Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils: Review

So the penultimate outing for Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor is here - a seemingly swashbuckling adventure that somehow ended up out at sea.

The second of three specials to farewell Thirteen, Legend of the Sea Devils promised so much - a return for one of the Doctor's most iconic enemies, first glimpsed in 1972, and a chance to cut loose before the final regeneration story. But what emerged from this relatively footloose and fancy-free adventure was one that promised much menace from the Sea Devils but really relegated them to footnotes in their own story.

After promising the crew she'd take them to the beach, the Doctor and the TARDIS were thrown off course and land in China in 1807, just as Crystal Wu's famed pirate Queen Madame Ching sets loose a Sea Devil from a statue  in her hunt for treasure. 

Thrust into the middle of a conflict where there should be none, it's up to Yaz, Dan and Thirteen to try and save the day - and ultimately the planet as the Sea Devils' plan is revealed. 

Splitting the crew into two camps - Dan essentially on his own, and the Doctor and Yaz - means the script can ultimately address the burgeoning relationship between Yaz and the Doctor which Dan forced into the light during the end of the New Year's Special, Eve of the Daleks.

And while Dan's seafaring adventures with Madame Ching and islander Ying Ki make for reasonable entertainment, allowing John Bishop to dispatch one-linters, the main thrust of the adventure becomes the continuing subtext of the Thasmin relationship. 

It's not that this is a bad thing to have done, and in truth, it leads to some fairly emotive and weighty scenes between Mandip Gill and Jodie Whittaker's characters, but it also sidelines the Sea Devils from their own story - and certainly, the resolution of their menace feels cursory and utterly rote. 

This is perhaps the biggest problem with Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils: it feels rushed and jumpy in parts. In among the cutlasses and swashbuckling, there's a feeling the script jumps about or was cut for running time as it gets to the crux of the matter - the Doctor's desire to never be fixed to one point, and that her time is running out as she was told in the denouement of Doctor Who: Flux.

But for all of the disappointment within the episode and the feeling a production was saddled with Covid restrictions meaning what should have been an epic adventure was more an intimately filmed one with relationship issues at its core, it showcases the best and worst of what Jodie Whittaker's Doctor Who reign has proffered up.

Deeply affecting emotional moments are contained within, and others are sidelined. While no-one could have foreseen the problems the production of these past few years would have faced, and those involved are to be commended, there's an overriding feeling that pacing is an issue that's undercut the show at most turns.

When the show slows and the character moments are given a chance to shine, they soar. Witness Yaz and Thirteen's beach-set final talk and contrast it with Dan's brief phonecall back to an Earth-bound friend. One feels rushed, the other feels organic, the product of a thread that's been given time to bloom and grow.

As the end comes for Thirteen, Yaz and Dan, Legend of the Sea Devils shows that despite high production values, and the lure of an iconic menace, Jodie Whittaker's penultimate episode is a little too washed up to be as memorable as it should have been.