Review of The Sea Devils (#62)

DVD Release Date: 03 Jun 08
Original Air Date: 26 Feb – 01 Apr 1972
Doctors/Companions: Three, Jo Grant
Stars: Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning
Preceding Story: The Curse of Peladon (Three, Jo)
Succeeding Story: The Mutants (Three, Jo)

After last week’s special aired, I knew I was in for a treat when I came back to re-watch this adventure. The potential to compare and contrast the depictions of the Sea Devils in this, their initial outing with their most recent on-screen appearance with Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor felt like a golden opportunity.

And since Delgado is my favorite Master, despite his ubiquity during this era of the show, I enjoy watching what have become his “usual tricks” play out here where they can still take the Doctor by surprise. To wit, his “team up with someone else to destroy humanity in order to upset the Doctor” game.

Because that’s what this story boils down to. The Master has found these “sea devils”—who only gain that moniker from the rantings of traumatized sea fort workman—and decided to manipulate them to his own ends. The Doctor recognizes them as kin to the Silurians, and they give the same account of their reasons for going into hibernation as that other reptilian species. They also [spoilers] come to a similar end, having at one point reached a tentative peace with the humans thanks to the Doctor before the British military makes a first-strike move.

That’s the meat of the story. But what’s actually memorable about The Sea Devils is all the set dressing. First, there’s the Doctor/Master dynamic which is, in my opinion, always at its best in this era. Among other things, we get an actual, honest-to-goodness sword fight between the two. Among other things, it serves to highlight the difference between Pertwee’s Doctor and Jodie Whittaker’s: where hers barely seemed to know which end of a sword was up, his buckles some serious swash.

Then there’s the obvious glee the production team took in having a story set on and near a naval base. Scene after scene of Pertwee being competent with all sorts of motorized sea craft ensue. There’s a large ship to which the Doctor and Jo have to sail in a smaller boat. There’s a diving bell for the Doctor to climb into. There’s what amounts to a jet-ski. And although it’s not the Doctor who even rides it, there’s a hover boat. (Fair warning if you get motion sick: some of the shots are of choppy seas, filmed from another boat on said seas.)

And of course, there’s the original utterance of “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow.”

It feels like I would be remiss not to mention the overt chauvinism on display in this story, at least some of it apparently intentionally irritating (see: Parliamentary Private Secretary Walker and his attitude toward (especially) Blythe). The Third Doctor is pretty much always in Chap Mode, basking fully in the privilege inherent in this regeneration’s presentation, but he really takes the cake—or, more literally, the sandwich—when he first scolds Jo for acting like they’re on a picnic, and then literally snatching food out of her hands and eating it himself. I generally like this Doctor, but that’s one of his most egregious failings.

As for the Sea Devils themselves, they’re a decent creature design. Sure, the concept is just a rehash of the Silurians, but they’ve been adapted for aquatic living with some interesting changes that make them look a bit more like turtle-faced humanoid fish than walking lizards. With their distinctive fishnet shirts and round laser-guns, they have quite an iconic look to them. (It would’ve been nice if the current production team had at least kept the guns; those are cool.)

I can’t honestly say that I think they added anything new or unique to the story (which is probably why it took so long for them to return to the screen in an adventure of their own), but they served their purpose well enough, and looked pretty good doing it. They, like all the boats, make good set dressing. But in the end, it’s the relationship between the Doctor and the Master, not the Sea Devils, that determines if this serial will sink or swim.