|
BBC Legend of the Sea Devils |
|
| Story No. | 326 | 
|
| Production Code | Easter 2022 Special | |
| Dates | April 17, 2022 |
|
With Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill, John Bishop
Written by Ella Road and Chris Chibnall Directed by Haolu Wang Executive Producers: Chris Chibnall, Matt Strevens, Nikki Wilson |
| Synopsis: A pirate unwittingly releases a Sea Devil from a statue in China in 1807. |
The Ship Sinks by Jason A. Miller 9/6/22
There are two great things about Legend of the Sea Devils. The Nathan Evans sea shanty version of the episode, released as a promotional piece a few days before the episode aired. And the Next Time trailer at the end of the episode itself.
It's telling that neither of these great things was part of the episode itself.
What's left in Legend are a bunch of curious narrative choices that don't really add up. Legend is not bad, don't get me wrong -- it's solid, fair-to-middling, with good acting performances and some funny lines. But, as the only Doctor Who episode aired between January and September 2022, and aired as a special rather than just one link in a long season, it needs to carry the weight of expectation, and in that regard it doesn't really measure up.
What's nice is that Dan is the only Caucasian male in the entire episode. You can't say that about too many other Doctor Who stories, 1963 to present; I think only Demons of the Punjab ties it. The rest of the humanoid cast, except Jodie Whittaker, is all of Asian descent. Madam Ching, played by Crystal Yu, was billed as the principal guest star, and is a real historical figure. Chibnall is at his best as Doctor Who showrunner when he spotlights characters and actors that didn't really get a fair shake in the pre-2018 incarnation of the series.
Except that, once it introduces her, the script doesn't do anything with Madam Ching. She's a villain for the first 20 minutes or so, and Yu enjoys sneering her lines, a la Lynda Baron in Enlightenment, but then we learn her painful secret and she becomes a good guy... albeit shoved deep into the background, playing no meaningful role in the plot resolution, which mostly involves technobabble and the pushing of buttons.
Craige Els, coming off a strong run as Karvanista in the Flux season, is back, this time as the lead Sea Devil, a character never named on screen. Els gives a good physical and vocal performance. But it's a one-note villain whose death is practically offscreen. There are many other Sea Devils -- mostly CGI, but a few other non-speaking artists in masks -- and we learn nothing really new about them that we didn't learn in The Sea Devils or Warriors of the Deep. They're one-dimensional baddies. There's no moral dilemma about trying to share the Earth or about how there should have been another way. This is of course a historical, mostly set in 1807, so the plot is backed into a corner -- these Sea Devils can't possibly triumph, because mankind didn't know about them in the 1970s or 2084 -- but even within that corner there was room for more storytelling and nuance than we get.
The main cast is great. Dan, dressed in a comically OTT pirate outfit, reminds me of Steven Taylor in The Gunfighters. Jodie is forced to deliver a lot of improbable dialogue about Stephen King movies and the Sea Devils pimping their ride, but she's fine in her scenes with Yaz. The previous episode, Eve of the Daleks, had teased a relationship between the two, and this script has three scenes building off that theme. There's a moment harking back to Logopolis -- the Doctor finally materializes the TARDIS under water and opens the doors -- which the Doctor specifically tells Yaz is a date. Great start.
But then in the next two scenes the Doctor just lets Yaz down gently. This is the second-to-last Jodie story, and there is just no drama involved in letting someone down gently. The braver, more memorable play, is to have the two of them start a relationship -- that we know has to be doomed because the next story is Jodie's last. But, nah, none of that here. Eve of the Daleks teases a big character-based development, but Legend of the Sea Devils just gently closes and locks that door. Ho hum.
There's a "beast of the deep" who may or may not by the Myrka, though we're never told specifically. There is a clever moment where the Doctor tries to catch up on the plot by dropping back in time to 1533 to witness some earlier moments that caused the present situation in 1807; that's a storytelling lane Doctor Who doesn't often navigate. Another neat moment is watching Madam Ching perform celestial navigation as we see stars reflected in her eyes. Haolu Wang is a first-time Doctor Who director and, constrained by pandemic-related cast and location shortages, she makes the most of visuals.
Had this been one episode in a season of 13 -- the annual celebrity historical -- and not carrying the expectation of being the only special and the last non-arc episode before the finale -- I think this would have worked better than it does. Maybe years from now, when the episode is just one of hundreds on HBO Max and can be watched without the huge gaps in between Eve of the Daleks and this and Jodie's last episode, maybe it will work better. But in April 2022 we've been waiting a long time for this episode and have an even longer wait for the next one, and even with the prodigious talents of Crystal Yu and Haolu Wang and the main cast and Craige Els, this episode is mostly notable for what it doesn't do, what stories it doesn't tell (the actual story of Madam Ching), what risks it doesn't take (expanding the actual Legend of the Sea Devils, teasing but not giving the Doctor and Yaz an actual same-sex relationship).
In that regard, Legend of the Sea Devils is the perfect microcosm of the Chibnall era. Big promise, flat delivery, sour aftertaste, diminishing role in the pop culture.