10 Doctor Who Episodes We Were WAY Too Harsh On

If there's any story that could hold the undesirable title “the episode that killed Doctor Who”, it’s 1984’s Warriors of the Deep. Infamously, BBC One controller Michael Grade used a scene involving the episode’s Myrka monster as evidence of why the series was past its prime and deserving of cancellation.

And the thing is… you can see why.

Doctor Who might have a reputation for wobbly sets and bubble-wrap monsters, but the Myrka is, even by '80s Who standards, quite rubbish, and impossible to take seriously. And the less said about someone trying to karate-kick it to death, the better. The rest of the production design doesn’t fare much better, with the script’s leaky, dangerous undersea base being primarily realised as bland white corridors.

Looking past the production design however, and there are still elements worth appreciating in Warriors of the Deep. Contrasting the tensions of the Cold War with the armies of the Silurians and the Sea Devils is engaging, while the Doctor’s final, melancholic statement that “there should have been another way” is one of the best endings of any Fifth Doctor story.

Sure, it has its problems, and I'm not trying to claim that it’s some ignored masterpiece on the levels of The Caves of Androzani. But it’s also not as irredeemably bad as something like The Twin Dilemma, and it’s at least worth another watch before dismissing it.