YMMV / Doctor Who S4 E5 "The Underwater Menace"

• Cliché Storm: To the point that the recovery of another episode was met with decidedly more mixed reactions that almost any other story would have gotten. Opinion has shifted as fans have seen the second episode. It's generally considered much better than Episode 3, and improves Episode 3 by adding much-needed context.
• Fan Nickname: Because of the serial's notoriously shoddy production, it's sometimes referred to by fans as "Plan 9 from Doctor Who".
• Just Here for Godzilla: With an incredibly silly plot even by the normal standards of the series, poor production and the fact that two of the four episodes are lost, many fans watch this serial just to see the amusing villain Zaroff.
• Ham and Cheese: Most fans (and the cast and crew) find the story hokey, nonsensical and generally stupid, but Joseph Fürst played Zaroff so outrageously over-the-top and with so much Chewing the Scenery that he becomes an entertaining and memorable villain (although the interview with Anneke Wills on the reconstruction audio suggests that she thought he Took the Bad Film Seriously, and that she and Patrick Troughton would constantly make him repeat his line "NOTHINK IN ZE VORLD CAN SHTOP ME NOW!!" to laugh at him and he never realised they were mocking him).
• Inferred Holocaust: The Doctor almost certainly kills many of the Atlanteans by flooding the city.
• Memetic Mutation: "NUZZING IN ZE VORLD CAN SHTOP ME NOW!!!!"
• Narm:
  • Pretty much every line that comes out of Joseph Furst's mouth. His closing line of Episode 3, however ("NOZING IN ZE VORLD CAN SHTOP ME NOW!") takes the cake.
  • The whole story in fan circles is known for its utter camp. In fact, it's even often referred to Plan 9 from Doctor Who.
• Signature Scene: This serial is remembered for two scenes, both occuring in Episode Three:
  • The sequence in the third episode in which the fish people swim around for two minutes. It is often referred to, for want of a better description, as the "underwater ballet".
  • The cliffhanger at the end of Episode Three, in which Zaroff shouts "NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP ME NOW!"
• So Bad, It's Good: One printed review in SFX magazine describing it as "Plan Nine from Doctor Who".

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