Underworld - The First Review

Starring Tom Baker, Louise Jameson & John Leeson, with James Maxwell & Alan Lake.

Written by Bob Baker & Dave Martin.

Directed by Norman Stewart.

The TARDIS lands the Doctor in a Minyan spaceship that is on a quest to find the Minyan race banks stored in a missing ship known as the P7E. They eventually find what they are looking for in a cave system at the centre of a newly-formed planet. But the P7E's computer has ideas of its own, and doesn't look kindly upon its new visitors.

The Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela (Louise Jameson) find that the crew of the R1C are not quite as welcoming to the Gods as they might be...

Oh "Underworld". Poor, poor "Underworld".

"Underworld" must be able to qualify as one of the most unloved serials in all of Doctor Who. Widely panned by fans, and sandwiched between a popular story from one of the show's greatest writers, and a big, epic season finale, it's little wonder that this story has few fans and little love. A rather lacklustre script, with by-the-numbers characters and action, combined with an ambitious, but ultimately doomed, production was never really going to end well. I wish I could tell you that, unlike every other Doctor Who fan out there, I find "Underworld" to be an underrated gem, or even not as bad as people make it out to be, but, sadly, I would be lying. "Underworld" has to be one of the most un-engaging and deathly dull Doctor Who stories in the show's near 60 year history. There is nothing to really be positive about, apart from the initial concept, and pretty much everything else is either incredibly poorly done, or hampered by the limitations of the programme's budget and resources.

"What time does the BBC Bar open?"
"I don't know Tom. Why?
"Because when I'm done here, I'm drinking it dry."

Doctor Who has a long history of appropriating Greek myths and mythology into its stories, from "The Time Monster" to "The Horns of Nimon" and "The God Complex". "Underworld", however, is probably the Doctor Who story most indebted to these fables (even to the point of actually referencing the story this is based on, Jason and the Argonauts, at the story's conclusion), and this does come through in the writing. It is littered with references to the fable, and to wider Greek mythology. However, a reverence for the source material does not necessarily a good story make, and, in this case, that reverence is wasted on something that is so by-the-numbers, you wonder if a computer didn't have some hand in its creation. It doesn't feel like its been plotted to be as exciting as possible, but rather its been plotted to fulfil its four-episode quota with as little incident as possible in order so as not to strain the budget. The story moves at an incredibly glacial pace, with lots of running down dreary caves and mystical talk about things that don't really matter. I understand that one should write to a budget, especially in the frugal, penny-pinching times of the late 1970's, but this is ridiculous. You can be creative on a budget, but this feels like Bob Baker and Dave Martin are compromising their vision in order to get the story on-screen, rather than tailoring their writing for the limitations of the production. For a story with such an exciting premise (quest narratives are always pretty fun, and the Greek fables are the best for basing stories upon), this just feels tired and uninspired, and is a major step-down from the usually reliable 'Bristol Boys', who are usually pretty great at turning in good, solid, Doctor Who stories. But here, it seems like their usually brilliantly driven narratives simply deserted them, and instead they've produced something so phoned in, it beggars belief that it was accepted. There are a couple of positives, however: the first episode is alright, as its the one with the most action and excitement in it, while the Oracle is a decent villain, due to the fact that its just a computer with delusions of grandeur. But honestly, when you've got empty scenes of characters just standing around, talking about things that don't really matter to people that don't care, you've got a real problem.

To Tom's delight, the actors finally get the chance
to work on a set, rather than some blue drapes.

And then we come to the production. Now, of course, this story as infamous as the one where Doctor Who literally ran out of money. To summarise: due to spiralling inflation in the British economy in 1977, the production team found that they weren't able to make the budget for "Underworld" go as far as originally planned. They'd already financed the main spaceship set, so the choice was either to curtail the season at twenty episodes (diverting the money from "The Invasion of Time" into this story) or continue with both stories, but find a creative workaround for "Underworld's" set problems. It was decided to go with the latter option, with the sets for the caves constructed as models, and then 'blue-screened' behind the actors, in a process known as Colour Separation Overlay (CSO, a process that was a forerunner of Computer Generated Imagery). And, to say that this process wasn't entirely successful would be an understatement. While having been used frequently in Doctor Who since the show transitioned from black-and-white to colour in 1970, it had never been used on this scale before by any TV production, let alone Doctor Who, and it shows in the results. The caves sequences look incredibly static, often more so than the earliest Who stories of the 1960's, with the camera locked into one position for pretty much every scene. This results in a lot of dreary wide shots, that don't allow us to see what the actors are doing, while also showing off how poor the model sets have been blown up to. I think there may be a problem with the scale of them as well, as, in some shots, they actually look blurry, and like they have been blown up beyond a point that is within their quality. I get that this was really the only way they could proceed if they wanted to keep this story, but the technology wasn't quite ready to do complete sets. Even the sets in "Terror of the Autons" created by CSO look better than the caves do here. It just brings the whole story down, and helps to make it even more dreary. I always say that a good script can accommodate a less-than-exemplary production, and even a poor script can be enhanced by a strong production. However, a weak script, combined with a poor production does often make for an unsatisfying watch, and "Underworld" is the epitome of that ethos. The limitations of the CSO are painfully obvious, and I'm amazed that this was actually considered fit for broadcast by the BBC. It's so ridiculously poor, and is probably the single biggest reason why this story has such a dire reputation. 

Andrew Ridgeley (left) and George Michael
(right) were delighted to be in Doctor Who. Just
look at their smiles.

To even talk about the characters and the acting at this point seems silly, but I will anyway. The characters are flat and one-note: there's no life to any one of the guests, and, as such, the actors have nothing to latch onto. Any form of characterisation is done to facilitate the plot, rather than to make the characters grow and develop as real people. Some of the actors do as decent a job as they can: James Maxwell and Alan Lake, particularly, bring as much energy and pathos to the characters they play as is humanly possible. But the villains are utterly lackluster, and the acting amongst the slaves is uniformly terrible. The only actors who just about manage to come out of this mess intact are Tom Baker, Louise Jameson and John Leeson, who at least try to commit to this world. At least the writing for these characters is fun, and the Doctor and Leela's sparky dynamic comes through, despite any behind the scenes tension between the actors. They at least make most of the scenes they're in together fun, despite the tedium of the story. But honestly, it's a miracle that anyone made this watchable, because they had a lot tipped against them.

The TARDIS drifts into a nebula in space. Can the Doctor, Leela and K9 emerge into a better story next week?

"Underworld" is, without any doubt, one of the most turgid, unpleasant and frankly boring experiences any Doctor Who fan can have with this programme. A combined bad script with a laughably mis-judged production combine to doom this story right from the start, and there's little hope of any recovery. I don't really want to waste any more words on "Underworld": I regret the ones I've already used, to be honest. I wish I had something positive I could say about this story, but, honestly, there's little I could say, other than an mediocre episode 1 and the continual excellence of Tom Baker and Louise Jameson. And yet, "Underworld" isn't even the worst story from Season 15...

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