Jodie Whittaker’s time as the Doctor is coming to an end. Her penultimate episode is the Easter special “Legend of the Sea Devils” which aimed to be a swashbuckling adventure.
The Doctor, Yaz, and Dan take a trip to ancient China to look for Ji-Hun’s lost treasure. However, the TARDIS takes the trio to 1807 and they discover the Pirate Queen, Madam Ching (Crystal Yu) has accidentally unleashed a Sea Devil. So the Doctor needs to stop this old enemy and their devious plans.
Special episodes of Doctor Who often give the series a chance to appeal to broader audiences. They are often broadcast during a holiday, like Christmas, New Year, or in this case, Easter. The theory is families can sit together and enjoy the show, even though streaming has changed TV viewing habits. Specials also offer new audiences a chance to get to experience the show with fresh eyes.
“Legend of the Sea Devils” aimed to be a fun, standalone adventure, a swashbuckling adventure in the vein of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. The episode did start off strong when a man tried to defend the statute that Madam Ching was trying to destroy. It gave off a light-hearted fantasy vibe. Like the Pirates films there were ship battles, sword fights, sea creatures, and important fantasy MacGuffins.
However, the Pirates were multi-million dollar productions with big stars and Oscar calibre special effects. “Legend of the Sea Devils” was made on a British TV budget, and it showed. It was an episode that had poor CGI and rubbery costumes. The ambition didn’t match the budget. Even the sword fighting was lacklustre. One of the selling points of swashbuckling adventures is action sequences like sword fighting but there clearly wasn’t much choreography and the editor had to mask these scenes cutting to character shots when swords were meant to be hit. It was unintentionally comical.
Doctor Who has produced some great specials. “The Waters of Mars” and “A Christmas Carol” were examples of this, whilst an episode like “The Time of the Doctor” had emotional moments for Doctor Who fans. In comparison “Legend of the Sea Devils” was inconsequential. There wasn’t the spectacle or an engaging story or characters that would make “Legends of the Sea Devils” stand out.
The most important aspect of this special was the relationship between The Doctor and Yaz. In the fifth episode of Doctor Who: Flux Dan deduced that Yaz had feelings for The Doctor and in “Eve of the Daleks” Yaz told The Doctor that she loved the Time Lord but The Doctor was oblivious to what Yaz was saying. In the special the Doctor finally revealed that she felt the same way about Yaz but couldn’t act on those feelings.
The reasoning for why the Doctor couldn’t be romantic with Yaz sounded reasonable. The Doctor has experienced a lot of loss and death during her time so didn’t want to risk losing Yaz. Superheroes like Batman and Spider-man experienced this dilemma. But there were differences because the reason why superheroes don’t have relationships was to protect the women they loved and protect their secret identity. The Doctor was already taking Yaz on dangerous adventures, and she was continuing to take people on adventures. They could still be together or The Doctor would need to travel alone and not be close to anyone.
The potential romance rings hollow because there was no chemistry between The Doctor and Yaz. Even after three seasons of television, the connection between the pair and their characterisation was thin. Nor did it help that both actors were woody as a forest.
The Doctor even compared Yaz to her wife, i.e. River Song, yet Yaz was no River Song. Previous versions of The Doctor had better and deeper connections with their companions, like Rose, Amy, and Clara. Even Bill who was only a companion for one season had more of a spark with The Doctor and the audience felt for her tragedy in the final two episodes of Series 10.
“Legend of the Sea Devils” was a forgettable episode that was elevated to special status. It had a thinly written story and the characters were trying to force an emotional romantic storyline.
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