Line #31 Recap/DoctorWhoS15E5Underworld


1	[[WMG:[[center:[-''[[Series/DoctorWho Doctor Who]]'' [[Recap/DoctorWho recap index]]\
2	'''Fourth Doctor Era'''\
3	'''Season 15:''' [[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E1HorrorOfFangRock 1]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E2TheInvisibleEnemy 2]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E3ImageOfTheFendahl 3]] \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E4TheSunMakers 4]] \| '''5''' \| [[Recap/DoctorWhoS15E6TheInvasionOfTime 6]]\
4	'''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E1TheMasqueOfMandragora <<< Season 14]]''' \| '''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS16E1TheRibosOperation Season 16 >>>]]''']]-]]]
5	!Underworld
6	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/underworld_8002.jpg]]
7	[[caption-width-right:350:Jason and the Argonauts: The Next Generation]]
8	->Written by Bob Baker and Dave Martin\
9	Directed by Norman Stewart\
10	'''Production code:''' 4Y\
11	'''Air dates:''' 7 - 28 January 1978\
12	'''Number of episodes:''' 4
13
14	->''"The Quest is the Quest!"''
15	-->-- Various '''Minyans'''
16
17	JustForFun/TheOneWith lots of bluescreening.
18
19	The end result of the former showrunner Creator/PhilipHinchcliffe [[WriterRevolt getting even with the higher-ups in retaliation for being kicked out of the saddle]] by devouring the show's budget last season, ''Underworld'' is perhaps the most infamous case of NoBudget on the classic series. Without the funds to create sets, most of the scenes portrayed in it are almost entirely reliant on GreenScreen effects. The end result? What remains today one of the most hysterically shoestring stories of the original run.
20	----
21
22	The TARDIS lands on a spaceship, the [=R1C=], commanded by a man named Jackson. He and his Minyan crew are on a quest to recover their "race banks" from another ship, the [=P7E=], which left a hundred thousand years ago to form a new colony. The Time Lords, who are seen as Gods by the Minyans, shared a form of regeneration with them but left when the Minyans turned on them. Jackson's ''quite'' surprised to see a God suddenly standing in the middle of his spaceship, but the team doesn't have time to be surprised, as the [=R1C=] is buried by a meteor storm. Rocks gather around the spaceship's gravitational field, instantly forming the beginnings of a planet. The Doctor helps them escape, and they crash into another small planet just as the serial's budget runs out.
23
24	Investigating the planet, the Doctor and Leela are awkwardly projected onto a model background and find a system of caves that leads to the [=P7E=], long ago buried by asteroids. The [=P7E=]'s computer, Oracle, has gone insane and rules over the survivors of the Minyan crew with the aid of the robotic Seers. It allows Jackson to take the race banks, but the Doctor realises that they are just fakes, primed with fission grenades. The Doctor herds the [=P7E=]'s descendants into the [=R1C=] and gives Jackson a rather grand WhatTheHellHero speech for considering the quest more important than the actual people the quest was all about. After that, Four tricks Oracle into allowing him to take the real race banks, meanwhile returning the fakes via the Seers. The resulting explosion destroys the [=P7E=] and propels the [=R1C=] off on its voyage to Minyos II with the [=P7E=]'s survivors.
25
26	!!Tropes
27
28	* AgonyBeam: Herrick is tortured for information using an AgonyBeam. And a mind reader, apparently.
29	* AIIsACrapshoot: Oracle is quite megalomaniacal and delusional, at one point claiming to have created itself from nothing.
30	* ArtisticLicencePhysics: Most physics in this story depends on a rather substantially overestimated gravitational constant.
31	* AsteroidThicket: Now with added gravity!
32	* BeneathTheEarth: The reason for the story's title, rather than, well, TheUnderworld.
33	* BigBad: The Oracle.
34	* BuriedAlive: Jackson fears this will happen when the spaceship first starts to attract rocks.
35	* BriarPatching: A light variation. The Doctor engineers the return of the false race bank containers to the Oracle; he carries them with him through the caverns and allows himself to be caught by one of the guards, who, at laser-point, forcefully takes them. Thankfully for the Doctor, the guard is too full of hubris to be convinced.
36	--> '''The Doctor:''' You're making a terrible mistake. Those are the wrong ones.\
37	'''Guard:''' ''[confidently laughs]'' You can do better than that, Doctor.
38	* CargoCult: Like in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E4TheFaceOfEvil The Face Of Evil]]", the descendants of a crashed spaceship ended up worshipping their own technology.
39	* ColdBloodedTorture: Herrick is tortured to get the truth out of him.
