Day 239 — August 27th 2021
Underworld Parts One and Two
Underworld — Part One
Underworld tends to be known as the story with the dodgy CSO work… even more than any other story which contains dodgy CSO work. That’s because for the first time, having dabbled with the idea earlier in the season with Part Three of The Invisible Enemy, they make the bold decision to replace full-size sets with models the cast have been superimposed into. It’s the most famous thing about this story, so I’m always surprised to remember that they don’t actually do that in this opening episode, which is entirely produced on real, full size sets.
And they’re pretty nice sets, too! The main bridge of the ship takes up the majority of the studio space and it’s got a pleasing sense of scale to it. Regular readers will know that I’m always a fan of doing a split-level in the set design, and this one really goes for it — the upper section of the bridge feels like a totally separate mezzanine rather than just a slightly raised area at the back. I even think it’s better realised than the split-level ship from Planet of Evil, which I praised to the heavens but sort of fell apart if any actor stood underneath the raised section and showcased just how low-down it actually was.
Being on proper sets doesn’t mean that this episode entirely escapes Underworld’s cursed CSO problem, though. The bridge is topped by a load of huge windows and some of the time we can see the effect of the planet forming outside, swirling ever larger as the ship is pulled in by the gravity. But then on several other occasions… you can’t see outside. All you can see is the green screen, and it looks like they’ve simply forgotten to key in the effect. I tried to be charitable early on and suggest to myself that perhaps they’re not windows but screens, and when they’re green they’re simply turned off. But then they raise the heat shields over them and you realise that, no, they’re absolutely windows.
I wonder if that could be fixed for the Blu-ray release? It should be a relatively easy task to key in the background image (says I, who has no real concept of the work involved), and while I don’t think it would do anything to drastically improve the episode, it would fix a distracting mistake and allow you to focus on the story instead of the big green patches.
Sadly the story itself isn’t up to much, and I was a bit bored throughout this episode. What I will say as a caveat to that is that there’s loads of really great moments and ideas scattered throughout the episode. I love K9’s ominous warning early on (‘we are not alone’), and there’s something oddly magical about the sound of the TARDIS being described as coming from ‘the time ships of the gods’. Since The Deadly Assassin I think the Time Lords have been massively weakened in stature — there’s a bit in The Sun Makers where the Collector’s computer is aware of but dismissive of them, which feels like the ultimate insult — so it’s exciting to see them given a bit of power and mystique back.
Even the idea of the crew on the ship spending time analysing the sound of the TARDIS feels like a fresh idea, and I honestly can’t remember that happening before. We’ve had people witness the TARDIS’ arrival before, but never study it quite like this. Then there’s little touches like the computer banks flashing in time with K9’s speech while he’s plugged into them, and the model shots are back to being brilliant after a blip last week. The opening shot of the spaceship is especially nice, although I’ll admit that the model of the TARDIS seen here, with little stuck-on windows peeling at the edges isn’t great.
But even with all this stuff to enjoy the whole episode feels a bit lifeless and drab. It boils down to a handful of people arguing about not very much, and I don’t think any of the actors feel particularly enthused by the material. Our regulars are on their usual fine form, but there’s no hint of the incredible extra spark Louise Jameson had during The Sun Makers. If that script fired her up and enthused her, then this one was just ‘another day at the office’.
I’m going with a 4/10 on this one.
Underworld — Part Two
D’you know, I think Part One might have lulled me into a false sense of security. Oh sure I moaned about it being dull and all the good ideas falling flat, but on the whole it didn’t look awful, and in spite of the missing CSO work I let myself relax a little too much. That sense of security didn’t last long into this episode. Early on we cut to a shot of extras running and screaming against a CSO cave system and it looks every bit as bad as everyone always says Underworld does. If anything, it might actually look slightly worse.
I jinxed things earlier this season by saying that they’ve largely overcome the issue of fringing in the CSO process by this stage, because it seems that since I made that comment the fringing has been back with a real vengeance. It’s especially noticeable in several shots from this episode, where half the characters appear to have a blue glow around their entire body.
Frequently when people move too quickly — especially the guards in their big heavy costumes — parts of their bodies vanish altogether, and they leave a trail of artefacts behind them when they exit the screen. Characters appear to vanish through solid rock in several places, and there’s a whole sequence where the crew of the ship walk across a rock in the foreground because they’ve not been masked off properly on the blue screen. All things considered, it’s a bit of a failed experiment.
And yet it’s hard to be totally down on them, because it is a very bold thing to try in 1978. Thirty years later this kind of thing was commonplace and broadly accepted as a means of production, but to attempt it here — and on a BBC budget — is something that you have to applaud the team for, even if they don’t quite pull it off. And as much as I complain about people not being correctly masked off, there are several places where they’ve done a really good job of it and people interact with rocks which aren’t there fairly successfully. You can see them trying at least, which I have to appreciate.
The poor effects with the CSO are offset somewhat by the model work in the opening minutes of this one. It’s fantastic — the spaceship continues to look brilliant but the effect of it crashing, flying through spark-filled smoke as a planet appears in the gloom, is genuinely top-tier. It’s a far better effect than I expected to find in this story.
I think the overall problems are compounded by the fact that this episode is really bloody boring. I only watched it twenty minutes ago and already I can’t really remember anything that happened. I know the ship crashed into a planet, there was some running around in caves, and Doctor Who got caught in a tunnel filling with noxious gasses, but is that it? It’s not a lot for 25 minutes.
I’m going with a 2/10, and moving swiftly on. The quest is the quest, after all…
One last thing I do want to touch on here — because I’ve been meaning to in several entries this week and I never find the time — is how much I dislike Doctor Who’s new scarf. It was introduced in Image of the Fendahl and makes a reappearance here, and it’s far too wide. It swamps Tom Baker, who frequently looks as though he’s drowning under the weight of it, and it just doesn’t look very good slung over his shoulder. Bring back the earlier, thinner, model!
