Wednesday 12 May 2010

The Sea Devils


Well, nowt much done on the modelling side - managed to prime up the Vulcan Shuttle yesterday and have a little tidy up of the den, but that's it.
Busied myself more with revisiting this classic slice of Who.
Hadn't seen it for about 10 years but have now got it on DVD as part of the box set including "The Silurians" and (choke) "Warriors Of The Deep".
And what a joy it is to visit again.
Coming from the period when the Doctor was Earth-bound, its nice to have a tale where UNIT is mentioned but the usual gang aren't to be seen.
You can tell Pertwee and Delgado are having a ball here and its perhaps the definitve example of the relationship between the two Timelords - especially the really rather unnecessary swordfight, which i can watch over and over again. Although that's mainly to watch the sandwich almost fall out of Pertwee's mouth.
We also have classic Who creatures in the Sea Devils (although the only time they're called that is from the lips of a babbling caretaker). The elongated neck and turtle-like heads are incredibly memorable and, if anything, look even more scary and unsettling in close-up - think its the matt surface covering the pupils, giving it a dead fish look that does it.
Something done during this period - and its a shame it wasn't done more later - the creatures behave intelligently, not as lumbering "man-in-suit" monsters. Although, when they do that, rising on mass out of the tide, its become an iconic moment.
The voices and screams are great too, adding to the non-cliche feel.
The weapons too are great, but not too sure about the string vests.
Do they knit them themselves?
But that's a very small niggle in a very good tale. Ditto the experimental score, which is a product of its time that was being tried out all over the place and has been rather unfairly held up for ridicule.
So, great to see again one of favourite Pertwee stories (in my Top Five) with one of my favourite Who creatures (possibly in the Top Five for that too)

3 comments:

Andrew Glazebrook said...

OK, own up, where did you get this picture of my Mrs from ?!

Spikeimar said...

Their land based cousins are back in the new season of Dr Who but sadly they look awful. 40 years on and the design got worse, who would have thought it eh?

Mangamax said...

Yep, start great with zero budget and the crudest of resouces then all goes pear-shaped and money and techniques improve.
Strange.