DWO have received the cover art and details for the upcoming DVD, Blu-ray & Steelbook release of Doctor Who's missing serial Fury From The Deep, which will be released on 14th September 2020.

Following the success of existing animations The Power of the Daleks, The Faceless Ones, Shada and The Macra Terror, Fury From The Deep fills another gap in missing Doctor Who content lost in the purge of the BBC’s archive in 1975.

The three-disc release gives fans the opportunity to enjoy Fury From The Deep in high definition, either in full colour or in black & white. The release will include the surviving clips from the original 1968 production as well.

Fury From The Deep is told across six episodes and stars Frazer Hines and Deborah Watling. The storyline concerns a colony of sentient, parasitic seaweed, last seen in the eighteenth century, returning to attack a number of gas instillations in the North Sea in an attempt to take over humanity.

Animated episodes from Big Finish Creative Limited in association with Digitoonz Media & Entertainment and Thaumaturgy are joined by a wealth of exciting extras.

A making-of featurette ‘The Cruel Sea - Surviving Fury From The Deep’ sees original cast members Frazer Hines, June Murphy and Brian Cullingford revisit filming locations with production assistant Michael Briant, assistant floor manager Margot Hayhoe and helicopter pilot Mike Smith. Other contributors to this segment include writer Victor Pemberton and actress Deborah Watling. There’s also an archive audio interview with director Hugh David.

Additional material includes: 

· Audio commentaries
· The Cruel Sea – Surviving Fury From The Deep
· Original surviving footage
· Behind The Scenes 8mm footage
· Animating Fury From The Deep
· Archive interviews with Peter Day and Victor Pemberton
· Teaser Trailer
· Photo Gallery
· The Slide Audio Drama
· PDF scripts

Check out the teaser trailer in the player, below:

+  Fury From The Deep is released on 14th September 2020.
+  PREORDER this title from Amazon.co.uk! 

[Source: BBC Studios]

BBC Studios has announced that Fury from the Deep will be released in 2020. It will follow the release of The Faceless Ones, announced earlier this year, and fill another gap in missing Doctor Who content.

Following the success of existing animations The Power of the Daleks, Shada and The Macra Terror, Fury from the Deep will be released on DVD, Blu-ray and as an exclusive Steelbook later next year. Pre-order will be available from midnight tonight on Amazon.

Fury from the Deep is the missing sixth serial of the fifth season of Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from March to April 1968. Starring Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, the story concerns a colony of sentient, parasitic seaweed, last seen in the eighteenth century, returning to attack a number of gas instillations in the North Sea in an attempt to take over humanity.

No full episodes of this story exist within the BBC archives, and only snippets of footage and still images are still around to represent the story. However, off-air recordings of the soundtrack do exist, thus making the animation of a complete serial possible once again.

The six new animated episodes are being made in full colour, in the original black and white and in high definition and the release will include the surviving clips from the original 1968 production. It also stars Frazer Hines as Jamie McCrimmon and Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield.

Watch the announcement trailer in the player, below:
[youtube:grlk-ypKVps]

+ PREORDER this title on Amazon.co.uk!

[Source: BBC Studios]

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 210: Fury From the Deep, Episode Six

Dear diary,

'I was fond of her too,' the Doctor snaps at Jamie in the closing moments of this story, as the pair watch Victoria's departure from the TARDIS. Sadly, I'm not entirely sure that it's a sentiment that I can echo. For me, Victoria has really been the first of the companions that's not made any real impact on me. It's a shame, really, because Deborah Watling has turned in some nice performances, and Victoria has been part of some lovely scenes (and some really fab stories), but whereas with Steven, or Polly, I didn’t want to say goodbye... I'm not going to miss Victoria - I just don't really think I'll notice that she's gone.

That said, her departure is handled better in the last half of this episode than it has been for the rest of the story. Having gone through a few episodes with Victoria complaining about the state of their lives, things get somewhat toned down now, and we get a chance for her to actually stop and think about her decision, without having to make it in the middle of an adventure. The Doctor asks her if she really wants to leave, then offers to stay one more night, just to give her a chance to sleep on it. We then get that beautiful scene with Jamie and Victoria out on the balcony - it's possibly the best performance that we've had from either companion as they sadly discuss what's to come.

