Doctor Who: 10 Special Effects That Totally Sucked

4. The Underworld Caves

Balancing the budget is a tricky thing, especially when the average budget for an episode of 1970s Doctor Who was only slightly larger than a child's dinner money. Already reeling from the dictate on high that his era of Who should have no scary bits, Graham Williams then manages to commission two scripts from Bob Baker and Dave Martin, a writing pair whose motto was 'break the budget'. In an attempt to make a increasingly cheap looking show look slightly less cheap, Williams decided to realise the caves of tale Underworld as CSO backgrounds (basically green screen) to give more budget elsewhere. As a story ruining exercise, Underworld isn't terminally affected as the script is already awful, with a plot cobbled together from Jason and the Argonauts and monsters that have gold thimbles for heads. However, that's not to say the effects of the caves aren't awful as they are, with fuzzy heroes wandering around what looks like the inside of a chocolate cake stirred with a candle. it would be OK if this only happened occasionally, but over half the story is set there. Underworld remains one of the poorest Doctor Whos there is.