The Sea Devils

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062 – The Sea Devils
Doctor Who serial

A Sea Devil creeps up on the Third Doctor
Cast
Doctor Jon Pertwee (Third Doctor)
Companion Katy Manning (Jo Grant)
Production
Writer Malcolm Hulke
Director Michael E. Briant
Script editor Terrance Dicks
Producer Barry Letts
Executive producer(s) None
Production code LLL
Series Season 9
Length 6 episodes, 25 mins each
Originally broadcast February 26–April 1, 1972
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by →
The Curse of Peladon The Mutants
For other uses, see Sea devil

The Sea Devils is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from February 26 to April 1, 1972.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

The Third Doctor and Jo visit the Master in his island prison and encounter the Sea Devils, the aquatic cousins of the Silurians.

[edit] Plot

The Doctor and Jo visit the Master, now held in captivity on a small island prison, after being captured by UNIT (at the conclusion of the previous series). The Master is being held indefinitely and is the only prisoner. He is watched by CCTV and the island is patrolled by armed guards – trained to resist the Master's hypnotic powers – and even protected by minefields. He claims to have reformed – but refuses to reveal the location of his TARDIS.

As they depart, the old-school patriotic governor, Colonel Trenchard, tells them that some ships have been mysteriously disappearing. The Doctor cannot resist investigating and he and Jo are soon attacked, while examining a Sea Fort, by an underwater Silurian. This man-sized bipedal lizard is called a 'Sea Devil' by a crew member who's been driven half mad. They escape to the nearby naval base, HMS Seaspite run by the efficient Captain John Hart; despite the Doctor's eccentirc behaviour (such as claiming to have known Nelson personally), an alliance forms. Hart is in charge of the adaptation of the sea fort for use as a SONAR testing station. The Doctor meanwhile discovers that the Master, assisted by a misguided Trenchard, is stealing electrical equipment from the naval base to build a machine that will control the Sea Devils. The evil Time Lord intends to use the reptiles as an army to enable him to conquer the planet, and he begins by using the machine to summon some of them from the sea – forcing the Doctor to employ his sonic screwdriver to repel them by exploding mines on the beach.

Soon, however, a battle for the prison ensues, during which Trenchard, who had believed he was aiding his country against enemy agents, is killed. The Doctor and the Master duel with swords, but eventually he and Jo are forced to flee to HMS Seaspite, where Hart tells them a naval submarine has disappeared. The Doctor investigates in a submarine bell and is seized by the Sea Devils, who take him to their leader. The Doctor enters the Sea Devil's base and tries to encourage peaceful negotiation, recalling how he had failed to broker an agreement between mankind and the Silurians. The Master, too, ventures to the Sea Devil base, intent on provoking war, but matters are left unresolved when the base is attacked by depth charges.

This attack has been ordered by a gluttonous and short-sighted politician, Robert Walker, who has arrived at HMS Seaspite to take control of the situation and is intent on repeating UNIT’s actions on Wenley Moor: blowing up the creatures, but this time with nuclear weapons. Hart and Jo are opposed to the attack but at least it allows the Doctor cover to flee, even if he has failed in his initial attempt to sue for peace.

The Doctor persuades Walker to allow him a final attempt at negotiation, but in the meantime the Sea Devils capture the naval base. They have been inspired to such actions by the Master, who still wishes to instigate a war. The Master then forces the Doctor to help build a machine to revive Sea Devil colonies all over the world. Returning to the Sea Devil base the Master activates the device, whereupon the Sea Devils imprison both Time Lords as they are now both equally useless to them. However, The Doctor has sabotaged the machine and he and the Master escape the base using escape equipment from the captured submarine.

As they are rescued, massive power feedback from the sabotaged machine destroys the Sea Devil colony before the military attack can begin. As usual, the Master is able to escape capture (this time by faking a heart attack and hijacking a rescue hovercraft) and flees the scene.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Continuity

  • The Master is seen imprisoned in a high-security island establishment, having been finally caught at the conclusion of the serial The Dæmons, at the end of the previous season.
  • This story introduces the aquatic cousins of the Silurians, the Sea Devils. The Silurians first appear in Doctor Who and the Silurians, and appear alongside the Sea Devils in Warriors of the Deep.
  • In this story, the term "Sea Devil" is used only by humans, although Silurians and Sea Devils use the term in Warriors of the Deep.
  • The earlier Doctor Who and the Silurians had resulted in many letters from scientists and geologists who argued that it was impossible for a reptilian lifeform to have existed in the Silurian era. In this story the Doctor admits that the name "Silurian" is inaccurate and states they should more properly be called "Eocenes" (which again is an unlikely candidate for the creatures' own era).