I think it helps that following this, much of the departure is then handled wordlessly. The narration on the soundtrack describes them as saying their goodbyes, before the Doctor and Jamie paddle back over to the TARDIS (it's back out in the middle of the ocean, now, as in Episode One, but during Episode Three it's described as having been 'conveniently washed up on the shore'. Has the ship just been going in and out with the tide while we've been off fighting sentient seaweed?) and have their discussion in the console room. It's lovely to be left not knowing what their final words to each other were: it feels far more romantic than actually watching in on them.

It's probably fitting that in the story introducing the Sonic Screwdriver to the series, the creature is defeated by noise, or as the Doctor more accurately puts it, 'sonic vibrations'. It's clear that his Sonic will play a vital role in the denouement… except it doesn't. A tape recording of Victoria's screams saves the day. In a way, I guess it's quite nice that she gets to be a vital part of the Doctor's life one last time, but it does feel odd. I'm going to go out on a limb and chalk this up as another one of those instances that makes the Doctor think more work is required to make the device all the more functional.

Overall, I've been really disappointed by Fury From the Deep. I don't think it helps that it's another one of those stories which has a reputation for being one of those big, Doctor Who 'classics'. There's an awful lot to love in here, and if you wanted to sum up the Troughton era in a single story, this would probably be the one to do it. As I've said before, though, it's just too close to everything around it to really stand out of the tide. The more that the story has gone on, the more I've been picking out similarities to other stories and trying to decide which version is better. Admittedly, Fury From the Deep wins out in a few cases, but not always. There's so many bits of the story that put me in mind of The Macra Terror (today's addition to the list is the Doctor and his friends staying behind after the adventure to enjoy a celebration with the guest characters), a story which I rated very highly - it's just made me want to listen to that one again!

Still, we now enter the third and final phase of the Second Doctor's era, with the introduction of Zoe. And to top it off? It's the return of my favourite monsters - the Cybermen. Unlike this story, I'm not really sure how fans rate The Wheel in Space, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised?

a 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 209: Fury From the Deep, Episode Five

Dear diary,

Quite a few times since Troughton took over the role, I've commented that certain scenes (or, in some cases, certain episodes) feel less like Doctor Who and more like anything else that was on television at around the same time. We've had one or two stories that wouldn't feel out of place in the more surreal parts of The Avengers, or Adam Adamant Lives!, for example.

What's really happening is that the programme is evolving. People always talk about the shift to colour and the grounding of the Third Doctor to contemporary Earth as though it's some huge sea change that occurs once the 1970s hit. Actually, ever since The War Machines at the tail-end of Season Three, we've been spending more and more time on modern-day (or close enough) Earth. Jamie and Victoria comment on it at the start of this very story: since the start of the programme's Fourth Season, there's been no end of tales set within 100 years either side of the broadcast date - ranging from The Tenth Planet twenty years ahead in the 1980s, to The Faceless Ones and The Web of Fear taking place during the year they're made (or thereabouts…). Even stories like The Enemy of the World can't be all that far into the future.

We just didn't really get things like this during the First Doctor's time at the TARDIS controls. Our history was usually further flung than the 1920s and we spent much more time out on distant worlds than we do now. It's this that causes the series to feel more like everything else that's being shown - because it's changing to fit the same format as many of these other programmes. I've made no secret of the fact that I'm not especially looking forward to reaching the Third Doctor's era, but I'm surprised that it's all being fed in this early, and I'm wondering just how much of a change it's going to feel when the time does roll around for the Doctor's exile to Earth…

One of the benefits of the programme starting to feel more and more like all these other shows is that - from time to time - you can use the others to give context to an episode of Doctor Who. Today's episode sees first Robson (with Victoria as his captive), and then the Doctor and Jamie taking a helicopter out to the drilling platforms where they can confront the Weed. All the shots of the platforms were filmed at the Red Sands Fort in the Thames Estuary, a sea defense built to fire on enemy aircrafts fairly late into World War Two.

