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“There should have been another way.”

In the annals of Doctor Who, there are good stories, there are bad stories, and then there is “Warriors of the Deep.” True, there are stories that are actually worse, but once seen, “Warriors” is something you never forget, a particularly embarrassing blemish on the face of British television. Even the new showrunner of Doctor Who, Steven Moffat - an avowed fan of the Peter Davison era - admits this as one of just two failures from those years.

So what makes this one so strangely attractive? Many older fans recall the story with a wry chuckle, while new ones are eager to see what the fuss is all about. The truth is, “Warriors of the Deep” is the Doctor Who equivalent of a car wreck on the highway: you don’t know why or how it happened, you just have to get a look. Yet at the same time, you somehow understand this is not the worst to which Doctor Who can sink. It serves, instead, as an example of what might be called ”perfect failure,” a unique recipe where all the elements are in a symbiotic accord to bring the result crashing down. There’s a boring script, flat direction, bad lighting, terrible guest stars…

...Oh, and there’s the Myrka, too. No one can forget the Myrka.

The story - such as it is - finds the TARDIS forced to land on the underwater Seabase 4 in the year 2084, where a cold war has made missile launch simulations a way of life. The fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough, for fairly little apparent reason, manage to stick their noses in where they don’t belong and become (surprise!) mistaken for enemy agents. Meanwhile, a trio of vengeful Silurians, having woken a small army (or at least six) of their Sea Devil cousins from cryogenic sleep, are preparing to take over the Seabase and trigger a nuclear war; as a result, humanity will be obliterated and the Earth left to the reptiles. To this end, they set up a two-pronged attack: at one airlock, Commander Sauvix and his Sea Devils, while at the other, the mighty, unstoppable bio-mechanical creation they call the Myrka. The Doctor, desperate for peace with the noble Silurian race, appeals to Icthar, the Silurian of his personal acquaintance, and…

...Wait a minute, what? (That might almost be part of the plot description, I might add. Any viewer is likely to chip in with “Wait a minute, what?” at various points.) I can accept after ten years and a new writer that the Silurians and Sea Devils now refer to each other by those names - after all, the Ice Warriors managed it in just seven, and under their original creator’s pen - but this “noble Silurian” business is frankly ridiculous, even within the context of “Warriors of the Deep” itself. Not once do the Silurians here ever show a desire for anything but the death of humankind; nobody is offered an alternative, nobody tries to take the higher ground, and what it leads to is a complete lack of dramatic conflict. In their original appearance in “The Silurians,” even the aggressive members of the species had a debate over how the “apes” should be handled. Here, they just march in with their lackeys and start shooting.

The problem is that writer Johnny Byrne is trying very, very hard to mimic the structure of “Earthshock,” the story which successfully - and surprisingly - brought the Cybermen back less than two years earlier. Byrne’s Silurians talk like Cybermen, right down to the cries of “Excellent!”, and their siege of the base is almost exactly the attack on “Earthshock“‘s freighter. Byrne tries to work around that by stating how “noble” and “honorable” the Silurians are, but like so many attempts at past continuity in 1980s stories, it just doesn’t hold any water. The Doctor mentions that the Silurians have twice made attempts at peace...well, it just isn’t true. In “The Silurians,” exactly one Silurian tried to make peace with the Doctor before he was killed. In “The Sea Devils,” the attempt was never made at all - the Master was too busy whipping the reptiles up into a frenzy. (And if Icthar is meant to be one of the original 1970s Silurians, well, it’s never made clear at all.) Without an appropriate link to the past, and no example of either civility or diplomacy in the actual story, the Silurians and Sea Devils of “Warriors of the Deep” just become the latest in a long line of hulking, shuffling monsters. And I’m not touching the Myrka; that thing just speaks for itself.

The other fatal flaw is that in the course of the story, almost nothing happens. In his earlier scripts, “The Keeper of Traken” and “Arc of Infinity,” Byrne was always fond of ‘advanced’ alien societies that have moved beyond...ooh...quick movement...but here, the human staff of Seabase 4 simply stand around and do a lot of militaristic posing. Aside from ordering various security measures, most of the characters simply walk around their little bridge set, expressing surprise at events or annoyance at other people or generally wondering just what they’re going to do. There is nothing here of Malcolm Hulke’s wonderful, theatrical moral debate from the 1970s; nope, this is just padding, and boring padding at that. Director Pennant Roberts, never that strong after his first run on the series with “The Face of Evil,” doesn’t help make anything more lively, either. You almost can’t wait for the Myrka to show up and start killing people with its Flailing Flippers of Death.

Doctor Who: Warriors of the Deep has been released on DVD by 2entertain and BBC Video (through Warner). As with most Doctor Who of the 1980s, the video quality is strong and crisp, and in this particular story the only film material is a few seconds of model shots. Colors are very rich, with perhaps a touch too much red - for some reason, many of the skin tones look a bit orange, although that might be the ‘futuristic’ make-up. The original mono is available as the default audio track, along with an optional isolated music track of Jonathan Gibbs’ score...perhaps the story’s one saving grace. (I always did like the Davison-era scores.) Subtitles have been included for the four parts of the story and all of the video supplements.

