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Doctor Who: Sea Devils [VHS]

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Malcolm Hulke's 1972 sequel to The Silurians is a fine example of a 3rd Doctor / Jo Grant story, starring Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning. At first one wonders why the beloved UNIT gang isn't here, as they feature in nearly all of the Doctor's earthbound stories (he is exiled to Earth during seasons 7 through 9, only able to leave when on a mission for the Time Lords). But capable acting from the guest cast, including Edwin Richfield as Captain Hart, allows me to forgive and forget the absence of UNIT and the Brigadier. All around the acting is good, with Roger Delgado on top form as the imprisoned, seemingly thwarted Master. Clive Morton is believable as the gullible old prison warden Trenchard. The pace is energetic compared to most Who stories, and the HAVOC stunt team appear for some action scenes. The Sea Devils has a larger cast than most stories, and various outdoor locations in Portsmouth and a sea fort off the Isle of Wight bring this Earthbound story to life. The only large detractor for me is the Moog synthesized incidental music: while experimental for the time, it does date the story somewhat. Let's not forget the Sea Devils themselves. Granted they are not the best designed Who monster out there, but something about their simple design, that cold tortoise stare, and their slow lurching from the sea onto the shore makes them more realistic, more memorable than most. Those hissing, reptilian Sea-Devil voices remain chilling almost 30 years since this program first aired.

Why Sea Devils? Because a maintenance worker at a sea fort frightened by them babbles in his delirium about "sea devils, sea monsters." As for Green Gilbert, an officer of a submarine crew, held hostage by them, still finds time to humorously give them that nickname,...once. Frightening...not really, as they look like giant turtles.

Three ships have vanished in a triangulated area bound by an old Sea Fort, whose foundations have been rebuilt. The Doctor insists upon the initially skeptical and uptight Captain Hart of the HMS Seaspite naval base that there is a connection between the Sea Fort and the attacks.

The Master, captured in the last story of the previous season, is spending a life sentence in an old castle converted as a prison. He has everything he needs except his freedom. Indeed, as the prison governor, an ex-colonial administrator named Trenchard, who is bureaucratically carefully to checking the Doctor and Jo's passes both in and out, demonstrates, the prison guards are immune to hypnotism.

The Master's claims that he is turning over a new leaf surprises the Doctor and Jo, but that's far from the truth, as he's allying himself with some aquatic cousins of the Silurians, the Earth Reptile race who previously owned the Earth before ape became man. Like the Silurians, the Sea Devils "still think of Earth as their planet and they want it back. As far as they're concerned, man is just an ape who got above himself."

Things get to a crisis when a navy submarine is hijacked by the Sea Devils and when Walker, a Parliamentary Private Secretary with special powers, threatens a nuclear strike. He's the epitomy of the warmongering politician. When Jo protests that an attack on the Sea Devils might jeopardize innocent people, including the Doctor, that it's murder, Walker casually says "War is murder. Now where's that girl with my toast?"

Some use of fancy equipment include a diving ball and a navy hovercraft. And there's a sword duel between the Doctor and Master, with the former telling the latter, "How many times have I told you? Violence will never get you anywhere."

The Doctor-Master interraction doesn't just run into clearcut good versus evil. Indeed, the Doctor doesn't totally hate him because as he tells Jo, "he used to be a friend of mine once, a very good friend. In fact, you might say we were at school together." And I can't help feeling that the Master spares the Doctor because other than needing him for his skills, the Master has a bit of that feeling as well.

This was one of the highest rated stories for Who, episode 2 netting 9.7 million viewers. In fact, when rerun on BBC2 in March/April 1992, the highest position was 12 (Ep. 4), the lowest 15 (Ep. 3 and 6). Not bad at all!

As for the weird computerized score, that's Malcolm Clarke's Delaware, a modular analogue synthesizer that took up a whole room, and the music "eschews conventional tonality and replaces even remotely-recognisable timbre with a palette of weird pulsings and semi-random noise."

The paleontology of the Earth Reptiles is seemingly corrected, as the Silurians, whom the Sea Devils are related to, were misnamed. The Doctor says they should've been called Eocenes, thus placing them after the death of the dinosaurs. But then what was the catastrophe that sent them into hibernation? It couldn't have been the moon as the Doctor surmised in The Silurians story. But as in the previous story, perhaps haunted by what happened to the Silurians, the Doctor again tries to act as a liaison for peace between Earthmen and Earth Reptiles.

Another pop culture thing here is the Master pushing the then-new concept of colour TV in Britain, as he asks Trenchard for one for the bedroom. And it's funny when he watches a stop-motion puppet show, The Clangers, and mistaking the mouse-like creatures for an interesting alien form.

Apart from the location work around Norris Castle, the navy footage helped in the credibility of the story. The Royal Navy waived any royalty fees, asking for a mere credit of thanks at the end of each episode, which they got. And the six-episodes are put to good use in this great action yarn.

