PS Creativity > Reviews > The Classic Series > The Sea Devils

"The Sea Devils" is a story which has gone on to be perhaps the most memorable story of Jon Pertwee's tenure in the role of Doctor Who. The sequence in which half a dozen Sea Devils emerge upright from the waters of the beach and advance towards the land has gone on to become one of Doctor Who's most iconic moments, alongside the Daleks crossing Westminister Bridge, the Cybermen sleepily emerging from their honeycombed tombs, the Auton mannequins coming to life and bursting out of shop windows, the giant maggots crawling in the Welsh countryside, the Yeti stalking the London Underground, the Doctor holding two wires together as he contemplates a retroactive abortion of the very first Dalek embrios, or the child in a gas mask looking for his 'mummy'.

In many ways this can be considered the definitive Jon Pertwee story. The Third Doctor's lovely relationship with his scientific assistant Jo is nicely displayed. The Doctor is still exhiled to present day Earth and has to deal with contemporary society's bureaucracy and conservativism. He is again helping the military, though in this case, the Brigadier and the familiar soldiers of UNIT are nowhere to be seen as instead the Doctor works with the local navy against this new underwater menace of the Sea Devils. The Doctor has to lock horns with his familiar arch enemy, the Master again, and as usual the Doctor has to try and mediate for peace between the human military and the Sea Devils- since the Sea Devils were once the rulers of Earth before going into a million year long hibernation, the Doctor is sympathetic to their stance that they have more right to inhabit the Earth than mankind does.

Before I go any further let me clarify something- this is really a fan's only story. As a sequel to both "Doctor Who and the Silurians", and "The Daemons", this is a story that I find a lot of non-fans would find either uninteresting or at least very difficult indeed to follow. The story pretty much centres around what has been an ongoing feud between the Doctor and The Master- renegade Timelords from the planet Gallifrey, stranded on Earth and both devoted to opposed goals- the Doctor protecting Earth from alien invaders, and the power-hungry Master helping the invaders try and take over (this episode does not mention this important bit of character background for the newcomers). Now the Master is in prison for life, but escape is seemingly already in hand.

I would say that anyone looking for the simplified version of this story would be better looking at the story "Doctor Who and the Silurians". However when "Silurians" was repeated terrestrially in 2000, it proved to be a disastrous ratings failure- the modern audience wasn't interested in persevering with such a long and dated story. A shame really because it was in many ways the essence of what Doctor Who is about. It's also a shame that the BBC have now completely given up on repeats of old episodes, even in the wake of the new popularity of the revived show. That's why it has fallen on me as a reviewer to recommend old stories that people might take interest in and be rewarded by, and now I feel the time has come to point out an example of a story for non-fans to actually avoid.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't like this story. I find it to be garish, messy, cluttered, excessive, unnecessarily violent and unpleasant, with ugly direction and a pacing and padding that drags heavily.

"The Sea Devils" was the second of three stories that focused on the conflict between mankind and the Earth's previous indigenous ruling lifeforms- the reptilian Silurians and their aquatic cousins, the Sea Devils. The first had been "Doctor Who and the Silurians", then this story had followed it on and finally in 1984 "Warriors of the Deep" in nostalgic fashion revisited the Silurians and Sea Devils over a decade on, and two Doctors later. Ultimately I think this stands as proof that some stories should be left alone without making any sequels out of them.

"Doctor Who and The Silurians" was one of Doctor Who's most defining stories in establishing the show's morality. On that note however, there is something of a popular fan view that actually Doctor Who is at its best when morality doesn't come into the picture at all, that in many of Doctor Who's top ten stories, like "Pyramids of Mars", "The Robots of Death" and "The Caves of Androzani", the villains are irredeemable, everyone else is pretty shady and the Doctor learns quickly that there is no place for compassion there.

Now this is why it is such a thorny set of stories to me, because it began to set in stone the very qualities that made the Doctor's character become dogmatic and lose his moral courage. The Doctor's pacifist principles were gradually set in stone starting with this story and "The Silurians", and other stories like "The Time Monster" and "Genesis of the Daleks" where he has a chance to destroy his evil sworn enemy but his conscience won't allow it (but at this point it was still nestling nicely as characterisation rather than dogma), and as a result by the time of "Warriors of the Deep", the Doctor soon became immovably inactive and useless in the face of evil because he was himself incapable of violence.

