The Human Zoo

CONFESSIONS OF AN ALIEN ABDUCTEE (2013)

Chantelle Pyper is proclaimed to be the most abducted person in Britain, and appears to be a mutation of Diane Morgan's MANDY and Lisa Marie's Martian Girl in MARS ATTACKS.

DIRECTED, produced and filmed by Guy Gilbert, this fifty-minute Channel 4 documentary looks at three British cases of UFO abduction, and the support network supplied by the Anomalous Mind Management Abductee Contactee Helpline (AMMACH), run by therapist/media personality Joanne Summerscales and ex-communications/broadcast engineer Miles Johnston. Not only does the piece capture the Britishness of the alleged contactees, it also encompasses the sadness that has engulfed and guided their lives. We first meet Labour councillor and driving instructor Simon Parkes, who believes that he has an alien mother, an alien "Cat Queen" lover (well, he does own nine felines) and otherworldly children whom he sees regularly (although his wife is not happy about it). Simon never knew his father, and his mother was an alcoholic.

Regular abductee Chantelle Pyper lives with her 24-year-old son Dominic, who also has frequent encounters. Particularly irksome for Chantelle is that the aliens move and hide her cigarettes, and are in the habit of beaming her up after KFC take-away meals. To help her in this plight, Miles has sent Chantelle a device consisting of a crystal connected to a battery. Fittingly unimpressed, she describes it as "a little vibrator," and in a masterpiece of understatement says "It'll not work; it's a waste of time."

Joanna Summerscales and Miles Johnson. The AMMACH website was closed in 2015 due to extensive hacking, but its legacy lives on in The ET Newsroom, governed by Summescales.

Our third case is Marie, a freelance accountant, who believes that aliens have implanted devices in her body and tampered with her DNA. Luckily Miles "has all the latest equipment" for examination, which includes ushering Marie into a black-screen cubicle in his garden and asking to take her top off. Things get particularly heated when Marie doesn't get the answers she is looking for with a lie-detector carried out by Terry Mullins, chair of the British Polygraph Association. Marie also has a DNA test, which turns out to be normal. The accountant, it turns out, had a daughter Gina, who also experienced alien contact and committed suicide a few months before the programme was made. Marie believes that Gina is now with "light beings," and looks forward to reuniting with her.

Sleep paralysis and false memories provide plausible explanations for many accounts of alien abduction. But with no sceptical viewpoint, and solely concentrating on the sheer outlandishness of the situations (using CONFESSIONS in its title instantly - and deliberately? - reminds of Robin Askwith), the programme is a bizarrely sad experience. Starting with trailer clips from EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS, THIS ISLAND EARTH and THE ANGRY RED PLANET, UFO devotees have even described the programme as a mockumentary, clearly upset by its flippant but nevertheless grounded tone. A better inclusion would have been footage from the original, dream-like INVADERS FROM MARS, a foundational film in the development of the abduction narrative, which predates and potentially influences real-world claims.

"Our Fish Are Family!" (Part II of II)

DOCTOR WHO - WARRIORS OF THE DEEP (1984)

DOCTOR WHO - LEGEND OF THE SEA DEVILS (2022)

In WARRIORS OF THE DEEP, The Silurians and Sea Devils return to DOCTOR WHO after over a decade. Redesigns further cheapen this notorious entry: the stockier Silurians now speaking through their third eye, and the Sea Devils donning a Samurai-inspired outfit.

SIMILAR to THE WAR BETWEEN THE LAND AND THE SEA, WARRIORS OF THE DEEP is a Cold War allegory. Disastrously starting Classic DOCTOR WHO's twenty-first season, The Doctor (Peter Davison), Tegan (Janet Fielding) and Turlough (Mark Strickson) find themselves on Earth's Sea Base 4 (in "around two thousand and eighty-four.") Within it, a team led by Commander Vorshak (Tom Adams) undergo regular nuclear missile tests to ensure they are ready to combat their rival (equally unnamed) superpower. However, surviving members of a Silurian triad revive a colony of Sea Devils to use the weapons to attack the Base enemy, provoking a global catastrophe which will allow the reptiles to reclaim the world. The monsters also send an electrified sea beast - the Myrka - to infiltrate the humans, who are also housing spies Nilson (Ian McCulloch) and Solow (Ingrid Pitt).

Early in its production, Margaret Thatcher announced a snap General Election, creating sudden demand for BBC studio space. Unexpectedly losing two weeks from an already pressured schedule, many signs of this are amplified to ramshackle proportions: scenes had little or no rehearsal time, actors fluff lines because only one take could be afforded, and sets had to be constantly realigned. The Myrka costume - which resembles a pantomime horse - was completed only an hour before shooting, leaving the puppeteers high on glue, and as paint had not dried, it visibly rubbed off on surroundings. The ultimate irony was that the creature was controlled by William Perrie and John Asquith, famous for RENTAGHOST's Dobbin. The Silurians and Sea Devils fare little better, looking static and childish (taking cue from THE SEA DEVILS, actor heads are at neck level for the underwater menace, giving a wobbling and crooked appearance).

Genetically modified by Silurians from an unknown species of dinosaur, The Myrka in WARRIORS OF THE DEEP holds a particular resonance in Time Lord lore. Its attack on polystyrene bulkhead doors and electrocution of a karate-kicking Ingrid Pitt are forever burnt into the retina of long-suffering Whovians.

