The Missing Stories - Fury from the Deep
Off-air recordings by James Russell
Narrated by Tom Baker
Linking narrative and cassette production by Eric Saward
When the Tardis lands on Earth, the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria are catapulted into the mysterious events taking place at a North Sea gas refinery. With noises emanating from its pipeline, crews disappearing and its commander refusing to turn off the gas, the Doctor finds himself accused of sabotage. And as the plot thickens only he guesses a more sinister reason for the disturbances: the deadly, parasitic Weed creatures...
Opening titles removed from Episodes 2, 3, 5 and 6. Episode 1 uses 0'42" of the original theme and Episode 4 opens with 0'24" of the 1967 arrangement, though both should have carried longer edits of the latter.
All closing titles replaced with 0'24" of the 1967 opening theme, played from the bass-line intro and lifted from the film soundtrack to The Tomb of the Cybermen 4 (recognisable owing to a wind effect running over the introductory bars). Although Episodes 1, 2 and 4 did indeed begin with the opening bass-line, only Episode 5 used the 1967 arrangement. All others used the original theme, with Episodes 3, 5 and 6 entering from the melody.
Tom Baker's narration often extends far longer than gaps in the soundtrack allow, and the episodes underwent further editing to fit them in. Generally the soundtrack fades down to be replaced by silence or a looped background noise (such as the TARDIS hum or location ambience), adding no more than a few seconds to the episode length. Complete additions are listed below.
The extended Episode 1 is mostly due to the opening introduction, which loops the TARDIS interior effect for 0'52" while Baker sets the scene - even though the television soundtrack features no such interior intro.
The final TARDIS Take-Off has been lifted from another film source of superior sound quality, though it is difficult to distinguish which.
STORY SPOILERS
AHEAD
When the TARDIS lands in the sea off the eastern coast of England, the Second Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria investigate a nearby beach, which seems to have an improbably large amount of sea foam as well as a major gas pipe marked “Euro Sea Gas”. When the Doctor examines the pipe, he thinks he hears a heartbeat from within. The trio are captured and put in a cell by Robson, a ruthless gas refiner who heads a pumping operation with a network of rigs spanning the North Sea. His assistant is Harris. Robson is unnerved by the loss of contact with gas drilling Rig D at sea plus an unexplained drop in the feed line from the rigs. The Doctor suggests that the supposed heartbeat could be a creature inside the pipe and suggests that the gas flow be suspended while he investigates, but Robson refuses to do so.
At the Control Centre, Robson re-establishes contact with the silent rig, but all who watch are unnerved by the eerie calm of a man named Carney on-screen, who brushes away the communication loss and explains the emergency crew sent to the rig will be staying there temporarily. With the gas pressure continuing to fall, the emergency continues, and Robson is hostile to Harris’ suggestions, especially when a rig worker and Dutch Government employee called Van Lutyens implies the situation is out of control. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria pick the lock on their cell and make it to the Control Centre, hiding while an engineer on the control rig named Baxter tells Robson his men have detected a heartbeat noise in the pipe.
Harris sends his wife, Maggie, to retrieve a file from their quarters; when she fetches it, she finds seaweed on it which stings when she touches it, then oozes sea foam when she is not looking. She soon feels unwell and sends for her husband. When he leaves to find a doctor, she rises from the bed in zombie fashion and starts to stalk out before regaining her composure. Shortly afterwards, two odd men visit. Only Mr Oak, the smaller man, speaks, and he identifies his companion as Mr Quill. They claim to be maintenance engineers there to repair her faulty cooker. When Maggie Harris tries to flee, they overpower her with toxic gas emitted from their mouths.
The Doctor and Jamie rescue Victoria, who has wandered off, from the Oxygen Room. Someone trapped her inside while foam poured through the vents and formed a seaweed creature. Robson dismisses this story as nonsense and maintains the travellers are saboteurs. Robson hears that the enormous impeller pump that controls the flow of gas along the pipeline network has slowed and become unreliable. He opens a release valve, which does not solve the falling rate of feed to the receiver stations. Rig C does not respond to communications calls and then the impeller stops, revealing the sound of a heartbeat.
