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Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who Special "Legend Of The Sea Devils"

Published Sun, 17 Apr 2022 16:09:12 -0500

Doctor Who: Legend Of The Sea Devils just aired on BBC One and BBC America, and is the penultimate episode of Jodie Whittaker's run as The Doctor, ahead of this Christmas/New Year's BBC Centenary Special.

1. More Time Travel Than Usual For Doctor Who

This episode breaks one of the usual time travel rules of Doctor Who, travelling to a time and a place – but then travelling in time again within that. As the Doctor told Martha in Smith And Jones, that's only to be used for tricks. It's a storytelling restriction more than anything, to heighten the drama and to stop easy plot get-outs. Why bother escaping from anywhere if you can just go back in time and bribe the architect? So to arrive in 1807 (which is rarely good) and then pop back to 1533 for information feels… naughty. Still, time is running out for this Doctor. And what it does do, is underline the idea of the "Legend" of the Sea Devils, they have roamed these seas for at least three hundred years, and enough time to create their own Flying Dutchman.

2. Dress For The Occasion

The Doctor doesn't usually dress for the time or the place, but clearly, she is bracing herself for changes. So no braces, but earrings. Even so, she is centuries off where she wanted to be but clearly where the TARDIS needed her to be. Never off course, no matter where the pebbles skip. and any excuse for Dan to drive the cosplayers watching wild with ambition.

3. Yaz And The Plastic Population

This episode wears both budget and COVID restrictions on its sleeve. Empty villages (through Sea Devil slaughter), two relatively empty ships, one with an imprisoned crew, the other with one lost at sea. Fewer people, fewer salaries, costumes, fewer filming issues under restrictions that will have been in place.

The Sea Devils I remember from decades and decades gone, the aquatic versions of the Silurians, meant to be trapped deep below, this one is trapped on the surface. And the effect is weird, a lot of money and time has been spent on using CGI to recreate a very dodgy-looking prosthetic effect from the seventies, now with better blinking eyes, but still a major lack of a prehensile mouth. It's like using a green screen to recreate chroma key clash. The Slitheen were more convincing, at least they had moving mouths.

4. No Blood Spilled

For all the swords being swashbuckled around the place, as well as so many people being cut down, there is a remarkable lack of blood. That's what super technological swords will get you. But it does make for a rather saccharine scene. Well, it is Easter Sunday. No one is getting cut in twain on screen, no more than they would be nailed to a cross. Clearly, Dan has been working on his swordsman skills, and the Doctor gave us a Geronimo as well. It has been a while…

5. Keep The Name

Sea Devils was a particularly cruel name in retrospect. The name used by the ignorant and superstitious is now the name the Doctor calls then? No wonder they get called Land Parasite or the slightly less offensive Land Crawler in return. It was weird then, it's weirder now. Especially for an indigenous species of Earth, alongside the Silurians, long before the humans came along and ruined it all. So why not "Dea Devil", it's literally adding insult to injury.

6. Pirate This Episode

Madam Ching the Pirate Queen – or Zheng Yi Sao – was as real as they come, did indeed lose her first husband in 1807, and was a Chinese pirate leader who was active in the South China Sea from 1801 to 1810, with a reputation as one of the greatest pirates of all time. And it seems, able to sail a ship single-handed. Also able to string up two adult men single-handed as well, while holding a sword. Or so it seemed, we never actually saw it. For someone with such a reputation, you never actually saw her do much. Captain Jack Sparrow had to deal with a heart in a box, Madam Ching just has an ear in a box instead.

The Flor de la Mar is also a real-life Portuguese trading ship, that was caught in a storm while sailing off the coast of Sumatra and sank with the greatest treasure the Portuguese Armada had ever carried. It has never been found. And now we know why…

7. Empty The Seas

Once upon a time, back with Adric, Tegan, and Nyssa, opening the TARDIS doors at the bottom of the Thames would have flooded the TARDIS (and emptied the Thames). Times have changed. Everyone's in a bubble now – of course, that's part of the problem.

8. Pole Dancing With Doctor Who

How much of a threat was flipping the magnetic poles/ Would it really have led to global flooding? We are overdue a flip, but poles to wander about in location between. The only change we'd notice is with our technology, which depends on satellites, and someone will have to press a button. Not as much of an issue in 1807. Or 1533. It may be a different story for animals and birds that rely on the magnetic field for navigation, but that's not the ice caps, is it?

9. It's Not You, It's The Me I Am Now

Yaz And The Doctor was quite the "it's not you, it's me" or rather it's the Doctor she now is. This is a Doctor who has had relationships – just isn't looking for one now. With anyone, anywhere, anywhen. "Not something I really do. Used to. Have done" though regards Yaz as "one of the greatest people I know. Including my wife. I was a different man back then" she is aware that "I can't fix myself anything, anywhere, anyone. Never been able to." Which does make me think – with the Centenary Special teased with Tegan Jovanka, Ace, and Katherine Lethbridge-Stewart alongside Daleks, Cybermen, and the Master, will there be any room for River Song in the party? But this Doctor knows her time is running out… she's seen the schedules, clearly. And the pebble once thrown has to stop skipping eventually. But the Doctor's companions in the past have been closer to pets. Yaz is now more on the scale of Romana, Rose, and River. As for Dan, it seems that absence has made the Di grow fonder…

10. Looking Good, Time Vortex.

While much of the special effects were lacking against ambition, that's always been a Doctor Who thing. And the creature of the sea was always going to be a better look than the Myrka. Imagine if the new crew had tried to replicate that version with CGI. And we also got a better look at the Time Vortex than ever before. A vast space with many tunnels suggested the in-between world of The Magician's Nephew.

Doctor Who airs on BBC One and BBC America.

Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils
In a swashbuckling special adventure, the Doctor, Yaz and Dan come face to fin with one of the Doctor's oldest adversaries, the Sea Devils. Why has legendary pirate queen Madam Ching come searching for a lost treasure? What terrifying forces lurk beneath the oceans of the 19th century? And did Yaz really have to dress Dan up as a pirate?

The Doctor: Jodie Whittaker
Yasmin Khan: Mandip Gill
Dan Lewis: John Bishop
Ying Ki: Marlowe Chan-Reeves
Madam Ching: Crystal Yu
Chief Sea Devil: Craige Els
Written by Chris Chibnall and Ella Road
Directed by Haolu Wang
Executive Producers Matt Strevens, Nikki Wilson, Chris Chibnall