Format: DVD
Warts & All: Obviously fake Master mask!
Quote: (The Master watching The Clangers) It seems to be a rather interesting extra-terrestrial life form.
Review: Who knew you could so transform a UNIT story simply by switching out the Army for the Royal Navy? It may amount to a surface change, but it works because what we have here strikes as a bit of a refreshing departure from the era standard. Stunts and explosions and a hovercraft, plus an entirely gratuitous speedboat chase to allow Pertwee to chalk up another vehicle on his CV are de rigeur ingredients for the period, of course, as is the annoying and particularly oafish man from the ministry (a Parliamentary Private Secretary who thoroughly deserves any obnoxiousness the Doctor chooses to send his way), so it’s honestly startling how different this seems. Add in the highly idiosyncratic electronic score and you have a six-parter that feels unique, even if it actually treads some similar water. On previous viewings I’ve been mixed about that music, but this occasion I embraced it fully. It’s not easy on the ear, but that’s the point – and it lends an alienness to the simplest of actions playing out on screen.
There’s more quirk present in the vehicles used by the prison guards where the Master is kept incarcerated – they drive around in odd Citroens with the doors removed. As odd a choice of transportation as the Morris Minor preferred by the UNIT force in Terror Of The Autons. Odder, perhaps. And for once, use of stock military footage segues in fairly nicely without standing out like a sore thumb, investing some of the larger scale action a degree of authenticity and credibility, rather than jolting you out of the story at a crucial time as has sometimes been the case in past DW tales. The Sea Devils aren’t on screen a heck of a lot during the six episodes and since they are being enlisted and used by the Master here there are none of the moral divisions alluded to among their Silurian cave-dwelling cousins, but they are a terrific design, complete with their string vests – a favourite fashion choice with submarine crews in Gerry Anderson’s UFO too – and their lamp guns, highly memorable and they’re creatures that really lodged in my childhood imagination. Not least courtesy of their very famous iconic entrance, en masse (well, half a dozen of them), rising from the waves and wading ashore to attack the naval base.
Delgado is superlative, fully living up to his title of the Master and Pertwee clearly relishes fencing with him, both verbally and with swords. Jo Grant is, well, Jo Grant, but she is allowed a few moments of intrepidness in this. Captain Hart is no Brigadier – who could be? – but he’s a dependable sort and it’s welcome to have an officer who – like the Brig at the beginning – has to go some way in coming to terms with combating menaces he has a hard time believing.
Prison governor, Trenchard, is at times almost as intolerably oafish as many a Who civil servant, but there’s some sympathy reserved for the man in the end as he meets with his predictable fate. Great use of location and film, both aboard the naval vessel, around the naval base, beaches, sea fort, and prison, all of which helps expand the sense of scale and painting the illusion that the threat to the world is much greater than the six or so Sea Devils they (probably) had available. Much more convincing than the army of Daleks and Ogrons in Day Of The Daleks.
Nicely judged pacey episodes punctuated by good cliffhangers, a pace only slightly undermined by lengthy recaps at the beginnings of at least two parts. And I realise I’ve picked hardly any holes in it and that may be some childhood bias creeping in, but while I can’t pretend it’s perfect (the model sub, for example, is pretty decent although looks a bit dodgy when shooting out through the underwater force field and the contrivance to keep UNIT out of it is a touch too obvious, but what the hell) I honestly enjoyed this from start to finish.
So having said that it feels like a departure in some ways, I’d also say it was an exemplar of so much of what I love about the era of the show. The series is riding along on the crest of a wave at this point.
