31 Days, 31 Screams: A New Beginning- Day 11 (Doctor Who: Fury From The Deep)

 What we've got here tonight is an interesting little artifact... and I do mean artifact. We've gone almost 55 years into the past for it, and the method I chose is semi-obsolete for experiencing it. The UK and Australia have a fancy redone animation of the missing six episodes which make up this Doctor Who story. It's not out in Region 1 for at least another year. This, then, is me using an old Doctor Who reconstruction method at the last possible time before it's made redundant. The last moments when Fury From The Deep can be haunted by its absence. It's all rather elegant and atmospheric, isn't it? Choosing a ghost of a story for a writeup in our blog series. Let's poke and prod at this strange 60's ghost and see what remains.

It does have some traditionality to it. The Second Doctor was defined by a certain section of Doctor Who fandom as the one who fought the monsters. A near-endless parade of creepy Doctor Who creatures attacking bases, while the people in charge squabbled and never believed this weirdo Doctor's cries of wolf because if they did the story would be over in two parts. Coming at it like this, where it's the third-to-last Troughton story I've never seen before, I get odd shades of the Jon Pertwee adventure Inferno. That story had people working an industrial site, monstrous possession, and a pig-headed man in charge refusing to listen to any cries of safety or slowing their output in any way. Inferno is a far far more frustrating story than Fury From The Deep, and it's because Fury gets to be quite moody and atmospheric in places. A lot of its cliffhangers are just really weird mood pieces. The most memorable for me is the end of part 3, when the wife of a man infected by the monster of the story just walks into the ocean. It's quiet, intimate, and absolutely fucked up.

That titular fury is, of course, ancient mind-controlling seaweed. A myth or a legend made real, creating paranoia all through the base. The pigheaded man in charge gets spooked out of his mind and later taken over, and it's much better than in Inferno. What little footage of the story survives shows grim shit, like the infamous scene where two guys spew poison from their mouths to infect that woman who later walks into the ocean. Or the scene where a man checks out the pipe works and gets dragged into the foamy abyss, never to be seen again. Or the bit with man-shaped seaweed that was clearly just filmed off set and incorporated into the reconstruction, breaking the fourth wall a bit. What defeats the nasty seaweed is the Doctor's companion and her screaming. It's somewhat a story about her discomfort and fear over repeatedly encountering horrible monsters, and the defeat of the monster is said discomfort and fear. That's not the climax of the story. The climax is when she decides to stay behind. It isn't fun anymore, this monstrous travelling. The moody horror is too much for her, and she leaves her friends behind. It's quite sad, and one of the better departures for a Doctor Who companion. I think that's all I have to say about this one. I'll grab the animation in a year's time and check it. Until then, here's your teaser for the next few days.

KAIJU TIME'S BACK