The Underwater Menace

Dear Gary—

The Underwater Menace is bizarre, preposterous, and a hoot. It pulls multiple elements from bad B horror/sci fi movies of the era, complete with a mad scientist channeling Bela Lugosi circa The Devil Bat. I can almost see Joely and the bots in silhouette at the bottom of the screen.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Oh, what a question, of course I don’t. There’s no rule against trying, is there?”

No, no rule against trying; and that is exactly what they did with this story—tried. Enthusiastically and earnestly tried. And in some weird way they succeeded. I liken this back to The Web Planet, but whereas The Web Planet didn’t seem to click, The Underwater Menace does. I think the difference is in the camp. The Web Planet didn’t know it was bad; The Underwater Menace does, and it runs with it (or I should say swims).

“We never know what we’re going to find, do we?” “Ah, that’s the fun.” “What have I come upon?” All said at the start of our story, and all apropos. What we have come upon is Atlantis—and what fun it is.

Atlantis—a prehistoric lost kingdom (as most of this story is lost) that somehow survived for thousands of years without the aid of Professor Zaroff, but now somehow can’t do without it. Professor Zaroff (and his pet octopus) has discovered an endless food supply that relies on fish people to gather (the fish people being shipwrecked persons converted through a surgical procedure that implants plastic gills into them) and that can only last for a few hours before going bad.

Professor Zaroff has also promised the Atlantians that he can raise Atlantis once again from the bottom of the sea. Now, the Atlantians have survived for thousands of years under the sea; presumably have adapted; they even have access to the surface. Why, in all that time, did they not simply go up to dry land and start a new civilization? Why do they need to raise their underwater city? OK, maybe they didn’t have flood insurance, but they certainly have the resources to maintain their city under the sea; and the city doesn’t seem all that spectacular or special; what was keeping them there and what was compelling them to raise this unspectacular bit of real estate?

What the Atlantians don’t know, but what the Doctor realizes, is that in raising Atlantis Professor Zaroff will ultimately destroy it along with the entire Earth: “The destruction of the world; the scientist’s dream of supreme power.” Yes, definitely a B flick mad scientist speaking.

Along the way in this B fantasy we have enforced labor in mines (not sure what or where they are mining), tunnels with treacherous fall offs, temples, false gods, cheesy costumes, menacing doctors wielding scary hypodermic needles, tanks full of sharks awaiting human sacrifices, striking fish people (why they never thought of it themselves, but needed someone to come along and say, ‘hey, why don’t you go on strike—the food only lasts a few hours so they don’t have a reserve; they’ll break before you know it’ is anyone’s guess), laboratories with whirling gizmos and huge power cables, and oh yes, did I mention the pet octopus?

Through all of this unintentional madcap comedy Patrick Troughton seems to be settling nicely into the role of the Doctor.  The Doctor’s mastery, or lack thereof, of the TARDIS has been a longstanding theme since the show’s inception and an integral plot point. Now the Doctor claims that he can in fact control where the TARDIS materializes . . . “if I wanted to; it’s just I’ve never wanted to.” I can’t help but relate this back to a statement he makes in The Power of the Daleks: “I never talk nonsense; well hardly never.” Taken together, they seem to sum up the incongruous enigma that Patrick Troughton’s Doctor is turning out to be.

“Blimey, look at him; he ain’t normal, is he?” No, the Doctor definitely is not normal, and that’s what makes him the Doctor. William Hartnell; Patrick Troughton; he ain’t normal; he’s the Doctor.

A Doctor with a hat fetish apparently. Polly of the Doctor setting upon the food placed before them: “I’ve never seen him go for food like this before; it’s usually hats.” And a Doctor with compassion, endangering himself by attempting to go back to rescue the utterly mad and evil Professor Zaroff (fortunately Ben is there to drag the Doctor away from this suicidal futility).

“We will have enough left to build a new Atlantis,” the flooded out Atlantians claim as they gather at the surface (why they don’t just build this new Atlantis on dry land I don’t know, but that’s another story), and they go on . . . “without gods, and without fish people.” A fitting memorial to the Doctor, believed trapped below along with the doomed Professor. Yes, first ‘not a Doc and not a god’ and now, ‘without gods and without fish people.’ That’s my Doctor. Never nonsensical; well, hardly never.

All in all, The Underwater Menace is a winner despite itself.

The one thing I don’t like about this story (apart from the fact that the Doctor signs a note Doctor W—but I suppose that doesn’t necessarily stand for ‘Doctor Who’ or even any real initial at all but was simply a whim) is that Polly has returned to her pathetic form; she can’t even hold up a candle properly. “I can’t; I can’t; I can’t . . .” she says at one point in defeat. No, she can’t. But I have to say, the hilarious getup she is wearing somehow makes up for it.

One last word, Gary, about companions. Jamie started our story fresh from The Highlands, 1746, without a clue as to what he was stepping into.  “What’s this?” he asks as he enters the TARDIS. “You’ll find out.” “I don’t think I want to.” However, by the end of The Underwater Menace Jamie returns with the rest and states, “It’s great . . . all this. I’ll never know what makes it go, mind you, but well at least I feel safe in here; it’s only the wee things outside that are, well, alarming.”

I’m not sure what makes it go, either, Gary. What is it about Doctor Who that clicks? That keeps it flying year after year, Doctor after Doctor? Why, Gary, do we feel ‘safe’ with the Doctor? Whoever he may be.

I hope, Gary, that somewhere out there you can ponder on these things, and perhaps have even found the answer. I only await that echo . . .