"Oi."
The Daleks grunt their way out of the sand to Austin Powers music.
The native people of the planet in all their fishy glory. It turns out that this was once an oceanic planet and the native Arridians lived in cities beneath the sea. The planet drifted closer to the two suns and the seas boiled off . The only thing left were the Arridians and the mire beasts which are pretty much sand octopi.
The Daleks are really annoying in this one. They end up getting a fair amount of screen time and most of what they do is talk. The menace that they had in their two previous stories isn't anywhere to be seen in this one.
In this episode we discover that the Dalek guns can't harm the TARDIS and that people can easily dodge them by stepping aside.
I'll give credit to the regular cast, especially Jacqueline Hill, they sell the menace of the Daleks better than the Daleks themselves. Vicki also deserves a mention for saying "oi" over 20 years before Ace does.
The Arridians are a bit ambitious as Doctor Who aliens go. In addition to the leotards that I think got packed away for The Underwater Menace, the Arridian costume included full facial makeup, a cowl and a dorsal fin running from the top of the head to the top of their aquatic buttocks. The actors playing them tried to add swimming movement to their hand gestures. Quiet a lot of effort for an alien that appears in only one episode.
Next up: Flight Through Eternity
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