On their way to show Tegan some of her future history, the TARDIS is attacked and has to make an emergency landing in an undersea military base, Sea Base Four. Tensions are running high at the base with endless drills for a possible nuclear confrontation. Within the base spies are attempting sabotage but worse still, from the murky depths of the sea, the Silurians have returned with their own agenda for mankind. As the two species confront each other their willingness to arbitrarily slaughter says more about their similarities than their differences...

To coincide with the BBC’s release of the Silurian themed Doctor Who DVD box set, Beneath the Surface, BBC audio has released audio versions of the same shows.

Warriors of the Deep features Peter Davison, as the fifth Doctor, Supported by Janet Fielding as Tegan and Mark Strickson as Turlough. The show was also notable for the inclusion of Tom Adams playing the base commander Vorshak, Ingrid Pitt as Solow and Ian McCulloch as Nilson. The show originally aired in 1984.

Given the problems that this show had with the budget, the rather dodgy costumes and special effects, this is a story which really benefits from being presented as an audio CD. This time you can close your eyes and imagine something really scary for the Myrka, rather than having to suffer the disquiet of seeing our heroes being menaced by a slow moving green panto-creature. The same holds true for slow moving Silurians and Sea Devils, both of which create a more menacing presence in audio only.

The audio is the same as that found on the DVD release with the addition of the delightful Janet Fielding providing the linking narration necessary to make the whole thing make sense.

The story presents all four of the episodes spread across two discs - the whole thing running to one hour and fifty minutes. As an added bonus there is a twelve-minute interview with Janet Fielding which, in truth, adds little to the extras, by way of information, found on the DVD. However, it still remains a nice little edition.

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Charles Packer