One of the biggest problems in watching the entire of classic Who in any order is that you're going to have to deal with the fact that out of the 700-odd episodes made during the show's 26 year run, 97 of them no longer reside in the BBC's Archives. It's especially annoying if you happen to be writing in depth reviews of every story as you go along and therefore not able to judge a missing story on rather important things that are simply not discernible from reconstructions. Luckily I don't know anyone who happens to be doing that.
What?
Oh, right. I'm doing that. Hurrah for me.
The problem with judging a missing story is that there's a huge number of things I have to base my overall view of a story one. Some things, like plot, dialogue, character, deeper meanings, etc. can still be ascertained easily. But things like direction, tone, pacing, atmosphere can be very difficult to judge properly. Its essentially like listening to an audio with some visual aids, but with the caveat that unlike the actual audios, this was written and produced for television and therefore does not work in that format alone. The reconstructions help a little but there's only so much you can take out of still images and the very occasional surviving clip.
So this all begs the question of whether a story can be fairly judged on these limited resources, and the answer, quite frankly, is probably no. It would be impossible to judge a book that had all the description missing and only the dialogue remaining for instance.
Still, it would be against the spirit of this series if I didn't at least try. And given there's 91 remaining missing episodes still to cover, I better try and find an angle to approach this from.
So, Fury from the Deep. This is the first Second Doctor story I'm looking at (and will be the last for a while given the vast majority of his stories begin with 'The'.) Obviously his era has been hit particularly hard by the Standard Issue BBC Flamethrower™ and I think it's fair to say the overall perception of his era has been hurt by this. Thankfully, however, things have changed with the finds of Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear and it seems over the last 6 years That is a very good thing as Troughton is one of my favourite Doctors and probably, on balance, the best actor to play the part. In his existing stories his acting is so visibly excellent, which is something that makes the missing episodes even more galling.
So this all begs the question of whether a story can be fairly judged on these limited resources, and the answer, quite frankly, is probably no. It would be impossible to judge a book that had all the description missing and only the dialogue remaining for instance.
Still, it would be against the spirit of this series if I didn't at least try. And given there's 91 remaining missing episodes still to cover, I better try and find an angle to approach this from.
So, Fury from the Deep. This is the first Second Doctor story I'm looking at (and will be the last for a while given the vast majority of his stories begin with 'The'.) Obviously his era has been hit particularly hard by the Standard Issue BBC Flamethrower™ and I think it's fair to say the overall perception of his era has been hurt by this. Thankfully, however, things have changed with the finds of Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear and it seems over the last 6 years That is a very good thing as Troughton is one of my favourite Doctors and probably, on balance, the best actor to play the part. In his existing stories his acting is so visibly excellent, which is something that makes the missing episodes even more galling.
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| The Doctor was dismayed to find he had been turned into a still picture off the BBC website |
So, Fury from the Deep? It's... decent. Not amazing, probably not even great, but taking everything into consideration I'd say its a quality story. Unfortunately, it feels like the story's greatest asset is the way it uses atmosphere and suspense, which is something that just can't quite break through in the reconstruction. You definitely get the feeling of what is meant to be there, but what is obviously meant to be tense and atmospheric is just a bit flat. But, again, I need to judge the story based on what the creators intended, and obviously they didn't intend for the story to be flamethrowered and the only way to enjoy it being still images (something that would of course be a major improvement to a number of NuWho stories)
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| Mr Quill had had quite enough of The A-Z of Classic Who's NuWho bashing |
The story's strength is in that the enemy is not clearly defined at any point during the story: It doesn't even become apparent what it actually is until quite late in the story, and even then its true nature is kept fairly vague. Making the enemy of the piece a more defined and clear threat, or god forbid, making it into a big bad who the Doctor has to do a massive speech to, would have ruined the atmosphere and tone of the story completely, and it does a good job of doing that. As a parasitic life form rather than an alien intelligence, it also breaks the base-under-siege pattern that had defined Season 5 - this isn't a fight against some evil alien menace, but a fight for survival against nature.
Of course, the story is, at its heart, a base-under-siege and when it comes to the characters they're a fairly typical bunch: hostile base leader, sympathetic scientist guy, token foreign guy, token woman, etc. This story does do quite well with this bunch though: Robson, the commander, stays hostile to the Doctor, rather than coming round to his view halfway through the story like normal, right up until the very end. The conflict that is created around him also feels very genuine, especially with Van Lutyens. For once, these base-under-sieged guys feel like actual people rather than plot elements. This is something that falls apart a little when half of the cast either get possessed or disappear completely in the case of Van Lutyens and the main refinery cast are replaced by Government Woman and Slimy Toadying Guy. They're decent as well, but feel a little forced into the plot and come around to the Doctor's way of thinking a bit too quickly to be natural.
