The Sea Devils is the third serial of the ninth season of the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 26 February to 1 April 1972. It was written by Malcolm Hulke and directed by Michael E. Briant. The serial is notable as the first appearance of the Sea Devils and features extensive location filming in cooperation with the Royal Navy, as well as an experimental electronic score by Malcolm Clarke.
The serial is set in various locations in and beneath the English Channel. In the serial, the alien time traveller the Master (Roger Delgado) makes contact with the Sea Devils, a bipedal marine race that ruled the Earth before humanity, and plots to use them to reconquer the Earth from humanity.
Plot
The Third Doctor and Jo visit the Master, imprisoned on a small island in the English Channel. Despite his claim to have reformed, he refuses to reveal the location of his TARDIS. As they depart, the Doctor hears of ships mysteriously disappearing. Curious, he investigates a sea fortress, where he and Jo are attacked by a sea-adapted bipedal reptile, called a Sea Devil by one witness. They escape to a nearby naval base.
The Doctor discovers that the Master, with the misguided aid of his ostensible jailor Colonel Trenchard, is stealing electrical equipment from a naval research establishment on the island to build a machine that will control the so-called Sea Devils, intending to use them as an army through which to conquer the world. He summons them and they begin to emerge from the sea. A battle for the prison ensues during which Trenchard is killed. The Doctor and Jo once again flee to the naval base where the commanding officer, Captain Hart, tells them a submarine has disappeared. Whilst the crew prepare for battle, the Doctor is seized by the sea creatures.
The Doctor offers to broker peaceful negotiations between the sea-creatures and the humans, recalling how he failed in his earlier attempt with the Silurians, to whom the Sea Devils appear to be related. Matters are left unresolved in the wake of an attack by depth charges ordered by Robert Walker, a politician who has arrived to take control of the situation and intent on repeating UNIT's actions against the Silurians, namely blowing them up, but this time with a nuclear weapon. The attack is opposed by Jo, but does provide the Doctor with cover as he flees to the naval base, where he persuades Walker to allow him another, final attempt at negotiation. In the meantime the Sea Devils capture the naval base, a move instigated by the Master. As part of his plan, he now forces the Doctor to help build a machine to revive dormant Sea Devils around the world. With the device activated, the Sea Devils plan to imprison both the Doctor and Master with their usefulness ended. However, the Doctor has sabotaged the machine to react negatively against the Devils. He escapes with the Master using equipment from the captured submarine.
The sabotaged machine destroys the Sea Devil base before a military attack can begin. The Master evades capture by faking a heart attack and then hijacking a rescue hovercraft.
Outside references
Whilst imprisoned, the Master watches an episode of the children's television show Clangers. the Isle of Wight and .
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 period. In this story the Doctor admits that the name "Silurian" is inaccurate and states they should more properly be called "Eocenes".
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 service personnel, 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 Woolworths submarine model kit and then altering the propeller. By chance, the alterations to the model strongly resembled an actual prototype submarine being developed by the Ministry of Defence. After footage of the model was broadcast as part of the story, director Michael Briant received a visit from two Naval Intelligence officials, who were concerned about where the visual effects team got the plans for the model.
When the wiping of episodes ceased in 1978, it was discovered that the first three episodes had only survived as black and white telerecordings made 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.
Music
The BBC Radiophonic Workshop's Malcolm Clarke composed the incidental music for the story. It was his first contribution to the series and was notably more experimental than the series' usual scores by freelance composer Dudley Simpson. The music was presented as a suite on the 1983 LP Doctor Who: The Music, and was released in full on the 2000 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.