Trivia / Doctor Who S21 E1 "Warriors of the Deep"

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• Actor-Inspired Element: It was Ingrid Pitt's idea for Solow to fight the Myrka. That said, she wanted a whole battle, but director Pennant Roberts felt this would be impossible as the crew were "having dreadful problems with the Myrka" (see Troubled Production) - hence they were only able to do a "feeble kick."
• Cast the Runner-Up:
  • Ian McCulloch was originally considered for Vorshak before being cast as Nillson.
  • Norman Comer was first booked to play Tarpok before being cast as Icthar.
• Creator Backlash: Everyone involved cites this as an example of how not to do a Doctor Who story.
  • Johnny Byrne was very unhappy with how the televised story turned out, from Eric Saward's re-writes to the design of the Seabase to the Myrka.
    Nowhere did I describe it (the Myrka) as a four-legged beast on loan from Panto-Horses-Are-Us.
    • He also stated that the base looked nothing as he envisioned it:
      I was very specific in my description of the base — rusting, leaking, virtually forgotten by all except those on board — the atmosphere and look was something like Alien with the Myrka essentially a lurking deadly presence waiting to reveal itself.
  • Pennant Roberts, who had previously directed four Tom Baker serials (including the unfinished "Shada"), would say of this story: "This is not Doctor Who, just one battle after another".
  • Peter Davison was also dissatisfied with the story.
  • BBC head Michael Grade hated this serial, screening the infamous karate-kicking scene to BBC executives upon taking the reins of the network as "proof" that the series has had better days.
• On-Set Injury:
  • Peter Davison contracted hypothermia from the stunt that required him to fall off a high bridge into a pool of water. Due to budget, they didn't heat the water and it was ice cold.
  • The actors in the Myrka costume, on which the paint hadn't dried, also reported becoming light-headed and dizzy from the fumes as they were effectively sniffing glue.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: Whilst Peter Davison was no doubt dissatisfied with this story, contrary to fan rumour it played no part in his decision to leave the show, which had been taken some time before filming on this season began.
• Recycled Script:
  • The plot bears striking similarities to "The Tenth Planet". Both feature the Doctor and his companions accidentally arriving at an isolated military base and being mistaken for spies, and in both stories the Doctor's warnings go unheeded until the base is besieged by an alien threat. In both there is a section of the story where the alien invaders seize the bridge and the Doctor is forced by circumstances to stand by without interfering for a time.
  • Johnny Byrne drew inspiration from the Space: 1999 episode "Guardian of Piri", which he script-edited.
• Stunt Casting: Hammer Horror veteran Ingrid Pitt as Doctor Solow. Her appearance is mostly memorable due to her character's death scene being one of most embarrassing moments in all of science fiction.
• Troubled Production: Margaret Thatcher announced an election and all the studio space was given to the coverage, meaning this serial lost two weeks of valuable production time, and thus most scenes were shot in one take and much of it was not even rehearsed. There were many rewrites, partially to remove or otherwise Bowdlerise political subtext that might influence the election, and partially due to Ian Levine, a meddling Promoted Fanboy obsessed with preventing Series Continuity Errors.^note Though at least some of Levine's concerns seem to have been justified, considering that writer Johnny Byrne was initially oblivious to the fact that the Silurians were originally from Earth and wrote them as just a bunch of generic invaders who intended to wipe out humanity For the Evulz. The Myrka costume was completed only half an hour before filming and the paint and glue on it weren't dry — it visibly smears on the sets as it staggers around, the actors inside the costume being light-headed from the fumes — so the director had begged to be allowed to ditch it. Peter Davison had No Stunt Double and got tossed into an ice-cold pool of water because the stunt arranger's request to use warm water hadn't been followed. Byrne wanted the base to be dark and the sets had been built with that in mind, but due to the fact that this was the first story to use 1-inch Type C videotape (replacing the old 2-inch Quadraplex tape), there were concerns over how the original intention would look, leading to the brightly lit sets that made it to screen.
  Pennant Roberts: Not the icing on the cake, but the lard on the bottom of the pan. ^note He said this to John Nathan-Turner during his unsuccessful attempt to ditch the troublesome Myrka costume
• What Could Have Been:
  • Steven Berkoff, BRIAN BLESSED, Martin Jarvis, Patrick Stewart, David Warner and Peter Wyngarde were considered for Vorshak.
  • Honor Blackman was considered for Solow.
  • Ian Holm, and Ian McKellen were considered for Nillson.
  • Helen Mirren and Catherine Schell were considered for Preston.
  • Paul Darrow, Bruce McCulloch, Stephen Rea and Donald Sumpter were considere for Bulic.
  • In the original script, Preston and Commander Vorshak survived the massacre at Seabase Four.
  • Doctor Solow and Preston were at first male, but Pennant Roberts changed their gender. This ended up indirectly resulting in the former's notorious death scene, as Solow was supposed to be an elderly man who was killed because he couldn't outrun the Myrka, but the casting of the much younger Ingrid Pitt (to say nothing of how lumbering and awkward the Myrka itself ended up) forced them to change things.
  • The Myrka was originally supposed to be just a much bigger and stronger Sea Devil. However, the production team did not feel that this was suitably impressive, and instead had it redesigned into a quadrupedal beast.
  • In Johnny Byrne's first draft script, the Silurians arrived on a spaceship from their home planet of Siluria, due to Byrne not realising they were supposed to be originally from Earth. In subsequent drafts, Siluria was changed to a planet colonised by Silurians who did not go into hibernation on Earth, before being dropped entirely from the final script.
• You Look Familiar: Ingrid Pitt had previously played Queen Galleia.

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