Legend of the Sea Devils

If you enjoy the movies with pirates and that contain fights with swords you may enjoy this episode too. If you’d like to see the bottom of the sea as you are inside the TARDIS you may watch it too. The episode is fun, it has special effects (some of them are excellent), but that’s about it – it does not stand with anything else.

It is clear the the special episode aired on Easter was produces during the pandemic, and the restrictions imposed because of covid-19 are visible: a small number of characters, only a few places where they filmed, and so on (that’s different from other episodes where the producers had a bigger cast and a bigger liberty of movement).

A good thing, at least that, is that the penultimate episode where Jodie Whittaker is playing the Doctor was partially build around an historical figure: Madame Ching, the pirates qeen in China in the year 1807. It’s not the first episode built like this, other similar episodes being Rosa and Spyfall, part II, as being one the original ideas of the series that worked pretty good until now for the public and the critics.

It’s not the first time the Doctor met the Sea Devils (related with the Silurians), but it’s the first time the current Doctor incarnation had to deal with them with the help from some native from different centuries brought in the same place because of them circumstances not to be neglected. I will enjoy watching this Devils in other episodes (if their stories will be better written than this one) – if their cousins living on land have appeared constantly in the previous series why shouldn’t they do it?

Directed by Haolu Wang, written by Chris Chibnall and Ella Road.

Cast: Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), John Bishop (Dan Lewis), Marlowe Chan-Reeves (Ying Ki), Crystal Yu (Madame Ching), Craige Els (Marsissus), Nadia Albina (Diane Curtis), Simon Carew (Sea Devil), Jon Davey (Sea Devil), Chester Durrant (Sea Devil), Arthur Lee (Ji-Hun), Mickey Lewis (Sea Devil), David Tse (Ying Pai).

The next special episode will be aired only in the autumn, but you should stick around until then: the actor (or the actress) that will play the next Doctor should be announced sometimes in the next weeks.