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| The Doctor had privately decided that next regeneration he was going to make sure he dressed well |
When it comes to the Weed Creature possession, there are a couple of good scenes, and one excellently put together one where Robson and Maggie (the wife of sympathetic science man) meet on the beach before the latter walks into the waves. You get the atmosphere of the scene even from the reconstruction and it makes it all the more infuriating that it got flamethrowered. Oh, BBC, can't you do anything right?
The story's strongest element though, is something that doesn't have a great deal to do with the Weed Creature plot, and that's with Victoria's growing disillusionment with travelling with the Doctor. She still cares deeply for the Doctor and Jamie, but she has become sick of the danger and the excitement. It's a theme that expertly builds throughout the story and the Weed Creature stuff only hardens this feeling for her. Eventually it comes to the point where she decides to leave, and how it affects the Doctor and Jamie is the highlight of the story. The Doctor and Victoria have a short conversation echoing the one in Tomb of the Cybermen, and it's clear he respects her choice and understands it is not a rejection of him personally: just of his lifestyle, and the Second Doctor, for all his buffoonery, is serious and thoughtful enough to more than understand the difference. Jamie, on the other hand, is deeply hurt and their final conversation demonstrates his very different sensibilities to the Doctor. He doesn't want to lose her and he doesn't want to accept that is what she wants.
This all weaves in beautifully with the main plot, and the way its built up throughout the story doesn't make it one of those bullshit sudden shock departures that were so common throughout Classic Who's run. I'd like it to Resurrection of the Daleks, where Tegan's shock at the constant death and destruction becomes clear throughout the story - her departure scene is effective because it is entirely the Doctor's shock and not the audiences, whereas in Fury, the Second Doctor was able to see what the Fifth Doctor wasn't, and prepare himself for accepting the inevitable.
Troughton, Hines and Watling play all of this absolutely marvellously of course, and I'll go on record as saying that while I've always quite liked Victoria as a character, this was absolutely the right time for her to go, and while Zoe was not necessarily the better character, she was certainly the better third wheel in the Doctor-Jamie duo that was the cornerstone of the character work in this era.
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| The Doctor's first outing as a professional DJ had not gone quite as well as he'd hoped |
There are some problems with this story. Firstly, the special effects jokes do unfortunately write themselves. This wasn't Doctor Who's first cum monster, and it certainly wasn't it's last, but never was it quite this obvious. It's unfortunate because from what I can gather from the reconstruction, the production design and values look rather good for most of the story, but reducing the menace to disposable foam that very easily lends itself to semen jokes does hamper the Weed Creature's overall menace.
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| Robson had gotten a little too excited |
The story is also a bit too long - 4 episodes might have been too few but 6 is definitely dragging it a bit. This means that the second half of the story does begin to falter as the plot thins out: the whole 'Victoria is kidnapped' plot could probably have been cut down a bit for instance. The loss of the earlier part of the story's atmosphere and tone also doesn't help much, but that probably wasn't avoidable - you have to reveal the monster at some point, otherwise the tension just fizzles out. The payoff isn't bad or anything, even considering the special effects, its just doesn't quite live up to the promise.
I may sound a bit hypocritical with this as well, given my constant bashing of NuWho's adrenaline filled lightspeed pace, and yes, I hate it and nothing is going to change that, but this story is probably a bit too slowly paced. Taking a while for things to happen is good and serves the story well, but it does occasionally end up on the boring side of the thin line between atmospheric and dull. Not Space Pirates dull or anything like that, and this may have been the Missing Episode effect at work, but enough to catch my attention nonetheless.
Finally, the 'Victoria's screams save the day' plot is a bit silly and there's a bit of a deux-exy sense to it, even though, to the story's credit, it has been properly foreshadowed and built up. I think there was probably a cleverer solution in there somewhere, one that didn't involve highlighting a really bad evolutionary failure on the behalf of the Weed Creature. It's also left ambiguous as to whether it was destroyed or not, which does give the ending a bit of an anticlimactic feel (did we win or not?) but there did need to be time to finish the Victoria plot after all.
So two questions to answer: is Fury from the Deep a good story and does it's missingness really affect how well it can be judged. The answer to both questions is yes. It's a good story - not a really great one and not an all time classic, but a decent one, sufficiently so that I'm cross the BBC set it on fire. The excellent character work, strong plot, good enemy and effective tone and atmosphere overcome a few problems here and there. And yes, the fact it is missing means much of the nuance that probably made the story work better is gone, and it means it feels a bit more dull than it probably ought to. It'a a dreadful shame, and a testament to how unfortunate it is these stories are gone.
And no, crappy low budget flash animation is not an effective substitute. Get over it.
Final Score: 7/10. Taking into account that it is missing, Fury is a strong enough story with a good character centrepiece, a strong central plot and enemy and seems to have been a well crafted piece, that does unfortunately err on the dull side ocassionally and has a few other problems here and there. A good story though and one that is unfortunate to be missing.
Next Episode: Galaxy 4
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