From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho
For today's walk down RADW memory lane, and tie-in to the
forthcoming re-appearance of the Sea Devils this weekend,
we go back to their last appearance in 2022... this is how
"Legend of the Sea Devils" went down here amongst our
regulars.
(Looking back: It's been a long three years!!!) ----------------------------------------------------------
From: "solar penguin" <
solar.penguin@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Legend of the Sea Devils
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2022 20:07:53 -0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <t3hs2p$ijo$
1@dont-email.me>
Well, that was flawed but fun.
The pacing was a bit off, almost as if it had been written
for an hour-long slot and then cut down by executive meddling
by BBC bosses. (At least, I really , really hope that was
the case, and not just Chibnall having trouble structuring
the plot again!)
The biggest flaw was that the young man seemed just
a little bit too eager at the end to forgive the pirate queen
for killing his father. Agreeing not to kill her in revenge,
that makes sense. Joining her crew, not so much.
I didn’t mind that the Sea Devils’ culture and technology
had changed again. After all, the seventies and eighties
Sea Devils were nothing like each other except for general
appearance and origin story. This fits quite happily in with
that lack of continuity.
The Sea Devils’ plan didn’t seem to make much sense
though. Why not just make a new keystone to replace
the lost one? And how does reversing the Earth’s magnetic
field cause stars to move before it’s even started happening?
It’s probably just best to take it on trust that they’re doing
Something Bad and that’s what matters.
The Thasmin stuff wasn’t too embarrassing, even if it did
feel a bit stuck on as an afterthought.
And according to the trailer, the centenary episode is going
to be full of fanwank. Even more fanwank than we expected.
Should be interesting.
--------------------------------------------------------
From: "The Last Doctor" <
mike@xenocyte.com>
Subject: Re: Legend of the Sea Devils
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2022 21:24:31 -0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <t3i0if$i6q$
1@dont-email.me>
Should have been about 75 minutes I reckon, but there were some
obvious cost cutting measures as well - fight scenes where you
couldn’t see both combatants, not showing the sea monster
clearly so that we couldn’t se how crap it was, only one fully
animated Sea Devil (and they still couldn’t get its mouth to
move).
The biggest flaw was that the young man seemed just
a little bit too eager at the end to forgive the pirate queen
for killing his father. Agreeing not to kill her in revenge,
that makes sense. Joining her crew, not so much.
Yes, there was clearly meant to be a romance there that got left
on the cutting room floor, or edited out of the script
completely.
I didn’t mind that the Sea Devils’ culture and technology
had changed again.
Yes but the Doctor lampshaded it, by pointing out how honourable
they were in the future … and that their technology seemed to be
a bit on the advanced side. Would have been better to comment
that Eocene societies were as complex and varied as modern
humans.
The Sea Devils’ plan didn’t seem to make much sense
though. Why not just make a new keystone to replace
the lost one?
How did they lose it in the first place?
It’s probably just best to take it on trust that they’re doing
Something Bad and that’s what matters.
Yeah, the science was as ropey as it’s ever been. The bit that
irritated me the most was that Dan could still talk to the
Chinese when he was hundreds of years from the TARDIS. This show
could really use a babelfish solution for the language issues.
Writing wise. the plot resolution point being the same as in the
Timeless Children was just lazy (Doctor makes a universe saving
McGuffin that requires sacrifice, guest star of the week makes
the sacrifice for her).
The Thasmin stuff wasn’t too embarrassing, even if it did
feel a bit stuck on as an afterthought.
I thought it was done quite well considering it was now
inevitable. Fairly subtle and interweaved in a low impact way.
But the Doctor seems to be suffering serious premonitions that
her incarnation is ending, and we haven’t been shown a good
reason why. So it feels like she’s using it as an excuse for
holding back.
And according to the trailer, the centenary episode is going
to be full of fanwank.
All in the one show; Daleks. Cybermen, including the half-formed
one that was miniaturised and exploded in the last destruction
of Gallifrey. The Master. Vinder. And of course, the heavily
signalled regeneration - or at least the first half of it.
Plus Tegan Jovanka and Ace McShane (the modern era’s been hard on
companions, only Martha Jones was left safely on contemporary
Earth Prime with her memory intact - all the others are in other
universes, dead but now alive again in the distant future, or
sent back into the past and now dead). So despite it being 40
years, these are 2 of the 3 most recent available companions.
Fanwank indeed!
