| Doctor Who - Beneath The Surface (Doctor Who And The Silurians / The Sea Devils / Warriors Of The Deep) | 
 enlarge | Actors: Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison
Studio: BBC Warner
Category: DVD
List Price: $59.98
Buy New: $39.99
You Save: $19.99 (33%)
New (31) Used (5) from $37.61
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 6452
Format: Box Set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Subtitled), English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 4
Running Time: 419
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.4 x 1.9
MPN: 1000038389
UPC: 883929016839
EAN: 0883929016839
ASIN: B0013XZ6T8
Release Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new. Still in original shrinkwrap. Fast shipping!
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Product Description
All three classic battles with the Silurians and the Sea Devils! Doctor Who and the Silurians Exiled to Earth and now working for UNIT as their scientific advisor the Doctor is summoned to an underground research center at Wenley Moor to investigate a series of inexplicable power losses. Initially suspecting sabotage he soon discovers that the nearby cave system conceals a colony of an ancient race called the Silurians. Awaking from a hibernation which has lasted millions of years they are now planning to reclaim the Earth from humankind. The Sea Devils Arrested after the events at Devils End the Master has been incarcerated at a top security prison on a remote island off the south coast of England. When the Doctor and Jo Grant pay a visit to their old enemy they find him a reformed character. But can the spate of mysterious shipping accidents and garbled reports of sea monsters in the local area really be a coincidence? The Doctor soon finds himself pitted against the Sea Devils an ancient race of reptile intent on eliminating humankind and reclaiming the Earth for themselves. Warriors of the Deep Earth 2084. Two global superpowers hover on the brink of war. When the TARDIS is forced to make an unplanned visit to Sea Base Four the Doctor Tegan and Turlough find themselves accused of being enemy agents. Quickly embroiled in a deadly game of paranoid intrigue it becomes clear that others on the base have sabotage and murder in mind. However there is a greater threat to humankind: the Silurians and Sea Devils prehistoric reptiles seeking to reclaim the Earth. Can the Doctor prevent them from implementing their ?final solution? and triggering a war that could wipe out the entire human race?Running Time: 419 min.System Requirements:Running Time: 97 mins Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 883929016839 Manufacturer No: 1000038389
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
This planet ain't big enough for... August 5, 2008
BENEATH THE SURFACE is one box-set that contains three stories -- three distinct takes on a simple, basic premise. The idea behind all of them is that a race of reptiles evolved into a superior intelligence on Earth, long before the dawn of man. Forced into a state of advanced hibernation millions of years ago, these beings have awoken in the present day and are shocked and outraged by the presence of humans all over the planet they perceive to belong to them.
The story begins in the Jon Pertwee era with a script that the production team originally conceived of as a reaction against the Doctor's exile being dominated entirely by extraterrestrial invasion and mad scientist stories. Malcolm Hulke's script for DOCTOR WHO AND THE SILURIANS does a great job of portraying the Silurians as intelligent creatures who view humanity as nothing more than a nuisance. Humans who survive encounters with the monsters living in the caves are driven mad with primeval fear. The Doctor must work as a neutral third party to prevent a war that would have large casualties on both sides, a theme that repeats itself throughout the three stories.
The second serial is THE SEA DEVILS. Produced two years after the previous story, the sequel concerns the underwater cousins to the Silurians. Ships are going missing, and with help from the Doctor's foe, the Master, the Sea Devils are gathering their strength. This story tones down the horror aspects but adds a very successful action/adventure flavor. The inclusion of Roger Delgado's Master is always a welcome bonus.
The third of the trilogy is far and away the weakest entry. Twelve years later, the Doctor Who production team presents us with WARRIORS OF THE DEEP which attempts to recreate the moral quandaries that existed in the originals, but totally fails to deliver any depth. In the story, the two sets of Earth Reptiles join forces to recapture the Earth, yet the plot misses the heart of the past serials. Bad production values and painfully static battle sequences leave us with a story that lacks everything that made the two earlier entries great.
As with previous Doctor Who DVD releases, the extras are extremely comprehensive. Each story has a making-of documentary which details both the script writing processes and the physical production. Each story has two commentaries (an audio featuring a mixture of cast and crew, and a textual, production notes commentary), which in all cases are a fine balance of informational and entertaining.
As a fan, I had a great time. First, I watched the stories (for the first time in a long time). Then I watched the documentaries. Then I rewatched the episodes with the commentaries enabled. This was a lot of fun. With three different types of storytelling here, there should be something for every fan.
