Character Options has today revealed the next instalment of Doctor Who collectors’ sets, available
exclusively online on the Character Options website. This website exclusive does ship worldwide and is available to fans in the United States.
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 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 5 th 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.”
The set will retail for £29.99 and be available for pre-order in the UK from 15 th February 2022 on the
Character Options website.
