Say no to weed! That's the conclusion Christopher Morley comes to as he looks back at the missing Second Doctor adventure, Fury From The Deep.
Perhaps overlooked, not surprising as it's currently deemed to be missing from the BBC archives in its entirety, Fury From The Deep is notable for many reasons. Not only does the Doctor have to wave goodbye to yet another companion - Victoria Waterfield following in the footsteps of Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, Ben Jackson & Babs's near-namesake Polly in leaving their TARDIS travels behind - but it also marks the maiden outing for a certain sonic device that 'doesn't do wood'.
Later in 2020, a new animated version will arrive, giving us a chance to readdress the serial for the first time in over 50 years...
Perhaps overlooked, not surprising as it's currently deemed to be missing from the BBC archives in its entirety, Fury From The Deep is notable for many reasons. Not only does the Doctor have to wave goodbye to yet another companion - Victoria Waterfield following in the footsteps of Susan Foreman, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, Ben Jackson & Babs's near-namesake Polly in leaving their TARDIS travels behind - but it also marks the maiden outing for a certain sonic device that 'doesn't do wood'.
Later in 2020, a new animated version will arrive, giving us a chance to readdress the serial for the first time in over 50 years...
What does Fury From The Deep have in store, then? Using the telesnap reconstruction of the story, alongside the surviving off-air audio soundtrack we explore. Back to the then-present day 1968, then. But where exactly are the TARDIS team?
It appears the
machine the Doctor would later call 'sexy' has rather clumsily left
them little time to protect themselves against what could be messy
ends in Davy Jones's Locker, materialising in mid-air & forcing a
landing on the surface of the water.
Jamie just might
never hear the comforting rasp of the pipes or even see his native
Scotland again, Victoria could be set to reunite with her father
beyond the Pearly Gates..& the Doctor will just regenerate,
becoming his dandiest self yet.
All talk of
sinking into the briny deep will have to wait, though. Luckily for
our intrepid trio,within the bowels of the most beautiful thing the
Doctor has or will ever see there's a rubber dinghy. Procuring it
from somewhere, they row ashore- this not being Oxford or Cambridge
there's little chance of disrupting the Boat Race.
Presumably
electing himself coxswain for the journey, as he will do at a rather
more leisurely pace three selves later in Shada while
taking the lovely Romana for a punt down the Cam, the threesome
eventually make it ashore, the Second having no doubt regaled them
with tales of his athletic career as part of the Time Lord Academy's
own rowing team, nominating himself as the finest pilot of an
AquaTARDIS there ever was.
Before he can
fully explain to his companions just how much better at the sport he
& his team-mates were than their Earthly equivalents as they have
what looks like a rather fun foam-fight, though, they're taken down
with tranquilliser darts, docile prisoners of the ESGO (European Sea
Gas) refinery as a warning against using the aforementioned
screwdriver to have a nose round important- looking pipes which the
Doctor's already managed not to heed.
Coming to after
their enforced naps, somebody wants to ask them a few questions. His
name's Robson - he's the big chief here. His deputy Frank Harris - the
chap he entrusts with doling out the antidote to the the cause of
their sleepy heads - just happens to be a lot nicer.
They also get
something of an inkling as to what might have drawn Sexy here when
told that they've lost contact with their crew-mates further out at
sea. That noise they heard in the pipe just might be worth bothering
with after all, then! Could it be the Macra striking again? After all
they do have form when it comes to this sort of thing (The
Macra Terror).
Perhaps with this
in mind the Doctor is quick to tell Harris of the movements he &
his friends heard in the pipes, but is equally quickly shot down by
the revelation that the gas flow would never be allowed to be ceased -
not even for a full investigation of what may or may not be down
there. As if to allay any fears, communication with another rig is
speedily re-established.
Something quite
clearly is the matter, though - speaking to Carney, the man at what's
named as Rig D, he's vague in his answers to any question put to him
& seems to be speaking as quietly as possible. Looks like they
might need new radios if nothing else. Robson is informed of the
Doctor's hunch that there just might be a malignant influence at
play, which he dismisses out of hand as complete poppycock - the fool!
Meanwhile the only man who can actually help them out of their pickle
is making an escape attempt. Luckily, it succeeds & he, Jamie &
Victoria can go free as well as start to get to the bottom of what is
becoming a rather odd mystery...