-------------------------------------------------------------
From: "The True Doctor" <
agamemnon@hello.to.NO_SPAM>
Subject: S13E08 Legend of the Sea Devils
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2022 21:14:27 GMT
Message-ID: <
iuCdnYbux76oHsH_nZ2dnUU7-WnNnZ2d@brightview.co.uk>
Once again the audience (or what's left of it) is witness to the
writing of a 6 year old child that doesn't have the remotest
clue or understanding of the concepts of story, plot, plot
development, characterisation and character development.
The entire opening sequence was incomprehensible on first pass
and I had to rewind it to figure out who characters were, what
they were doing, what their motivations were, and whose side
they were supposed to be on, because none of this was set up at
the start, due to the fact Chibnall and his co-writer for this
episode, Ella Road, are soap-opera hacks and political
playwrights who do not know how to write any form of speculative
fiction or adventure story.
Some Chinese guy speaking with a northern English accent and his
son, again speaking with a northern English accent, are supposed
to be protecting something, and some northern English Chinese
woman with a sword is about to do something to it. Do something
to what, and what for, protecting what and why? You're supposed
to establish that at the beginning, not at the end, and if you
don't have time to do that then you jump straight to the action
part where the woman is hacking at the statue and it starts to
crack (with a bad special effect) and the man is trying to stop
her, not pad it out with totally useless soap-opera at the
beginning which tells you absolutely nothing about the
characters or the plot. People can figure out that the man is
protecting the statue by showing him doing it, not telling us he
has to protect something and not telling us what. People can
also figure out that his son is entrusted with the same task by
showing him come to his father's aid.
Why are these and all the other historical Chinese people not
speaking with Chinese accent so as to establish the fact that
they are speaking Chinese and not English? Does Chibnall not
understand the basics of dramatic presentation? No, of course he
doesn't. He's a useless soap-opera hack.
So, this Chinese women, who's supposed to be some famous female
pirate that no one has ever heard of, in order for the racist
and sexist bigot Chris Chibnall to virtue signal, is looking
from some long lost treasure from some pirate ship in order to
ransom back her crew.
Not once are we ever shown this crew, not once are we shown how
the crew got captured, not once are we shown that the crew
consisted of two of the pirate woman's infant children, or why
they were on a pirate ship to begin with, let alone who the
absentee father was, and not once is it explained how she ended
up looking for this treasure inside the giant statue of a Sea
Devil, or how she found it in the first place which would have
made for a far more interesting story.
So, this British Chinese women hacks away at this statue and by
magic releases a Sea Devil who has been encased within it for
200 years, and by magic it summons a pirate ship from the sea,
complete with a crew of Sea Devils.
What is Chibnall trying to do? Copy Pirates of the Caribbean?
Then Whittaker turns up with the Simpleton and the Wooden Plank
that form her crew, who are going to a fancy dress party on the
beach and have turned up in the wrong time.
Whittaker can't act to save her career and jumps about like a
baboon waving her sonic dildo around everywhere she goes while
bumping into the Sea Devil who is killing everyone around him
except her. Why not her too? The Simpleton wanders off to find
the pirate woman and the Chinese man's son, and the Wooden Plank
thinks she has feelings for Whittaker, none of which has
anything to do with the plot.
Whittaker jumps back in time with the Plank to establish that
some other Chinese pirate, with an upper class English accent,
is in league with the Sea Devils. No explanation for how he
first discovered them or why he was working with them is given,
other than him stating that he colluded them so as to betray
them. Why?
Then Whittaker and the Plank materialize under water to search
for the wreckage of the pirate's ship which they saw sinking a
couple of hundred years earlier, but it's not there and a giant
sea monster breaks it's way out of the bottom of the sea and
swallows up the TARDIS.
After this Whittaker and the plank find themselves inside the
Sea Devils' lair and start wandering around and pressing buttons
and moving leavers with impunity as the Sea Devils which had
massacred an entire English speaking Chinese village do nothing
to stop them. Why haven't they at least been arrested and put
behind bars?
Whittaker then tells the Plank that she would rather be with her
than anyone else, and tells her how great she is. WHY? The
wooden plank has done nothing and demonstrated no virtues do
deserve such accolades. What the hell happened to the 9th and
10th Doctor's feelings for Rose? Then Whittaker tells the Wooden
Plank that she had a wife--who's she talking about, River Song
or someone else?--and she can't enter into relationships. If
that's the case then why did she have a wife and what about
Rose? Contradictions, contradictions, and forced soap opera
garbage as there's never been any credible hint that either the
Plank or Whittaker have any kind of non-platonic feelings for
each other.
