Legend of the Sea Devils

Chapter The 227th, is as up-to-the-minute a chapter as you could possibly have, it's some shiny new treasure.

Plot:

[There's spoilers to come; I've restricted the plot synopsis to the wording from the press release that was published long before the story aired, so you're probably safe here, but some details had to creep in below - be warned.] The Doctor, Yaz and Dan land in 19th century China, where a small coastal village is under threat – from both the fearsome pirate queen Madam Ching and a monstrous alien force which she unwittingly unleashes. Will the Doctor, Yaz and Dan emerge from this swashbuckling battle with the Sea Devils to save the planet? [I mean... Yes, yes of course they will; I don't think it's a spoiler to answer that.]

Context:

Believe it or not, this story came up randomly. As soon as the title of a new Doctor Who story is announced, I add it to the spreadsheet I keep to track my progress with this ongoing endeavour; this has happened 46 times since I started the blog as new seasons keep coming (would have been 51 times, if I counted Flux as six stories rather than one). Thereafter, it's fair game for selection whenever I run the random number generator. I don't think it's ever happened before that the latest story's number has come up, though - it's usually been a conscious decision to blog a new one, the randomiser being overridden, so to speak. I still had a week to go before Legend's broadcast when selection was made, so had to get the blog post for The Green Death done and dusted as quickly and efficiently as possible. I re-watched the Jodie Whittaker story on the BBC iplayer the following day after its debut broadcast, taking notes not on a pad of paper as usual, but direct into blogger on my laptop. The idea was to get the post up as early as possible after the Easter Sunday broadcast. You, reader, will know exactly how successful I was in doing that, from the date near the top of this web page.

First Time Round:

Watched live on its debut BBC1 broadcast on the evening of Sunday 17th April 2022 with all the children (boys of 15 and 12, girl of 9); the Better Half is still making a point of sitting Doctor Who out, though she did put her head round the door briefly to say she wan't interested in anything that transpired. By the time of the Coming Soon trailer for the final special after the story proper, everyone apart from your humble blogger had started to wander out of the living room, leaving yours truly to be the only one making the requisite excited squeaks. I don't want to spoil it, so will adjust my increasingly high-pitched monologue, but it went something like this: "Ohmygosh, it's [Redacted] and [Redacted], how did they keep that quiet?!!! Ooh [Redacted] and the [Redacted] are in it, and there's that [Redacted] [Redacted], and I wasn't expecting [Redacted] - ooooh!". I got everyone back in the room and played the trailer again, but they were more bemused than excited by this orgy of fan service, despite my best attempts to engage them ("Do you know who that is, and that? It's [Redacted]!!!!!!!!!").

Reaction:

The situation this particular story finds itself in is rare for a Doctor Who story. The lead actor has finished filming, and publicly bowed out, with still a few stories for their era yet to air spread out over a long period of time after the last full series. This is the penultimate one, i.e. not the one to look forward to with all the revelations and changes, wrapping up an era, but just another adventure, unhitched and floating free from what came before and what will happen next. It therefore has the potential to be a not-very-special special. Peter Capaldi didn't have a penultimate special, and Matt Smith's penultimate one was also the 50th anniversary special, so was fairly well insured for audience engagement. The only true precursors to Legend of the Sea Devils are the two David Tennant specials from 2009 in between his last series and Christmas special, and his final two-part regeneration story. Would I find Jodie Whittaker's Easter Special a bit disappointing like Planet of the Dead, or amazing like The Waters of Mars? Inevitably, it's somewhere in between the two. The lead-in to Whittaker's finale was restricted to the trailer that I squeed about above (see First Time Round), without the drama of the final scenes of The Water of Mars, but this fishy tale was certainly more interesting and effective than Planet of the Dead was all those years ago.

The story looks great; first time director Haolu Wang and the crew are very successful in evoking time and place, and like some of the epic parts of Flux, one would be hard pressed to tell that this was shot during a pandemic. There are many stunning vistas, from the rain and mud of the fishing village in 1807 where a sea devil goes on a murderous rampage to various pirate ships, and to the beautiful sequence where the TARDIS lands at the bottom of the ocean (not something we've seen in the series before). The sea devil design and costuming is a perfect update, keeping what worked from the old but tweaking as necessary - their blue glowing swords are a nice new addition. The creatures work well in action scenes, and they and their pet sea monster (I'm going to think of it as a Myrka) are a good fit for the genre. It's rare for Doctor Who to do a historical pirate story (space pirates are slightly more common), and this is probably the best one to date. The big sword fight between the Doctor's motley crew and the sea devils sees all the swashes duly buckled. The pirates depicted are a bit too much on the clean and honourable side, but I'll forgive them that as it's a family show. What's a bit disappointing is that Madame Ching - portrayed very well by Crystal Wu - doesn't get much focus, given that she is the historical celebrity of the story. There's a bit too much going on in the relatively short run time of 47 minutes to do justice to everything, and a bit too much of the final cut contains babble about pole-swapping tech.

