Another entry then from Season 5 of Doctor Who, the season where every one of the stories is just the same tale told in a slightly different way: Monsters attack, The Doctor holes up in a base & holds them off for 6 weeks, before finally coming up with a way of defeating them. As I said when I wrote about The Web of Fear, this criticism of the season doesn’t hold water with me. For one, there’s enough variety in the seven stories that make up this season that you can find something new to enjoy: Abominable Snowmen is set in the past, Ice Warriors the future; Web of Fear and Fury are contemporary. Ice Warriors & Fury have the classic “unhinged commander”; the rest don’t. It’s more of a “Base Under Mexican Standoff” in Ice Warriors, while Fury doesn’t have a classic monster for us to shoot at. The two Cybermen stories that top & tail this season are chalk & cheese, while Enemy of the World is none of any of these things. So when you break it down, it’s not nearly as repetitive as RFW1 would have you believe.
The other point is that if it’s not broke, then don’t fix it. For all the uniformity in Season 5, it is uniformly good. Base Under Siege may be a production choice – it’s better value for money to use the same costumes & sets for 6 weeks than 4, or to have them chop & change – but it’s also a format that really works. If you can do it well, then why not do it again? We’ve seen the Yeti be a hit, so they come back, and the Ice Warriors will next year – as do the Cybermen, who make their 3rd & 4th appearances this season. There’s something to be said for creating new & interesting foes, but also for exploring & reusing the ones that have been successful before. Season 5 strikes a very good balance in this respect.
Fury From the Deep follows on from Web of Fear, which was a story steeped in atmosphere, and it is determined to follow that style. It does follow the same template to an extent: first couple of episodes sets up the mystery, we have a new character coming in around halfway through, then a bit of action before our Grand Climax. A few differences too: Megan Jones is no Lethbridge-Stewart, but we have Robson, Harris & van Lutyens for greater depth of character. We don’t have the tube but we have the impeller room & shaft, and our climax is more grand than anything before (thankfully, they’ll find another use for that foam machine next year to get real value for money!). But that heartbeat, the sense that something is down there that they won’t admit to… That tension is all pervading.
This is also a darker, more adult tone of Doctor Who that we’re used to. It remains to be seen if it was known how eerie Bill Burridge would have played that scene of Oak & Quill gassing Mrs Harris, but with his eyes bulging wide, coupled with John Gill’s evil grin, you can see why the Australians cut this scene. That they did means we have a glimpse into what this story was aiming for, and hints at what we are missing with the rest. The cliffhanger in the following episode of Mrs Harris walking into the sea is also bleak & chilling; this is a downbeat, brooding story; you wouldn’t believe that everyone comes out of it alive in the end. The monster itself – such that it is – is unique in that it has no overriding plan, no grand scheme to speak of: it’s just a force of nature, spreading out.
The more adult tone spreads to the characterisation in this story too; writer Victor Pemberton gives his characters a depth we’re not used to at this time. Robson is the archetypal deranged boss, fiddling while the Rome of his gas factory burns2, but he has a background, as well as a previous relationship with Megan Jones hinted at. The Harris’ are a proper couple, with Frank more worried about Maggie than he is the goings on in the gas plant, and there to provide a surrogate family for Victoria at the end. It’s a sophistication we won’t see much more of until RTD comes in.
But it’s the characterisation of Victoria that really sets this story above its peers. Doctor Who has a fine tradition of strong, smart, capable female companions; at first glance, Victoria bucks this trend, but give it more thought and you see she fits right in. There’s a tendency in her stories for her to be “damselled”: that is, to be constantly put in a position where she constantly needs rescuing. More often than not she’ll shriek her way through these scenarios. But when you stop to think about it, how else would you expect a young, upper class Victorian girl to react? Especially one orphaned by the Daleks? Victoria doesn’t choose to travel in the TARDIS, she has no choice in the matter, so it’s little wonder she chooses the best way out when she can.
Victoria’s departure is a real highlight of this story; it’s seeded throughout, at a time when companions either left suddenly on a whim, or simply disappeared altogether. All through this story she is voicing her dissatisfaction over life with The Doctor & Jamie: it’s a fascinating, worthwhile life, but dangerous & unglamorous – to the point The Doctor forces her into saving the day against her will – so it’s no surprise that she wants to leave for a stable, family life with the Harris’. She’s then given the time to make sure of her decision, again something we’re not used to seeing. It’s up there with the departure of Jo Grant & Sarah Jane.
Pemberton doesn’t just give her an amazing out, he makes the best use of the character throughout the story. Did you forget her dad was a scientist & passed some of that knowledge on to her? The TARDIS scene where she helps The Doctor with his experiments shows what she can be done when written correctly. Zoe comes next and is pretty much everyone’s favourite female companion for Troughton, but the dynamic of the stories you tell with her is different to those with Victoria, and there’s room for both.
Sadly we can only watch this story via animation, and I’ll let you decide how successful you think that is3. For me, the animations are as much a part of enjoying Doctor Who now as the Target books are: no one kicks up a fuss when a Target expands on or alters the original, so I’m not going to when an animation does. In some ways the animation of Fury adds to the atmosphere, with that dank, cavernous Impeller Shaft being impossible to realise at the time.
Fury is a story I’d love to see returned, if only to see if that brooding atmosphere was there in the original. I suspect it is,but even if it isn’t it’s a tense, sophisticated story that gives a tremendous goodbye to a much overlooked & unappreciated companion.
COMING TOMORROW: “I’m the tin dog…!!!”
Skies Full of Diamonds 