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Serial 6L: Warriors Of The Deep
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| Plot |
| Production |
Having completed his initial draft of Warriors Of The Deep, Byrne left them in the hands of Saward and departed for work in the United States. Saward was disappointed by what he found: Byrne's scripts were overlong and far too costly to implement. Saward ended up heavily rewriting the story, particularly removing an entire subplot about the Seabase Probe and its four-person crew, who are attacked by the Myrka. He changed Solow's gender from male to female and decided to kill off Preston and Vorshak, who survived in Byrne's original version. Unofficial fan adviser Ian Levine corrected continuity gaffes surrounding Icthar (who is presumably intended to be the unnamed Silurian Scientist from The Silurians), noting that Icthar would have no knowledge of the TARDIS or the Doctor being a "Time Lord from Gallifrey". However, the decision made by Silurian creator Malcolm Hulke to rename them "Eocenes" (as noted in The Sea Devils) was ignored, as was the fact that the term "Sea Devil" was actually coined by a human in their debut serial.
Serial 6L marked the first time that Nathan-Turner hired a director who had worked on Doctor Who under an earlier producer. This was Pennant Roberts, who had last helmed the unfinished Shada at the end of Season Seventeen. Nathan-Turner and Roberts had come into contact when the producer decided to use clips from Shada in The Five Doctors. Roberts' original plan was to carry out filming at Ealing from June 14th to 17th, followed by a two-day studio block beginning June 30th and a three-day session from July 13th.
Unfortunately, in May 1983, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to call a snap election to take advantage of her popularity in the wake of the Falklands War. Because BBC Planning had not foreseen this, recording space had to be swiftly reallocated to accommodate election coverage, affecting programming throughout the BBC. Doctor Who was not spared, and Nathan-Turner was informed that studio work on Warriors Of The Deep would have to be brought forward by a week, or else the serial would have to be abandoned. With The Return having just been lost months earlier, Nathan-Turner decided to accept the new recording dates. The advance in studio dates also meant that filming would have to be done earlier, but Ealing was not available on the necessary dates. As a result, Roberts secured the use of tank facilities at Shepperton Studios; the off-BBC locale also meant that Roberts could use OB videotape equipment (forbidden at Ealing) instead of film, providing better continuity with the studio material.
The rescheduled dates for the two-day studio session were June 23rd and 24th, with the Shepperton material -- as well as a day at the Underwater Diving School in Southampton -- being shot from June 28th to 30th, and then the three-day studio block proceeding as originally scheduled from July 13th. Unfortunately, the loss of the week before the first studio had dire ramifications for several aspects of the production. Both the Silurians and the Sea Devils had been redesigned, principally by Judy Pepperdine. On the start of recording, however, both sets of outfits were found to have extremely poor ventilation, exacerbated by the heat wave afflicting England at the time. The Sea Devils -- with their large webbed feet -- could not move around properly, and their helmets were too heavy, making the heads tilt to one side, obscuring the actors' vision. The Silurian costumes buckled around the neck, and this resulted in the mask being improperly fitted to the body on some occasions.
By far the biggest casualty, however, was the Myrka, who design was the responsibility of visual effects designer Mat Irvine. Unfortunately, Irvine was delayed on a production in Scotland which ran badly behind schedule, and his duties on Warriors Of The Deep were inexplicably not reassigned to another designer. This, combined with the change in recording dates for Doctor Who, meant that Irvine had only about a third of his usual preparation time. Irvine's head of department, Michaeljohn Harris, advised Nathan-Turner that the Myrka costume was therefore likely to be of inferior quality. Aware of how important a story element the beast, was however, Nathan-Turner opted to take his chances with whatever Irvine could produce; it was a gamble he would later admit to regretting.
