The Doctor fights the first two Sea Devils using Venusian Karate (although it looks like he also uses a two-fisted fighting style at one point, no doubt something he learned from his friend Captain Kirk) before the third one knocks him out with its shoulder massage technique. The Master arrives with more Sea Devils and they capture the Doctor, Jo, Captain Hart and then all the other mannys at the naval base.
The Master wants the Doctor's help to wake up the rest of the Sea Devils from all over the world, although really he just likes teaming up with the Doctor and so will look for any excuse.
Captain Hart, Jo and Walker are all imprisoned together (presumably because they are named characters) and they immediately start on an escape attempt, getting Jo out through a "ventilation hatch." Walker's main contribution to the plan is to complain about it, although he does help lift Jo up to the hatch in the end.
The Doctor and the Master team up (for those keeping score at home this is the fifth time out of six Master stories) as the Doctor corrects the Master's plans for a "sonar device analogous to the laser" to wake up all the Sea Devils from their long sleeps.
For the second time this story Jo has escaped from the baddys first and then gone on to look in through a window at where the Doctor is being held. When they are able to speak to each other the Doctor tells Jo his plan to create a distraction so that she can rescue all the other mannys, which is our first indication that he is only pretending to team up with the Master, like he did at the end of Claws of Axos.
When the machine is finished and the Doctor turns it on, the Sea Devils all go 'Ow my hed.'
Jo and Captain Hart escape and get to the chovvercraft, although Walker is still too scared of the Sea Devils and prefers to stay behind. For some reason (which may or may not be due to this being the final episode of the story), when he is on board the hovercraft Captain Hart's gun suddenly becomes much more powerful and he is able to shoot and kill the Sea Devils chasing them.
The Master eventually turns the machine off and the Sea Devils go back to normal, but Captain Hart and Jo have managed to use their time to rescue a load of mannys offscreen and they now use the hovercraft to launch a counterattack. All of their guns have seemingly been powered up and they are now able to shoot down many Sea Devils. One Sea Devil even gets shot off a roof and does a stunt dive off of it for no reason.
A manny comes in, shoots a Sea Devil, rescues the Doctor and captures the Master all in a matter of seconds. The Brigadier would be super jealous of that manny if he knew. Unfortunately for the manny, as soon as the Doctor leaves the Master starts to hypno-eyes him.
The Doctor sees the Master escaping with the machine to a convenient small orange boat, just big enough to fit one manny and his Sea Devil-waking machine. Even more conveniently there is a second boat for the Doctor to chase him in.
Despite spending most of the ensuing chase scene in pursuit of the Master's stunt double, the Doctor eventually catches up with the Master. But some Sea Devils have also been involved in the chase, and they capture the Doctor, so the Master does a lol even though he is wet.
Back at the naval base, Walker recommends that they take off and nuke the entire site from orbit as the only way to be sure, and he plans to telephone the Minister to request this.
The Doctor and the Master have both been taken back to the Sea Devils' base, where their chief says
"We shall destroy man and reclaim the planet."
The Doctor asks
"Is there nothing I can say to make you reconsider?""Nothing!"
To this the Doctor quietly says "I'm sorry" and secretly adjusts part of the machine before the Master turns it back on. Then the Sea Devil chief orders that both the Doctor and the Master be put in "the cages" and the Master futilely protests
"I helped you! I helped you!"
Oh dear, will he never learn? At least he didn't claim to be their creator, lol.
When they're in a cell together, the Doctor tells the Master
"You see, before you reactivated it, I reversed the polarity of the neutron flow."
and he says in about ten minutes this will blow up their base. The Master says
"But we'll both be killed.""That's right. Unless we can both escape."
So they are forced to team up again. Well, the earlier example doesn't really count because the Doctor was tricking the Master, but this one does count so we are five from six after all.
They escape by disguising themselves in some orange suits to fool the Sea Devils (at least I think that's what happens there, mew, I'm getting a bit confused by all the costume changes there have been in this story - way more than is usual for the Doctor or the Master) and then they get to the surface of the sea where they are found by the hovercraft that Captain Hart sent to look for them. When on board, the Master collapses as the Doctor looks out the window at the Sea Devil base exploding.
On the beach the Doctor meets up with Captain Hart and Jo.
The Master is brought out by two medics who say he is ded, except then it turns out to be a manny in a rubber mask who is neither the Master nor ded (I don't think much of the competence of those medics), and the real Master steals the hovercraft and uses it to escape. Yay - a happy ending!
I presume they got Walker to cancel the nuclear strike offscreen?
What's so good about The Sea Devils?
The Master returns, and thank the Hoff he did, because without him this story would be a wafer-thin retread of Doctor Who and the Silurians, only with Captain Hart and the navy instead of the Brigadier and UNIT. And Donald Sumpter, good though he is, is no substitute for Paul Darrow as the story's officer sidekick.
The only real point of interest in the story that doesn't involve the Master (unless you're an aficionado of stock footage of the Royal Navy) is the Doctor's desire to atone for his failure in the earlier story. But even this is made more interesting by the presence of the Master, countering the Doctor's every attempt at making peace and acting as the 'bad angel' on the opposite shoulder of the Sea Devil chief to the Doctor's 'good angel.'
Most of the fun in watching this story comes in the various 'set piece' scenes involving the Doctor and the Master, in particular their swordfight (which was so good they showed it twice) and, of course, their having to team up at the end. Even when they are not on screen together they still manage to act in parallel, getting into the missing ships plot simultaneously but separately, with Trenchard taking the role of the Master's 'Companion.'
On the subject of Trenchard, he also deserves some credit for making this story memorable (in a good way). Not only does his relationship with the Master lead to one of the show's most oddly iconic moments when he catches him watching Clangers, but he develops from being a buffoonish komedy sidekick into having a tragic failed redemption arc, and does so in a believable manner.
Pertwee Six-Parter Padding Analysis
There's no denying that The Sea Devils is a heavily padded story. Despite being, at its core, Doctor Who and the Silurians + the Master (not to be mistaiken for Masters) this has less plot to it than the earlier story did on its own. In part this is understandable, of course, as being a sequel this didn't need to introduce the monsters - we saw a similar situation in Terror of the Autons.
A lot of the padding, particularly early on, is well disguised and enjoyable in its own right because it involves the Master - the Clangers scene is basically inessential, the swordfight pointless (er, if you see what I mean), but in the latter episodes much less so - we see a lot more stock footage of the navy going into action than is needed, the whole character of Walker is an unnecessary addition whose subplot doesn't even get resolved properly, and Jo's escaping and seeing the Doctor through a window twice in a single story is a real giveaway.
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