The Simpleton and his English speaking Chinese entourage now
arrive on the scene and the Sea Devil pirate ship rises from out
of the sea to meet them.
Whittaker points to the Sea Devils that they are supposed to be
a peaceful race.
You couldn't make a more racist statement than that if you tried
Chibnall!
There's always good and bad people among every race or
nationality. Their individual behaviour is not determined by
their race or their historical culture. It's determined by their
political beliefs and those who happen to lead them at the time.
The Sea Devils tell Whittaker they are looking for some kind of
gem stone with magical powers in order to use it change the
climate and make the sea engulf the land, and it happens to be
around the Chinese boy's neck and we're told, he's the decedent
of another pirate who escaped from the male pirate's ship, by
this male pirate who had been frozen in suspended animation by
the Sea Devils and has now been reanimated. Again this would
have been a better story than the one we were actually shown.
The Simpleton then cuts down a dozen Sea Devils with a magic
sword, and Whittaker, the Plank, and the English speaking
Chinese pirates jump from the female pirate's ship to the wreck
of the male pirate's ship and escape in the TARDIS, but not
before the male pirate decides to sacrifice his life for that of
Whittaker, by holding two cables together for long enough for
them to escape before everything blows up as a result of
Whittaker's earlier tampering.
Then the last 10 minutes consists of useless irrelevant soap
opera about feelings and relationships between Whittaker and the
Plank and the Simpleton and the one armed woman who he's not
talked to once in the past year, and yet he has feelings for her
after he's gone off with Whittaker to enjoy himself.
Chibnall doesn't have a clue how to write a story. He's hacking
off scenes from movies he's either seen or heard of before, and
to pad out the episode he's inserting pointless kitchen sink
dialogue occurring between the characters that provides no
development of either the characters or the situations they are
in, because things happen because they have to happen to get
from one hacked scene to the next and not because something the
characters said or did caused these things to happen, as
everything happens by magic and fortunate coincidences where
characters meet up at a specific destination without showing how
they got there or why they needed to be there, at exactly the
right time.
In the final scene Whittaker skims a stone over the sea and
wishes she could be there longer. Chibnall is so devoid of ideas
that he's hacking off Davies' and Tennant's regeneration finale
with Whittaker's days being numbered.
Garbage, pure garbage!
0/10
And now Chibnall is set to destroy the characters of Tegan and
Ace on top of everything else he's already destroyed including,
the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Sontarans, the Sea Devils, the
Time Lords, the Master, and, of course, the entire character of
the Doctor!
--------------------------------------------------------------
From: "
tsbr...@gmail.com" <
tsbrueni@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Legend of the Sea Devils
Date: Sun/Mon 17/18 Apr 2022 12:14:06 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <9ead0d99-64fe-4f66-b781
9b02d4fed598n@googlegroups.com>
S13E08 Spoilers. Also S39E08 Spoilers.
Great moment: The 1533 ship that glows on the bottom, can fly
through the air, and can sink to the bottom of the sea without
being damaged and without letting water on board.
I saw two things that look like Star Trek warp engines.
Why does the Doctor get a pain in her ear at the start?
How does Pirate Queen operate her ship by herself.
It seems that the Sea Devils want to cause Global Warming on
steroids.
Great moments: The TARDIS on the bottom of the ocean. Would it
be possible for the TARDIS to create an air corridor on the
bottom of the ocean, outside the TARDIS?
The TARDIS hovering in mid water, above a gigantic sink hole.
The TARDIS being grabbed by the mouth of a gigantic sea
creature. If the TARDIS had embarked on a time trip at that
moment, would the sea creature have come along for the ride, as
per the dinosaur in Deep Breath? ---------------------------------------------------
From: "Daniel65" <
daniel47@eternal-september.org>
Subject: How long have poeple been aware??
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2022 21:58:37 +1000
Message-ID: <t3jjp8$4io$
1@dont-email.me>
Watching "Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils" tonight, I
noticed, for the first time I think, that The Doctor is aware of
Yaz's feelings for her.
Mind you, I haven't particularly been looking for this
interaction, it was mainly though reading here that I became
aware of Yaz's feelings for The Doctor until Dan starting
asking/advising Yaz about her feelings!!
