Written by Malcolm Hulke, Sydney Newman, and Donald Wilson
Directed by Michael E. Briant

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television series that has been around off and on since 1963. The main character is just known as “The Doctor” and is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. This means he travels through time to various places. One of his favorite places to visit is Earth. Typically, he has a companion traveling with him, usually female, sometimes male, sometimes one of each. He travels in a time machine known as a “Tardis”, which is disguised as a British Police booth.

A Time Lord can regenerate if fatally wounded, which has accounted for all the different actors who have played The Doctor throughout the years. In this episode, the Doctor is portrayed by Jon Pertwee.  This is the period of the show when the Doctor was confined to Earth, unable to jump around through space and time.  His “companions” during this time consisted of humans involved with UNIT – the United Nations Intelligence Task Force, which was sort of a military presence of the U.N.  In The Sea Devils, he is accompanied by Jo Grant (portrayed by Katy Manning), a junior operative and the Doctor’s assistant.

The Sea Devils is a six-part story-arc that is classic Doctor Who from the Pertwee era, which was known for the variety of monsters he encountered.  This story-arc was something of a sequel to Doctor Who and the Silurians and the second in a trilogy of story-arcs involving creatures who once inhabited the Earth coming out of their long sleep, intending to reclaim the planet.  The same creatures who inhabit the inner Earth in Doctor Who and the Silurians here have adapted to the sea and make their presence known.

The two travel to visit The Master (portrayed by Roger Delgado), who is being held as a prisoner in isolation on an island.  While there, the warden (portrayed by Clive Morton) mentions something to the Doctor about boats missing from a nearby naval facility.  Intrigued, the Doctor investigates and soon learns the disappearances center around an abandoned fort now turned into a research facility.  He and Jo travel to the facility at the center of all the disappearances.  They become stranded and run across a member of the facility’s crew who speaks of a Sea Devil in a state of what appears to be insanity.

Meanwhile, the Master isn’t quite the prisoner he appears to be and has a plan in place involving using the Sea Devils to conquer the planet.

For a six-part story arc, it’s remarkably entertaining and well-paced.  There are some moments where it feels like there’s filler added to stretch the story out, but those moments were few.  There’s enough here with what initially seems like two different stories to keep the story from bogging down.  Having the Master in place makes it seem as if, for a tim,e the Doctor and Jo are actually battling two enemies until the Master’s plan comes into focus and the storylines converge.

The acting is excellent.  Roger Delgado makes an excellent villain, although having these stories confined strictly to Earth does hamper how far he can stretch.  Still, his megalomania is something that will rear its head again years down the road when he tries to imprison the Doctor and control the Earth in Series Three.  Aspects of his personality there have their roots in Delgado’s portrayal here.

Pertwee gets to stretch a bit and be more of an action star as they battle the Sea Devils.  He is building a bit on the tones set forth in his encounter with the Silurians in trying to broker a peace between the former inhabitants of the planet and the current ones.  There are gadgets aplenty for him to use, and the character at times has flavors like James Bond here. To his credit, Pertwee pulls it off for the most part rather than looking ridiculous.

A good deal of The Sea Devils was filmed in Portsmouth at a working Navy Station with the cooperation of the British Navy and the Ministry of Defense, which was unprecedented at the time.

The restoration quality is a bit off from other Doctor Who DVDs, but I suspect that has something to do with the source material. There’s a particular scene where the Doctor and the Master engage in a swordfight that left me scratching my head a bit until I listened to the commentary.  The sword fight scene between the Doctor and the Master was sped up by transferring that scene to a disc, speeding it up, then back to film.  Whatever effect they were trying to achieve with this is unfortunately lost in the remastering process, as with more clarity in the film, it becomes apparent that it’s been tinkered with and looks like it’s of lesser quality.

In addition to the commentary, there is a featurette about making The Sea Devils, which is also interesting, as well as a slew of lesser features.  I just appreciate that the BBC and the team that put these together are willing to go to all these lengths to include these features on the discs.

Fans of the show will definitely want to check out The Sea Devils, although I don’t know that this is the place to start for people who aren’t familiar with the show and particularly this era.  Pertwee’s UNIT years suffer from him being confined to the planet, and although this feels much like a repeat of the morality play in Doctor Who and the Silurians with the Master thrown in for good measure, the story works quite well.  I love Pertwee and Delgado acting together and wish I hadn’t suffered through the overuse of the Master in the 1980s so I could appreciate him more here.


SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Commentary with Andrew Cartmel, Terrance Dicks, Barry Letts, and Director Michael Briant
• Isolated Music Score
· Information Text
• Hello Sailor (featurette)
• 8mm (footage shot by one of the Naval men who worked with them on the story-arc)
• Trails & Continuity
· Photo Gallery
• Coming Soon: The Time Meddler
• Radio Times Listings
• Piccolo Book – The Making of Doctor Who