Harris fetches the Doctor and his friends to look at his wife. The Doctor confiscates the clump of seaweed in the apartment, which he and his friends examine. The seaweed seems to emit noxious gas and is alive. The Doctor consults the TARDIS library and shows Victoria a picture of the creature she saw, which is a monster identified by mariners in the North Sea.
Without repair, the impeller starts up again and then stops. The Chief Engineer tries to calm Robson, but this sends Robson over the edge. Robson hides in his quarters, where Mr Oak pumps seaweed into his room. Harris gets him out, but Robson has been exposed to the stuff in large quantities and runs away in pain. Harris assumes control of the compound, and a search is set for Robson.
The Doctor and his friends return to the Control Centre. En route they have been to the Harris’ apartment, which is overrun by seaweed and foam. Maggie Harris has gone to the beach, where she and Robson are entranced by the heartbeat noise. She follows a compulsion to wade into the sea, while Robson walks away in a zombified state.
Contact has been lost with Rigs A, C and D, but contact has been made with Megan Jones, Director of Euro Sea Gas, who is coming to investigate the compound. Van Lutyens investigates the impeller shaft but is taken by the creature in the pipe. The Doctor and Jamie venture into the impeller shaft after Van Lutyens and find his torch. In the impeller room, Oak and Quill tamper with the operation. The Doctor and Jamie climb out, having evaded the seaweed creature.
Megan Jones and her aide Perkins arrive at the compound. A helicopter report from the silent rigs reveals they have been overrun by seaweed, and Jones sees that things have gone badly awry. Robson returns to the Control Centre in a manic state, which the Doctor ascribes to mind control. Another report arrives from Baxter in Control Rig, who tells them the rig is being overrun by seaweed before the feed cuts out. All the rigs are soon incommunicado, and a colony of seaweed creatures is developing. The Doctor surmises that a rig awakened the creature, which has attacked senior people to destabilize the compound, and guesses the seaweed in the Harris’ apartment was intended not for Maggie but her husband, Frank. The Doctor deduces that the reason Victoria was attacked in the Oxygen Room was because the oxygen supplies were being sabotaged; they could be deadly to the seaweed creature and those it controls. This prompts Oak and Quill to empty the remaining oxygen cylinders. Victoria soon identifies Quill and Oak as saboteurs. The latter is knocked out by Jamie, though the former escapes.
Harris has prioritised the capture of Robson, who is found sedate in his room, and Megan Jones demands to see him. He has sunk into a depressed state but briefly rallies and begs his old friend to help him. They leave him and he rests. On awakening, the heartbeat sound returns to his head, and he heads off. Within minutes, he finds Victoria and takes her hostage. He forces her into a helicopter and flies it out to sea.
The seaweed has pumped itself up into the impeller pipe in the impeller room and is soon expanding and throbbing. It bursts the pipe and starts to fill the rooms. The Doctor commandeers a helicopter and travels with Jamie to the rig where Victoria has been taken, where they find Robson mostly transformed into a seaweed creature. He says humanity is doomed and tries to gas the Doctor with his breath. Jamie has meanwhile found Victoria, and they all escape.
The trio return to the Control Centre and discover that Mr Quill has been treated for his possession and is almost recovered, thanks to sound vibrations treatment. It is clear that sound offers the best defence against the seaweed creature. The Doctor believes the nerve centre of the seaweed creature on the Control Rig can be challenged, using the gas pipeline to transmit sound. Loudspeakers are rigged up and Victoria’s screams are recorded for playback. With the seaweed creature in the compound expanding its size rapidly, the Doctor switches the apparatus on. The scheme is a success. The seaweed recedes, revealing Robson, Maggie Harris, and Van Lutyens amongst the survivors.
Victoria decides to leave the TARDIS crew, as she is tired of the constant peril. The Harrises welcome her to their home and though the Doctor is fine with this, Jamie is upset. The Doctor and Jamie stay another day to check that she is sure and then depart in the TARDIS, leaving Victoria watching them from the beach.
Continuity
At the beginning of Episode 1, Jamie mentions that the TARDIS always seems to land on Earth. The previous 24 episodes, as well as the six episodes of Fury from the Deep, were all set on Earth, the longest run of consecutive Earthbound episodes prior to the Third Doctor era.[citation needed] Episode 1 marks the first appearance of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver.[1] Its initial design is a simple penlight.
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