Written by Johnny Byrne and directed by Pennant Roberts, WARRIORS OF THE DEEP loses its nuclear tensions by becoming a monster of the week show. In hindsight it would have been better to close down the serial and regroup, as the budget and time restraints force everything to be flat and workmanlike (the "battle" scenes have the protagonists lined up like toy soldiers). Cementing its catalogue of chaos, the four-parter permanently bathes its sets in bright light, enabling the viewer to easily identify every continuity error and mishap. Under these circumstances it seems harsh for Michael Grade to use the Myrka in a clip for his guest appearance on ROOM 101, many regarding the twenty-first season opener as a key element towards the slow death and eventual cancellation of the programme.

Broadcast as a no-so swashbuckling Easter Special, modern DOCTOR WHO maligns the underwater warriors further in LEGEND OF THE SEA DEVILS. Written by Ella Road and Chris Chibnall, the Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), with companions Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop), set out to find the hidden treasure of the Flor de la Mar. However, they end up at the wrong time and team up with Madam Ching (Crystal Yu), as they battle the aquatic foes for the "Keystone." It's a bloated, erratic mess, with amateurish action and endless technobabble. There are also attempts to develop the relationship between The Doctor and Yaz, which entails a series of head tilts for the latter.

LEGEND OF THE SEA DEVILS has an updated design by Ray Holman and Robert Allsop. Made shorter to compensate for Jodie Whittaker's height, Holman "included some nods to the original look, weaving netting through the costumes" and their armour. When creating the heads, Allsop took measurements from a cast for the 1980s Sea Devils. Apparently, the newer masks enabled the creatures to have "more realistic expressions."

The Chibnall Era is a clear indicator of the downgrade in writing between show-runners. Characterisation is one-dimensional, forcing actors to dig-deep for charisma (a particular issue for Gill). As a viewer we are constantly told how brilliant everyone is, which is a total disconnect with anything on screen. This penultimate episode for Chibbers is particularly hollow, further dragged down by horrible CGI (it looks like a 1990s video game) and the Sea Devils themselves, reduced to bug-eyed, rubbery imitation. Whitakker is forced to prattle on to whatever boring exposition is in place, and often oblivious to a story happening (even an energised scene is stopped in its tracks with more Doctor/Yaz emotional hankering).

"Our Fish Are Family!" (Part I of II)

THE WAR BETWEEN THE LAND AND THE SEA (2025)

This DOCTOR WHO spin-off has totally re-designed Sea Devils. A crushing disappointment, it achieves the difficult balancing act of unintentional hilarity, numbing boredom and badly timed fish jokes.

PENNED by Russell T. Davies and Pete McTighe, THE WAR BETWEEN THE LAND AND THE SEA is a five-part DOCTOR WHO companion piece that completed the BBC and Disney contractual obligation. What was built-up as a more adult series is quickly replaced by the usual Kinder-garden-level lecturing and amateur performances. Barclay Pierre-Dupont (Russell Tovey) is a low-level UNIT Transportation Clerk, estranged from partner Barbara (Ann Akinjirin) and non-binary teenage child Kirby (Cat Gannon). However, due to an HR error (!), Barclay becomes part of a UNIT task-force to engage with "Homo Aqua," a sea species led by Salt (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). Understandably, they are furious about the contamination humanity has caused to the oceans, and choose Barclay as their contact in peace talks, as he was the only person to show respect with a deceased Sea Devil.

Within minutes of the first episode airing on BBC1, viewers were complaining of major audio issues, some even relying on subtitles to follow the story (fan forums also quickly renamed the unwieldy title TWATBLAST). The programme falls into the same political trap as Davies' second WHO show-running tenure, critiques that are mere broad strokes. Pierre-Dupont is a metaphor for modern entertainment, that is, a tide of mistaken hiring, and the shoehorned diversity here is illustrated in a now twin UNIT wheelchair attack of Bingham (Ruth Madeley) and Chesney (tetraplegic George Robinson). And in a love story nobody is interested in, we get more air time between UNIT commander-in-chief Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) and toy boy Colonel Ibrahim (Alexander Devrient); thankfully Ibrahim is shot dead by an equivalent of the JFK magic bullet. 

It is no surprise that Russell T. Davies writes plenty of sweating, shower and topless scenes for Gay icon Russell Tovey.

There certainly is no war in the exciting, battle-sense, nor much screen time for the sea creatures themselves. What we do get is blanket posturing about ineffectual and corrupt power structures, with the Davies-written final episode as batshit crazy as his recent WHO finales. The laborious threads that had been woven are now adrenalised into a finishing line of signal disruptors, ancient unity and an engineered virus so clever it can only affect nine out of every ten Sea Devils. Yearning for a new life with Salt, Barclay abandons humanity and develops gills, swimming away with her after an underwater ballet that reminds of the interplay between Julia Adams and THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON.

It's a catalogue of moments, and these are not reinforced. For example, when all the pollutants from the sea are hurled back at us - including what's left of the Titanic - all subsequent scenes do not show any rubbish on the streets. Much simpler settings are also fumbled, such as the UNIT contamination chamber, which isn't even contained. The only way TWATBLAST can make any sense whatsoever is that it all exists in the fragmenting mind of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. In a typically bizarre coda, she asks a jogger on a beach to pick up a discarded bottle. When the man refuses - somehow oblivious to the events of the series - Kate pulls a gun on him and insists he picks up his rubbish, becoming increasingly unhinged.