*End-of-serial spoilers.*
Make no mistake: this serial is ridiculous. Absolutely and entirely. And yet, it kind of works. Strange as it may sound, I think these episodes may benefit from the fact that they’re missing. Operating on a late-60s BBC effects budget, there’s no way that “hypnotic killer seaweed” looked anything but ludicrous, and while the idea is still silly in animated reconstruction format, I think not physically seeing it in “action” helps one to get more invested in what the story has to offer.
There’s trouble brewing at a major gas refinery—the equipment is acting up, they’ve lost contact with several of the rigs, and some workers claim they can hear a mysterious heartbeat in the pipes. The Second Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria investigate the strange goings-on, despite the best efforts of the head honcho who insists that everything is normal. When people start falling ill and then acting bizarrely out-of-character, however, it’s up to our heroes to convince everyone that more than just the refinery is at stake.
This is Victoria’s last story with the show, and overall, I think it’s a pretty fitting end for her. Her, shall we say, “healthy set of lungs” brings her down in some fans’ estimations, and “Fury from the Deep” definitely contributes to that impression, but she’s also clever, resourceful, and—yes, despite all the screaming—pretty brave. I love the repeated demonstrations of her lock-picking skills here, particularly during the scene in which she’s been trapped in a room by a shadowy figure and her chief reaction before getting to work is essentially, “Here we go again.” I also like that her departure is foreshadowed nicely throughout the serial. The show maybe loses some points for never bringing up Victoria’s disillusionment with the Doctor’s dangerous way of life in earlier stories, but based on the experiences she’s had as a companion, they feel reasonably well-established. Deciding that she can’t keep doing this isn’t any sort of indictment against Victoria, and while Jamie rails against the idea of losing her, the Doctor makes it clear that he understands.
This is a big one for Doctor-Jamie team-ups—there are numerous scenes that feature them dashing about in crazy situations. I especially like their trip down the impeller shaft and, later, the Doctor’s disastrous attempts to pilot a helicopter. Also, the opening scene has one of the series’ most memorable TARDIS landings, and the sonic screwdriver makes its very first appearance, actually used on screws! Good fun all around, but with some good emotional scenes at the end.
As for the killer hypnotic seaweed itself…Yes, it’s incredibly silly, but in all honesty, I don’t mind it all that much. Oak and Quill make a fantastic sinister twosome (I love their recurring musical theme,) and there really are some good creepy moments; the seaweed shows its menace chiefly through the people it’s taken over, and they do some pretty eerie things indeed. Again, it’s probably good that the only extant visual of the seaweed is on old black-and-white screencaps and the animated recreations of the episodes—as surprisingly well-done as this story is, I’m almost certain there’s no way I could have taken it seriously if I saw the seaweed skittering around in all its low-budget glory. (Not that I wouldn’t watch it if “Fury from the Deep” was ever recovered. I’d watch the crap out of it—I’d probably just laugh a lot more!)
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