40. The Underwater Menace

“Just one small question. Why do you want to blow up the world?”

A carnival grotesque in which a Cold War scientist conducts an elaborate con in the lost city of Atlantis, The Underwater Menace (1967) was one of Doctor Who’s most obscure stories, but achieved national prominence when one of its three missing episodes was returned to the BBC in late 2011.

In this Black Archive James Cooray Smith looks under the surface to see if this unanticipated discovery demands a fundamental reassessment of this unusual serial, and asks if The Underwater Menace has hidden depths.

Published 6 April 2020.