"Warriors of the Deep" is a near brilliant story in many ways (it was after all written by the same man who gave us "The Keeper of Traken" which was a masterpiece), but unfortunately I have just never been able to stomache the Doctor's morality in it, and that's why I fundamentally don't like the story. In "Warriors of the Deep", instead of taking action to save innocent people, the Doctor is wasting time pleading ridiculously for compassion and mercy towards murderous monsters who quite clearly deserve no compassion, particularly while they are on the rampage, and for me that meant that Doctor Who was no longer a show about the hero saving the day, but about a weak, naive and sensitive soul idly waiting for his recurring sworn enemies -namely the Master and Davros- to die of old age whilst they kill as many innocents and destroy as many planets as they like in the meantime- and this is sadly something that continued into the books and audios, and is beginning to feature in the New Series as the show drifts again towards the trap of recurring villains.

As an aside, there is a Big Finish audio story called "Blood Tide" that revives the Silurians but I have not yet checked it out. I have also read the New Adventure Novel "Blood Heat" that brings back the Silurians- a very good book in many ways, but again the fact sits uneasily with me that the Doctor sides with the Silurians over the 'violent humans', even though the Silurians are now rulers of Earth and are hunting down and killing the surviving humans.

The thing about "Doctor Who and the Silurians" was that it was intelligent enough to make the Doctor's stance of peace make sense, and much like "Genesis of the Daleks", it was a story that was appropriately based around the themes of moral courage and the clash of ideologies. In many ways "The Sea Devils" is likewise intelligent enough to give good reason for the Doctor's dedication to peace, in-fact throughout the story the Doctor shows that he is prepared to use violence as a last resort, and ultimately he is forced to do something terrible and commit a grand atrocity that leads to many innocent deaths for the sake of the greater good. So the Doctor's inactiveness is not the problem here.

I said in my review on "The War Games" that the common criticism among fandom of longer stories often being considered 'padded' is one that gets bandied about very flawlessly. Stories that often suffer that label, such as "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", "The War Games" or "Genesis of the Daleks" to me are much misunderstood on that front because I actually believe that every scene in those stories has a purpose. But "The Sea Devils" is unfortunately one story which does deserve the label of padded. In-fact it is not so much padded, as cluttered in a quite frankly intoxicating, excessive, muddled, mind-numbing and headache inducing way.

For a start I think the story spends too much time focusing on the Master's prison story and his repeated escape attempts. The Master has a friendship with the prison governor Trenchard, a firm patriot who is duped into the Master's lies and manipulations, and supplies arms and hi-tech resources to the Master, believing that he and the Master are onto a plot by Communist spies and will be able to save Queen and Country together. This in itself is highly implausible, but on top of that the Master repeatedly assaults guards violently in order to escape or gain immediate access to weapons (which pose only superficial use for emphasising cliffhangers) which he shouldn't need to since Trenchard already gives him a free pass in and out of jail. Therefore the scenes of prison break just seem didactic, unnecessary and needlessly brutal, and things get ridiculous when the Doctor and Jo get themselves locked up by Trenchard too, only to escape by the end of the episode and then end up on a Navy ship the next episode, the prison dilemma completely forgotten, and shown up to be needless and rather violent as well (I'd lay similar criticism at the unacceptable degree of physical violence shown by the heroes in "Terminator 2" during a similar prison break sequence, but at least that had a part to play plotwise).

The directing and visual flair is a major problem with this episode, I find. I think Pertwee's first two seasons- Season 7 and 8 had been brilliantly and lovingly directed in many ways, but season 9 seems to me to be a major step backwards. The season opener, "Day of the Daleks" was the first appearance of the Daleks in five years and audience anticipation must have been high to see them in action again and find out what the little metal scallies were up to this time, but the directing made them look so bland and dull throughout (otherwise I think it's a rather good story). Similarly "The Sea Devils" is quite atrocious to look at. The film quality is so grainy, it's practically dirty and the aforementioned prison sequences are so garish and an eyesore and the excessive amount of the episode that is devoted to them is quite simply depressing- a shame really because the setting of the prison in a Castle should have helped the atmosphere of the story enormously.