By the 1960s, with the various sea forts abandoned, many were adopted as homes for pirate radio stations, and Red Sands became home to Radio 390. This setting formed the backdrop for one of the very last episodes of Danger Man in 1965, and I've watched it this evening to get a feel for the location, since it looks like it'll be playing a key part in the resolution of our current story! It's an odd change of pace to be watching something like Danger Man - shot on film, and containing an entire story in an hour-long episode, it's got a very different feel to Doctor Who: to sum it up, it's slicker.

The episode - Not So Jolly Rodger - is set almost entirely out on the Red Sands Fort, which gives plenty of opportunity to see the place showcased. It's a crying shame that we don't get to see more of it in the surviving tele snaps for Fury From the Deep, because it looks like a stunning location to set a story. Silhouetted against the clear blue sky while the sea lashes at the thick trunks that hold the forts above the waves, it's incredibly remote, and as 'alien' as you could possibly want. The tele snap of one tower covered with foam and weed is sadly not the best quality image - it could have made a very striking impression if it's our first shot of the towers in the story. Sadly, I imagine that they don't get shown off quite as well in Doctor Who as they do in Danger Man - the way the two shows were produced would have seen to that. It's worth tracking the episode down, though, just to get an idea of how brilliant it may have looked.

(Fittingly, the design of the Red Sands Fort was adapted in 1955 to be used for the very first off-shore drilling platform in the North Sea - so the location is pretty accurate!)

I still can't shake the feeling that this story would be rating a lot better with me if I were seeing it divorced from everything else around it. Today, we can add the two helicopters to the list of things cropping up this season (I was very impressed with the appearance of one during Enemy of the World, but it feels like old hat now!), plus the usual bouts of foam, possession, and Victoria whinging. I'm spending more time tying up plot developments to other recent stories than I am actually enjoying this one.

It's a shame, because it's perhaps easier to see in this episode, more than the first four, just how dark this story is. I've already mentioned just how scary some of the surviving clips are, but today's cliffhanger, with Robson almost swallowed in the foam as he announces that 'we've been waiting' for the Doctor could go down as one of the most unnerving things we've had in the show for a long time. Again, sadly, the tele snap doesn't do it any favours, laving the impression that it's either terrifying or hilarious.

There's plenty of great dialogue on show, too, that really helps to heighten the situation. My favourite has to be the Doctor's grim warning to Jamie - 'we're already in the lion's den. What we've got to concentrate on is keeping our heads out of it's mouth.' Much is being made, too, of the Doctor's lack of certainty with the situation. He's usually got a plan tucked up his sleeve, but today he's completely stumped. He spends while staring off into space as he thinks through the situation, then grimly declares that he simply doesn't know what to do. It's unsettling, and I really wish I could enjoy the story more than I am. Fury From the Deep is almost certainly a tale that could benefit hugely from a re-watch (re-listen) once the marathon is over…

a 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 208: Fury From the Deep, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Crikey, once Victoria has decided that she's had enough, she's really not going to let it go, is she? Having decided yesterday that she's sick of constantly being in trouble, she really labours the point here today, bringing it up on more than one occasion with both the Doctor and Jamie. In some ways, it's almost like she's completely lost faith in what they're doing - when Jamie reassures her that the Doctor will come up with something to save the day (after all, that's what he does in every story!) Victoria whines that she's not so certain, and then panics when the Doctor admits that he hasn't quite worked out what's going on yet.

My biggest issue with all this, though, is more the way that Victoria has been treated in the long-term. I've mentioned a couple of times how her character seems to swing back and forth between loving life in time and space and being less than certain the this life is for her. Wouldn't this feel so much better if she'd always been so unsure of things. I'll readily admit that I'd be complaining endlessly in these diary entries if she simply whinged on like this every week, but it would make her complete giving up here work just that little bit better.

