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 Theo KallströmVIP 6BlockedParentSpoilers2022-04-19T11:50:08Z
: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.