Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #319 in DVD
• Brand: BBC
• Released on: 2008-01-14
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 412 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Bringing together the trio of adventures featuring Doctor Who’s most famous underwater foes, the Beneath The Surface boxset has Sea Devils, Silurians, and adventures from both the Jon Pertwee and Peter Davison eras.

It’s perhaps logical to get past the weakest of the three adventures in this set first, and that honour falls to the Peter Davison story, Warriors of the Deep. It’s not too bad though, even if it does display some of the silliness and budget constraints that helped define 1980s Doctor Who. It’s still fun, however, and worth a spin.

The two Pertwee adventures are terrific, though, and the real highlights of the set. The Silurians finds Jon Pertwee relatively new to the role, and blessed with an adventure that boasts excitement, adventure and a very good script. But our favourite is nonetheless the second story, The Sea Devils, which also brings Roger Delgado’s take on The Master into the mix. It’s a tense, involving adventure, and one of the finest of the Jon Pertwee area. That’s not something to be said lightly, either.

As is the norm with Doctor Who special edition DVDs, the set is then backed up with some terrific archive extras, along with commentary tracks and documentaries that all but justify the asking price alone. That you get two strong adventures and one reasonable one into the mix as well makes this one of the best classic Doctor Who boxsets released to date. Highly recommended. --Simon Brew

DVD Description
All three "Silurians"/"Sea Devils" stories in one quality box set. Two classic stories starring Jon Pertwee as the third Doctor, plus a third story starring Peter Davison as the fifth Doctor.

Extras include three Commentaries, Isolated Music, Photo Galleries, Subtitles, Subtitle Production Notes and Radio Times billings. Plus trailers, "Making Of" Documentaries, Special Effects, Music, Location, and Restoration featurettes.

Synopsis
The BENEATH THE SURFACE COLLECTION brings together three feature-length DOCTOR WHO adventures. Includes 'The Sulurians', 'The Sea Devils' and 'Warriors Of the Deep'.

Customer Reviews

Two classc stories and one clunker - but still a first-rate set.
This is a collecton of three Dr Who stories, all linked by the presence of the Silurians and/or Sea Devils. The Silurians is an early Jon Pertwee tale which sees the Doctor (working for UNIT) investigating power failures at an underground research centre. Before long he has come across a race of intelligent reptile-people who once inhabited the Earth and have been revived from their age-old suspended animation. This is an example of Dr Who at its best - thought-provoking, intelligent, well-written, and with some serious issues to raise. In The Sea Devils, also with Jon Pertwee, the Doctor visits his old adversary the Master who is currently beng held in a high-security jail. However, it seems another prehistoric race, this one amphibious, have emerged from hibernation. Though this story sometimes drags, the Master is at his villainous, devious best and the overall tale is enjoyable and intriguing. Warriors of the Deep, made some years after the other two stories, stars Peter Davison. It involves both races of reptile-people attacking an undersea base in the future, attempting to start a war which will wipe out the human race. Promisng as this may have looked on paper, it's let down by shoddy producation values. The redesigned Silurians have unmoving, static faces and now speak in robotic monotones. The Sea Devils, though their clothes look great, have heads which wobble about and just look ridiculous. I won't even start on the Myrka, a 'powerful underwater beast' which in reality is a green pantomime horse-like creature which can only kill people if it falls on them. The floodlit sets and completely flat direction don't exactly help matters. And what exactly is the point of hiring actors who are good at playing hard-cases if they're going to be plastered in camp-looking make-up? In the end this was just a case "let's bring old monsters back for the sake of it". The best I can say about Warriors is that it's entertainingly bad.

To sum up, this set contains a classic, a goodie and a total howler. But the first two stories are great, and the wealth of extras including documentaries, commentries and the like make this well worth owning. A real piece of classc Dr Who history.

A Remarkable Achievement
The Silurians is a decent if rather tedious story, The Sea Devils is wonderful, but Warriors of the Deep is truly a remarkable achievement. It is remarkable because both the Silurian's and The Sea Devil's costumes look *far* worse than in either of the other programmes made over a decade earlier. Really, it's impossible not to laugh. At one point, we are also treated to a 'monster' that looks like a pantomime horse covered in green tinsel. This is particularly disappointing given that Warriors features Ingrid Pitt and Ian McCulloch, and was directed by Survivors stalwart, Pennant Roberts. What on earth were they thinking? It's not even bad in a good way. The Sea Devils is almost worth the price of the set alone, but I would expect someone to pay *me* to watch Warriors of the Deep!

All Hail The Pert Man!
Jon Pertwee's first season was his best, the stories were about 6-7 episodes long with a great intriguing story lines, I haven't seen the other two stories so my comment is for The Silurians story, it's worth the price alone, restored picture by the Doctor Who Restoration team completes the package, I recommend this along with Inferno & Spearheads From Space, both available on DVD, all hail the pert man, Jon Pertwee.