Harris's good
lady wife Maggie, meanwhile, is about to see her day take rather a
big turn for the worse. Hubby's been sent home to look for a file of
evidence to support his claim to have evidence that the rig should
stop its gas operations forthwith, & entrusts her to find it in
his desk. She does, but finds a piece of seaweed inside. 'Maybe he
took some work to the beach to do at his leisure on a nice day', she
could have thought. But to her surprise, the offending weed stings
her! In a display of quick thinking, she chucks it out.
Could that be the
end of the matter? Of course not - it's alive! Maybe now someone will
listen to the Doctor's theory. Not till it's seemingly too late &
the 'Weed Creatures' have Victoria locked in the oxygen store...just
in the nick of time, though, she's rescued by the Doctor & Jamie
(who seems to consider her almost like a sister).
Maggie's having a
tough time of it, too, struggling for control of her own mind against
the growing interference of the weed (a struggle several hippies may
well have also experienced or indeed still be experiencing), an
effort she laboriously succeeds in for now.
Robson, though,
believes the whole thing to be a simple mechanical fault &
absolutely flat out refuses to cease operations. Seeking a doctor to
help his missus out of her malady, Harris practically begs Robson's
permission to allow for the Doctor himself to do a home visit, to
which his boss begrudgingly agrees. Finally, we might be getting
somewhere.
Refrain from any
loud 'hallelujahs' just yet, though. Mrs Harris does indeed get the
pleasure of a visit- but its from the maintenance men, Mr Oak &
his colleague Mr Quill (whom she doesn't know are also under the
seaweedy spell) , who kindly attack her on the pretence of an
important maintenance assignment.
The bounders, eh?
The intended visitor & chums, with Maggie's other half in tow, do
of course make it back to the marital home, but find it rather more
full of gas than they'd have liked unless of course anyone in the
travelling party or indeed the somewhat unluckier of the two Harrises
had beans on toast for breakfast/lunch. Possibly while fighting off a
collective attack of the bottom-burps, the Doctor & pals manage
to collect a sample of the not so little weed to take back to the
TARDIS for further testing.
Which, before
anyone says anything, under no circumstances means they wangle it
back through the doors, grind it down, light it & smoke it while
the Time Lord attempts to learn Black Sabbath's Sweet Leaf
on his ever-trusty recorder. No,
his listens to the Master Of Reality
album are limited to when he's pretty sure Jamie & Zoe have gone
to bed, though he's also damn sure he's heard McCrimmon attempt to
squeak out Into The Void on
his pipes.
Any attempt to
master the whole of Volume 4 following
the previous year's successful rendering of the whole of Paranoid
will have to wait, though.
Jamie's spotted something through a microscope- the weed is indeed
alive! And Victoria plays her part beautifully, noting exactly what
the nature of the beastie is from a book of the Doctor's specifically
dedicated to myths & superstition. Proof that there is a
definitive answer to the question of whether there is indeed magic in
the world, as his next self will ponder over in The
Daemons?
You decide, dear
reader. For now, he's got to stop the rapidly-growing weed from
escaping its tank having noted Jamie's sneezing fit - a first sign of
a reaction to the watery interloper. The Harris household is now
similarly overrun & all this running around is starting to
frighten poor Victoria. At least we've now established the weed is
most certainly a parasite & the cause of the gas - finally. Turns
out it wants to conquer Earth, too - most inconvenient timing.
From thereon in
it all goes a bit disaster movie as the Doctor battles to stop the
demon (or should that be Daemon?) weed, until it surrenders its hold
over all those it possesses - leaving the way clear for a nice dinner
back at the now handily weed-free Harris homestead.
Gallifrey's best
pest controller quickly twigs that Victoria would rather not return
to the TARDIS in future, & their hosts happily offer themselves
as candidates for adoptive parents, in a sense, Ms Waterfield's dear
papa having been shot down in The Evil Of The Daleks.
Following a sleepover,
then, its time for the Doctor & Jamie to depart without her -
Jamie's somewhat stung by her choice to leave them behind, but soon
they'll find a more than capable replacement (The Wheel In Space
is next up).
Note, though, that he doesn't seem to remember a
thing about any of this by the time of The Two Doctors...Season
6B theorists, take note!
