The Underwater Menace | Sophisticated Idiots

Now, we don’t wish to profane the temple with our idle chatter. But we’re wondering if someone slipped us a sugar-coated pill.

Or perhaps we were lulled into a coma by the slowest-moving PowerPoint deck in history.

Either way, we can’t shake the odd sensation that we just sat through a Doctor Who story which wasn’t just half missing but also featured a deep-sea ballet and some mind-bendingly stupendous dialogue, including such pearls as:

“I could feed you to my pet octopus!”

and

“You’re not turning me into a fish!”

But the weirdest thing about The Underwater Menace? Contrary to the above evidence, it’s far less insane than it first appears.

The plot itself is a pretty straightforward Faith v Science tale (fish-tale?), with an ancient tribe foolishly putting their trust in a mad scientist.

It feels achingly familiar, but this one is dressed with sequins and seaweed to lend it a sub-aqua sheen.

Oh, and some half-time entertainment courtesy of the National Synchronised Swimming Team of Bulgaria.

It might only be one (pointless and insanely long) scene – yet it’s what this serial is judged on. Which is unfair but that’s life. After all, we judge Twin Dilemma for Colin throttling Peri (which lasts ten seconds). Or Ken Dodd in Bannermen (total screen time = 1min 40secs).

Or that song in The Gunfighters (which does get played 25-plus sodding times).

But we’re not going to get drowned by such distractions – there are bigger fish to fry.

For starters, how in the name of Amdo are we supposed to critique a story where half its footage has been incinerated?

We’ve considered the conundrum for some seconds now and have established a bold new rule: we’re only going to review a serial if at least 50% of it actually exists.

It seems a not-unreasonable stance to demand the ability to watch something to be able to rank it.

After all, it’s hardly fair to lampoon the 80s stories for wobbly sets if the polystyrene horror shows from the 60s are masked by modern animation.

So on that basis it’s goodbye Faceless Ones, Space Pirates and Galaxy 4 (any chance of lobbing in Monster of Peladon too?). Sadly, gone too are Power, Evil and the Master Plan.

It may feel like the shroud of evil is hanging over us after such a decision, but anxious completer-finishers should fear not – we’ll do a little side ranking of the partial / animated stories at some point.

Some would say that even more important than our ranking mechanism, is that The Underwater Menace has become Patrick Troughton’s debut story by default.

Up to now we’ve had to make do with Doc 2 being presented to us in cartoon format or in slideshow stills. The second episode is the first time we see live-action Paddy.

Which set our minds off doing a shoal lot of whirring. If every Doctor’s third outing was their jumping-off point, the list would look thus:

The Edge of Destruction
The Underwater Menace
The Ambassadors of Death
The Sontaran Experiment
Kinda
Vengeance on Varos
Delta and the Bannermen.

If this feels like an improvement, it's borne out by the stats: the average placing of the above stories in our ranking is 56 out of the 108 stories we’ve seen so far, versus 66th place for the actual debuts (with Power of the Daleks excluded, remember, due to the Court of Sophisticated Idiots Ruling).

But it barely matters, for we suspect the show wouldn’t have lasted beyond its maiden season if the whole shebang had kicked off with the quirky experiment of The Edge of Destruction.

Anyway, we were given a generous five minutes to make our point so we’d better help ourselves to a delicious feast and get a move on.

What’s this fledgling Second Doctor like then? Any good?

Frankly, Troughton holds the whole thing together. His butter-wouldn’t-melt look is a work of art, and when he’s not disarming everyone in sight by acting dumb, he’s playing dress-up.

The marketplace scene alone offers Laurel and Hardy levels of ridiculousness – and the whole cast gets in on the fun.

But Pat’s performance isn’t all bumbling fakery and mock innocence (not to denigrate this aspect for a moment, for lines like “Just one small question: why do you want to blow up the world?” are sublime).

The “little Doctor” (euphemism alert) expertly marries the lighter moments with suitable bouts of fury.

He also takes charge at every turn and we love that, when in a tight spot, he instantly bets everything on the first plan he can think of, irrespective of whether it’s any good.

Next time we’re facing a professional pickle, we’ll follow the lead of the 500-year-old and turn to the age-old combo of radiation and the weight of an ocean to flood the gaff and start again.

There’ll be a few casualties but as long as the pet octopus is okay, no-one’ll mind.

The downside of the Doctor being so utterly ruddy captivating is that the rest of Team TARDIS don’t get much of a look-in.

We’re baffled by what’s happened to Polly since her introduction in The War Machines: she’s gone from being an uber-impressive independent woman to a clichéd damsel in distress.

Here, she whines about walking or climbing to safety. And she doesn’t sock Ben in the jaw for calling her a “dozy bird”. Maybe the fish operation went ahead after all.

The lads aren’t much better.

The characters of Ben and newcomer Jamie are too similar, meaning they’re constantly vying for the next line or macho display (the penny dropped when we learnt Fraser Hines had auditioned for the role of Ben – he certainly lucked out long-term, eh?).

These chaps aren’t helped in this story by the Irish guy being far more interesting than either of them.

The TARDIS feels distinctly over-stuffed – though rest assured that unlike during Davison’s era, this time producers do something about it, as Ben and Polly are soon to be thrown back into the sea.

Finally, an apology. We’re trying to restrict the Bond references in these reviews – but when Professor Crazy McCrazy is also a baddie of notoriety in the world of 007, it’s not our fault guv.

Professor Metz (“will you get out, you irritating man”) is one of the most heinous things to besmirch Diamonds are Forever, and he brings the same level of scene-chewing here as Zaroff.

He sounds like Gru from Despicable Me. Largely acts like him. And is never channelling anything less than Total Mania.

Which, unhelpfully, somewhat contradicts our claim that The Underwater Menace is less insane than one might expect.

We’ll keep schtum, though, the syncro team are starting up again.

We guess the big secret will die with us.