Doctor Who – Terror from the Deep: Episode 93

By John Freeman on March 14, 2026 • ( 0 )

In “Doctor Who – Terror from the Deep” written by John Freeman, the final episodes drawn by Bill Storie, the Seventh Doctor and Ace battled, and defeated, both the Movellans and the Daleks.

Now, years later, as our story reaches its penultimate episode at last, Ace reflects on past events with a friend – but, of course, adventures don’t end just because you stop travelling with the Doctor…

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• Previous Episode

• Read Doctor Who – Terror from the Deep from the start on downthetubes

• Read Doctor Who – Terror from the Deep on Flickr

Episodes of “Terror from the Deep” have appeared weekly, on Saturdays at 5.16pm, featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace in an exciting adventure with the Daleks.

Doctor Who © BBC | The Daleks © BBC/Terry Nation, designed by Raymond Cusick. “Doctor Who – Terror from the Deep” is a not-for-profit production

For Those Who Came in Late: Memories of Lis Sladen

Doctor Who – Terror from the Deep: Episode 93 byJohn Freeman and Bill Storie - Sarah Jane Smith

Launched on downthetubes back in 2022, this unofficial, not-for-profit Doctor Who comic strip “Terror from the Deep” is written by John Freeman, originally drawn by Danny Cushion, who is still in recovery from a long illness, featuring art by Dan Dare and Unit 666 artist Bill Storie.

It was Danny’s idea to add an “epilogue” featuring Ace and friends, and who was I to argue? Especially as one of them was Sarah Jane Smith, played on screen by the late, much-missed Elisabeth Sladen, who it was a pleasure to come to know back in my time as editor of Doctor Who Magazine.

*John Ridgway work in progress for Train-Flight*

Lis would occasionally phoning me up out of the blue to ask if some or event or other was alright to attend, when she began to make renewed appearances in the 1990s.

And, of course, agreed to her appearance in the first “Doctor Who” strip I edited for DWM, “Train Flight“, written by Andrew Donkin and the late Graham S. Brand (the Graham S. Brand Award established by his parents in his honour), drawn by John Ridgway. Thank you, Lis.

(“Train-Flight” was first reprinted in full colour in the graphic novel The Mark of Mandragora. An additional colour version was produced by IDW for the series Doctor Who Classics. It’s also included in the Panini collection, Nemesis of the Daleks).

“Terror from the Deep” might just hold some sort of record for “longest gestation period for a piece of Doctor Who comic project”. Its origins lie in a plan I had while editing Doctor Who Magazine in the 1990s to launch a Doctor Who newspaper strip.

As you can read here (“Doctor Who – Terror from the Deep, the newspaper strip that might have been“) The idea that had been kicked around at Marvel UK for over a year before two weeks of test strips, plotted and scripted by myself and drawn by Gerry Dolan, finally appeared in Doctor Who Magazine Issues 167 and 168 in late 1990.

This project began as a pitch project to the Daily Express for a newspaper strip, way back in 1989, but the end of the show’s “classic era” on TV meant it did not progress.

• Read the background to creating Terror from the Deep here

• On Facebook? Join the Doctor Who Comics and Art: A Voyage group

My thanks to Danny Cushion for taking me up on completing this story, and Bill Storie, for bringing it to a close on the art side. My thanks, also to Paul Hanley, artists Mike Collins and Lee Sullivan, and the late Gerry Dolan – and Andy Walker for connecting me up with Paul Cooke

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.