2 out of 3 ain't bad July 28, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
We get 2 gems from the Pertwee era and one of the Davison era's weakest. The Silurians really set the stage for the 70s in Doctor Who. A monster story like this from the 60s would have had the monsters be evil and the Doctor eagerly destroying them. Malcolm Hulke often had no real bad guys in his stories, just groups in conflict with different points of view. The Doctor tries to make the peace between Silurians and humans but is thwarted by distrusting members of both sides. A very progressive view fitting into the Doctor's late 60s/early 70s setting. The part with the Silurian disease spreading thru the populace was the most frightening. The Silurians are a bit disappointing as monsters but are wisely kept in shadow in the first half. 7 parts are at least one too many, be ready for slow going by today's standards. The ending is amazing, how often does the Doctor lose?
The Sea Devils goes over the same ground but in a more light hearted vein. Barry Letts had softened the show in the 2 years since the Silurians so when the Doctor meets their cousins here, not as hesitiant or preachy. The Master adds a lot to the story as does the British Navy. If it wasn't for freebies like the Navy's OK for use of their ships & bases, so many Doctor Who episodes would be all cheap looking studio work. Pretty much an action romp and a fun ride.
Warriros of the Deep is the turkey here. The epitome of bad Doctor Who. I think it's not so bad, the script has lots of promise. They were just too ambitious and very rushed on the job. I like Davison as the Doctor and think he's underrated. The Silurians and Sea Devils come off much weaker here and different from their eariler appearences. The sea base is overly lit and has no atmosphere, the Myrka creature is laughable and on screen too long, the battle scenes have no sense of drama or danger, the Doctor conveniently finds anti-reptile gas, everyone but our regulars die off by the end. They did better later in this season with Resurrection of the Daleks. Here, the closing line says it all..."there should have been another way."
Overall, a good purchae for hard core Doctor Who fans, even WOTD is worth it for extras and audio commentaries from the cast about how bad it all was.
 The aliens were here first July 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Several times on the bonus material for "Doctor Who and the Silurians", then-script editor Terrance Dicks explains the origins for that story's eponymous villain. With the Doctor exiled to Earth and the TARDIS disabled, Dicks was told by one of his writers that the show was now limited to just two story types: alien invasion, and mad scientist. Realizing he was painted into a corner, Dicks decided to invert the scenario by commissioning an alien invasion from a species that was already on Earth before man rose to prominence.
Thus was born the Silurians, the memorable (and mis-named) villains that recurred on "Doctor Who" enough times to fill out their own box set. The opening story, from 1970, is the longest and most intriguing: a team of scientists in the caves under Derbyshire inadvertently awaken a hibernating reptilian species that had been asleep for tens of millions of years. First in secret and then in the open, the Silurians attack not only the scientists but then all of mankind. From a low-key opening episode, the stakes escalate until the world is threatened by an Ebola-type virus in part six.
"Silurians" was Malcolm Hulke's first solo contribution to the series (he'd previously co-authored two Second Doctor episodes) and he became a mainstay of the Third Doctor's run on the show. DVD extra features are strong: the deepest audio commentary booth to date (seven show contributors rotate in and out) provides tons of insights; guest actor Geoffrey Palmer narrates a terrific documentary that compares the relatively gentle pace of the 1970 serial to today's more condensed and frenetic adventures. This choice of narrator is brilliant, to coin a phrase: not only did Palmer guest-star in a recent new "Who" episode, but his son also directed four episodes last season.
The second story, "The Sea Devils", is Hulke's sequel to the earlier story, featuring the inadvertent revival of a marine cousin to the Silurians. This is a far more action packed episode: the Doctor and the Master have a lengthy swordfight in episode two, and the cooperation of the Royal Navy leads to several land and sea combat sequences in the closing installments. There's a submarine subplot, and two comedy sequences that have since been duplicated in new "Who": the Master captivated by a children's television programme, and the Doctor and Jo staging a lengthy mime sequence through a plate-glass window.
The "Sea Devils" bonus features are highlighted by an unusual commentary booth: Dicks, producer Barry Letts, and show director Michael Briant exchange the usual compliments and potshots, but this time they're joined by Andrew Cartmel, the show-runner for "Doctor Who"'s final three seasons. Cartmel's run was characterized by tight internal continuity and very little navel-gazing into the series' past: to have him discuss a story nearly 20 years before his time gives fascinating insight into the type of "Who" he later chose to produce.
The final DVD, "Warriors of the Deep", comes from much later in series history (it opens the Fifth Doctor's final season in 1984) and has aged the least gracefully of the three stories. This time, there's no debate on whether or not the Silurians and Sea Devils can co-exist with the human upstarts, they're just out on a highly effective seek-and-destroy mission. There's hardly a smile to be had in 90 minutes, and the only survivor among the large guest cast does so impliedly and offscreen. Ingrid Pitt, the queen of horror flicks, has a thankless small role which doesn't allow her to exchange so much as a word of dialogue with the Doctor; her exit from the show was later derided by writer Johnny Byrne on an Internet newsgroup as "the mother of all drop-kicks".
