13.30: Legend of the Sea Devils

In which the trailer was much, much better. Bloody hell, Chris.

Broadcast: April 2022

Watched: September 2022

“We’re never gonna get that beach holiday, are we?” Alternatively: “Sorry about his outfit.”

Enjoyed it more this time, now I knew it was one where I had to just switch my brain off. The first time it was crippled by the Victory of the Daleks problem: it’s not only bad in itself, it takes an amazing concept (Sea Devils and 19th century Chinese pirates!) and utterly wastes it on some generic action blah. 

Also, it’s not even a special! It’s normal episode length! It’s just an episode! Bah humbug.

Okay, some good things... “Land parasite”; the flying ship; cutting from Dan’s “Let me do the talking here” to him being hung upside down; the TARDIS on the bottom of the sea; taking Doctor Who somewhere new.

Against that, though, the bad things really pile up in this one: 

• The flying sea devil (what?);

• The insane but undiscussed death toll; 

• The sea devil costume still can’t move well enough to give them character; 

• People repeatedly saying, “That’s not possible”; 

• The Doctor just leaving Dan in 1807 with a, “Well he shouldn’t wander off”; 

• Ji Hun spending three centuries in suspended animation so he can be a plot token and sacrifice himself in the Doctor’s place (he literally runs into a scene he wasn’t in for no reason to do it);

• Trying to make a mystery out of “Where’s the ship?” and another mystery out of “How did the Sea Devils get a ship?” at the same time.

Several of those things, you’ll notice, aren’t merely bad moments, they’re structural. There’s an unnerving quantity of bad radio dialogue, people just describing what they can see, even on television. People just randomly arrive where the plot needs them, to see exactly what they need to see, with no set up. It feels like they filmed a synopsis.

Oh, and then there’s the Doctor friendzoning Yaz, giving her a load of bullshit about how she’s brilliant but she doesn’t do that sort of thing, when we know she does etc. The conversation on the beach later (“I might. But if I do fix myself to somebody I know, sooner or later, it’ll hurt”) would fix it except Whtiaker has absolutely been playing it as “not f*cking interested”.

Unless - given the “I wish this would go on forever” bit - maybe we’re meant to think the Doctor knows she’s going to die and is actually protecting Yaz? That’d almost be clever. [SPOILERS: This is not what’s happening.]

As penultimate stories for a Doctor go, it’s hardly Waters of Mars or Day or World/Time is it? It’s not even sodding Boom Town.

Other things:

• It’s not a 50th anniversary sea devils story, it’s a coincidence. Weird. 

• Madame Ching’s delivery of “Before I kill you!” is an early sign we’re in for some utter shit.

• Rumour is that Ella Road had very little to do with it. Hmmm.

• The TARDIS lands on a beach! It’s only watching it straight after Eve did I realise this is meant to be a running joke as that’s what they were aiming for last time. Also that they’re specifically trying to solve the mystery of the Flor de la Mar.

• Dan is 42. (John Bishop is 55.) He is also a mass murderer.

• In rep company news, the chief sea devil is played by Karvanista.

• The bit where the kid hugs Madame Ching, who got his father killed, is the dumbest f*cking thing I’ve seen in ages.