This story is generally perceived to be the weakest of the Troughton Era. I'm not quite so sure if it is as The Highlanders and possibly The Dominators sure give it some competition.

I can see why it would be regarded as such. Like The Highlanders, it is still very atypical of the Troughton Era and compared to some of the Classics of the following Season it really does fall by the wayside.

Watching episode 3 and listening to the audio of this story, I can feel this isn't as strong as some of the other stories of this era. It seems Troughton was still working of some of the earliest excesses of his role by continuing his love of disguises. I love the way The Doctor continues to wind up Professor Zaroff, who is possibly one of the most outrageous villains in the show's history, especially with that accent and the famous' Nothing in ze world can stop me now.' speech at the end of Part 3.

Ben and Jamie are definitely into some serious dialogue sharing in this one and Polly seems to be reasonably busy in this one though the headware isn't exactly fetching.......

Overall I do like this story but it does fall flat in places and even though I'm not so sure it is the worst Troughton story, it certainly isn't far off.

I think this one is a lot of good fun but not to be taken seriously. It has the feel of the old Flash Gordon serials, which I enjoy a great deal. Can't wait to see the restored Episode 2.

One weakness in the story, I thought, was at the end when the new leaders of the Atlantean society suddenly decided that as a tribute to the Doctor they should have no temple and no gods. That came a bit out of nowhere, as the Doctor had never gone about trying to preach atheism to them and their religion must have had older and deeper roots before it was hijacked by Zaroff. But as I say, on the whole this one is fun if you don't try to make it too meaningful. The moment where the Irishman is distressed to see an English police box on the beach is a nice gag.

The soundtrack CD bored me a bit, but I am very keen to see the recently recovered episode.

There's so much that's just ignored. The Doctor wins Zaroff's interest by claiming to have a big secret that Dr with tell Z, but then that it totally forgotten. There are a few "dead ends" like this.

The LC recon really gives you a view of this story in a new light.

Of course its bad rep is based on the 1 existing episode and little else. However there is a decent story underneath it all.

I would certainly rank it higher than most of Season 6, Wheel in Space, Highlanders and Macra.

I think this is one of those stories where you do need to watch the surviving episodes to get a real flavour of it. It's quite a visual story, like with the various costumes the regulars wear, the temple and that sequence in part 3 with the Fish people swimming about would be hard to imagine by just listening to the CD.

Also looking forward to watching the recently discovered episode to see if it's as good as the 3rd episode.

Looking forward to the discovered episode. As episode 3 is a bit of a unispiring unmemorable episode, perhaps it's because it's the 3rd out of a 4 parter.
Not much comes to mind, the fish people are a weird. The set is quite good as in they've made a good stab at creating a realistic enough setting. There is little pace to this episode, then again I haven't listened to the audios of the other episodes to get a context.

get the feeling the recent recovery has changed opinion of this story with some people.

Jamie didn't many lines due to the fact that he join last min

I'm not going to rewatch/listen to this one until the newly found episode has been released so I can only go on hazy memories. But unlike a lot of people I was pretty impressed by the 'underwater ballet' scene. That was a novel and brave sequence to include in an episode of doctor Who and I found it very effectve in establishing the 'otherness' of the underwater race. Doctor Who could have done with being a little more weird at times.

Patrick Troughton is incredible in the clip we have seen from the returned episode. His Doctor really was close to the edge; a dangerous character. I don't like the Doctor to seem unimpeachably virtuous or too cuddly. He should have a dangerous edge to him, where his eccentricities (as we see him here goading Zaroff) could be potentially disastrous, rather than merely being harmless affectations. But it's those dangerous qualities, his roguish personality that also makes him so amazngly effective.

That's what I really like about the Second Doctor. Not everything was as it seemed on the surface. Under the easy going facade was something else and it fooled many an adversary, you always underestimated him at your peril.

Its really interesting to read everyone's comments on this one. Rented the Lost in Time DVD yesterday and its really hard to judge on one episode but I did think tbh at the end oh dear !

Norrmally a good story can make you turn a blind eye to some bad acting or dodgy effects but episode 3 feels a bit clichéd. The rest of the actors seems fine but whoever hired Joseph Furst
deserves rotten tomotoes thrown at him. He is so awful "Help me to stand at your sides so I may feel ze aura of your goodness!" The script obviously needed some more development.

I didn't mind the fish people too much but The ballet was a bit embarrassing for me and it reminded me as some else said of Flash Gordon or a Saturday morning B Movie vibe in places..

From the surviving clips however I do like the episode one cliff hangar with Polly threatened with a needle and actually seeing Patrick Troughton dressed as a gipsy is quite fun.

"Help me to stand at your sides so I may feel ze aura of your goodness" ... a chat-up line that has never failed, where I am concerned.

Lol

Almost three years to the day I first saw this story and this wasn't a story I was looking forward to revisiting really.

I think through a mixture of audios, episodes and recons I've got a better sense of the story than last time and much like The Web Planet the ideas are ambitious of fish people, a city under the sea. Probably too ambitious for the actual budget to show convincingly.

I gather Patrick Troughton didn't like this story due to the silly costumes but he does manager to elevate the story in his scenes through his energy in the role. When he does serious you feel as if he means every word and the comedy here is fun with all the gypsy costume ( although I don't want to see all the costumes continue too much longer saying that)

I stand by my comments up thread that the actors bar Joseph Furst are fine and I quite like some of the ideas of worshipping an idol and blind faith manipulated by ambition/ madness ( the idea was repeated in the Enemy of the World but is executed much better there ) but the story doesn't feel developed enough and. Joseph Hurst doesn't bring any subtlety to his performance.

On the plus side I liked episode 1 where the team were exploring together a lot and Polly looks lovely whatever costume she wears, Ben is a hottie of course and Jamie looks very good in rubber

I've enclosed the link to an Interview with Anneke Wills about the Underwater Menace

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xck...lls_shortfilms

Average story, but worth it alone for Troughton's innocent "What did I do?" reaction when he sabotages the machine. Golden.

The naff recon thingie that is on the DVD totally kills the story stone dead for me. I can't be doing with photo recons. That means that there's still two standalone episodes with nothing to support them. Such a shame. I think it will be a while before the DVD comes off the shelf ocne again and I am far more likely to go with the soundtrack CD.

Its not a bad little story.... I quite like it.

I suspect if we had the complete episodes, then peoples estimations of the story would go up.

Its silly, but fun...

The loose cannon recon you can find online is much better than the version we got on DVD. Shame it was never animated but at least we do now have episode 2 on DVD when it looked like we wouldn't.