N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
The Sea Devils, having been repeated on BBC Two in the early 90’s, i.e. during my own nascent Doctor Who fandom, belongs to that group of stories (The Time Meddler, The Mind Robber, for example) for which I have a nostalgic soft spot. This tends to weaken my admittedly not always unwavering critical eye somewhat when it comes to picking out its faults.
“As far as they’re concerned, man is just an ape who got above himself.”
The Doctor,
The Sea Devils: Episode Two
Despite the Doctor attempting to correct the wonky palæontology and geology of Doctor Who and the Silurians, he manages to get it wrong again in describing the sea devils as Eocene, which makes me wonder sometimes if perhaps he should leave the complicated stuff to proper scientists like Liz Shaw.
As with that earlier story, The Sea Devils has a somewhat experimental soundtrack. Although it’s a little intrusive here at times, I’m not going to complain too much – for the same reasons I gave when discussing its predecessor. I will say, nevertheless, that I did miss the use of the Master’s musical motif.
Leaving that aside there’s lots of fun to be had, whether it’s the Master watching The Clangers in Episode One, the “sea devil” jumping when it sees the Doctor in Episode Two, the cracking sword fight that ends that episode – so good it warranted a repeat in full in the following week’s reprise –, the Doctor diving face first into barbed wire around a minefield in Episode Four or the return of the pompous, pig-ignorant and ultimately dim-witted bureaucrat in the form of Parliamentary Private Secretary Walker.
“I reversed the polarity of the neutron flow.”
The Doctor,
The Sea Devils: Episode Six
We learn that the moustache privilege is an important thing for the prison officers, that sea devils travel in sextets and that the Doctor doesn’t really know the Master as well as he claims if he thinks leaving him under the watchful eyes of a single guard in a storeroom is going to be sufficient.
The Sea Devils was also stunt team HAVOC’s last hurrah. Bolstered by plenty of willing naval volunteers, there’s glorious carnage in the story’s climactic final battle. These violent bloodbaths have been a staple of the Third Doctor’s run to date. Now that we’re now halfway through Jon Pertwee’s era, I’ll be curiously sad to see them go.
"One thing I found funny about this story is that all of the guards have moustaches!"
"Where's the Brigadier been off to?"
"The Master again!"
