Not before time I’m at last going to get to
actually see Troughton in action since the middle two episodes exist. Yippee. Putting
this into perspective, we were able to watch no fewer than 13 Hartnell episodes
before Part 1 of Marco Polo, the first of the still missing episodes. We’ve
already watched 10 Troughton recons, and have another to go before our first
full live episode. It’s really difficult to judge his portrayal solely on his
voice, and on still pictures.
Well, the Underwater Menace, then. This one, I
believe, is something to do with Atlantis, the first journey along what will
become quite well trodden ground for the show. It’s going to be interesting to
see how the relationships within the TARDIS develop during this story as well.
After all, for the first time we have two young male companions to one young
female companion. Are we going to see Ben and Jamie trying to score points off
each other and prove themselves to be the alpha male of the herd? Ben and Polly
are from the same time, and including “The War Machines” they have come through
5 adventures together, so you’d expect them to be tighter with each other. In
fact, they know each other better than they know the current Doctor, which
means that I can actually see the possibility of two camps forming in the
TARDIS – Ben and Polly in one, and the Doctor and Jamie in the other. Of
course, that’s depending on whether this was something Gerry Davis and Innes
Lloyd wanted to explore or not.
After
Watching
Well, the first thing to report was that the
jockeying for position between the males started early when Ben called Jamie
“Me old ‘aggis” in the first couple of minutes of the first episode. A word of
advice would be to avoid using that particular term of endearment in Sauchihall
Street – or anywhere else in Scotland for that matter. Episodes 2 and 3 survive
of this story, which means by a process of elimination that episode 1 is a
recon. Even so the opening location shots looked fairly impressive. Polly said
it was Cornwall, and by golly it looked like Cornwall. The Doctor somehow
deduced from the rocks that we were somewhere in the Mediterranean. Oh well.
After a few minutes the four of them stumble into a shelter, which turns out to
be a lift, which takes them directly to the lost city of Atlantis. No,
honestly, that’s how you get to Atlantis apparently, take the lift.
Ten minutes in, they all recover from their
journey in the lift, where they all manage mysteriously to develop caisson
disease. Caisson Disease is another name for the Bends, which is actually I thought
associated with a sudden decrease in pressure, rather than an increase. A
sudden decrease in pressure, caused by returning to the surface from being
under the sea, causes nitrogen bubbles to form in the blood. This is why divers
need to go into a decompression chamber. I didn’t think it worked the other way
around. When they recover Ben tells Jamie to watch out in case he gets mistaken
for a woman for wearing a kilt. Ho ho ho. Again, though, please don’t try that
one in Scotland either.
So, the thrust of the story, then, is a visit
to Atlantis. Atlantis is a strange place. On the one hand it’s all archaic
temples and costumes and worshipping gods called Amdo, and on the other hand
it’s scientists in white Nehru jackets keeping a beady eye on the nuclear
reactor. Which would be all fine and dandy if it wasn’t for a mad scientist
called Zaroff.
The ‘mad scientist’ has a long and honourable
history in fiction, which can certainly be traced back to Mary Shelley’s Victor
Frankenstein. Although having said that, you can argue that the original
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was more tragic than mad, and that
the madness really is more due to Colin Clive in the 1931 Universal studios
film of the novel. Whatever the case, the mad scientist is a common feature of
the sci fi horror genre, and one which would have been familiar to a large number
of the original viewers of The Underwater Menace. The Doctor recognizes that a
great scientist called Zaroff must be involved through the delicious plankton
meals the Atlanteans prepare for them once they arrive. The Doctor meets
Zaroff, and while all is very cordial, he soon realizes that Zaroff, who has
promised the Atlanteans that he will raise Atlantis to the surface once more,
actually plans to blow up the world. So the rest of the story is about the
Doctor and friends trying to thwart Zaroff’s plans.
I have to talk about Joseph Furst’s portrayal
of Zaroff. Now, over the top can work in the right context. I think
particularly of Kevin Stoney’s Mavic Chen in “The Daleks’ Master Plan”. Stoney,
though, judged his outbursts to perfection, and provided plenty of contrast, of
light and shade in other scenes, thus making Chen a more convincing individual.
