We’re only a few short days away from one of Jodie Whittaker’s last hurrahs as the Thirteenth Doctor. And with her departure on the horizon, Doctor Who‘s Easter special brings the final chance for outgoing showrunner Chris Chibnall to revive a classic villain.
Where season 13 saw the comeback of much-loved monsters the Sontarans and the Weeping Angels, this upcoming episode is travelling even further back into Who history, with the return of the Sea Devils.
Ahead of the episode’s release the official BBC synopsis promises a “swashbuckling special adventure” in which “terrifying forces lurk beneath the ocean” – and having got our first look at the new and improved versions of these “terrifying forces”, it’s as good a time as any to look back at their origins, and explore why their return is so important now.
Who are the Sea Devils in Doctor Who?
The retro villains first appeared, stomping out of the water, in 1972 in a story simply entitled The Sea Devils. The species was dreamed up by writer Malcolm Hulke who wanted to create an aquatic version of his earlier creation, the Silurians (their land-based cousins who had made their Doctor Who debut two years prior).
For backstory, both foes were the previous inhabitants of planet Earth before their fear of a natural catastrophe drove them into hibernation. Now, whenever they return, they are usually looking to reclaim their ownership of the planet.
In their first adventure, the Sea Devils come up against the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee), companion Jo Grant (Katy Manning) and the Royal Navy, with canny producer Barry Letts roping in actual members of the Navy to take part in the filming.
“If we’d had to pay, it would have cost us thousands of pounds, but in fact, it cost us nothing,” said Letts. “It was good propaganda.”
The Sea Devils were destroyed, but it was not long before they returned for a brief appearance – in 1973’s Frontier in Space, Jo hallucinates one of the creatures when she is exposed to hypnosis.
It would be over 10 years before we saw them again. Sadly, when they did return in 1984 with the shiny new paint job, it would be in a story widely regarded as one of Doctor Who’s worst…
Warriors of the Deep is a story featuring the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) and is the only instance where the Silurians and the Sea Devils appear on-screen together. After years of hibernation, they are awakened in an underwater base in 2084 to seize an opportunity presented by Earth’s tense, Cold War-esque situation.
Much of the criticism directed at the episode relates to the unconvincing design of the creatures, in particular the rubbery body of the Sea Devil’s lizard minion The Myrka. “Just writing about it has made me go quite cold,” said ex-producer John Nathan-Turner in his memoir.
Following this underwhelming return, the Sea Devils have not resurfaced since, aside from the odd clip through the years. We catch a glimpse of them in the rebooted series in Matt Smith’s first adventure as the Eleventh Doctor, The Eleventh Hour, and again in 2020’s season finale The Timeless Child with Jodie Whittaker. And of course, their cousins, The Silurians, were brought back in the 2010 two-parter The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood and have since become recurring villains and even occasional allies on the show.
Now, the Sea Devils will finally get their chance to once again take centre stage. Yet with lost treasure and pirate queens also on the horizon, it seems that these classic foes will have a lot to compete with. Let’s hope that their upcoming watery battle with the Doctor will be just as memorable as the first time they stepped out of the sea.
Read more about Doctor Who – Legend of the Sea Devils:
Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils airs on BBC One and BBC iPlayer at 7:10pm on Sunday 17th April. For more, check out our dedicated Sci-Fi page or our full TV Guide.
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