November 28th, 2022 478 comments

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Doctor Who 5.5″ Warriors of the Deep (1984) Set

Character Options announces its first online exclusive Doctor Who collector set of 2022

Warriors of the Deep (1984), a new 3-piece set offers a once only chance to collect these iconic Silurian figures

Character Options has today revealed the next instalment of Doctor Who collectors’ sets, available exclusively online on the Character Options website.

The new Warriors of the Deep (1984) set includes the Three Command Silurian crew of Ichthar, Tarpok and Scibus as seen in the season twenty-one episode of the same name. Perfect for all Doctor Who fans and collectors, the set comes beautifully displayed in a special presentation pack with diorama insert and Doctor Who heritage packaging. These figures will only ever be available this one time only, and offers the perfect opportunity for fans to add to their collections.

The Silurians

Psionosauropodomorpha, Homo Reptilia or more simply Silurians are a species of highly intelligent reptiles with psionic abilities who inhabited the planet Earth millions of years before humans. In order to outlive the catastrophe that destroyed the dinosaurs, they descended into underground hibernation shelters, but were never revived and now many pockets of survivors lie dormant within the planet. The Silurians have attempted to re-take the planet Earth on several occasions but have always been defeated by either human weapons or by the Doctor.

Setting the scene

In the Warriors of the Deep episode, we travel to Earth year 2084. Two power blocs control the planet. One of them has an underwater base called Sea Base 4 operating deep in the ocean and strategically positioned to control nuclear weapons aimed at its opponents.

Evading missile fire in space, the TARDIS lands on Sea Base 4 in the middle of a practice missile run. The TARDIS crew are soon detected and alarms are triggered whereupon the Doctor as a distraction programs the base’s reactor to overload in an attempt to avoid capture. This fails however, and the time travellers are detained.

We soon learn the Silurians have located and revived a group of Sea Devil Warriors from deep hibernation and together they attack the base. The Silurians dispatch the Myrka, a large marine creature, to break through the outer airlocks. After a fierce battle the Doctor surmising an aversion to bright light, kills it using a rigged up ultra-violet projector. The Silurians and Sea Devils take control of the base.

After much bloodshed, the Doctor confronts the Silurian Ichthar about the death toll whereupon the he scornfully reveals it’s irrelevant as his warriors intend to destroy mankind by triggering a global nuclear war. They connect a ‘manipulator’ to the computer systems and while distracted, the Doctor escapes and discovers cylinders of hexachromite gas, which is utterly lethal to all sea life.

Unable to find another option the gas is fed into the ventilation system. The Silurians and Sea Devil warriors collapse and the Doctor tries to stop the missiles by linking himself into the computer and succeeds.

Al Dewar, Character Options’ Creative Director, added his own personal thoughts on the release of this new exclusive and the episode from which they are created.

‘I think it’s safe to say that 1984’s story Warriors of the Deep brought back a much underused yet very fondly remembered Doctor Who foe .. The Silurian’s. I personally remember this story with great fondness; partly this was because from the start I was trying to guess who the protagonists were as the mysterious submarine closed in on the Sea Base. And then later because of the great rework of the original design for this Classic Monster.

The Silurian costume design is excellent and I think created quite a different look with the updated carapace body added. The Silurian’s in this story are like the Silurian’s and Sea Devils of old, they are not the baddies and neither are they alien. They are simply trying to survive and in the story it’s the humans who appear less than squeaky clean. Like many really good Doctor Who stories there are no winners at the end of Warriors…just survivors. It’s a really cracking adventure with the 5th Doctor with a kind of feeling of downbeat inevitability which I really like.

Three Silurians in the set might seem an odd choice but for me this Story is all about “Three” We have the three races, humans, Silurians and the Sea Devils. We have Ichthar, the last of the original Silurian Triad. The three Silurian characters themselves are the command crew of the ratty old sub and all we see of the once proud race. Obviously we have the Silurian’s own third eye though this time used as a speech unit and not as a psionic weapon. Therefore the set we’ve brought together works perfectly as we have two Silurians with the black unlit eye and the slight variation in body deco on these means they are all slightly different. I absolutely love this figure and think it’s one of the best we’ve done and a great addition to the Classic line up.”

Categorised under: Doctor Who 5" scale figures, Toys