However, I did suddenly wonder today if there might be an outside influence to her sudden departure. I'll need to hear the next two episodes before I can make a definitive statement, but I wonder if it's possible to add another footnote to my Great Intelligence timeline that makes her actions here seem to be a little less… sudden. We know that there's a small piece of the Intelligence in her mind left over from their trip to Tibet earlier in the season, and we know that she'll later be drawn back to the country, plagued by visions of her late father (I know this means treating the fan-made spin off Downtime as canon, but I've been doing so all along, and I've seen that more times than I've seen some official Doctor Who stories!).

Is it possible that the Great Intelligence, having survived the end of The Web of Fear and retreated back into space is calling on Victoria here, trying to separate her from the Doctor and Jamie so that she can become a pawn in his larger game? Although no date is given on screen for this story, fandom tends to assume sometime in the mid-1970s (indeed, this world tallies with some of the technology seen in the UNIT stories), which would be fitting - the Intelligence could draw Victoria into leaving the relative safety of the TARDIS and staying behind on Earth, ready to carry out his bidding during the 1980s and 90s. It's a stretch, I'll admit, but I think it could just about work. As I say, I'll need to hear the last third of the story before I can officially adopt this sequence of events in my mind, but I like it for now, at least!

If there's anything good to come from Victoria's sudden lack of ease with the lifestyle she's been leading of late, it's that we get a chance to see Jamie reaffirmed as perfect for life with the Doctor. The way that the Doctor teases him into heading down into the stats with him is fantastic ('you wouldn't let me go down by myself, would you?', he asks, somewhat sadly. 'Well,' Jamie replies, having to think for a moment, before reluctantly giving in: 'no…'), and there's then something brilliant about the pair exploring in the darkness with gas masks on. Right back when Frazer Hines joined in The Highlanders, I mused that it was strange to have a companion be so interlinked with a Doctor (Tegan comes close, though), but when you see this pair in action, almost two years on from all that… it's perfectly clear why they stuck together.

The other great thing about the pair exploring down in the system of the rigs - it survives! Well, sort of. Today, I popped in the Lost in Time DVD so that I could watch the surviving clips from this story - sometimes they work as a handy visual shorthand to keep in mind while listening. Among the assortment of clips was one of the Doctor and Jamie being scared by the seaweed creature, and it has to be said - it looks great. In some ways, I could simply write off the creature as playing to another stereotype of the Troughton era (the thing lives in the BBC's foam machine for goodness sake!) and add it to my list of things that feel tired in this story, but actually, it's bloody creepy.

There's another shot amongst the surviving clips of Van Lutyens being attacked and - for want of a better word - consumed by the weed creature, and it's actually terrifying. For what amounts to a lump of seaweed thrashing about in some foam, it's surprisingly effective. It also provides a chance to see Mr Oak and Mr Quill's attack of Maggie from the other day: another one of those scenes that's actually very un-nerving. It's so unusual, and the way the shot cuts back and forth from mouth to mouth, as the men stare wildly and stretch their jaws to breaking point…

I really do think that, watched in isolation, Fury From the Deep could absolutely deserve the high reputation that it's often given. I think had it survived for us to see then it would be far and away one of the greatest tales we'd had. Sadly, going by the soundtrack and the tele snaps (even with these few surviving bits and bobs) it still just isn't quite giving me enough…

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 207: Fury From the Deep, Episode Three

Dear diary,

It would appear that Debbie Watling has handed in her four-weeks notice between the last episode and this one, as Victoria's tone has suddenly shifted from being one of hating the thought of living in a place like this, to hating the throughout of continuing her travels with the Doctor. 'Why are we always in trouble?' she asks, and when the Doctor suggests that it's all part of the fun, she huffs that she's tired of being scared out of her wits.

Also interesting to note is the way that, having been set on the path of departing the TARDIS, Victoria is suddenly being given more to do as a companion than she has been for a long time. Over the last 30-odd episodes, she's swung wildly from being a bit useless and feeble to being a vital member of the team. Now, she seems to have turned into Liz Shaw, assisting the Doctor in his experiments on the seaweed, and even explaining them to Jamie.

