Others here have already addressed a lot of the issues I had with this episode, but I just wanna say:
This episode made me feel how I felt watching some classic Doctor Who episodes that were bad, but which I felt I had to get through to get to the good parts. I've never felt like this in the modern era (except perhaps a few bad episodes in Capaldi's first series), but this... The previous Chibnall series were bad, but this just takes the cake.
And can I say? I really don't care for Whittaker's Doctor. I've been watching some clips with the previous modern Doctors, and they all had that magical energy about them, like they were excited about life and wanted to take us on a grand tour of all time and space. Whittaker has nothing of this energy. The writing's largely to blame, but there is something about her performance, too, that lacks a certain depth and quality. I was hoping that, like Capaldi, she would find her footing after a season or two, but her character is actually regressing as we head out into her last appearance.
I like to think that in a few years, when RTD has steered the ship right again, I'll be thinking back to this episode as another one of the dark periods of Who fandom.
:expressionless:37% :thumbsup:14 :thumbsdown:24
:white_check_mark::white_check_mark::white_check_mark::white_check_mark:
Good choice of a historical era and setting, highlighting a largely forgotten pirate captain; love the Asian setting, as it is rare for Doctor Who to tackle.
Jodie Whitaker has a few good Doctor-moments acting opposite Craige Els; John Bishop is sassy as always; Crystal Yu seems to enjoy playing the pirate captain Madame Ching, which carries over to her energetic performance; the lead Sea Devil has more personality than any other previous individual of said species.
There's quite a nice swashbuckling sequence on a ship towards the end of the episode which ends up being the highlight of this adventure; there are finally some emotional moments devoted to the Doctor and Yaz, but it's difficult to say where they’re going from here with one episode left of this era.
The BBC once again excels in the costume and set decoration department, bringing a pinch of reality and magic to the visual side of the story; the Sea Devil designs are wonderfully true to the original ones from the classic series, with a slightly updated quality; Segun Akinola's score takes inspiration from the setting and supports the adventure pretty well.
:x::x::x::x:
So much of the plot makes no sense - how do you steer a ship without a crew, the Sea Devils came and went, Dan kills five Devils just like that and so on; the story does not build up to the introduction of the Sea Devils in any way, making their first meeting with the Doctor feel very anti-climactic; it's frustrating how, for the second subsequent episode, we get teases of a Thasmin thing, only for the episode to joke it off before fully committing to anything - make up your mind already! The Asian setting and characters remain mostly a backdrop that doesn't play into the plot all that much; they go the Terry Nation route of introducing a gigantic, secondary monster only to never use it properly.
Nothing is done to make the character feels alive or interesting because there’s no time for real character moments; Madame Ching ends up being mostly a celebrity cameo with no real use within the story.
I don't know whether it's down to the writing, the performances, the direction or the visuals, but this episode feels more like a fan-made spoof or fan film on YouTube than an actual episode of the show; with a very limited guest cast and no ship crew to speak of, this episode feels empty and not very lively, which immediately removes some of its charms; am I seeing attempts at some MCU-style humour? Well, it doesn't work very well and comes across as very forced; this one feels rushed almost all the time, with very little time devoted to actual plot or character development; this episode is lacking real tension and peril - things are waved around for a bit and then resolved so that we can move along to the next thing; there's not a feeling of a bigger, more though-out special - in fact, Legend of the Sea Devils feels more like a mid-season episode than anything.
Not a fan of how the Sea Devils' mouths move when they talk, this makes them look like puppets; the CGI looks very half-baked most of the time and there are some weird cuts and camera angles trying to hide the fact.
Review by VelvetThunderVIP 7BlockedParent2022-04-17T23:09:53Z
Very rarely do I give sub-5 ratings, I tend to find some positives. This is a 2 and that's generous. The only good thing in his episode is the costume design (and some of the production design - they clearly ran out of budget when it came to the Sea Devil's machinery thing, so tacky).
The editing was the biggest offender (I suppose coupled with the direction), nothing flowed right. The fight scenes were laughably bad. I don't think there was a single shot where the attacker and defender were in the same frame, it always cut from one to the other as they attacked. So bad. And then there's the plot, or lack thereof. It's weird, the episode simultaneously felt like it had parts cut out of it but also was struggling to fill its runtime. I don't know how they managed that, but trust Chibnall to find a way, I guess. But yes, the threat was hilariously nonsensical (poles swapping would cause the ice to melt and flood everything? Both of those consequences are entirely wrong).
Oh and they couldn't even get the little things right? The phone ringing despite him using it for an outgoing call at the same time? For crying out loud, does no one check the script at all?!