Why The Sea Devils Doesn't Match The Silurians
Same era, same Doctor, wildly different impact: less character, less tragedy, more baffling prison rules and wet monster mayhem.
Plot summary
The Master watches the Clangers while aiding ancient creatures in their attempt to retake the Earth for themselves.
Notable for:
First appearance of the Sea Devils.
Return of the Master after being captured in Season 8.
The Royal Navy participated in the shooting, which gave the production access to locations, equipment, and personnel (many of the sailors are actual sailors).
The story marks the first time the Third Doctor says his catchphrase, “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow” in full. He says it again in The Five Doctors.
One of the most repeated serials of the classic series.
Pete commentary:
The Sea Devils is a cool idea—a riff on the Silurians, but underwater. That gives an opportunity to do different things, and with the cooperation of the Royal Navy they managed to create something really memorable. However, it’s memorable more for the production than the story itself. There’s a great deal of focus on the Doctor vs. the Master in the first 3 episodes instead of the Sea Devils themselves. That part draws you in as you wonder about the Master’s plan, how he’s going to get the upper hand, and how the Sea Devils will factor in. Once that’s over, though, there’s isn’t much to keep you watching and it runs out of steam before the finish line.
The biggest problem, compared to The Silurians, is that the Sea Devils themselves have not texture to them. They’re not interesting—there’s no “young Sea Devil” and “old Sea Devil” to argue. Admittedly, you don’t want to do the exact same thing again, but they don’t even attempt to show any texture to their society.
Also, the Sea Devil voices are a questionable choice. The echo-ey direction they want makes their dialogue harder to hear, plus it takes them a while to say anything. Points for making them distinct from the Silurians, but it’s just not very practical.
That said, the actual design of the creatures is topnotch. They really hit it out of the park with the Sea Devils in terms of the look. Basing them on a turtle was smart—it looks weird and alien yet somehow familiar. It’s also great that they dispense with any mystery early, show the creature plain as day, and lean into the look throughout. You’ve got a winner, use it.
The netting on the Sea Devil costumes is an interesting choice. I would have preferred something that looks a little more like armor, but it’s distinctive. And, yes, better this than having “naked” Sea Devils. However, it does make you wonder why the Silurians didn’t believe in clothing.
Speaking of, it’s a good choice that the Sea Devils don’t have the third eye. That was always a bit too magical in the original story. Swapping it out for a weapon feels like the right call, though you do wonder if these creatures have any other abilities besides simply being able to breathe underwater.
That said, similar to Legend of the Sea Devils, you wonder why their undersea base is filled with air. Other than them being clearly amphibious, you have to assume the Sea Devils would regularly host Silurians back in the day, so they had to have air-filled chambers. Also, you need air for combustion, so at some point they need to do something on land just to use technology, you would think.
This is a good bookend to The Silurians in another aspect: This time, the Doctor is forced to make the choice to kill all the Sea Devils to ensure there isn’t a war. After this adventure, you might assume he’s more sympathetic to the Brigadier’s choice at the end of The Silurians, though of course the circumstances are somewhat different.
The noises the Sea Devils make, especially when they’re hurt, is nice and alien. There’s good texture to the creatures in most aspects of their design, at least.
The hand-scan the Sea Devil leader kinda, sorta seems like a tiny throw to the idea of the telepathic/telekinetic powers of the Silurians, if you squint.
The Sea Devils sure are trigger happy! Contrast the Sea Devil pulling a gun on the Doctor in episode 2 when he’s just trying to say hi. Obviously, the Master has already poisoned their minds, and they’re on a combat/war footing. It’s a nice message that “these aren’t your father’s reptile people.”
It’s never really explained why the Sea Devils capture the submarine. Then again, it’s never explained why they’re sinking ships in the first place. It’s all a general “provoke a war” plot, though it brings up the question: Why not destroy the sub instead of capture? You could argue hostages, though they don’t use them. You could also argue control of the nukes, but again, they don’t use them. Underutilized plot device here.
When the Master says the Doctor “tricked” the Silurians, which led to their destruction, the Doctor oddly doesn’t argue the point.
Walker is a 100% stock character, and that’s OK. He’s a bureaucrat, a coward, and unfortunately the guy in charge. There’s an interesting message here that’s a bit pro-military: that it’s the people on the front lines who really know what they’re doing, and that the civilian authorities have zero clue and are deeply cynical.
OK, we know the whole prison thing is a sideshow, but it is 100% MENTAL that there are dangerous swords right outside the door to the Master’s cell!
Intentional or not, the music for this one nicely combines the in-your-face-insanity of Carey Blyton’s Silurians score and the eerie weirdness of Dudley Simpson. I don’t know who at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop did this one, but really nice work on the Sea Devils’ riff.