"The Sea Devils," episode 62 of the legendary BBC sci-fi series "Doctor Who," stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor, and features Katy Manning as the Doctor's sidekick Jo Grant, Edwin Richfield as the upstanding naval officer Captain Hart, and the nefarious Roger Delgado as the Doctor's old friend and current arch-nemesis, "The Master." An extra treat is the presence of an extremely young David Griffin (best known as Emmet Hawksworth from the brilliant series "Keeping Up Appearances") as Lieutenant Commander Mitchell, known onboard his nuclear submarine simply as "Number One."

The plot concerns the Master allying himself with an ancient race of aquatic beings who have long been hibernating, and assisting with their dreams of world domination. The Master is allegedly in prison, but in actuality is running the prison, and promptly breaks out of jail and into a top secret naval base without difficulty. The Sea Devils are monsters who look like crosses between parrots and pigs, and are dressed in glimmering robes or coveralls depending on the situation. A Royal Navy submarine quickly finds itself in Sea Devil-related danger, and so does the Doctor thanks to the warmongering ways of a political buffoon, despite the restraint of Captain Hart and the Royal Navy. Ultimately the Doctor grabs victory from the jaws of defeat, and the forces of good and evil are put back in alignment.

The effects and technological gadgets (like the "sonic screwdriver") also strain credulity (especially the submarine model, which was literally purchased at Woolworth's.) Noteworthy in this series is the extreme cooperation of the Royal Navy in providing access to numerous facilities, ships, and structures, which adds the most authentic element of the show. The Sea Devils themselves are rather ridiculous looking, and the six episodes of the story drag a bit (especially in episodes four and five,) but overall this is an excellent example of the genre. Further dating this episode (and the series in general) are the constant use of synthesizer sound effects at perfectly random moments throughout the entire set.

For fans of "Doctor Who," fans of weird serial sci-fi, or fans of early 1970s British television, this is a winner. "The Sea Devils" is now available on DVD with lots of extras, making a good series even better; unless you can only watch VHS format, I strongly recommend searching out the DVD.

The belated, but nevertheless welcomed, release of Doctor Who on DVD has led me to renew my acquaintance with the earlier recorded episodes available on VHS.

The Sea Devils, a six episode story, continues in the third Doctor tradition of on location stories and in particular in this case with considerable help from Her Majesty's Royal Navy.

One of the weaker Jon Pertwee stories due to the heavy reliance on an earlier story of the Silurians, the Doctor is thrown into another Master plot of causing war between two non-communicating foes - the Sea Devils and the humans. Despite their fearsome looks and reptilian origins the Sea Devils have been accidently revived after millions of years. Once rulers of the earth before the dawn of the human race and equipped with advanced technology, the Sea Devils are manipulated by the Master into attacks on ships and the naval base. The Doctor attempts to be an intermediary for peace but fails because of the Master and in the end is forced into destroying the revived Sea Devils and ensuring that the revival mechanism cannot be used again.

The shooting of this story makes excellent use of disused naval seaforts, diving bells and footage of naval exercises and artillary. In that sense it is a good development of the Doctor Who franchise. In another way it epitomises a great weakness of the Pertwee years which was the heavy reliance on the Master for storylines. So much so that you could almost tell what the plot was going to be. While the use of the device of being marooned on earth certainly helped out in some respects in terms of dreaming up new worlds it was very restrictive in other ways.

This story is also strong on the morality issue which also figured throught most of the incarnations of the Doctor - to what extent the drive for peace is limited by the need to take action, violent action.

Action packed, and with some good make up, it is a pretty good story but could of been better.

While visiting the Master at an island prison, the Doctor and Jo become aware of ships mysteriously disappearing, only to find that the Master and a long lost species are behind the sinister plot. "The Seas Devils" may be padded and pedestrian, but it's also very good. Some great location footage with the help of the RN really help the tedium. Although there's too much stock footage being used. Not really a sequel or a follow-up, it's more of a remake of "The Silurians". But like its blood brother, the Sea Devils are very good, very mobile(unlike the ones in "Warriors of the Deep"). However, as an American, I can't fully appreciate the Clangers episode, but it is fun to see the Master enjoying a kid's program. Don't miss Terry Walsh riding on a motorcycle doubling for Katy Manning!

Although a little long (it should have been 4 episodes instead of six) it keeps interest up because of great interplay with the Master, and some very well designed monsters. Perhaps one of the best elements rarely used in Doctor Who is the swift and aggressive movements of the Sea Devils early in the show. When the Sea Devil is on the rig with the Doctor and Jo they crank up the fear by tilting the cameras, cutting quick and adding wierd noises and soundtrack. Great Who viewing for people who enjoyed any era of Doctor Who.

A wonderful combination of action, suspense and even humour. The scene with the Master watching The Clangers (a British childrens' TV show) is great, as is the interplay between the Doctor and the Master. The Sea Devils themselves are very eerie, especially when they rise from the water. Well worth a look !!!

I remember watching a repeat of this when I was seven, and it terrified me! Ofcourse, now I'm thirteen, it doesn't have that effect, but it's still great. There is some good location work, and Roegr Delgado is superb as the Master. The Sea Devils themselves are a little rubbery, but they scared me as as kid. It's a bit too long, but it's very impressive.