The Sea Devils Episode Four

The one where the Sea Devils emerge from the ocean...

These Sea Devils are quite bloodthirsty fellas, aren't they? It's assumed by everybody from the start that they are aggressive and homicidal, and indeed they are. There's no mercy or lenience shown by these creatures, they are intent on simply killing any humans that cross their paths: the crews of the three vanished ships, Clark and Hickman, the Doctor, and now the innocent prison guards on the beach. Unlike their Silurian cousins, these Sea Devils seem much more like generic monsters than intelligent beings; wordless murderers rather than reasoning thinkers.

In one of his less wise (but braver!) moves, the Doctor leads Jo through a live minefield, using his trusty sonic screwdriver to detect where the buried explosives are (amazingly, this is only the third time the Third Doctor has used the sonic). He then uses the sonic to deliberately detonate the mines close to the pursuing Sea Devil, which screams repeatedly in some considerable distress before scarpering back into the sea. The explosions on the beach are pretty impressive, it must be said!

After three episodes of only a handful of scenes (and sometimes just glimpses) of a Sea Devil, the titular creatures really show up in force in this action-packed installment. A Sea Devil breaks into the control room of the submarine using its metal-melting heat ray, but rather than killing all aboard, it takes command of the vessel and directs it towards the sea fort. The human crew seem very accepting of the fact they have been invaded by a 6ft sea monster with boggly eyes and lizard-like skin, even going so far as to nickname him Green Gilbert!

Thanks to the Master's calling device, more Sea Devils emerge from the ocean at dusk (six emerge twice over, meaning there are at least a dozen of them), but it's a real shame this scene was shot as day-for-night, because it looks so grimy and gloomy, losing any real impact it could have had (the monsters-emerge-from-water iconography was re-enacted twice more in Doctor Who, for Full Circle and The Curse of Fenric, with much more success).

Now that Trenchard knows that it is a bunch of pissed-off sea creatures who are the enemy agents, and not foreign spies and saboteurs, he feels cheated by the Master. The Time Lord claims he didn't tell him the truth because he wouldn't have believed him, and this is most likely true, knowing how unimaginative Trenchard is. But in the end, it's Trenchard's patriotism which leads to him thinking better of things and trying to call in the Government. Clive Morton was perfectly cast as Trenchard, a bumbling old buffer with his heart in the right place, and he gives such a pitch-perfect performance here (sadly, he had only three more years to live before succumbing to cancer at just 71).

Trenchard's death at the hands of the invading Sea Devils is bittersweet, precisely because of Morton's disarming portrayal. The viewer comes to realise that Trenchard was only helping the Master because he thought his country was in danger, and when he learns it was actually an army of marauding sea monsters, his patriotism rises up again, and he sets about picking them off with his old Army pistol. As the Doctor explains to Captain Hart when they find his body, the Master made a weapon of Trenchard's patriotism, and it's tragic that he died simply trying to do the right thing.

The Sea Devil attack on the prison is action-packed and swift, cutting down guard after guard with their weapons, as well as breaking one man's neck in a rather gruesome moment. As I said above, these Sea Devils are ruthless creatures with no respect at all for human life. As the Master says, they have a "deadly hatred" of mankind, despite not really having cause to, having only very recently woken up. Surely the Sea Devils wouldn't be expecting mankind to be ruling Earth at all; the Silurians were surprised to find the "apes" in charge, after all.

Nevertheless, aren't the Sea Devils a corking design? They are tall and imposing (especially as they have yet to speak), green and webbed, with googly eyes and scabby skin, which glistens in the light. There might be the odd occasion where you suspect the actor inside is peering out through holes in the neck, but this is not much of a hurdle to believing these creatures are a formidable force (they'd suffer much more from cricked necks in their comeback story, Warriors of the Deep).

The involvement of the Royal Navy in the making of this story sells it completely. The hardware on show, and at Michael Briant's disposal, is breathtaking (and very rarely beaten in Doctor Who's entire history), culminating in the appearance of the deep diving and submarine rescue vessel HMS Reclaim (it's a lovely touch that the Doctor is piped aboard). This magnificent vessel was the only ship to take part in both the Coronation and Silver Jubilee reviews, but was decommissioned in 1979, and finally broken up in Bruges two years later.

The Doctor going down in the diving bell to try and contact the Sea Devils involves some hardware-heavy location scenes in Portsmouth Harbour which almost make Doctor Who seem like a glossy film series. The cliffhanger is a bit vague though, and it screams out for either Hart or Jo to say: "He's gone! The Doctor's gone!", rather than just stare like goldfish and expect us to guess what's happened (yes, he's gone, but we're not shown that he's gone; he could quite equally have been splattered all over the walls of the diving bell judging by Jo's upward, gormless look).

Oh, and I love the fact that 3rd Officer Blythe brings Leading Telegraphist Bowman a "cup of chai", rather than tea or coffee!

First broadcast: March 18th, 1972

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The Sea Devil attack on the prison is merciless.
The Bad: The emergence of the Sea Devils from the sea is so dark and grainy, it's an iconic moment ruined (the location photos do it much more justice).
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★☆☆

"Now listen to me" tally: 16
Neck-rub tally: 6

NEXT TIME: Episode Five...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Five; Episode Six

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-sea-devils.html

The Sea Devils is available on BBC DVD as part of the Beneath the Surface box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Beneath-Silurians-Warriors/dp/B000ZZ06XQ