Tonight, whilst watching, I started thinking .... "Is this why
Yads has hated these JodyDoc Series so much ..... cause he
cottoned on to this relationship very early on?? VERY, very,
early on!"
I mean, knowing what a solid Christian the clown is, he might
have 'dis'd' these series for this reason alone, from the very
start!!
------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Andy Leighton" <
andyl@azaal.plus.com>
Subject: Re: Doctor Who - Legends of the Sea Devils review with
Spoilers
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2022 06:24:03 -0500
Message-ID: <
slrnt5qiij.3ums5.andyl@azaal.plus.com>
Wasn't great, wasn't crap, just average. To be honest I was
expecting more considering it is part of a series of 'specials'. ---------------------------------------------------------------
From:"Blueshirt" <
blueshirt@indigo.news>
Subject: Re: Doctor Who - Legends of the Sea Devils review with
Spoilers
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2022 19:50:20 GMT
Message-ID: <t3kfev$fk5$
1@gioia.aioe.org>
"Legend of the Sea Devils" is probably the most un-special of
all the 'specials' so far it must be said. So I also thought it
was an average episode... it was a bit of a fun romp though.
The new 'pirate' Sea Devil's are kind of cool but I think I
prefer the menace of the originals walking out of the sea.
(Maybe if I was seven years old again I might have found these
versions scary!)
--------------------------------------------------------------
From: "The Doctor" <
doctor@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca>
Subject: Doctor Who - Legends of the Sea Devils review with
Spoilers
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 2022, 21:31:10 GMT
Not even this new fangled Sea Devil can save this trash.
Plot
1807 - China . Enter the Pirate Queen.
Defiance in the Village as a Villager tried to stop
a theft of a Sea Devil Statue.
More like a prison for a Sea Devil.
Sea Devil kills human on the spot.
Starting sequence
Centuries off and Dan looks like a pirate.
Doctor hears a sound no on hears.
Rock bounces off and a geomagnetic disturbance sent TARDIS off
course.
Villagers being slain by a Sea Devil.
Companions nets a Sea Devil only for the Devil gets a ship?
You are right, that is impossible and implausible.
Goes against The Sea Dvils and Warriors of the Deep.
Madme Ching metss The So-called Doctor.
Madame Ching looking for a treasure. Sea Devil - Ocean Demon.
Sea Devils to attack 19th Century Earth.
The Warshian - a Sea Devil Sea Creature?
Dan is going to help the son deal with Madame Ching.
This creatures eats a fisherman live. Key Lost Ship of Keyhon.
Doctor going into the past for the Lost Ship.
Ching hangs Dan and friend.
Dan tries to negotiate with Ching.
Ching on a dangerous course with Sea Devils.
1533 South china. The Jihon Ship, A possible crazed mutinty.
Jihon in league with the Sea Devils.
Chibnall - A Stephen King Nighmare.
The TARDIS at bottom of the bootom - oxygen bubble.
Ship wreck not present. Sea Devil creature tries to eat TARDIS.
Ching ship?s no equipment works so use stars.
Ching targets treasure at own risk. Ching's crew is held hostage.
Her mission to take the treasure and free her children.
Sea Devil creature attacking Ching?s Ship.
Canonballls fired but ineffective.
Sea Devils captured the TARDIS. Doctor explores sea Devils lair.
Jihon's ship is now Sea Devil property.
Keystone in Ching ship. Jihan ship in the hands of the Sea Devil.
Jihan in stasis. Keystone a gem of infinite power.
Doctor hijacks Jihon?s ship.
Jihon joins Ching.
Keystone in the hand of the family.
Sea Devils are attemting to destroy the Earth into an aqua world.
Sea Devils and human fight on old ship.
Dcotor disarms leads Sea Devil wand Jihon kills leading Sea
Devil.
Sea Devils causing geomagnetic instability.
Ship now in Sea Devil?s lair.
Sea Devils taking on Dan and Jihon only to die.
Jihon holds the balance only to die.
Treasure and TARDIS out of the way of the reversal seeing Sea
Devils
lair into implosion.
Ching lets boy join crew.
Yasmin asks for Beach Time.
Doctor is reflecting.
0/10 ! Why? The Sea Devils are suppose to in alliance with the
Silurians. And If you saw the 1970s and 1980s Sea Devils,
you will see how farcical this episode is.
Next up even Ace is going down with the Ship? ------------------------------------------------------------
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