The script, by new to the series writer Ella Road plus showrunner Chris Chibnall, does squeeze in some funny moments ("No ship, Sherlock"), and it's very nice to be spending some time in the company of Dan, Yaz and the Doctor again. John Bishop has some fun playing the still newbie time traveller, talked into wearing a silly fancy dress pirate outfit, and also gets an emotional phone call with Nadia Albina's Di hinting that he may be heading for a happy ending. The lion's share of the emotion of this story, though, belongs to Yaz and the Doctor acknowledging their feelings for one another. These scenes were very well performed by Whittaker and Mandip Gill, and made the story worthwhile on their own. That tips the balance and makes the story a pretty special special; without the feels, I think the story overall would perhaps just have been marking time before the big finale of this era ties up all the loose ends and plot arcs. It's apt, though, that a story in a nautical style provides so much material for shipping.

Connectivity: 

Both Legend of the Sea Devils and The Green Death feature green things that were invented during Jon Pertwee's tenure as Doctor Who.

Deeper Thoughts:

Easter's Special Too? Doctor Who had and has a long association with Christmas and New Year, but appropriately - for a series that features regular rebirths - it also has a strong connection to Easter. The series started late in 1963 (the 23rd November, as any fule kno), so missed the season of eggs and bunnies that year; to make up for it, though, a Doctor Who episode was broadcast during Easter weekend every year for the rest of the 1960s. This was by dint of the series being on almost all year round (bar a brief break during the Summer) rather than by any special effort, though. The first story shown then was historical epic Marco Polo, Who's fourth story; the sixth episode, Mighty Kublai Khan, was shown on Easter Saturday of 1964, the 28th March. Unlike at Christmas (but only Christmas Day itself back then, on which Doctor Who fell only once in the 1960s - see here for more details) there was no requirement to make the episode anything out of the ordinary, and certainly the decade didn't see any kind of Easter Special. Stories which had an episode aired during the long holiday weekend in spring during those years were a mixed bunch: The Crusade 4 "The Warlords", The Celestial Toymaker 2 "The Hall of Dolls", The Macra Terror 3, Fury from the Deep 5, and The Space Pirates 5. Any episode of Doctor Who is perfect for the family to watch when off work or school, though; so, I'm sure each of these was a treat in itself for those watching at the time.

Into the 1970s, now in colour with Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, the series was on TV for only half of the year; but, as each season started in January, this guaranteed a home on Easter Saturday for a lucky episode each year: The Ambassadors of Death 2, Colony in Space 1, The Sea Devils 6, Planet of the Daleks 3, The Monster of Peladon 4. It's good to see a significant presence for stories written (or in one case rewritten) by Malcolm Hulke, as he was an inspiration for the most recent Doctor Who Easter special; and it's interesting to note that 2022 wasn't the first time that underwater Earth Reptiles the Sea Devils made an appearance at Eastertide. [A quick aside about Hulke's impact on Chibnall; the most recent Doctor Who Magazine had many features about Legend of the Sea Devils, one of which contained his quote "A lot of the stuff that we get accused of being 'woke' about, Malcolm Hulke was doing over 50 years ago ... he was a pretty visionary writer - just look at The Green Death", as if the outgoing Who showrunner believes that Hulke penned said story. Perhaps he was confused as Hulke wrote the novelisation, but the ideas of the story came from Robert Sloman and Barry Letts. Honestly, he calls himself a Doctor Who fan!] Genesis of the Daleks episode 4, broadcast on Saturday 29th March 1975, with Easter Sunday the following day, was the final episode of the classic era to be accompanied by chocolate egg consumption. The shift of the start of each run to autumn, beginning with season 13, Tom Baker's second, meant that Easter was just missed, with each of Baker's remaining seasons ending in the spring a little before the big weekend.

Though in 1982, when Peter Davison took on the role, things shifted back and the seasons started in January again, they were shortened by episodes being shown twice a week, or by there being fewer double-length episodes as in Colin Baker's first full season; so, no run made it as far as Easter. By the final three years of the 1980s, Sylvester McCoy was appearing again when the leaves were turning brown and the nights drawing in. Paul McGann's sole TV outing came a little too late, in another spring Bank Holiday weekend (Whitsun). It was only when Doctor Who returned in 2005 that Easter weekend became not just any weekend Who was broadcast, but the big one. The new series launched on an Easter Saturday, and every season for many years thereafter launched on or very close to that day; the last regular outing was at the end of Matt Smith's tenure, with the second half of his final run kicking off on Easter Saturday 2013. At this time, the show was also putting a Christmas special out on every December 25th, so had both ends of the Catholic calendar sewn up. There was also the very first full-on Easter special in the middle on that period. On 11th April 2009, another Easter Saturday, Planet of the Dead aired; it was set at Easter, featured David Tennant eating a chocolate egg and wishing people a Happy Easter. He also states during the narrative that, as it's at a different time each year, "I don't often do Easter - I can never find it." The show succeeds in finding it more frequently, right up to this most recent story, Legend of the Sea Devils. Only RTD knows what's coming next. Will there be any future outings for our favourite Time Lord at Easter, or even at Christmas? Time will tell (it always does).

In Summary:

Incidentally, a Happy Easter to all of you at home!