Later on, she's responsible for picking a lock with a hair-pin (I'll assume the Doctor doesn't use his newly-created Sonic because it's still in the early stages of development. We've only seen it used to actually take out screws, and it would take an age to remove the door in that way. Maybe it needs some refinement before he can actually use it against locks?), while her friends watch on. It's like - out of nowhere - she's becoming indispensable again.

Elsewhere, the story is doing its best to be as creepy as possible. There's a brilliant moment, having seen off the weed from one attack, when we're reminded that there are hundreds of vents it could attack from, and now that it's inside the shafts, it has direct access to every one. I complained yesterday that this story seems to be something of a 'Best of Season Five' collection, but at least this feels like a slightly different threat - we're used to having proper, obvious monsters attacking, as opposed to a mass of something infecting the system.

Perhaps the most effective moment of the episode, though (and, truth be told, the story so far) is the cliffhanger, in which Maggie stares out across the sea, telling Robson that he will obey, and then walking, slowly, until she vanishes under the waves. It's incredibly un-nerving, and not something that you could imagine the modern series showing, for fear of kids playing copy-cat on a family trip to the beach. It's one of those moments that I've often in the past described as not really being Doctor Who, but things like this are starting to become quite routine for the series - the sudden, striking image. Long after I've forgotten everything else in this episode (and let's be honest, at least half of it has already started to fade from memory, half an hour on), this cliffhanger is going to linger. The tele snaps make it look fab, and it's rocketing up my list of 'things I'd love to see. Rest assured, the score of today's episode is raised simply by these final few minutes.

There's not really a great deal else to say on Fury From the Deep for now. Those odd few moments aside, it's still just feeling a bit 'run of the mill', and that's a shame, as it's not that there's anything wrong with this story - it's just that it's come at the wrong time. Had we seen this story at the end of Season Four, I'm sure I'd be singing its praises now, but having to follow on from so many other stories in the same mould, it's struggling to leave any real impression on me.

6/10 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 206: Fury From the Deep, Episode Two

Dear diary,

There are times that I really wish I were coming to the 'classic' series as a complete novice, without all that 'fan baggage' which means I know, for instance, that Fury From the Deep is the last story to feature Victoria. Or that it's the only story of the 1960s that uses one title to cover all its episodes without beginning with 'the'. Or, and this is the big one for today's episode, that the enemy is a big, writing mass of seaweed.

Imagine coming to this story completely free of all that knowledge. Watching the series from the start and not having a clue what was to happen at any given time. No idea that this is Victoria's last appearance (and there's no indication at this stage in the narrative that it might be - indeed she makes a point in today's episode of letting everyone know how much she wouldn't like living in a place like this!) and crucially, not knowing what all this seaweed has to do with anything.

When Victoria is explaining the attack she suffered in yesterday's episode, she describes the creature as being 'all covered in seaweed', hinting that there could be something hidden away underneath. It's heavily implied that she's been imagining it (although we know she hasn't). The entire setting of the story is based around a place mining gas, and then there's that ominous heartbeat echoing through the pipes…

There was a moment today when even I wondered if the Macra might be behind all this. It wouldn't be completely out of the blue - the Yeti have just joined the Cybermen and the Daleks in the ranks of 'creatures the Doctor has fought more than once', and all the trappings are certainly in place for it to be just such a showdown. Having remembered that they're not the villains in question, I was a little disappointed (I love Macra, even if there are no such things), but I love the thought of hearing this story thinking that they really could be controlling things on the rigs behind the scenes.

My main problem with Fury From the Deep, though, was summed up best by Nick Mellish in a conversation we had earlier this afternoon - “Like much of Season 5, works slightly better when listened to in isolation (i.e. not with the other Season 5 stories).” There's lots going on which, really, I should be lapping up, but we've seen it all before. Even worse - we've seen it all before this season. This is the kind of fatigue that I'd worried about when approaching Season Five (I knew from the start that this was likely to be the hardest of the 1960s seasons), though I guess I should be thankful that it hasn't set in until the penultimate story of the year.

