The Sea Devils [TV/1972.2.26 ~ 4.1]

★★★☆☆

  If you ever catch yourself wondering what a Third Doctor Earthbound story would be like without UNIT, The Sea Devils is your answer. As a whole, I think it works just fine without the comfy presence of the Brigadier and his lot. Whatever faults The Sea Devils has, the lack of UNIT soldiers is not one of them. The Royal Navy chaps are perfectly fine replacements, running around with guns and getting trapped by creatures who ruled the Earth far before they evolved from monkeys.

  Oh, that's right. This is practically a carbon copy/lesser sibling of Doctor Who and the Silurians, and that's the biggest problem with it, I suppose. Malcolm Hulke seems to have been mostly on autopilot for the writing process, recycling similar story beats with reckless abandon and providing even less of the enjoyable stuff this time around. C'mon, it's only an episode shorter -- why does it feel like half the serial's gone when the bare bones are exactly the same? Trust me, if Silurians wasn't so good and therefore hadn't allowed Sea Devils to be still pretty enjoyable by default, I would've been much less charitable to this serial. The one USP (unique selling point) of this serial in relation to its "spiritual" predecessor is the presence of the Master, and yeah, he's great. The rapport between Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado is incredibly genuine and it bleeds onto to the material; you can believe that the Third Doctor would visit the Delgado Master and genuinely wishes him well during his perpetual stay in prison. Every instance I revisit this serial (which, to be honest, doesn't happen often because I go for Silurians instead), I do it for the Master and not the Sea Devils. Pity, because these creatures are still different from the Silurians. They talk in their own funny little way and the stuntwork is genuinely quite... memorable. Just look at how some of these fellows fall to the ground after getting shot -- trust me, once you see it, you'll never be able to unsee it. Good serial, all in all.