In "The Silurians", the rural setting and nicely neo-classical patterned designs of the Silurian base succeed in conveying the weary age of the world, and that made the pathos of that story, of an ancient civilisations failure to comprehend the changed state of the world they knew. Somehow that effect isn't achieved here because instead of being evoking, the interior and exterior scenes around the Castle are ultimately just flat and drab and we, like the Doctor and Jo spend a great deal of time being impatient to get away from there. On the above note about the Silurians episode, the Sea Devil base is just black clothed like an amateur dramatics stage layout, and in that way it is bland and really lacks any kind of expressive design and likewise does nothing for suggestions of the Sea Devil's culture.

My final, and probably most damning criticism is about the story's violent content. It seems a strange criticism to make given the fact that the majority of Doctor Who stories are pretty violent. The Pertwee years were a quite violent era of the show and stories before this one like "Spearhead from Space", "The Silurians", "Inferno" and "Terror of the Autons" shot up the bar of violent content quite high after the rather tame years of the 60's, and lay the way for the 'gothic horror' era of the Tom Baker years and the 'video nasty' period of the mid-80's. In many ways the show is synonymous with high body counts and brutal, cavalier monsters. Stories like "The Mind Robber" and "City of Death" remain to me shining examples of how ingenious Doctor Who can be in crafting gripping, intelligent stories with little or no violence on display (they're also both very accessible stories). But then I do like violence in Doctor Who if it is handled well, in stories like "Spearhead from Space" and "Genesis of the Daleks" where the violence is sharp and shocking and the directing gives it tasteful full blood and immediacy. Here however the violence is ugly and prolongued and lingered on, when it should be explosive and stealthy. The camera seems to stay with a Sea Devil full frame while it slowly absorbs every single bullet for six seconds length. Tanks fire shells at six Sea Devils on the horizon and we're still watching them die one by one. A Sea Devil is shot from a tall navy building and the camera follows its fall, and then for some tasteless reason decides to show the fallen Sea Devil writhing sickeningly in its fall.

It's just unpleasant for me to watch, and its not really suspenseful because its simply all a case of raining hammers. This happens all the time where the story can't let one action set-piece stand alone. Someone finds an inspired way to incapacitate the Sea Devils, and it starts to build up and someone else marches in with guns blazing and finishes the Sea Devil off. The Master has free reign to leave the prison whenever he likes but he still beats his surveying guards unconscious. The Doctor and Jo are chased by the same guards, and then a Sea Devil comes along and starts shooting everyone, then the Doctor scares the Sea Devil off only a few minutes after that cliffhanger. The violence is just too darn loud, from its electric shocks to its melodramatic screams. Bases are attacked by Sea Devils and we don't need to see most of the slaughter because we end up seeing the outcome, but the directing smothers us with the violence anyway.

Fundamentally this is what is wrong with the episode because whilst it is trying to convey the Doctor's message of peace and understanding between the humans and Sea Devils, and the script credits at least one of the Sea Devil leaders for being wise enough to be willing to make peace (incidentally the only Sea Devil with a speaking part), and yet the action scenes treat the Sea Devils as disposable canon fodder for elaborate shooting sequences. Basically to me it is a story that is trying to ape both of the styles of Season 7 and Season 8, in taking the consciousness of "The Silurians" and blending it with the comic strip cavalier violent action of "Terror of the Autons". To me the blend does not work and suggests serious problems to come in the 80's where Doctor Who's action yarns would be at odds with pretentious content that was wildly out of step. The episode is one moment a debate on war and peace that is highly cramped and not given much room to breathe, and then becomes an action film by numbers (except that it's a bad action film by numbers).

All of this ties up again to the point that "The Silurians" is a far better story. I might be giving people the false impression that I saw "The Silurians" first and hated "The Sea Devils" because I could already point to a hundred reasons why "The Silurians" did it better, but the truth is that I saw "The Sea Devils" first, and after the excitement of my first time viewing, repeated viewings left me cold, and it was only when I watched "The Silurians" a few years after, that I realised what was missing from The Sea Devils.

