my opinion and there are lots of good bits in the script/ideas. Peter Davison is on good form and I find a parts of the serial enjoyable.

My ratings: Part 1 - 8/10, Part 2 - 7/10, Part 3 - 4/10, Part 4 - 7/10. Overall - 6.5/10.

Materalising in a deep sea military base in 2084 The Doctor finds that the human condition of tribalism never changes . Humanity is split in to two massive power blocs with each side possessing weapons of mass destruction . It transpires that reptilian hands want to get their hands on these WMDs

A new season starts and I looked forward with great anticipation to the opening story that teamed up The Silurians and Sea Devils together . I had no memories of the original Silurian story except for the opening scene but did vividly remember The Sea Devils who were probably my all time favourite one off monsters from the show . However on a cold January evening I realised it was best to let sleeping reptiles lie

Plot wise it's very similar to Earthshock or a great number of Season 5 stories where The Doctor , Jamie and Victoria find themselves trapped in a remote location with a handful of humans . Where these stories succeeded was in creating a dark brooding atmosphere whether it be in the tombs of Telos or the London Underground . Sadly director Pennant Roberts makes this undersea base as atmospheric as the local Tesco supermarket . There is a logic to having a military base brightly lit but couldn't the script have shoehorned some sort of power drain that meant we had lots of dark creepy scenes ? The script can't be accused of having a leftfield plot device of defeating the reptile menace since in the opening minutes The Doctor kindly points out the base has an abundant supply of hexachromite which is toxic to reptiles . This foreshadowing effectively makes the rest of he story redundant

The major problem however is the reappearance of the reptiles . They could be any alien race and one wishes they had been an original foe if only for them to be as quickly forgotten as the rest of the story . The Silurians are bad enough with their flashing third eye ala The Daleks ( Though they're better here than in NuWho ) but the Sea Devils are an absolute travesty . Gone are the minimalist but oh so effective fishing net costume and instead we see them wearing a long black frock and a silly Samuria helmet . You can tell the actors playing them are having a problem seeing out of their costumes due to the way they walk . Likewise their ray guns from their have been changed in to one of those bats used to play air hockey . On top of that The Sea Devils now need help in the form of a monster called The Myrka which has to be seen to be believed and I don't mean that in any good way . How the cast didn't receive Oscar nominations for keeping a straight face in those scenes is one of life's great mysteries

The only thing that makes this story remarkable in anyway is what happened outside in the real world . Wrriors is obvious cold war allegory and watching this in 1984 no one would have predicted that a few years later humanity would no longer be living in fear of global nuclear war between the USA and the Soviet Union and despite being set in 2084 it's a small window of the world in 1984 so makes the story a dated curiosity piece