Day 160 — June 9th 2021
The Sea Devils Episodes Three and Four
The Sea Devils — Episode Three
I have a feeling that the music in this story — by Malcolm Clarke, rather than the fairly ubiquitous Dudley Simpson — is a bone of contention for many fans. Certainly it’s not a score I ever see praised highly. And while I’ll admit that it’s sometimes more than a little avant-garde, I’m really enjoying it. This episode gives us a few lengthy dialogue-free sequences of submarines diving and Jo sneaking around, and they’re a chance to sit back and enjoy the weirdness on display.
These same sequences are also perfect examples of the best bits of this episode. The submarine stuff comes along at just the right time to stop the story growing stale running between the prison and the naval base, and they’re laced with atmosphere. When the power goes dead and the sailors begin to hear knocking on the outside of the sub it’s super tense, and the scene that follows — in which we get to hear the Sea Devils’ attack but not see it — is a brilliant example of the series leaving your imagination to create something which might have ended up looking a bit silly on screen.
And then there’s plenty of great model work featuring the sub underwater, which looks as good today as ever. They created a load of similar shots for Cold War in 2013, and I briefly wondered if they could be substituted in to create a ‘special edition’ version of this story, but watching them back again the effects created 40 years later don’t look all that much better that what we’ve got here — a sure sign of the quality on display in the 1970s.
As for Jo sneaking around, I’m really pleased to see that this story is continuing the recent trend of giving her plenty to do and allowing her to be pro-active in her own right. When she first appeared last season she was fairly gung-ho and willing to go off and do her own thing, but it felt like that had been watered down by the end of the season. Here, though, she’s as great as ever, managing to sneak back into the prison.
It’s also another great episode for her relationship with Doctor Who — they’re best friends again in this one. There’s a great sequence, as part of her breaking him out of prison, where they communicate only via hand signals and facial expressions and both know what the other is saying. It feels like we’ve had a bit of a turning point in the last two stories, but as The Sea Devils was produced before The Curse of Peladon (the first time stories were shown out of production order) perhaps we need to credit this one with softening the edges on their friendship?
Another 8/10.
The Sea Devils — Episode Four
Is this the first time we’ve definitively seen the Third Doctor Who using the Sonic Screwdriver? It was mentioned as early as Doctor Who and the Silurians, and I speculated on it making a possible appearance in Inferno, but I can’t recall it actually showing up at all in Season Eight. Either way, this episode sees the introduction of a brand new Sonic Screwdriver, and it’s making the most of being in colour by adding in some lovely bright yellow and red bits. I have to admit that I think I prefer the 1960s penlight models, but this style is iconic in its own right.
There’s something quite exciting about watching Doctor Who and Jo make their escape across the beach — although Pertwee does a few slightly awkward rolls to make it past the barbed wire — and I love the idea of him blowing up landmines near a monster to try and scare it off. It takes us back to the debate from Day of the Daleks; I’ve no real issue in Doctor Who using violent means when he has to, but it feels wrong for him to simply pick up a gun.
That’s not to say that the use of guns in this episode is all bad — there’s a really exciting sequence where the Sea Devils storm the prison to break the Master free, and it’s one of the best battle sequences that the Pertwee years has given us so far. I was especially surprised by the death of Trenchard — it’s signposted for a few minutes before it happens, but I still wasn’t expecting them to actually go through with it. As ever in a Malcolm Hulke script he was a character imbued with a rare depth, and you can’t help feeling a bit sorry for him.
It all builds up to a pretty exciting final few minutes — Doctor Who spotting a Sea Devil peering through the porthole of his diving tank is especially good — but I’m sorry to say that they slightly fumble the cliffhanger. The tank is hauled back to the surface double quick, Jo looks inside and reacts with horror at… well, what? Presumably the idea was to leave the audience wondering just that, but it’s not as strong as some of the other cliffhangers we’ve had in this story.
Nipping back in here from having just watched Episode Five they’d have done better to cut about 20 seconds later than they did, with Jo emerging and expressing concern that Doctor Who has vanished from the tank. I wonder if they were tight for time so had to cut earlier than they’d like? It’s a rare example of a mis-step in an otherwise very good production.
This episode on the whole is perhaps a light step down from the first three, but it’s still a decent 7/10.