"Doctor Who and the Silurians" is far more tenderly directed and shows up how needlessly harsh the look of "The Sea Devils" is. "The Silurians" is done far more as an emotional story which plays heavily on expressing the perspectives of all involved. The visuals on that front are therefore concerned highly with facial expressions, with strong performances, and adds to the mix certain point of view shots from the Silurian creatures to emphasise its theme of how everything is a matter of perspective, and gave the aforementioned cultural touch to its design of the Silurian base. Similarly it directed the violence with the aims of illiciting a strong response of fear or poignancy. It nurtured its moments well without spoiling them with too many treats and made us care about the violence that we see- in "The Sea Devils" the violence is so sporatically uncertain, are we meant to pity the Sea Devils in their dying moments or relish the action of the violent carnage? The script was also far better in "The Silurians", mainly because it actually characterised the Silurians as a diverse society in various ways and made them into far more than a homogenous mass. There were peace makers and tyrants within the ranks. With "The Sea Devils" we only get the one speaking leader. It also seemed that the steaks were higher in "The Silurians" and the drama more immediate because it implemented actual domesday devices from the Silurians, such as the plague and the sun filter disperser, and because the action pulled open a large scope of British society afflicted by plague. In "The Sea Devils" the scope is ultimately contained to the coast with no suggestion at all of a threat to other cities- there's nothing really apocalyptic about the story in the same way as there was about "The Silurians". We see lives at steak, but these are lives that are rashly squandered too quickly for us to feel a sense of loss or jeopardy- if these people are dying in such quick succession, where is the hope, and ergo where is the point in saving the day?

On the villains front here, the Master is generally superfluous to the action, he is simply here to escape his imprisonment so he can return to being the recurring menace again. As a story devoting its length to simply restoring the Master to the free side again, this is perhaps the first sign that Doctor Who would end up frequently being a slave to its own continuity in the years ahead. This was his sixth story and he was already starting to wear a bit thin as a villain. He did work best in the Pertwee era as a comic strip villain of the type who wouldn't be out of place in a James Bond film, though he was yet to have his finest hour in the Tom Baker story "The Deadly Assassin", and after which he should have been forgotten about. He had the odd good story since but he was generally simply a character who stubbornly refused to go away.

In this story I feel the Master is just not supported by the visual dynamic. The garishness of the story dwarfs his suave mannerisms, the colourless directing does nothing for his flat moments of duelling action between himself and the Doctor, whether sword-fighting or speedboat chasing. Since the writer Malcolm Hulke tends not to deal with 'evil' characters, preferring to write characters who have their own sense of justice and rightness in what they do, the Master is simply there to play the part of a manipulative instigator, but one who gives a voice to the story's cynicism about there being 'no peace in our time' (for once, hypnosis is not his most effective tool). Whilst the Master has always been a cad of the highest order, this is a story which lets it be known that some of his lies are true, as he tries to coax the Sea Devils into believing that mankind is too aggressive to be trusted, an unexpected bombing raid on the base by the navy actually proves him to be right.

The Sea Devils actually do gain my sympathies as one of the tragic villains of Doctor Who. Although the plausibility of the monsters is sorely hurt by the leader's mouth movements being out of synch with his voice, in his few scenes the leader does convey a sense of whispery wisdom and a sense of sincere indignation about man's actions. By comparison "Doctor Who and the Silurians" challenged me to have a tough sympathy for the Silurians for how whilst the Silurians were clearly not a homogenous mass of evil monsters, but a society with its own corners of wisdom, compassion, understanding and tolerance, they were still as a whole a belligerent culture led by some really nazi-like, nasty pieces of work, and ultimately I was actually on the side of the Brigadier when he blew up the lot of them. "Warriors of the Deep" on the other hand is a story that I wish had never been made, or at least not with the Sea Devils in mind, because it reduces the Sea Devils to being merely contemptuous murderers that are just as pitiless as Daleks, and the story made me actually hate the Doctor for doing nothing to stop them whilst they slaughter people. Having said all that, I still fundamentally feel that part of the reason that I find myself having such sympathy for the Sea Devils in this story is out of pitying them for the calloused way that the story and directing treats them. It's rather like the scenes of domestic violence in the 1986 "Life and Loves of a She Devil" miniseries- they are harrowing and evoke my sympathy, but the presentation feels somehow sadistic.

