The Underwater Menace [TV/1967.1.14 ~ 2.4]

★★★☆☆

  Atlantis filled with body-horror fish people, kidnapped miners and a mad scientist? This is Dr. Who firing on the most ridiculous cylinders and regardless of quality, I wish the show would be bold enough to try more of these types of stories out. Who cares if Atlantis is portrayed vastly differently several times in the show? Each entry is just as insane as the last, and I'm here for it.

  What helps the viewing experience of The Underwater Menace is the leading man, Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor. This is early Season 4, meaning he's not quite the funny uncle/champion of good he will become, but something quite different -- almost less reliable and more mischievous, sneaky and razor-sharp. It's the version of the Second Doctor I find myself preferring over the later soft reinvention (though I love the incarnation as he truly is), and why I find myself revisiting Season 4 more than most others. He knows how to put on a foolish face while pulling off the most devious schemes, don disguises and have the most fun he's ever had in the most dire situations, and sweet talk to authority figures while helping the underdogs. This serial is such a fantastic showcase for the Doctor, and Troughton's manic energy gives an already fantastical narrative a real delirious push. There was no way this would work as a completely serious tale, and I'm glad everyone from the production designers to the director to the cast got the message to have fun. The TARDIS team has fun, there's no doubt about it, and what a playground to have fun at. I truly think Atlantis is one of the most charming sets ever made for the 1960s era of the show, not necessarily because of its grandiose scale (though it is quite big), but because it's so filled to the brim with imagination. The religious figures, the stark contrast they have with cold laboratories and operating tables, the underwater sets with swimming fish people, the barren mines and the bustling marketplace with the tinest fountain ever seen on television (which, when taken into account that it's literally Atlantis, is even funnier)... the mythical kingdom is brought to life in the most unexpected ways, and it's glorious to watch on telly.

  The mad scientist Professor Zaroff and his plan to destroy Atlantis is just as nonsensical and entertaining as the surrounding narrative, and the way so many interesting ideas are thrown about so casually (I mean... surgically creating fish people out of unwilling patients?) adds to the dizzying effect The Underwater Menace has. It's somewhat of a relief that the leads' performances, as well as the large ham Zaroff, are so arresting and stop the serial from becoming too madcap. There's nothing I have against a serial becoming madcap, not at all, but despite all I said about it, I don't think The Underwater Menace is a comedy classic or anything. It's a bunch of fun to watch, but one slip and it could have easily been a boring mess -- had the aforementioned performances not been there to shake things up and make the dullest sequences some degree of fun. I find the most impressive and fun aspect of this serial to be its ruthless juxtaposition of the fantastical and the real (where in the world would you get guns in Atlantis otherwise), but The Underwater Menace is good fun in general.