Monday, April 13, 2009

Warriors of the Deep

Last night I was watching a 1984 Doctor Who story called "Warriors of the Deep". In the story the TARDIS arrives in an undersea military base on Earth in the year 2084. At this point the Earth is divided into two power blocs who are threatening imminent nuclear war. The fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) and his companions soon realise that the base is about to be attacked by The Silurians, an intelligent reptilian race who ruled the Earth thousands of years before humanity, with the help of their amphibious cousins The Sea Devils, and their ll-powerful secret weapon, a monster called The Myrka. The story was interesting and actually quite suspenseful but the show suffered from really sub-par special effects and production values (even by the standard of eighties Doctor Who). This was due to the production schedule being heavily cut at the last minute. The worst thing in the show was The Myrka which looked like a green, rubbery pantomime horse and could only move in a slow shuffle so all it's victims basically had to just stand and wait for it to get to them and swat them with it's stubby little paws. Although it was still a fun story. I have kind of a soft spot for it because it was the first Doctor Who story I ever saw, when I was just five years old.

I was also watching the third part of the three part Red Dwarf special, which definitely had it's moments, but suffered from obvious heavy cutting and also a lack of many real laughs (Red Dwarf is supposed to be a comedy after all). It would have really benefited from having full half hour episodes instead of just twenty minute ones (minus advert breaks).

Today I went out to the shops and bought some DVDs in the sales. I got a couple of Doctor Who DVDs (containing the stories "The Visitation" and "The Hand of Fear"). I also got a set of the three RoboCop films and a movie called 11:14, which to be honest I just got because it had Rachael Leigh Cook in it.

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