40	* ColdEquation: The spaceship doesn't have enough fuel to carry all the P7E slaves, so Jackson decides to throw them all out. Thankfully, the Doctor manages to convince him to keep them on-board when he points out that all of the slaves are Jackson's people, the descendants of the people that went on the mission to find a new world.
41	* ContinuityNod: [[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E3TheMythMakers The Doctor claims not to have come up with the idea of the Trojan Horse]].
42	* DeadlyGas: Used to "fumigate" an area of tunnel where a dissident is thought to be hiding.
43	* DeathIsCheap: Each of the Minyans has regenerated thousands of times.
44	* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: The Minyan commander says "The quest is the quest" two or three times per episode.
45	* EarthShatteringKaboom: Two nuclear bombs are enough to blow the quite young and not really stable planet to bits.
46	* EnergyWeapon: The weapons used are lasers combined with particle beams.
47	* FaceDeathWithDignity: When it turns out there's no escape, Oracle decides that its death is really only its own fault and calmly gives up.
48	* FacelessGoons: The guards, although they look perfectly normal underneath the hoods. When the Seers are unmasked though, their faces don't actually look like faces.
49	* GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul: Leela and another character are about to fight, but a guard shoots them with a "pacifier" gun. Apparently the effects of the ray are to make people happy, so they stop fighting.
50	* AGodAmI: Both the computer and the Time Lords.
51	* GodIsEvil: This is how the Minyans view their Gods, at least. And the Time Lords are their Gods...
52	* GracefulLoser: After having spent the previous episode chewing on the scenery, the Oracle resigns itself to destruction with surprising dignity.
53	* GravitySucks: Played straight and then inverted when it is the [=R1C=] itself that is exerting too much gravitational force on its surroundings, sucking in smaller objects and becoming the core of a new planet.
54	* HeroicSacrifice: Attempted by Herrick, but the Seers refuse to kill him.
55	* HumanSacrifice: Played with. The sacrifices aren't being made to appease some god, but to keep the slaves in check.
56	* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The computer is blown up by its own bombs.
57	* KickThemWhileTheyAreDown: The Seer does this to Herrick to verify he's alive for ColdBloodedTorture.
58	* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: The Minyans' guns are mounted on shields which also reflect beam attacks.
59	* MadeASlave: Most of the people on the planet are enslaved to labour. They think the "sky falls" (tunnel collapses) are done to keep their number low, just enough to labour.
60	* NegativeSpaceWedgie: The spiral nebula at the beginning of the first episode.
61	* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: The Doctor refuses to abandon the slaves to die.
62	* OhCrap: "Two-thousand megatons?!"
63	* OneWordTitle
64	* PragmaticVillainy: The Seers actually work out early in the final episode that the race banks don't really serve any useful purpose to them, and that they might as well just hand them over and let the Minyans go on their way. However, the Oracle defies this trope and tries to dupe the Minyans into taking some explosives, leading to fatal consequences for those aboard the [=P7E=] when the Doctor turns the scheme back on them.
65	* TheQuest Is The Quest
66	* Really700YearsOld: Each of the Minyans is about 100,000 years old.
67	* ReverseThePolarity: Justified in dealing with the DeadlyGas:
68	-->'''The Doctor''': What is blown can be sucked.
69	* SarcasticConfession: The Doctor goes back to the planet to get rid of the fake race banks, which are actually bombs. He travels all the way back to where he can get captured again (rather than just leaving them on the surface) so it's obvious that he planned to have them taken from him, yet when forced to give them up, he explains that they are really bombs. "You can do better than that..." replies a villain and confiscates them. The bombs blow up the planet, of course.
70	* ShoutOut: Part one was broadcast only a few days after ''Series/BlakesSeven'' debuted. Composer Dudley Simpson worked on both shows and, according to the DVD production notes, snuck a reference to the theme music into the score for "Underworld".
71	* SlowLight: The laser-guided particle beams go barely faster than walking speed. It's practically a wonder anyone gets hit with them.
72	* SufficientlyAdvancedAliens: The Time Lords are this to the Minyans.
73	* TechnologyUplift: The Time Lords to the Minyans in the backstory.
74	* TrojanHorse: The Doctor and Leela hide in a minecart, referencing the myth of Troy. Then the Oracle uses the same trick, disguising bombs as the data cylinders.
75	* WeWantOurJerkBack: The Doctor quickly gets irritated by calm peaceful Leela, and eggs her on, bringing her back to her familiar savage self.
76	* WholePlotReference: To the quest for the Golden Fleece. The Doctor explains the whole thing to Leela after he accidentally called Jackson "Jason".
77	* YouShallNotPass: When the crew are being chased by the guards, Herrick stays behind to let the others escape.

Context Recap / DoctorWhoS15E5Underworld