"Shut up and listen will you! Down there... in the darkness... waiting..."
TECHNICAL SPECS: Aside from that classic open mouthed clip, the episode is missing from the archives. Invoking Loose Cannon's reconstruction option. First aired Mar.23 1968.
IN THIS ONE... Mr. Quill and Mr. Oak pay Maggie Harris a gassy visit.
REVIEW: Yes, this is the one that features the famous and incredibly creepy clip of Oak and Quill gassing a woman with their dehumanized mouths, their eyes bugging out unnaturally. Nightmare fuel at its best. Oak and Quill are a terrifying duo of inappropriately grinning gas-men (literally), with seaweed growing out of their sleeves. It's rather believable that they are being animated by a plant intelligence. Poor Maggie Harris. She's just about as unlucky as Victoria in this story (the victimization of women is an unfortunate trend in Doctor Who), as if being stung and stunned by seaweed wasn't enough. What's nice about this strand of the plot is that it features Frank and Maggie Harris as a loving couple, something that seems particularly rare in Doctor Who's universe of total or partial orphans. Their relationship is what makes the threat of Maggie getting taken over by the weed potent. All the other technicians walking around can sink into the sea for all we care.
It's really too bad that beyond the surviving clip (and related Maggie material) and the two TARDIS crew scenes (all too few), there's really very little of interest in this episode. Like I said, it's a lot of technical people doing technical things and debating technical matters, with all arrows pointing to the seaweed being the danger (which isn't new information). Victoria's ordeal in the foam room might or might not feature a seaweed "creature" coming at her, but there are no pictures of it. Robson is in denial for lack of imagination, and he's not very good with the human equation either. I'm reminded of The Ice Warriors' Clent, a bureaucrat with an inner life at odds with his dialog. Robson is so much less than that, a character (not quite a person) obsessed with pumping the gas out of the sea and nothing else. He's the kind of character who will heed no warning, nor care who he hurts, and that's more than a little boring.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium (the surviving clip, High) - Bla bla bla. The technical talk is dull, dull, dull. Feel free to skip through this episode to get to the good stuff.
TECHNICAL SPECS: Aside from that classic open mouthed clip, the episode is missing from the archives. Invoking Loose Cannon's reconstruction option. First aired Mar.23 1968.IN THIS ONE... Mr. Quill and Mr. Oak pay Maggie Harris a gassy visit.
REVIEW: Yes, this is the one that features the famous and incredibly creepy clip of Oak and Quill gassing a woman with their dehumanized mouths, their eyes bugging out unnaturally. Nightmare fuel at its best. Oak and Quill are a terrifying duo of inappropriately grinning gas-men (literally), with seaweed growing out of their sleeves. It's rather believable that they are being animated by a plant intelligence. Poor Maggie Harris. She's just about as unlucky as Victoria in this story (the victimization of women is an unfortunate trend in Doctor Who), as if being stung and stunned by seaweed wasn't enough. What's nice about this strand of the plot is that it features Frank and Maggie Harris as a loving couple, something that seems particularly rare in Doctor Who's universe of total or partial orphans. Their relationship is what makes the threat of Maggie getting taken over by the weed potent. All the other technicians walking around can sink into the sea for all we care.
It's really too bad that beyond the surviving clip (and related Maggie material) and the two TARDIS crew scenes (all too few), there's really very little of interest in this episode. Like I said, it's a lot of technical people doing technical things and debating technical matters, with all arrows pointing to the seaweed being the danger (which isn't new information). Victoria's ordeal in the foam room might or might not feature a seaweed "creature" coming at her, but there are no pictures of it. Robson is in denial for lack of imagination, and he's not very good with the human equation either. I'm reminded of The Ice Warriors' Clent, a bureaucrat with an inner life at odds with his dialog. Robson is so much less than that, a character (not quite a person) obsessed with pumping the gas out of the sea and nothing else. He's the kind of character who will heed no warning, nor care who he hurts, and that's more than a little boring.
REWATCHABILITY: Medium (the surviving clip, High) - Bla bla bla. The technical talk is dull, dull, dull. Feel free to skip through this episode to get to the good stuff.
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