Tripwire’s Man In Los Angeles Reviews The Doctor Who Easter Special

Legend of the Sea Devils
Written by Ella Road and Chris Chibnall
Directed by Haolu Wang

Life as a Doctor Who fan is often just as much about navigating the time between episodes as it is about enjoying the show itself: the rhythm of the seasons, or series, as in the case of modern Who,  the narrative rise and fall from premier to finale, the slightly awkward staccato quality of the various one-shot specials. Then there are great temporal gulfs of anticipation through the gaps between series, the hiatuses and unasked for fallow periods when the show is being forcibly “rested.”

It is probably fair to say various folk who self-identify as Doctor Who fans have developed wildly different approaches to managing this in-between time. For some, it is the space where their enjoyment comes alive, the opportunity to revisit and enjoy all the many splendored aspects of the show that have occurred up to this point in preparation for the further pleasures of the episodes to come. Others seem to take an almost perverse pleasure in not enjoying the latest instalment, forever holding it in unfavourable comparison to whatever treasured memory of the show it was that made love it in the past, or against an imagined future in which the lead actor/show runner/or whatever will be somehow better than they are now.

But whatever your particular style of fandom, most Whovians would undoubtedly prefer to get more episodes rather than fewer. So the most recent mini-series format that gave us Doctor Who: Flux, followed by a year of three special episodes already finds fans slightly frustrated and yearning for more than they are getting. The fact that this Easter episode’s 48-minute runtime is roughly equivalent to the length of a run-of-the-mill pre-Covid episode just adds to the sense that we are all getting a bit short-changed.

But then Sea Devils were back! And they’ve never looked so handsome! The digitally enhanced animations allowed them to blink and gave the aquatic reptilians an ability to emote that the classic era costumes could never have hoped to achieve. And there was the little cry they gave out when hurt or dying, a direct callback to the yell of pain a Sea Devil gave in their eponymous 1971 debut adventure. Magic.

On the minus side, some of the rock cracking effects of the petrified Sea Devil being brought back to life at the beginning of the episode did look a bit cheap and unconvincing in comparison, but open ocean scenes, both above and below the water’s surface, gave the story an sense of scale and spectacle that more than made up for the show’s more limited length.

And speaking of limited lengths, I remain disconsolate that Jodie Whittaker’s tenure as the Doctor is drawing to an end. I know, three series is a significant committent for any actor, and her time in the role was inconveniently curtailed by Covid, but in my own fandom I’m also guilty of still wanting more; more episodes, more adventures, more time with a favourite Doctor, (not to mention Yaz [Mandip Gill] and Dan [John Bishop]).

Yet, in a way this episode was able to deliver at least a glimpse of what a fuller standard series, the one we didn’t get because of Covid and its related protocols for safe-filming during an ongoing global pandemic, might have resembled. It worked kind of like Season 4 of the classic series, where there are more episodes missing that there are existent, and none of the stories that remain are complete. And in a weird way, I kind of like that. Legend of the Sea Devils gives us a sense of what we missed, and perhaps eventually this lacuna, these missing adventures of the Doctor, Yas and Dan will be told as the gaps between televised adventures are filled with future Big Finish audios, comics, BBC Sounds dramas and whatever.

Back to the story in hand, I loved Crystal Yu’s turn as pirate queen Madam Ching, Arthur Lee as Ji-Hun, the tale’s historical Chinese setting, the sword fights and the whole pirate motif in general. After the campy prancings of 2011’s Curse of the Black Spot, I seriously wondered if that ship had sailed. Not so, and if the current success of HBO’s Our Flag Means Death tells us anything, it is that there’s plenty of appetite for more piratical misadventures, especially when mixed with some great LGBTQ+ content.

Which brings us to what I found to be the most disappointing aspect of the episode. Yas’s romantic overtures towards the Doctor being rebuffed. Yeah, I know that romantic fulfilment is not great for an ongoing dramas like Doctor Who, but this felt more than a little crass: especially with the Doctor casually mentioning having been married in the past (to River Song. We aren’t going anywhere near that whole can of worms surrounding Susan referring to the Doctor as “grandfather” back in the show’s very beginnings, which implies that the Doctor had a whole extended family that we never ever got to see).

The idea of the Doctor stoicly remaining single for fear of causing hurt just feels stale and a tired throwback to a time when all involved in the show’s production and broadcast were at pains to keep the Doctor as asexual and alien as possible. The thought of a married or otherwise romantically partnered Time Lord zooming through the universe with their companion, of whatever gender identity, is a beguiling one. Would it work? Could it work? Also, we’ve never really seen the Doctor having a relationship that eventually breaks down. Now there is fresh untrammelled territory. What a perfect way for a 59-year-old show to further renew itself. Ah, well, at least Dan manages to patch things up with his own love interest, Diane (Nadia Albina). Hope that doesn’t all end in tears and/or tragedy.

The rest of the plot kind of slid off me like water off a Sea Devil’s back. Yeah, there was a magic MacGuffin treasure item called the Keystone, which the Sea Devils wanted to use to raise the world’s sea levels (as if humans need any help at that particular task), a giant sea monster capable of swallowing the TARDIS for breakfast, and a plucky young orphan boy who gets adopted by the pirate queen in the end. It probably won’t be the story here that compels repeated rewatches anytime soon, but the powerful and spectacular sweeping visual effects might.

Then finally, just when I thought we might be going to go into the impending regeneration story with more of a whimper than a bang, we get to the trailer for the final special of the year and of Whittaker’s run with the exciting revelation that two classic-era companions from the 1980s Tegan (Janet Fielding) and Ace (Sophie Aldred) will be returning! And just like that, I’m back to excited anticipation mode. Can’t wait to see you all again next episode!