Deep Water

"You kill people just to preserve the lie that keeps this place going?"

Writer: Nicholas Pegg

Format: Short Story

Released: August 2007

Printed in: Doctor Who Storybook 2008

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Martha

Synopsis

The TARDIS lands in an underwater city but danger stalks the residents as the Farnham family's research threatens to bring the city to a complete standstill.

Verdict

Deep Water was a great story to conclude my reading of the 2008 Doctor Who Storybook! It's staggering to me that this was first released eighteen years ago which just doesn't seem correct at all. That's well over half of my life ago and the era of Series 3 with the Tenth Doctor and Martha is where I first became a fan so it's better later than never in getting all of the stories blogged. I was surprised that I only started this book eighteen months ago or so and this was definitely one of the better ones in the collection. There was a really strong concept at its heart and I think with a story depth with more availability, this could be a real classic. I like the idea of Martha reading some of the TARDIS instruments and the Doctor essentially training her in flying the time and space machine, and arriving underwater was fascinating to say the least. I mean, given the name of the story it wasn't a surprise but I was keen to explore the aquatic depths. The illustrations were crucial to this story's success in my opinion as they really helped with the visualisation of what was happening. Just seeing the Doctor and Martha surrounded by water was fantastic and a very striking image. We probably had a few too many different angles and images of the Doctor and Martha that weren't required, but the quality of the art was fantastic. The likenesses of the Doctor and Martha were pretty perfect! I liked how Martha was interacting with dolphins and whilst the barrier didn't allow her to touch them physically, she got very close! The coincidental nature of Martha naming twenty-two as the random number for the Doctor to select on the elevator and that being the floor where the truth lay was a bit too convenient, but in a story as short as this I can understand it. I'm not going to downgrade it too much over that. The Doctor knowing almost immediately that the environment in which the TARDIS had landed was a little off was intriguing but not a surprise. It's a short story so the pace was always going to get frantic and there wasn't too much time for the falsehood to stay as a fake. It worked though and Martha was convinced of her surroundings and enjoying them. She was understandably in awe of the beauty surrounding her so to find out it was all a fake was a big surprise to her! The Doctor overriding the override preventing them getting to floor twenty-two was good and them continuing to have warnings to go back was hinting at something very bad going on. Martha and the Doctor finding the corpse of Leonard Farmham meant they wouldn't be going anywhere near back to the lift and the deduction from the companion of him having died by something similar to carbon monoxide was brutal. It was quick and efficient and then even the gas was taken straight back out of the room. It was quiet and effective to say the least. Finding out about the Controller was good and I liked the history of Subaqua One and its presence on Miletus. We were in the far future and an Earth colony, but war had come and sacrifices had to be made. Convincing an entire population that where they were living in something that was false meant those that questioned it had to be made an example of, albeit quietly. The reveal of what happened for people who wanted a holiday and they were actually comatose and injected with false memories was incredible! I thought that was pretty evil and the calmness in which the Controller described it as a fact of life was pretty horrifying. He was the last one now and he was on the verge of achieving complete automation for maintaining the illusion of underwater life, but the Doctor wasn't having it. He showed Martha that it could be changed and I liked the throwback to Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks in the Doctor choosing the New York skyline. His description of Hell and it actually being the true outside was unexpected, as was the emergence of Dan in shooting the Controller. He didn't die but he would be held accountable. He was the son of Leonard and his father had confided his suspicions with him and now the young lad would bring about some serious change! I was surprised by how confident the Doctor was in leaving things to Dan and Martha correctly questioned that, but he was adamant! Overall, a very strong story to conclude the book!

Rating: 8/10