As usual, information subtitle text has been provided, and as with its two predecessors “Warriors of the Deep” benefits from the contributions of Martin Wiggins. Wiggins’ subtitles cover everything from script development to story production - and along the way, he points out when the Silurian headpieces have come untucked.

Okay, so the actual story’s rubbish, but thankfully the DVD does include a nice selection of special features. The commentary track is provided by stars Peter Davison and Janet Fielding, along with script editor Eric Sward and visual effects designer Mat Irvine. As usual, Davison and Fielding quickly and entertainingly digress, and actually, I found Fielding far more good-humored than many of her earlier commentary appearances. She seems to have found a little affection for the show in amongst all that criticism, and it’s finally balancing out. With Eric Saward unnaturally quiet, however, the real star of the track is Mat Irvine, who jumps enthusiastically into discussion of the story, its flaws, his own role in production, and how it could be bettered. He’s actually very critical, but manages to be upbeat all the way through. Even Davison thanks him for keeping them on track at the end.

The Depths (32 mins.) is the disc’s major making-of documentary, built around contributions from Davison, Fielding, Irvine, writer Johnny Byrne, guest actors Ian McCulloch, James Coombes and John Asquith, continuity advisor and mega-fan Ian Levine and DVD extras producer Ed Stradling (phew, thatsa lotsa peoples!). Hey, wait a minute - I thought Janet Fielding was only going to appear on camera once, back on “Time-Flight”? Oh well, she looks really good here, appearing as a double-act with Davison. What’s far more strange is Ed Stradling appearing to take script editor Eric Saward’s place - and point-of-view. (Where is Saward? Why did he appear on the commentary but not here?) It is rather fun watching the documentary swap between the more earnest contributors, like Pennant Roberts, and the more conversational, like...well...Davison and Fielding; I must say, however, the narration can be annoyingly arch at times. Overall, this is a really interesting, diverse, and fun documentary. One of the very rare making-of documentaries that doesn’t feel like it overlaps the commentary track.

They Came from Beneath the Sea (13 mins.) is a secondary documentary focusing on the ‘realization’ - such as it is - of the story’s (in)famous monsters. Irvine is the obvious core of this piece, even showing us a dilapidated Silurian mask, but there are also interviews with Davison, Roberts, Byrne, and Myrka actors William Perrie and John Asquith. The last two even give a small demonstration because, yes, a bulk of the discussion herein is about everyone’s favorite pantomime horse-lizard. Fun stuff.

Science in Action (6 mins.) is a small extract from the eponymous program, clearly designed to interest British schoolkids in science. Visual effects designer Mat Irvine is interviewed, with such hard-hitting questions as, “How do you decide which polymer to use?” The clip clearly post-dates “Warriors from the Deep,” including glimpses of monsters made for Doctor Who‘s 24th season, but opens with a shot of Irvine in a Silurian mask...clearly the reason it’s been included here instead of, say, “Dragonfire.”

Trails and Continuities (4 mins.) includes some a trailer for part one and bloody boring continuity links for all four parts of “Warriors of the Deep.” However, much more interesting are the two trailers for the start of season 21, the first incorporating clips from “Warriors,” The Awakening,” “Frontios,” “Resurrection of the Daleks” (briefly) and...er..."Pyramids of Mars” (look and see). These have all been taken from off-air recordings, with appropriate reduction in picture quality, but they really are neat for an American fan to see.

Photo Gallery (8 mins.) includes a selection of production and publicity photos set to Jonathan Gibbs’ score. Finally, for fans with DVD-Rom capability, a brief PDF document includes the four Radio Times listings for the story.

For fans of Mat Irvine and his work, there’s also a nicely-sized easter egg (5 mins.) that really should have been an actual featurette. It’s not quite in the usual spot on the menus, but it shouldn’t be hard to find, either.

The disc opens with the trailer for Doctor Who: The Complete Third Series on DVD. As if you hadn’t guessed.

For all its faults, “Warriors of the Deep” isn’t the absolute worst of Doctor Who. There are some stories, particularly in the later ‘80s, which almost beggar belief. This is, however, an example of how to do Doctor Who in completely the wrong way, and about the only way to get through all four episodes is to break down, invite in a couple of fellow fans, and give it a full-on Mystery Science Theater 3000 roast. Therefore, it’s probably to everyone’s benefit that while Doctor Who: Warriors of the Deep is available individually for $24.95, you can also get it with its far better predecessors, “The Silurians” and “The Sea Devils,” as part of the Doctor Who: Beneath the Surface set, which is available online for as little as $40. That would make “Warriors of the Deep” not just free, but more than free - and despite the quality of the story, there really are some nice special features. I recommend picking up the box set and giving “Warriors” its appropriate due: as a flawed, and rather hysterical, footnote in the legacy of two far better 1970s stories. 

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