It’s time to head under the sea to the lost city of Atlantis and the machinations of the insane, Professor Zaroff.
Watch the existing episodes 2 and 3 and reconstructed episodes 1 and 4 on BBC iPlayer:
Or watch the animated version on the official DVD or steelbook:
Rate and review the story below:
I think it was the first recon I watched and found it so hard to focus, then rewatched it with the animation recently and still didn’t like it unfortunately.
I unashamedly love this serial. I wish all the episodes existed, because I’d love to see how they filmed episode 4.
I remember how jarring going from the animation to the live action was for me on this one, because the animated designs were very different.
Love Professor Zaroff, but not my favorite serial.
I’m watching the animated version, 1 episode in. I did check my watch, “this is still the first episode?” So yeah, not going great so far.
I watched this kind of recently and wrote this:
Completed. I liked the character & locations designs but other than that. Just an episode of Doctor Who I will not remember or think about watching again.
Mediocre tbh
So, it’s not good but it is fun in a dumb b-movie sort of way.
I actually quite like Zaroff as a villain and the fish people are great in concept just made in the 60s on a BBC budget.
It’s biggest downfall is pacing - this story drags in the second half but it’s definitely not the worst thing ever made.
6/10
While it doesn’t break any new ground, it is a rather well done serial. Admittedly, my impression is based on the Animated Variation, but it’s still a solid little story nonetheless.
3.5/5
Never much gelled with this one unfortunately. Zaroff was fun and Troughton was on fire as per, but I literally can barely remember a single other detail other than the fish people stuff.
My overriding memory of this story is of first encountering it via the novelisation. It was one of the first I ever read and I remember not really knowing who the companions were and getting confused with Ben and Jamie and Sean and Jacko. I’m pretty sure that for some of it I thought Sean was a companion.
The animated version is good, even if it does take creative liberties. I’m not against that in the animations because I see them as a separate entity - bit like the novelisations don’t always adhere to the original story. If you want accuracy, you’ve got two full episodes and telesnap recons for that. But, I do think this animation maybe, just maybe takes things a tiny bit too far with the expanse of the sets and I do think some of the scenes look a bit bare because of it, with only a few characters standing around massive ‘sets’.
I really like this one. Is this one a very compelling Narrative? No. Is it very stupid? Yeah, but it’s the entertaining stupid.
This Serial is to me 60s Doctor Who doing a B-Movie and doing it quite well, because it’s just really entertaining. Professor Zaroff is such an overacted Character, and I am all for it. His Cliffhanger around Episode 3 is iconic for a Reason. Similarly, we are continuing the Path of ‘Throughton being a silly total Menace’, which he does very well.
The Setting itself is realized quite well for the most Part, I don’t really have anything to complain with it, it gets its Job done and is charming.
I think this Serial is a bit of an Improvement in terms of Polly, she feels much more like herself, similarly I really enjoyed the Chemistry between Ben & Jamie in this one. While the Sidecast is by no means anything to write home about, they still are memorable enough.
The Animation of this Story is sadly a fairly weak one. While the Colors look gorgeous, and it really gives this Story a ‘Saturday-Morning Cartoon’ Touch to it, I feel like the Sets were expanded too much. Similarly, it takes plenty of creative Liberties, which is fine, but sadly doesn’t mix well with the existing Episodes. There is also the lightning, which sadly feels non-existing here and takes away a lot from the Story.
The Character Movement is quite good on the other Hand, just sadly doesn’t save the animated Version for me from being a bit disappointing.
I love how this dvd hasn’t got a good release yet still holding out hope for a good version one day but that’s probably not likely