Friday, 28 May 2021

Big Gay Longcat reviews Doctor Who: The Sea Devils Episode Five


Back at the naval base, Walker the "Parliamentary Private Secretary" (who is disappointingly not played by Chuck Norris) arrives and starts ordering the remaining mannys around, although mainly he wants them to give him some noms. This is a short komedy scene before we get to the important meeting between the Doctor and the Sea Devils.

It is something of a retread of the dialogue between the Doctor and the main Silurian Jurassic characters in Doctor Who and the Jurassics, even down to the similarity of the line
"This is our planet. My people ruled the Earth when man was only an ape."
to
"This is our planet, we were here before man."
and again the Doctor tries to persuade them to "share the planet" and live in peace with mannys. The Doctor obviously sees this is a second chance to succeed where previously he failed to ensure peace between the two non-felis terrestrial races.


Only this time the Master is here to get in his way.

Walker meets with Captain Hart and Jo, and tells them
"Now, I've had a look at that UNIT file about the creatures that your friend the Doctor encountered in those caves. And do you know what happened? Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart blew the whole lot up."
The UNIT era made several attempts to predict what the near future might be like, and they almost got this one right, except that here a DVD is called a "file" instead. Walker wants to follow the Brigadier's example (he must be a fan) so he has ordered more ships to come so that they can blow up the Sea Devils.


We see lots of stock footage of ships sailing about, readying their torpedoes and firing their guns to show us the "task force" assembling and then going into action at Walker's order.

The Sea Devils are about to agree to the Doctor's request that they release the submarine "as a gesture of good faith" when the explosions reach them and make the camera shake. This makes the Sea Devils change their minds and side with the Master almost as quickly as the Master changed his mind and sided with the Doctor at the end of Terror of the Autons. Without giving him even the tiniest chance to arrange a "truce" they order the Doctor to be killed, but another explosion allows him to escape.

The Master convinces the Sea Devil leader not to fight back against the navy right now, so that the mannys think they have won and go away.

The Doctor rescues Donald Sumpter and his best first mate from their cell by pewing the door open with a stolen pewpewpew gun, then they go to the submarine to rescue the rest of the submacrewmannys and liberate it.


The Sea Devils put a "force field" in the way of the submarine as it tries to escape. The Doctor suggests to Sumpter that they blast their way free using torpedoes, because he is fine with using weapons on inanimate objects.

They get back to the naval base, and the Doctor asks
"Captain Hart, what idiot ordered an all out attack just as I was on the verge of finding a peaceful solution?"
just as Walker enters the room, lol. The Doctor knows he's an idiot and he hasn't even met him yet. Walker the Idiot says
"Our duty is to destroy the Queen's enemies. Don't you know your national anthem? 'Confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks.'"
Sadly the Doctor doesn't reply by paraphrasing Steel with 'I know my national anthem,' but he does put Walker in his place with
"That, sir, is an extremely insular point of view."

Walker is under the mistaiken impression that they have won, but the Doctor corrects him. Just as the Master got Trenchard on his side by appealing to his patriotism and sense of duty, the Doctor recognises Walker's weakness and appeals to his ego and sense of vanity:
"Wouldn't you like to be the man behind a peaceful settlement? 'Walker the peacemaker' they'd call you. Or would you prefer to be known as the man responsible for launching a full scale war?"
This is enough to get Walker to allow the Doctor one more attempt at making peace, and he sets out. The trouble is that the Sea Devils are even at this moment attacking the base, and as soon as the Doctor, Jo and Captain Hart get out onto location they encounter a Sea Devil, who points its pewpewpew gun at them - cliffhanger!

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