Episode #42 : Fury From The Deep

"Every time we go anywhere, something awful happens".

 

Episode 42:    Fury From The Deep.
Companions: The 2nd Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield.
Air Date:        Six episodes. 16th March to 20th April 1968.

 

The TARDIS lands on the surface of the sea, just off the east coast of England. The time travellers use a rubber dinghy to get ashore, where they are shot with tranquilliser darts and taken prisoner by security guards as they have arrived in the restricted area of a gas refinery.

 

Fury From The Deep is another story mostly lost to time and space. It deals with a undersea gas mining facility that accidentally picks up a weed creature which feeds on gas and can dominate the minds of people it touches. As monsters go, not one of the more memorable ones and nor is it one of the interesting stories.

 

What does get introduced in this story however is the sonic screwdriver that is as much as part of Doctor Who as the TARDIS these days. No explanation as to when the Doctor made it or how/why, it's just sort of there. A good addition to the character though as throughout the run of the show it certainly serves to further the stories and prevent bogging down in pacing.

 

In this story we see the departure of Victoria from the TARDIS. She has found a foster family and decides to remain in 1968. Bad things seem to happen wherever the time travellers go and she has become fed up of by it all. Victorian sensibilities I suppose. I've not seen much of her character but for the time she seemed like a good companion though in hindsight she is another less remembered one.

 

As for the story itself, I am again having to go by a synopses and it does not seen like a well written story. Despite the show picking up somewhat at the end of the Hartnell era, there is something about the stories told in the Troughton era that don't seem to flow well reading through the plot information. Maybe it is the change of script writers every so often or budget constraints.