The Master
The best parts of the story are arguably the scenes between the Doctor and the Master. They’re made even better by contrasting them with the Master’s relationship with Trenchard, who is so clearly beneath him. The Master is utterly toying with him, delighting in his power over Trenchard, demanding a second TV (“Color… of course”) and absolutely owning him when he gets Trenchard to believe he might actually be fooled by the space rats in The Clangers.
Trenchard is so dim, and so stupid to believe the Master at all, you have to wonder how he ever got this job, whether or not he was briefed at all on exactly who the Master is, and what oversight there is on this prison. There’s really no good way to reconcile this—you just have to go with it. You could presume there is at least some low-level hypnosis/suggestion going on.
Still, so many of the lines and scenes with Pertwee are great:
“He’s put on weight.”
“Quite a few people were in favour of having you executed.”
“I sincerely hope we meet again very soon.”
“My dear Doctor, I can walk out of here any time I choose.”
“I always find that violent exercise makes me hungry.”
It’s a crying shame, though, that the Master turns into a huge idiot in episode 6. When the Doctor transmits the signal that disorients all the Sea Devils (quite a range on this thing!), he seemingly just stands there.
He leaves the Doctor alone and unsupervised to coordinate with Jo.
He also apparently doesn’t check the Doctor’s work on the device, or what he’s done is somehow beyond him, because he’s clueless that the Doctor has “reversed the polarity of the neutron flow” and turned the reviving thingie into a weapon. I like to think that the Master, on some level, intentionally looked the other way so that the Doctor would win and they could keep on playing this game between the two of them. The psychology that culminates in the Missy Master starts here.
The Master’s escape at the end is pretty cool, but where did he get that mask? Answer: He probably had been planning some version of this escape for a while, and had the mask in his pocket. It’s not like Trenchard would ever have him searched.
Jo
Really nice moment that shows the evolution of Jo and the Doctor’s relationship when she alerts him to the Master, and he doesn’t question her at all, just immediately explains to Hart the seriousness of the situation. And the fun bit with the sandwiches later is a nice counterbalance that they still riff on each other.
Jo gets physical with the guards! Who knew she was such a tough gal?
Her costume is stylish, and complements the Doctor’s black tuxedo nicely.
A Complete Misnomer
The Doctor says here that the Sea Devils/Silurians aren’t from the Silurian period after all (which I think everyone agrees), but that they should be called the Eocenes. The big problem with this is that it’s a period well after the dinosaurs. It’s also well before anything that could pass as an “ape.” Everything’s contradictory, but the most important aspects the series seems to have settled on are:
That the Silurians and Sea Devils are contemporaries
That there is a direct connection to the dinosaurs
Most of the later stories are vague about the length of time the Silurians have been in hibernation.
What did Pete’s family think?
Grace liked the story, and really liked the Sea Devils. She said the costumes were great, especially their cute “derpy” faces. She observed early on that the island/castle where the Master was kept “doesn’t seem like a high-security prison.”
Four Questions to Doomsday - Pete
Why did the Randomizer take us here? Sea Devils so soon after The Silurians? Right when The War Between is a thing? Too perfect. Also depicts the Doctor reluctantly killing all the bad guys at the end, like in Rise/Age, though that’s pretty common.
What if the evil plot had succeeded? The Sea Devils’ plan is to revive many if not most of the other Sea Devils on Earth via some kind of transmitter that the Master is constructing. Assuming that the Master devices not to be a complete boob at the end, he might take the Doctor’s knowledge and actually do that. Sea Devils revive across the planet, and we have The War Between 53 years early. They almost do this in the actual story, but presumably they’re nuked if the Doctor’s device doesn’t blow up, but every other Sea Devil (and probably Silurian) base is reactivated. Earth has a big problem on their hands, but the Doctor and the Master might actually team up to defeat them, since the Sea Devils betrayed him anyway.
Speaking of, the Master’s plan is to use the Sea Devils to conquer Earth for himself, it seems. How does he plan to get rid of them, or subjugate them? It’s never explained, but presumably he figures out some way to control them or torture them through the signal he transmits. Then what? New Gallifrey, like in Last of the Time Lords, just with Sea Devil soldiers?Where’s the Clara splinter? She’s the secretary for one of the other men in the golf tournament, who is also chairman for the committee for the UK fencing team. At her suggestion, the chairman negotiates that his team gets to train on the prison island (since it has such fresh air) with a large supply of swords available at the prison.
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, Lady Cassandra, or Zarbi? It’s an Aquatic Dalek. Good, but not great Doctor Who. The Sea Devils are a brilliant design, and the Doctor-Master chess game is great entertainment. But it rapidly loses steam once the Master is free, and the action is fairly unmemorable, apart from the scale of the Navy’s participation.