Now, Zaroff, when confronted very early on by the Doctor about his plans,
cheerfully admits that blowing up the world is exactly what he wants to do –
why? – Because he is a great scientist, and what else would any great scientist
want to do? When I say that this outburst is where he starts from, you’ll get
the idea that the full chorus of “Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man’s a
mushroom.” is only just around the corner. Furst is so far over the top, that
you almost start to think that he is deliberately sending himself, and the
show, up. Joseph Furst was, by all accounts, a distinguished actor who had tons
of TV appearances in the 60s and 70s, so he could have been doing just that –
but somehow I doubt it. Apparently the accent he gives Zaroff is his own – and
while I accept that, his voice was so distinctive it kept bugging me exactly
what his intonation and the rhythms of his speech reminded me of. It was only
during episode 4 that I managed to put my finger on it – his voice reminds me
very much of Gru from the “Despicable Me” films. So much so that I can’t help
wondering whether Steve Carel, who voiced him, is a secret classic Doctor Who
fan. I think Zaroff has a couple of specific inspirations. The name, Zaroff, is
just a letter removed from Dr. Zarkoff, the scientist who enlists Flash Gordon
to fight against Ming the Merciless in the old film serials. His appearance,
meanwhile, may well have been inspired by the popular conception of Albert
Einstein – just in case we weren’t already convinced that he was a scientist. It
was either that or Professor Plum from Cluedo.
I’m not sure that Joseph Furst’s ‘throw in
everything including the kitchen sink’ attitude to his performance necessarily
does everything that could be done with this character. He’s actually a really
nasty and amoral piece of work – we see him viciously stab the priest Ramo and
one point, and shoot the king, Thou. It didn’t really have the effect of making
me sit up and take notice, whereas a little grey in his portrayal, as opposed
to the unrelieved black we get, would have highlighted these evil actions more.
Also memorable in this story, and also not
necessarily for the right reasons, were the fish people. The Atlanteans live on
plankton, which doesn’t keep apparently, so it has to be harvested every day. So
they have fish people, that is, people who have been surgically modified to
live and work underwater, to farm plankton for them. When shown the fish people
at work in the first episode, Polly enthuses about them, to which the second
Scientist Damon, played by the always excellent Colin Jeavons, replies how glad
he is, since the people they rescue from shipwrecks to convert to fish people
normally become quite upset at the thought. Polly, horrified, learns that a)
they make humans into fish people by giving them plastic gills, and b) she is
next on the operating table. This gives her the opportunity to utter my
favourite line of the Troughton era so far – “You’re not turning me into a
fish!” Bless her, she really meant it as well.
The ending, with the city‘s lower levels
flooding, reminded me of several movies, not the least of which was the James
Mason version of “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”. I can’t say that I was
all that sorry that when it was over. There were just a couple of interesting
touches in that last episode, mind you. Zaroff imprisons Ben and the Doctor
behind a set of automatically activated metal bars while the water rises around
them all. He later joins them to gloat, and Ben takes advantage to lock him in.
He and the Doctor leave, but the Doctor insists that he just cannot leave
Zaroff there to drown. Now that’s the Doctor. Of course, it’s too late, and he
can’t go back, and we get to see Zaroff slip away beneath the rising waters.
They didn’t in Australia mind, since this was one of the clips cut out by the
censors, which is why we get to see a few seconds of moving pictures at this
point.
As regards the Ben, Polly, Jamie triangle,
well, to be fair there’s precious little evidence of any tension, sexual or
otherwise between the three of them. I did notice, though, that on the recon,
although it’s Jamie who brings Polly safely out of Atlantis, it’s Ben that she
hugs. She believes in stick with what you know, obviously.
This is not a great story. If anything, it
reminds me of some pretty ropey Sci Fi films I used to watch in the 70s before ‘Star
Wars’ came along and changed the game – I’m thinking particularly about things
like ‘At the Earth’s Core’ and the truly awful ‘Warlords of Atlantis’. But hey,
I used to pay good money to go and see films like that, and so because of the
part of me that will always be a ten year old boy, I’ll always be able to sit
through even ropey old hokum like this, and find something to enjoy. Not a lot,
mind you. But it’s the only explanation why, while I admit that this story was
in pretty much every way inferior to the competent but lacklustre Historical
that preceded it, I preferred this one.
What
have we learned?
Atlantis
Mark 1 was only a lift ride away
Fish
people are very easy to manipulate
Ben
must never, ever visit Scotland again
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