The extras for "Warriors" are perhaps harsher than they need to be. Everyone involved in production -- director, writer, actors, visual effects designer -- shows up to get their kicks in. "Warriors" was one of my first stories as a young fan in 1984 and I'm sorry to see the story hasn't matched my memories; however, having everyone involved throw stones at it 25 years later is perhaps a bit much.
On the whole, though, the box-set features the entire Silurians/Sea Devils running story, with two classic Doctors and a boatload of moral dilemmas. Even if the best material comes at the beginning of the set, it's still a fascinating release.
 Okay stories, but a must have for collectors July 7, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
These were not my favourite stories from the Doctor Who series, the Silurians and Sea Devils are the typical low budget hokey nemisis to Doctor's 3 and 5, but I'm still glad to add them to my dvd collection. Can't wait for the coming story arcs in August involving Tom Baker and Louise Jameson as the Doctor and Leela, and hopefully they'll come out with the 13 part "Trial of a Timelord" starring the notorious Colin Baker as Doctor #6 in the coming years.
"These creatures aren't just animals, they're an alien life form, as intelligent as we are." June 22, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Doctor Who can be a pretty deep show sometimes. And that goes for the three stories in this aptly named box-set both in the usual figurative sense and quite literally as well. That is, the unifying element in "Doctor Who and the Silurians" (1970), "The Sea Devils" (1972), and "Warriors of the Deep" (1984) is one of the most creatively imaginative set of antagonists the show has seen in its long history, and they antagonize from the depths of the earth and sea. The eponymous Silurians, that is, along with their equally eponymous semi-aquatic branch, the Sea Devils--a highly advanced and civilized race of reptilians that evolved on Earth long before we did, went into suspended animation underground and undersea to weather what they predicted to be a global catastrophe, and then overslept a bit until the technological advances of the mammalian hominids who evolved in their absence awoke them again. All three times they seek to retake the planet that once was theirs, each time the Doctor tries to broker a peaceful compromise between the two feuding sets of Earthlings, and each time mutual suspicion, xenophobia, and itchy trigger fingers prevail over the Doctor's voice of reason and compromise. Each story too invokes this complicated moral dilemma with cold war allegorical overtones within the confines of a thoroughly enjoyable science fiction thriller.
Each also has its own particularities too, of course. "Doctor Who and the Silurians" gets the whole concept going and is the strongest of the three storywise. Only the second story of the third Doctor's tenure (as expertly played by Jon Pertwee), it also starts establishing several key motifs of that era, including the Earthbound Doctor's characteristically eccentric vintage car. "The Sea Devils" takes the concept two years later and jazzes it up with more action and greater scale while complicating matters with the presence of the Doctor's Time Lord nemesis, the Master, who seeks to foment strife and discord quite as much as the Doctor seeks to defuse it. All of this has the slight drawback of simplifying the story to a slight degree, but the overall result is a delightfully quintessential sample of the Pertwee era. "Warriors of the Deep" attempts more than a decade later to update the concept and develop it further--a valiant attempt that due to a few errors of judgment as well as circumstances beyond anyone's control ends up falling far short. This is definitely the weakest link of the three, but it has some redeeming qualities (the model work and set design for the Silurian submarine and Sea Devil hibernation chamber are superb, for instance) and in any case it's one of those the fans love to hate, which is a distinction of sorts anyway.
Extras are never the deal-breaker with me (I consider them indeed extra), but the ones on these discs deserve special mention. The "Silurians" includes "What Lies Beneath", a highly informative and interesting look at the social history underlying the story as well as an examination of the manner in which it met the expectations of its time and addressed issues of immediate concern, considerably deepening the contemporary viewer's appreciation of this classic in the process. There is also an intriguing behind-the-scenes take on the extremely experimental music featured in the two Pertwee stories--Doctor Who was pioneering the real future sound of London, playing with bizarre soundscapes and electronic harmonies way ahead of its time. For its part, "Warriors" includes "The Depths" wherein everybody from the writer and the key actors onwards has a good time ripping on this poor beleaguered tale--most extras include nothing but hype and hyperbole, only the Doctor Who crew has the guts to reflect at length on their own fumbles and have a good laugh doing so.
In any case, this is overall a fine DVD set of classic Doctor Who storylines scattered in time but highlighting one of the show's more inventive concepts together with its later permutations. And for the obsessive-compulsive fans such as myself, each of the three stories is in a separate, self-contained case so that they can be taken out of the box and placed in chronological order with one's other Doctor Who DVDs if one so chooses. Getting them together as a set is still the more convenient and frugal option, of course, unless one has a particular interest in only one of the three. In that case, they can be purchased singly as well:
1. Doctor Who and the Silurians (Episode 52)
2. Doctor Who - The Sea Devils (Episode 62)
3. Doctor Who: Warriors of the Deep (Story # 131)
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