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

Day 494: Underworld, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Confession time: I’ve never actually sat through an entire Star Wars movie. I know, I know, that’s something tantamount to blasphemy within the sci-fi world… but I’ve never really thought of myself as a science fiction fan. I love Doctor Who, in all its many varied forms. I’ll happily sit and watch other bits of sci-fi, or fantasy, but I’ve never been one for really delving into them. I’ve simply never had all that much of an interest. The only time that this wasn’t quite true was during 2005, when people were gearing up for the release of the final Star Wars. I can’t remember where I saw it, but there was a short feature about the way in which the film had been largely shot against green-screen, and speculating that this was the way all films would be made in the future - who needed to spend time building the scenery when you can simply add it in later, making changes as you go. The thought of that absolutely captivated me (although these days, I’m not so fond of the idea), and I love that there’s a clear ancestor to that kind of production here in Underworld.

It’s fitting, in a way, because this serial was in production when the first of the Star Wars films reached the UK. I’ve spent some time tonight catching up with the special features on the DVD of this story, and Anthony Read confirms that he went - along with Graham Williams and Tom Baker - to see a preview screening of this soon-to-be-seminal film. There’s some discussion on the effect the film had towards the models’ budget for this serial (and I still think that the spaceship shots are one of the very best bits of the entire story), and I think it’s also telling with the way that the series is moving in this latter-half of the Baker years. It’s becoming more ‘spacey’: we’re going to be spending a lot more time away from Earth in the next few seasons (and I think I’m right in saying that this incarnation of the Doctor won’t be venturing into Earth’s history again for the rest of his tenure), and we’ve even got a cute robot sidekick along for the ride.

While I’m briefly touching on the subject, I do have to praise the special features on this DVD. The Doctor Who range as a whole has been ridiculously well-served over the last 15 years or so, and I think it’s fair to say that no other series - archive or not - has been given the love, care, and attention that this one has. By the standards of some discs in the range, this release is positively stripped-down, but what we do get is fascinating. There’s a thirty minute documentary about the production of the serial, looking at the parallels with the tale of Jason and the Argonauts before moving on to the actual in-studio problems, and then there’s an additional 20 minutes or so of narrated footage from the various studio days. It gives a brilliant insight into the way this programme was put together, and really highlights how hard everyone worked to even get the story to screen in the first place.

So how’s it fared on the whole? This was ranked in Doctor Who Online’s story poll last year as being the worst story of the 1970s - and by quite some margin. Well… I’m pleased to say that I’ve not actually found that to be the case for me. I’ve been updating my friend Nick on this fact as I’ve moved along and, bless him, he’s tried to understand. I think the biggest problem for me is that the story has simply fallen a bit flat. I’ve already spoken at length about the face that the plot isn’t really anything new or interesting, but the expectation of the story being terrible has had a negative effect on it. I’ve not found it to be as bad as everyone says, but it’s hardy one of the best either. It’s sort of stuck in a purgatory, and its average score of exactly 6/10 across the four episodes puts it just about right. Slightly above average in places, but not breaking out that much.

Indeed, from the 1970s, I’ve rated four stories lower than this one (The Sontaran Experiment, Revenge of the Cybermen, The Android Invasion, and Image of the Fendahl) and several others have come in with the same average score - including that supposed classic The Deadly Assassin! That’ll probably duffel a few feathers!

I’m glad that I’ve enjoyed the story more than people usually do, and there’s something nice about knowing that I’ve liked it more than several stories that I’ve already been through. It leaves me with a sense that there’s always things to enjoy within Doctor Who - even when they’re supposed to have very few redeeming features at all…