There are some great moments in the story mind you. Episode one is in many ways a hard one to knock. The Sea Devil's attack on the ship is done very well with the kind of restraint, stealth and suggestive editing that was missing from the rest of the story, and it stands as a strong moment of horror before nicely dissolving into the ocean horizon by daylight where the Doctor and Jo are being ferried to the island where the Navy base is, and also where the Master is imprisoned. The Doctor's visiting meeting with the Master has a nice mixture of concern for an old friend and a more cynical standoffishness in which the Doctor is clearly thinking of the Master's caddish promises of being rehabilitated - 'you can wipe off that grin, I know where you've been'. Similarly his meeting with the Navy and his deductions on the battle scars on the wreckage of one of the sunken ships give a nice suggestion of the Doctor's intelligence. The conversations between the Doctor and Trenchard, have a nice genuine rapport, a nice stab at authentic conversational dialogue where they talk about the days of the British Empire, and the eating habits of the Master as does the conversations over a game of poker and beer between the two men manning an oil rig -which gets subsequently attacked by Sea Devils. It's the kind of thing that gives Malcolm Hulke's stories have an edge in reality, despite the heavy old school science fiction overtones and preachy moments, rather like the conversation between the two flight officers on the cargo spaceship discussing career prospects of the 26th century in Frontier in Space.

Episode two has a nice follow-up, and the moment where the Doctor uses his venusian karate to tackle the wrench-wielding oil rig men, but then the Doctor realises the man attacked him out of a wild panic and tries his best to help the man is a nice emphasis of the Doctor's ability to deal with violent situations with diplomacy and understanding. However from then on, the story turns into a tedious chase of the Master with a pointless cliffhanger, and contrary to popular opinion, I don't see Trenchard's rigid hostility to the Doctor or his blind faith in the Master to be at all plausible- sometimes Malcolm Hulke is very good at setting bureaucratic hurdles for the Doctor that conveys great drama and jeopardy, but here it just seems contrived and tedious and not at all believable. Things start looking up again midway into episode four, when the Sea Devils hijack one of the Navy's submarines, and when the Doctor shows his greatest leap of faith by going down to the Sea Devil base to try and negotiate an end to hostilities. Even so the diving bell sequence itself is rather tedious.

Episode five is mostly a winner of an episode, and it's where most of the really good stuff lies. Where the Doctor and Sea Devils finally dialogue and let us know that the Doctor's faith in making peace was justified, and the little moments that show how the Doctor is earning his trust through his wholehearted honesty. Then when the Navy suddenly begin bombing the base, making the Doctor betrayed and his promise of peace appear as lies to the furious Sea Devils (which reminds me of stories like "Genesis of the Daleks" and "Keeper of Traken" which show the Doctor being so cruelly underhanded by forces of fate). That is one very dramatic moment that few other TV shows have been able to match up to. Despite the obvious contrast in old archive navy shelling footage and the filmed bits of the story, it doesn't take away the power of the moment. It's grand and shocking and very thought provoking- its even somewhat prophetic of events to come in the Falklands War, and unfortunately within that moment lies the problem that the story can only go one way after that.

The Master does get to apply his wits in helping the Sea Devils survive the bombing. The sequence where the submarine crew escape is one that nicely seemed to predate "The Spy Who Loved Me", right down to the tense moment where the submarine crew have to fire missiles at point blank range to escape from a cramped and unstable cavern, but risk causing an avalanche that will surely finish them off if they do. Somehow that sequence works well, despite the fact that like all the action scenes of the story it has the volume turned too far up. It is also the episode that introduces us to the detestable M.P. Walker, who is very much a right wing nut job. At first his cartoonish fat-cat callousness is entertaining, infact it's riballing of Parliamentary figures is done with a certain delightful cheek, rather like Spitting Image before its time, as Jo protests his orders to bomb the Sea Devil base while the Doctor is still a prisoner there. Walker dismisses the Doctor as a lost cause, and when Jo accuses him of murder we get a nice closeup of his mouth being gluttonously stuffed with food, his voice not breaking its emotionless composure "'Murder?' War always is my dear! Now where's that secretary got to with my toast?"

