OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 316
STORY NUMBER: 062
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 25 March 1972
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 8.3 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Beneath the Surface (The Silurians / The Sea Devils / Warriors of the Deep)
EPISODE FORMAT: 625 video
"But the point, Mister Parliamentary Private Secretary, is that you have not destroyed. You have just made them angry. Very, very angry!"
The Doctor has been taken prisoner by the Sea Devils and taken to their base. Parliamentary Private Secretary Walker arrives at the naval base to see Captain Hart come to investigate the ship sinkings. The Doctor speaks with the Sea Devil leader trying to form a peaceful solution between them and the humans. Walker has summoned ships to destroy the Sea Devil base. The Master tries to disrupt the Doctor's negotiations with the Sea Devils. The navy attacks the Sea Devils base and an enraged Sea Devil leader sentences the Doctor to death. The Doctor escapes into the damaged base as Walker calls off the attack when debris & Sea Devil bodies surface. The Master is set to work reviving the Sea Devils and organises an attack on the naval base to secure the components he needs. The Doctor frees the submarine crew allowing them to escape together in the submarine. The submarine is held in a forcefield. The Doctor has torpedoes fire to blast their way out allowing them to escape. The Doctor is reunited with Jo at the Naval base and immediately takes a dislike to Walker hose attack has only angered the Sea Devils who start an attack on the base. The Doctor announces he intends to go back to the Sea Devil base to negotiate again but as he leaves to board the diving vessel he's surrounded by Sea Devils.
Oh dear another annoying Civil Servant.
WALKER: Good morning, my dear. Captain Hart here?
BLYTHE: No sir, he's at sea.
WALKER: Well, I suppose that's the right place for a sailor, eh? What's your name?
BLYTHE: Blythe, sir.
WALKER: Walker. Parliamentary Private Secretary. Any chance of any breakfast?
BLYTHE: I'll call the steward, sir.
WALKER: Excellent! And, er, who are you?
BOWMAN: Leading Telegraphist Bowman, sir.
WALKER: Jolly good. Er, nothing very elaborate, my dear. Just eggs, bacon, toast, coffee. Oh, and a little rough-cut marmalade, if they've got it. How long is he likely to be? Captain Hart, I mean.
BLYTHE: I don't know, sir.
WALKER: Oh, well, now, I tell you what. You get him on your jolly old wireless and ask him to come over here at the double, will you?
BLYTHE: Send a signal to Captain Hart. Tell him that a Mister Walker is here to see him.
WALKER: Parliamentary Private Secretary.
BOWMAN: Er, aye aye, sir. BLYTHE: I'll call the steward.
WALKER: Ah, and get me the morning papers, will you, there's a good girl.
BLYTHE: If I may ask, sir, what is the purpose of your visit?
WALKER: Why, all those ships sinking. I've come down to clear it up for you. The Minister's put me in full charge
But where Chinn was useless and incompetent, Walker is sexist & bloodthirsty, instantly dislikeable, more concerned with getting his breakfast and his papers.
WALKER: Captain Hart, there's only one way to deal with this problem. You have to attack. Ugh. Oh, pass me the sugar, my dear, will you?
HART: My submarine is missing in that area. There's a chance that some of the crew may still be alive.
JO: And what about the Doctor? He may still be alive down there too!
HART: Yes.
WALKER: Well, this is war, my dear, and war calls for sacrifice. Any chance of any more toast, my dear?
BLYTHE: Yes, sir.
WALKER: Now, I've had a look at that UNIT file about the creatures that your friend the Doctor encountered in those caves. And do you know what happened? Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart blew the whole lot up.
JO: Maybe, but I bet he didn't do it by risking the lives of his own men.
WALKER: Well, that's as maybe, but our line is quite clear. Immediate retaliation with everything that we've got.
HART: I'm sorry, sir. I don't agree.
WALKER: Your opinion is quite immaterial, Captain Hart. The order's already been given. Ships are converging on this area from ports all over England.
HART: You're throwing away the lives of the men in that submarine, sir!
JO: And you'll probably killed the Doctor. Look, do you realise that that's murder?
WALKER: Murder? War always is, my dear. Where on Earth's that girl with my toast?
He's not on the screen for that many minutes before he ruins the Doctor's negotiations, intent on killing those he sees as the enemy and when The Doctor meets him he wastes no time giving his opinion of Walker:
JO: Doctor! I thought you were dead!
DOCTOR: Dead? No, I don't think so.
JO: When I saw that thing come up empty, I thought I'd never see you again.
WALKER: Well, well, well, so the heroes have returned.
DOCTOR: Captain Hart, what idiot ordered an all out attack just as I was on the verge of finding a peaceful solution?
JO: But it wasn't Captain Hart's fault. It was this
HART: I'm terribly sorry. This is Mister Walker. He's the Parliamentary Private Secretary in charge of this business.
WALKER: I'm the idiot you've just been talking about. Absolutely splendid lunch, old man.
DOCTOR: You ordered the attack?
WALKER: I did.
DOCTOR: Did you give any thought at all, sir, as to what you were doing?
WALKER: Our duty is to destroy the Queen's enemies. Don't you know your national anthem? Confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks.
DOCTOR: That, sir, is an extremely insular point of view. At the precise moment of the attack, I was negotiating a peace.
WALKER: Peace? Huh. What, when they've been attacking our shipping and heaven alone knows what? I think you've got it all wrong, old man. Seek and destroy. That's what you chaps say, isn't it?
DOCTOR: But the point, Mister Parliamentary Private Secretary, is that you have not destroyed. You have just made them angry. Very, very angry!
Walker is played byMartin Boddey who was a founder member of the Lord's Taverners charity which organises celebrity fund raising cricket matches.
Norman Atkyns, the Rear Admiral in charge of the attack, was The Guardian in Colony in Space was which directed by this story's director Michael Briant. He was in Quatermass and the Pit as the Publican in Hob.
Also in the Colony in Space, as a Time Lord was Peter Forbes-Robertson who is the Chief Sea Devil here and was also a Guard in The Power of the Daleks, which Michael Briant had worked on as a production assistant.
Joining the ranks of the Sea Devils this week is Frank Seton who later plays a Scientist in The Time Warrior. He too was in Quatermass and the Pit appearing as a Man in Crowd in The Enchanted and a Sightseer in Hob.
The archive holdings for this story are basically a game of two halves: The best quality copies of the first three episodes are US 525 line broadcast tapes while the last three episodes exist on their original 625 line transmission tapes. However when the Sea Devils was repeated, as the Third Doctor's initial entry in the 1992 repeat season, the tape for episode five was found to be badly scratched and it was transmitted off of a 525 line video tape that also exists. In 1997 Steve Roberts, BBC Engineer and member of the Doctor Who restoration team, developed a scratch repair technique which was applied to the tape to fix it which allowed it to be used for the DVD release that I am watching.
No comments:
Post a Comment