This week’s Doctor Who episode ‘Under the Lake’ hit all the notes of a traditional base-under-siege tale with plenty of running down corridors, as well as some terrific ghostly monsters.

While we wait for the concluding part, ‘Before the Flood’, here are five Doctor Who stories we’d recommend checking out if you liked ‘Under the Lake’…

 

‘Warriors of the Deep’ (1984)

If you enjoy a good underwater base, then the opening story from Peter Davison’s final season should be essential viewing. Set a hundred years in the future (from 1984), the Earth is divided into two Cold War power blocks.

The TARDIS materialises on Sea Base 4, a secret installation which has its finger on the trigger of nuclear weapons aimed at the enemy. Paranoid enough on their own, the stakes are raised by the arrival of a combined force of Silurian and Sea Devils, intent on reclaiming the planet for their own.

While the production is wildly over lit (certainly not a problem that ‘Under the Lake’ has!), and the less said about the infamous Myrka sea monster the better, it is a great story with the Doctor and friends fighting to stop all-out war.

 

‘The Impossible Planet’ / ‘The Satan Pit’ (2006)

If you revelled in that authentic base-under-siege feel, with corridors, jumps and scares, just check out pretty much all of Patrick Troughton’s second season. Alternatively, look no further than this terrifying two-parter from the middle of David Tennant’s first year.

The Tenth Doctor and Rose find themselves on an isolated space base under attack from a mysterious, devilish entity. With the supposedly docile Odd under the control of the beast, the crew are killed off one by one.

 

‘The Underwater Menace’ (1968)

Of course, the other famous sub-aquatic tale to mention is ‘The Underwater Menace’. This Second Doctor tale finds the TARDIS arriving on an extinct volcanic island and it is not long before her crew are captured and taken below, to Atlantis!

With fish people and a full-on mad professor, it is definitely one to grab when the DVD is finally released later this month – especially as it contains the last remaining unreleased episode from the BBC’s archive.

 

Continued on next page…