Doctor Who, season 4 continues …

The Underwater Menace is another one of those early Doctor Who adventures that is missing some episodes from the BBC archives.

In order to watch the serial, I’ve discovered the “Loose Cannon” reconstructed version of the missing episodes 1 & 4.  This version employs the audio of the story matched against telesnap (still images), descriptive text captions, existing footage where available, and sometimes a little added pieces of CGI/animation.

The Underwater Menace, of which two episodes exist as live-action, is a fast paced adventure telling a relatively simple story of the “mad scientist” type.

Mix in a strange fish species (that don’t really get involved in the plot), some confusing issues (such as why the professor bothered converting some humans to have gills, when they already had the fish people doing the work), some unanswered questions (such as how the professor enslaved the fish people in the first place), and some dubious use of a religion, and mix it all together to get the adventure.

There’s certainly plenty going on, and enough to keep the interest if you’re not looking for anything particularly in-depth.

I’m not sure if watching just the two live action episodes will be enough to get a real understanding of the story.

Next time … The Moonbase