The Myrka had been conceived in the manner of a pantomime horse, with two operators -- John Asquith and William Perrie, who played Dobbin the Pantomime Horse on the children's series Rentaghost -- inside. It was thought that Asquith and Perrie would have plenty of time to rehearse with the Myrka costume, but in the end, the costume was not ready until the first day of recording. As a result, much time was lost as they stumble around the sets and into the actors. Furthermore, so late in the day was the Myrka outfit completed that the paint was still wet; Janet Fielding in particular soon found her clothes splotched with green paint, resulting in delays while they were replaced. Consequently, Roberts soon found himself falling badly behind schedule, and having to record everything with just one or two takes. Things got so bad that, at one point, Fielding and guest star Tara Ward (Preston) believed they were rehearsing a scene -- and therefore not giving it their all -- when in fact this was Roberts' final shot for that sequence.
Episode one of Warriors Of The Deep debuted on January 5th, 1984, marking the start of Doctor Who's twenty-first season. As had been the case for the past two years, the series would be broadcast twice weekly, but this time the broadcasts were shifted to Thursday and Friday nights.
Warriors Of The Deep was Johnny Byrne's final televised Doctor Who story. Prior to the telecast of this serial, Byrne was asked to write a Sixth Doctor/Peri adventure. Entitled The Guardians Of Prophecy (or The Place Of Serenity), this would be a sequel to Byrne's first Doctor Who story, The Keeper Of Traken, seeing the Doctor battle an evil immortal who threatens the Union of planets to which Traken once belonged with an army of Melkurs. Byrne submitted his storyline to the production office in July 1983, but things barely proceeded beyond that stage. Byrne would go on to work on the drama programme One To One, amongst other projects, and later be reassociated with Doctor Who when he was asked to be the scriptwriter for the Daltenreys group's abortive attempt to produce a Doctor Who feature film.
Meanwhile, it was around the time that Warriors Of The Deep was being made that two key Doctor Who figures decided to leave the series. Janet Fielding, aware of Peter Davison's plan to play the Doctor for just three seasons, informed Nathan-Turner in May that she would leave Doctor Who over the course of the year. Davison also confirmed his intentions with the producer: he would end his run on the show by the end of the season, despite Nathan-Turner's offer of a fourth year. Davison feared typecasting and was following the advice of former series star Patrick Troughton, who had similarly limited himself to three years on the programme.
Unlike the situation he had encountered in 1980, however, Nathan-Turner's search for a new Doctor was not to be lengthy. Colin Baker had played Maxil in Arc Of Infinity at the start of the previous season, and had impressed Nathan-Turner with his wit and charisma at a wedding shortly thereafter. On June 10th, Nathan-Turner offered Baker the role of the Sixth Doctor, to which Baker readily agreed. Now all that was left to do was to give the Davison era a suitable finale...
| Details |
| Episode | Date | Time | Duration | Viewers | Audience App. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5th January 1984 | 6.41pm | 24'48" | 7.6m (51st) | 65% |
| 2 | 6th January 1984 | 6.41pm | 24'04" | 7.5m (52nd) | 64% |
| 3 | 12th January 1984 | 6.41pm | 24'02" | 7.3m (74th) | 62% |
| 4 | 13th January 1984 | 6.41pm | 24'25" | 6.6m (87th) | 65% |
| Producer | John Nathan-Turner |
| Script Editor | Eric Saward |
| Writer | Johnny Byrne |
| Director | Pennant Roberts |
| Designer | Tony Burrough |
| Costume | Judy Pepperdine |
| Incidental Music | Jonathan Gibbs |
Principal Guest Cast: Tom Adams (Vorshak), Stuart Blake (Scibus), Vincent Brimble (Tarpok), Norman Comer (Icthar), Nigel Humphreys (Bulic), Ian McCulloch (Nilson), Martin Neil (Maddox), Ingrid Pitt (Solow), Nitza Saul (Karina), Tara Ward (Preston).
Novelisation: Warriors Of The Deep by Terrance Dicks (book 87), May 1984; covers by Andrew Skilleter, Alister Pearson (1992).
Video Release: Warriors Of The Deep, episodic format, September 1995; PAL (BBC Video cat.# 5668) and NTSC (Warners cat.# E1380) formats available; cover by Colin Howard.
Other: Released as a talking book, Warriors Of The Deep, with narration by Peter Davison.
Rankings: 112th (60.32%, Doctor Who Dynamic Rankings website, 22nd June 1999); 146th (54.37%, DWM 1997 Annual Survey).
| Sources |
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