‘Doctor Who’ Recap: ‘Legend of the Sea Devils’

Written by Shae Rufe

Caution: This article contains spoilers for the ‘Doctor Who’ special, ‘Legend of the Sea Devils’.
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​What do you get when the Doctor promises a beach vacation? A massive world saving adventure! To be honest, I’d personally take the beach vacation, but everyone has different tastes. Yaz, the Doctor, and Dan have landed in 19th century China just in time to meet the Pirate Queen herself, Madam Ching. The infamous Pirate Queen has stormed into a village and started to chip away at a statue of a Sea Monster holding a man. Apparently, she’s looking for information on the Flor de la Mar, a ship that sank in the 16th century with an impressive treasure aboard. Turns out, Madam ChIng’s crew, including her two sons, have been kidnapped and a massive ransom is required for their safe return.
 
The treasure from the Flor de la Mar is enough to cover it, and the whereabouts are supposedly hidden in the statue. This statue, however, is not a normal work of art. It’s thankfully not a Weeping Angel either, because really? We have had enough trauma with them as of late. No, this alien creature is more home grown than originally anticipated. This creature is a Sea Devil, and they originated from Earth. They were here before humans even were, which, doesn’t that make us the invading species? Either way, the Sea Devil and the Doctor have not met, although the Doctor has met other Sea Devils in the future, and it did not go well, as it tends to go with most encounters with hostile creatures. This is no different, and this Sea Devil in particular, came equipped with his own flying modified sea ship.
 
Now, it’s important to note that the number one rule when traveling with the Doctor is to not wander off. Dan, despite knowing this rule, sure had no problem disregarding it and going off to Madam Ching’s ship anyway. Why? Well, right after Madam Ching accidentally released the Sea Devil it killed a bunch of villagers, one of which was a young man’s father. The kid wants revenge, and Dan is always up for an adventure and is easily distracted with helping others. Plus, Yaz and the Doctor sort of have this weird tension between them lately, so it’s probably for the best that Dan gives them a bit of space, right?
 
All of this would have worked out okay, except Dan isn’t too keen on letting the kid kill Ching in revenge and also, Ching finds them and captures them anyway. Never let it be said that Dan isn’t super clever. He notices right away that Ching has no crew, because they were all taken prisoner by another infamous pirate. He offers himself and the young man, who was bent on killing her, to help her serve as her crew in hopes of not getting killed himself. Dan’s got some smart survival skills. Plus, he also spent those years with Yaz hopping around while they were stuck in the past waiting on the Doctor, so he surely knows his way around a ship.

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Meanwhile the Doctor and Yaz leave Dan, which is super rude, but he did break the first rule of traveling with the Doctor, and go looking for the Flor de la Mar. They find another legendary ship and also the Sea Devil that they’re fighting in question, in the past, and learn that there’s a lot more going on than they first suspected. The Doctor decides to head back to the 19th century, and the plan is to hang out out on the Ocean floor and find the shipwreck, where they can get the Flor de la Mar’s treasure and give it to Ching, so she’ll help them fight the Sea Devils. Except once they get there…there’s no ship. At least the Doctor flirts with Yaz just a bit, saying that she’s not a bad date after all, and Yaz is left a little stunned because up until now, Dan is the only person who knows how she feels about the Doctor. The moment is broken when a giant sea monster tears through the ocean floor and eats the TARDIS. 
 
That’s when we find out that the Sea Devils have been living inside the sea monster, of sorts, and also using this infamous ship to scare the ‘land crawlers’. The Sea Devil is looking for something called the Keystone. This mystical item of unknown origin is the catalyst to the Sea Devil’s plan, and his previous downfall. In an attempt to threaten the Doctor, or show off their power, or both, the Sea Devil shows how he’s kept Ji-Hun, captain of the ship that held the treasure of the Flor de la Mar that the Doctor and Yaz went looking for, alive all this time as a trophy. When the Sea Devil gets called away, Ji-Hun reveals to the Doctor that he had the Keystone but gave it to his most trusted crew member the day the Sea Devil attacked his ship. Still, the Doctor bluffs as best she can until the Sea Devil reveals he knows she’s lying. They found the Keystone, on Ching’s ship... because the kid that Dan’s been with, has it. 
 
It wouldn’t be a true Doctor Who special if the bad guys didn’t almost win. The Sea Devil gets the Keystone and plans to use it to return the earth back to the water world it had once been. His ship is capable of doing just that. The Doctor is clever, and she’s fought her way out of much more dire situations than this, so of course she comes up with a clever plan that almost ends in her untimely demise. That is, until Ji-Hun steps up to save the day and sacrifices himself instead. In the meantime, they also found the treasure Ching was looking for and it’s more than enough to pay the ransom to have her crew and kids back. All’s well that ends well because the day is saved… right? There are just a few unsolved things. Dan calls Diane and leaves her a message, only to have her call him back as he’s leaving said message. She misses him too. There might be hope there.
 
As for the Doctor and Yaz? We can’t always have nice things. The Doctor is always reluctant to be in relationships, no matter whom they’re with. But she does reveal that she feels the same about Yaz, but she can’t settle down. It’s requited-ly unrequited still. The Doctor won’t fix herself to any person because then she’d never want to leave them, and she also knows that love causes pain. Yaz takes it in stride because it’s brave to do something knowing it’ll hurt. Perhaps the Doctor has also forgotten the age old saying, it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Our Doctor will always be more than self-sacrificing, always giving up the heart’s desires to protect everyone and everything and in the end losing it all, over and over again. 

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