In many ways there is nothing that original about the concept of "The Sea Devils", even back in the early 70's. In-fact you'll probably find that a great number of the science-fiction monster films of the 40's and 50's did actually present its terrifying monster as being a misunderstood and tragic figure that was percieved as a threat because of its monstrous appearance and its inability to communicate, and actually only became aggressive under provocation. In-fact those films were often played as criticisms of the violence of mankind and the military and their ways of destroying what they don't understand. The classic example of course being "King Kong", and most of the monster films followed similar tragic plotlines which fulfilled those familiar expectations. "War of the Worlds" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" are examples of films that played on those expectations and surprised the audience with either a happy ending or with aliens that really were violent and evil.

But the quality of dialogue in this story makes its themes resounding and able to apply to actual human and political situations. Malcolm Hulke had a way of grafting some lasting words of wisdom into what appears to be largely dogmatic and preachy dialogue, and that makes it a very important Doctor Who episode. Whether it is the Doctor reluctantly giving the full and honest account to the Sea Devils of what really happened with the Silurians and admitting the unfavourable part he played in events which saw the Silurians wiped out. Or where he disillusions any hopes that the Sea Devils will have an easy war, given the ease with which they have sunk many British ships "And more ships are on their way to destroy you. You may win a few victories at first, but in the end you are sure to lose." Then later in his confrontation with Walker he nicely goes from condemnation "You have not destroyed them, you have just made them angry! Very, very angry!" to flattery and ego boosting to try and win him over to his peace objectives "Think about it- 'Walker the Peace-maker' they'd call you!"

However by Episode Six this has all fallen down as the outdoor action is at its most violent, ugly and repulsive. Walker by now has already become tiresome and irritating and an overblown, one-trick joke who has ordered tea and toast with his war so many times that you just feel hammered with the point. Furthermore, by the end of the episode, the Doctor suddenly seems to have lost interested and is too easily giving up on the possibility of negotiating for peace in a manner that simply only reflects on how they only have one episode left and have to rush the conclusion. This is a terrible shame indeed.

Most criticisms of the story focus on the heavily space-walky music and its sporartic, formless self-indulgence. I don't mind the music that much, though I would say that in the 60's and 70's era of the show, in which Doctor Who stories had an endearingly surreal and ambient quality, much like "Randall & Hopkirk", "Monty Python" and "Sapphire & Steel", the music here is trying too hard to force that same atmosphere. Unfortunately the scenes which ultimately sum up the story for me are where Trenchard interrupts the Doctor and Captain Hart's decisive plan of action against the escaped Master and the Sea Devils and gasbags for ten minutes about some golfing game, which for me sums up the irreverence, lack of focus and ultimate pedantic dullness of the story. Then of course there is the scene where the Doctor sets off a signalling device at high pitch which effectively assaults the sensors of the Sea Devils and makes them have something of a nervous fit- and that for me sums up the loud abrasiveness and unpleasant heavy handedness of the story. An important Doctor Who story perhaps, and one I feel has had deserved praise in many ways and certainly a story that deserved to be made, but despite all this, I find it too much of a major difficult chore to watch it (moreso than any other TV show or film, except possibly "Scarface" which I see as having similar flaws) to be able to really like it or recommend it. The bottom line is that the great moments of it don't flow and the story is building up clutter and blockage which prevents the story from being appreciative as a whole.

Fans will certainly love it and will happily buy the DVD version when it hits next year, but I've got to say I'm not a fan. I feel bad about saying so, because the themes are strong and defining and because it looks like the makers really splashed out for marine filming and had a hand from the Navy for long stretches of the filming, but there you go.

Originally posted by transvamp on May 3rd 2006 at 4:13pm.

click here to return to The Classic Series reviews