[edit] Production

  • Working titles for this story included The Sea Silurians.
  • Because of the story's location filming requirements it was allocated the second slot in the production run for Doctor Who's ninth season so as to allow filming in October. However to alternate the stories between those set on Earth and those set on other worlds it was transmitted third in the season. This was the first time stories were produced out of transmission order.
  • The serial was mainly filmed around Portsmouth, Portsmouth HM Naval Base, No Mans Land Fort, the Isle of Wight and HMS Reclaim.
  • The Royal Navy waived royalty fees on the use of stock footage and clips showing ships in action, happy with on-screen credits and the positive publicity generated by the show. Many sailors volunteered to help with the filming, so that most of the extras during the sequence at the Naval Base were actual sailors, except in some of the stunts.
  • In the first episode, the script called for Jo Grant and the Doctor to climb up a ladder to get into a sea fortress. The ladder proved too slippery for Katy Manning, so stuntman Stuart Fell did the shot dressed as Grant.
  • A model of a submarine was created by purchasing a dime-store submarine model kit and then altering the propeller. However, by chance, the alterations to the model strongly resembled an actual proto-type submarine developed by the Ministry of Defense. After footage of the model was broadcast as part of the story, producer Barry Letts received a visit from two Ministry of Defense officials, who were concerned that the footage was of the proto-type.

[edit] Music

The incidental music for this story, by Malcolm Clarke, is highly experimental and among the more memorable television soundtracks of the era. A suite of it appeared on the 1983 LP Doctor Who - The Music, and later, in 2000, the full score was released on the compilation album Doctor Who at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop Volume 2: New Beginnings 1970-1980. Parts of the incidental music, as well as a line of dialogue, were sampled by Orbital on their track Doctor Look Out.

[edit] Outside references

[edit] In print

Doctor Who book
Book cover
Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils
Series Target novelisations
Release number 54
Writer Malcolm Hulke
Publisher Target Books
Cover artist Chris Achilleos
ISBN ISBN 0 426 11308 X
Release date 17 October 1974
Preceded by Doctor Who and the Dæmons
Followed by Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen

A novelisation of this serial, written by Malcolm Hulke, was published by Target Books in October 1974. A Portuguese translation was published in 1983.

[edit] Broadcast, VHS and DVD release

  • The story was repeated at Christmas 1972 as a ninety minute compilation.
  • On Bank holiday Monday May 27, 1974 the compilation had an unscheduled repeat in place of a cancelled cricket match. This was shown two days after episode 4 of Planet of the Spiders was first broadcast.
  • When the wiping for episodes ended in 1978 it was discovered that the first three episodes had only survived as black and white telerecordings for overseas sales.
  • In the early 1980s NTSC transfers of all six episodes were returned from broadcasters in Canada. These were converted back to the original PAL format.
  • The story was repeated in full on BBC2 in 1992, representing the Pertwee years as part of a series of repeats of stories from all seven Doctors. The NTSC copy of Episode Five was used as the PAL copy had a nasty scratch on it.
  • The story was released on VHS in September 1995. The copy of Episode Five used was the NTSC version, despite the fact work had been done a year or so again to remove the scratch from the PAL version.
  • This story was released on DVD as part of a boxed set called Beneath the Surface with Doctor Who and the Silurians and Warriors of the Deep on January 14, 2008.[1]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Navy News "Who can help who Buffs?". Retrieved on 2008-05-01.

[edit] External links

[edit] Reviews

[edit] Target novelisation

v • d • e
Doctor Who season 9 serials
v • d • e
Doctor Who: The Master television stories
Third Doctor
Fourth Doctor
Fifth Doctor
Sixth Doctor
Seventh Doctor
Eighth Doctor
Tenth Doctor
Minor appearances
See also
v • d • e
Doctor Who: UNIT television stories
Second Doctor
Third Doctor
Fourth Doctor
Seventh Doctor
Tenth Doctor
Minor appearances
Torchwood
See also