Production Code: 6L
First Transmitted
1 - 05/01/1984 18:40
2 - 06/01/1984 18:40
3 - 12/01/1984 18:40
4 - 13/01/1984 18:40
Plot
The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough arrive at an underwater Sea Base on Earth, where a scientific and military team led by Commander Vorshak are monitoring a rival power bloc. The team undergo regular missile launch test sequences to ensure that they are ready at all times to combat an attack.
Three Silurians led by Icthar - the surviving member of a Silurian triad - revive a colony of Sea Devil Warriors in order to invade the base and use its weapons to attack the opposing power bloc, thus provoking a global war that will allow the reptiles to conquer the Earth.
The Doctor uses ultra-violet light to destroy the reptiles' giant electrified sea beast, the Myrka. When it appears that there is no other option, he also reluctantly suggests using hexachromite gas to kill the remaining invaders. While this is done, he links his own brain into the base's computer to prevent the firing of the missiles.
Episode Endings
The Doctor is knocked from a walkway in a struggle with some Sea Base guards and falls into a water tank below. Tegan wants to stay and try to rescue him but Turlough urges her to flee, telling her that she must face the fact that the Doctor has drowned. The Doctor's body lies motionless in the water below.
The Doctor and Tegan are trapped in an airlock as the Myrka forces its way in and advances towards them. Tegan exclaims that the creature is going to kill them.
The Sea Devil leader Sauvix shoots down Nilson, a member of the Sea Base team who has been traitorously working for the opposing power bloc, and then turns his weapon on the Doctor and Tegan, telling them: 'Your turn.'
With Silurians and Sea Devils lying dead all around him and his companions, the Doctor grimly comments that there should have been another way.
Roots
Wargames.
Dr. No (guard costume design, the reactor pool).
Ice Station Zebra.
Dialogue Triumphs
Tegan : "What year are we in?"
The Doctor : "Around two thousand and eighty-four."
Tegan : "Little seems to have changed since my time."
The Doctor : "Absolutely nothing, Tegan. There are still two power blocs, fingers poised to annihilate each other."
The Doctor : "I sometimes wonder why I like the people of this miserable planet so much."
The Doctor : "There should have been another way."
Dialogue Disasters
"You'll get no help from me, 'Silurian'!"
Double Entendre
"We must remain undetected until we are ready to act."
Continuity
The 'Silurians' and the 'Sea Devils' know themselves by those titles [as the former is inaccurate and the latter is no more than a nickname this is doubtless a translation convention]. The 'Silurians' Scibus and Tarpok are led by Icthar, sole survivor of the noble 'Silurian' Triad, who ruled the The Silurians . He knows the Doctor. [These are a different group of 'Silurians' from those seen in Doctor Who and the Silurians, which features no named 'Silurians' and no Triad of rulers.] They also look and sound different.
The 'Silurians' third eye now flashes when they speak [and is perhaps a lens in an Ice Warrior-like helmet. It seems that its destructive power has been lost, although they never really have an occasion to use their built in weaponry: even at the end, one only reaches for a 'Sea Devil' gun in a weakened state. Their electronically filtered voices also hint at some degree of cybernetic enhancement].
These 'Silurians' are some possibly all of a small faction who have revived. Millions of others are still hibernating. It was planned that 'Sea Devil' Elite Group One [entombed for only hundreds of years, so presumably the 'Silurians' went into hibernation before the 'Sea Devils'] would awake at this point. Due to an error this hasn't happened.
[This is an old plan, conceived either by survivors of Doctor Who and the Silurians, or during the untelevised adventure.] 'Silurian' law forbids anything but defensive war. The 'Sea Devils' wear laser-proof armour, and carry large cutting devices as their new guns no longer produce heat. Hexachromite gas is deadly to both 'Silurians' and 'Sea Devils'.
Turlough can use a rifle, and knows how to sabotage electronic locks. He wants to stay with the Doctor a while longer to learn, and can already perform certain TARDIS tasks. Tegan is interested in the future of Earth.
A materialisation flip-flop hops the TARDIS to a nearby destination.
Location
Earth's sea bed and Earth orbit, around 2084.
Future History
Two power blocks are in a cold war in 2084. They regularly use orbital weaponry.
Untelevised
'Twice we offered the hand of friendship', says Icthar, which doesn't accurately describe the events of The Sea Devils. As the Doctor knows of the Myrka and 'Silurian' battle cruisers, having seen neither on screen, and knows Icthar by name, though he 'thought him dead', it seems clear that the third or fourth Doctors had an unscreened second adventure with the 'Silurians'.
Trivia
There is some excellent modelwork, including of the Sentinel Six defence satellite encountered by the TARDIS in Part One; the Sea Base; and the Silurian vessel.
Gareth Milne doubles - very convincingly - for Peter Davison in the underwater swimming sequence in Part Two.
Ian McCulloch, well known for his role as Greg in Terry Nation's BBC series Survivors, appears here as Nilson.
Horror film star Ingrid Pitt plays Solow. She had previously appeared in Doctor Who as Queen Galleia in season nine's The Time Monster.
Goofs
In episode one, Icthar's (human) eyes are visible, blinking through the costume.
In episode three, the 'Silurians' are clearly wearing T-shirts under their neck sections.
Tegan decides to put on a bra between episodes one and two.
Dr Solow's karate chop seems a bit optimistic.
Why does the Doctor want to go to the base's control centre, when he doesn't know anything's wrong and could just as easily have left?
He leaves the TARDIS unlocked in his haste to explore.
Then we have the polystyrene doors, Vorshak's stoic reaction to being shot, Missile Command on the BBC Micro, and 'Oh dear... the Myrka.'
Hexachromite gas (lethal to marine and reptile life) makes the plot very obvious.
Fashion Victim
Eye make up is all the rage at this military base.
Cast & Crew
Cast
The Doctor - Peter Davison
Tegan - Janet Fielding
Turlough - Mark Strickson
Bulic - Nigel Humphreys
Icthar - Norman Comer
Karina - Nitza Saul
Maddox - Martin Neil
Nilson - Ian McCulloch
Paroli - James Coombes
Preston - Tara Ward
Sauvix - Christopher Farries
Scibus - Stuart Blake
Solow - Ingrid Pitt
Tarpok - Vincent Brimble
Vorshak - Tom Adams
Crew
Director - Pennant Roberts
Warriors of the Deep