June Murphy turns in a great performance as Maggie Harris, and plays the possession by the seaweed at just the right level of creepiness… but we've already seen people brainwashed by the enemy plenty of times this season, most prominently in the two Yeti tales, in which it's a key plot point. Robson is a perfectly good leader of the base, determined to keep to his own programme in the face of mounting evidence that it's the wrong decision… but he's not given the same amount of character that Clent had during The Ice Warriors.

In yesterday's episode, we had mysterious gloved hands creeping into shot to tamper with vital things, but the same thing was used for at least half of The Web of Fear, and it's only been a few days since I watched that one! Stretching back a little further to the end of Season Four, all those parallels that point toward the Macra are just as valid - this is an example of Doctor Who doing things very well, but things that it just does too often. Frankly, it feels like I've already watched this episode several times over…

a 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 205: Fury From the Deep, Episode One

Dear diary,

I can easily take Victoria’s complaint that the TARDIS is always landing them on Earth - since she joined the team at the end of the last season, they’ve only visited two alien planets, and only one of those was the result of the TARDIS taking them there. What’s harder to buy is Jamie’s assertion that they always end up in England - is he forgetting their trip to Australia and Europe two stories ago? And the trip to Tibet earlier in the season? And where was the glacier in The Ice Warriors? In my mind it’s somewhere other than the UK, but I’m not sure if it was ever actually stated on screen…

The only explanation I can think of is that our three friends here have spent plenty of time having adventures that we haven’t seen. Certainly, the way they joke and play on the beach at the start of this story (in a scene hugely reminiscent of the opening to The Enemy of the World) gives the impression of a group of people that are very comfortable and happy together, while the stories that we’ve seen with them haven’t spread out over a great deal of time. It feels like an age since stories like Marco Polo or The Romans, when the TARDIS crew would spend months on end hanging out in a particular time or place.

What’s also pretty fun is the way that our regulars arrive in this location - with the TARDIS materialising in mid-air, and then gently coming to rest on the ocean waves. ‘The TARDIS is quite capable of floating,’ the Doctor explains, though it has to be said that it’s a bit unusual as an idea. The soundtrack makes the whole scene seem a little muddled, with the sound of the ship’s engines taking a really long time to dies down, but their row to the shore in a little boat taking only a matter of seconds. Still, it’s something a bit different, which is always good.

As for the story itself… it’s another one of these tales that’s very much at home being produced in this era. I’m always put in mind of Gary Russell’s comment in the Second Time Around feature on The Dominators DVD - North Sea gas was everywhere in the news in this era, and here’s a story that brings the Doctor’s adventures right into your home. I’ve always thought of the seaweed creature as being a bit of an odd choice for a Doctor Who monster, though actually it’s the kind of thing that the programme does very well - taking something perfectly ordinary and turning it into something that should be feared. I think this is most in evidence when Maggie Harris throws some out on her patio, and it begins to write and pulse: small clumps of the stuff like this will be littered all over when kids visit the beach, and it too could start to move…

Of course, the big thing to note about today’s episode? It’s the first appearance of the Sonic Screwdriver! Hooray! I’ve been counting down to this one for some time now (and tracking the Doctor’s train of thought as he starts to develop the device), and I’m pleased to say that this is everything that I could possibly want from its first use in the show. It’s not being used to break the Doctor and his companions out of a cell, or to shoot energy beams at an alien, or hold open a heavy stone door - this Sonic Screwdriver does exactly what it says on the tin - it’s used to unscrew the front of a little box with soundwaves.

I like the idea that the Doctor has been developing this for a little while throughout Season Five (there’s another reason to imagine some unseen adventures for this trio - it gives him more time to work), and even though he claims here that the Sonic ‘never fails’, he’s clearly quite new to the tool, and Jamie obviously hasn’t seen it before (‘Neat, isn’t it?’, the Doctor adds). We’ll be seeing plenty more of the device over the next few years (well, the next few decades), but it’s nice to see it here in an extremely basic form - a ‘mark one’ of all the Sonics to come…

a