Fury from the Deep Episode 2

The one where we meet Mr Oak and Mr Quill...

Deborah Watling really goes for it in the scene where Victoria is trapped with the seaweed in the oxygen room. She's got the most piercing scream of any companion, and almost shattered the speakers on my CD player before she was rescued by the Doctor and Jamie! As Robson says of Victoria, she's hysterical!

Most of this episode is spent in the company of the guest cast, with the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria sidelined slightly in favour of building up the story elsewhere. Fury from the Deep is a slow-burning horror mystery, but I quite like spending time with the Harrises, as they seem such nice people, and utterly devoted to one another. It's a very sweet, loving marriage, and both Roy Spencer and June Murphy give the pair a lot of heart. They've got a seriously questionable taste in kitchen decor though, judging by the telesnaps!

Maggie has a pretty hard time in this episode, after being stung by a piece of seaweed secreted in her husband's file last week. In the real world, there are no poisonous seaweed varieties in the UK (not that sting anyway), but there is such a thing as Stinging Seaweed Disease caused by exposure to the algae Lyngbya majuscula, often in Hawaii. Of course, this is no common seaweed to be found on the shores of Britain, and it is usually advised not to eat seaweed gathered from the south coast of England, where Fury from the Deep is set, due to high coliform counts.

Symptoms of exposure to Stinging Seaweed Disease, however, include skin irritation, swollen eyes, nose and throat, headache, fatigue and fever, all things suffered to some degree by Maggie here. When her husband Frank leaves her alone to fetch medical help, that's when Maggie's nightmare really begins - and it's pretty nightmarish for the viewer too! She is visited by two strange maintenance men called Mr Oak and Mr Quill, a mismatched pair - one tall and thin, the other short and fat - reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy, but with much more sinister intentions. Chillingly, Mr Quill (played by the googly-eyed Bill Burridge) does not speak, while Mr Oak speaks with a clipped, ultra-polite tone which edges into mockery. And Oak smiles sweetly, inanely, like a clown grinning at the terror.

It's a fantastic pairing from Burridge and John Gill, reminding me of that other sinister pairing, Mr Wint and Mr Kidd, from the James Bond film Diamonds are Forever (1971). Their silent assault of Maggie Harris in her bedroom is the stuff of nightmares, and thank heavens the Australian censors thought it was scary too, otherwise they wouldn't have snipped the scene out of the tape before transmission so that we could watch it all these years later (it's so ironic that the bits of missing 1960s Doctor Who that were deemed the most unsuitable are the bits we get to see!). The cross-fading vision mix, Burridge and Gill's gaping, concentrated, gas-spewing assault, and Brian Hodgson's special sounds all combine to concoct one of the scariest scenes in Doctor Who in its entire history. And that's undisputed.

The rest of the refinery characters are like a warring family. None of them seem to get on, due in no small part to Chief Robson's unapologetically brusque and self-opinionated leadership. He resents interference from Van Lutyens and the Dutch government. He rejects advice from his deputy Harris. And he resolutely refuses to buckle and show what he sees as a weakness by shutting down the pipeline so that the mysterious heartbeat can be investigated. His professional pride is at stake, a common trait in many Doctor Who figures of authority, from Leader Clent in The Ice Warriors to Gatwick's Commodore in The Faceless Ones, from Ola in The Macra Terror to General Cutler in The Tenth Planet. Generally speaking, men in charge in Doctor Who are right bastards.

Apart from any scene involving the Harrises, this episode is far too talky and technical. The refinery staff walk around, arguing about the pressure build-up, receiving stations, impellers and release valves, and it can all get a little too technical, and let's be honest, dull. Yes, there have been two seaweed attacks already (the episode 1 cliffhanger, and on the Harrises' patio), but I feel we need something more to happen, especially something that directly involves the Doctor.

The cliffhanger is often cited as one of the creepiest of the era, but I beg to disagree. I think it's slightly underpowered (on audio, anyway) and there could have been a bit more dread in the actors' delivery ("It's down there... in the darkness, in the pipeline... waiting"). It's much scarier to read on paper than it is when delivered by John Abineri, sadly. Also, why is he suddenly referring to the heartbeat as "it"? It could be a fish or a crab or a seal for all they know, so for him to start referring to "it" as something to be feared, something with an intelligence "waiting" in the darkness, seems something of a leap.

Still, he's probably right.

First broadcast: March 23rd, 1968

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: John Gill and Bill Burridge as Oak and Quill are wonderfully creepy, and their attack on Maggie Harris is the stuff of Doctor Who legend!
The Bad: I really do not care about impellers and release valves. Just show me the monster!
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

NEXT TIME: Episode 3...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode 1; Episode 3; Episode 4; Episode 5; Episode 6

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/fury-from-deep.html

Fury from the Deep is available on BBC soundtrack CD. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fury-Deep-Doctor-Radio-Collection/dp/0563524103.