Legend of the Sea Devils Notes
The opening rain shots are very atmospheric. Moreso than anything else to come will be.
Very pretty establishing shot of the community that won’t matter
China 1807
Did they run inside their homes because they were afraid of the intruder? It looks like it, but if so why didn’t the father bother to go protect the statue right away?
A major character just casually enters the frame with no feeling of importance whatsoever
If your duty is to protect the statue, why aren’t you out there protecting the statue
OK, clearly Pa isn’t going to survive the cold open
Good reveal of the sea devils head, but why is the person he’s holding so small? Or is the sea devil huge? None of the scale of this makes any sense at all. Plus, it takes her like a second and a half to free him. Those are some terrible defenders
Is the sea devil turned to stone or covered in stone? They’re having it both ways
This is all so perfunctory
What’s the significance of the circuitry on the inside of the stone? They give it lots of establishing shots and it never matters at all in any way
You see the sea devil swing the sparkly blue sword which is clearly supposed to be a big ‘thing’ but we never see it do what it does, thus establishing that it matters
Nice beach shot, but there’s something not quite right about the way The Doctor and Yaz fit into the cgi in the long shot
The Doctor says she’s centuries off and wasn’t aiming for a beach.
The joke of Dan’s outfit gets a better establishing shot than anything that matters in the episode.
*** Too much? WAY too much!
It’s strongly implied that Yaz dressed Dan like this as a practical joke on purpose.
Is it just assumed in tv and movies that everyone in the world can skip stones? Because I know zero people in real life who can.
It is a pleasant little competition though
Haolu Wang is a newer director. New to the genre, from what I can tell. Seems more into surrealist-ish character pieces
They’re trying to set up that the laws of physics are getting screwed up, but it reads as something hidden under a force field. They needed more examples of physics going wonky
The Doctor: Sea Devil.
Sea Devil: Land Parasite.
So much of the action is reduced to just one shots. Was this due to COVID, or is it a stylistic choice?
Um… why can the Sea Devil suddenly jump like the Hulk?
I kind of like tht they don’t explain how the ship can float. It’s kind of the inverse concept of a submarine
The total lack of extras robs Madame Ching of a dramatic entrance as well
Is Flor de la mar a real thing?
They’re really going for a Pirates of the Caribbean vibe here
OK, so when he was released from the statue a call went out and woke up the other sea devils
When they’re going for a Jaws vibe it really works
The Heart of the ocean monster under the ship shot really works well.
The reveal of the sea monster is pretty good
Why are Yaz and the Doctor just gone at this point? I don’t blame Dan for wandering off. The visual storytelling is really muddy here
‘They were here before humans. They think the planet belongs to them.’ That needed to be explained a lot better.
The Doctor’s plan to cheat by going back in time and get the treasure Madam Ching is looking for in the current time period to get her on their side is a pretty good one.
They just completely shoehorned in that the TARDIS crew was looking for the treasure in the first place when they got pulled off course. That’s stupid and unnecessary. Just bad scripting
See, now this establishing shot of Madam Ching’s ship is gorgeous
To her credit, this director does beautiful visuals really, really well.
Ying Ki: You must be pretty good at fighting if you’ve survived to be…. What… 70? 60?
Dan: Forty S… Two.
Dan has amazing hair
I’m not sure why Madam Ching alone with no crew has so little presence.
Dan is very much like Jamie as a companion
The bargain to be her crew in order to not get killed is very Doctor Who and tracks nicely
1533
Ji-Hun is throwing his entire crew off of the ship. Convenient for COVID and extras
Lei-Bao
Um… SO Sea Devils can just teleport in a cloud of mist now and we’re not even going to mention that that’s weird?
OK, so this is the same Sea Devil that ended up as a statue?
I wish they sounded more like the old Sea Devils. Or less like the new Ice Warriors
This doesn’t feel like a pointless side excursion, they’re properly building the story. If we’d been properly introduced to things we’d care
The air bubble TARDIS on the ocean floor is objectively gorgeous
The not a bad date moment is wonderfully awkward
The Doctor: No ship, Sherlock
The Doctor: Yaz, you know the ocean floor?
Yaz: Yeah
The Doctor: It’s not really there anymore.
Yeah, why aren’t they falling? Good question
The compass that works strangely – also very Pirates of the Caribbean
Beautiful sky shot
The stars on her eyes look beautiful
I really thought that was Yaz’ ear because of the piercings.
Madam Ching’s crew was take by the evil captain Covid Protocols
Madam Ching’s sons being held hostage is a pretty good character motivation for her. She really does still need a crew to communicate her authority though
Hua-Shen. I wish they called it the Myrkr
Again, the sea monster stuff is really good and effective. They actually established the sea monster properly in the earlier lone fisherman scene.
Not really sure how the three cannonballs colliding makes them explode. It just dodges them having to do an expensive special effect
The Sea Devils obviously want to claim the TARDIS
Fun technobabble to explain how they’re staying dry down there.
The Little shhh to yaz after who says you’re right it cute.
Finally the Doctor points out that they’re acting totally unlikme previous Sea Devils
I suppose it’s valid that they didn’t recognize Ji-Hun’s ship. They’d seen the outside and the inside on separate occasions, but not together.
The Doctor: You really pimped his ride. Do people still say that?
Yaz: It’s 1807
The Doctor: I’m ahead of the curve.
It’s kind of interesting that the Sea Devils acknowledge that they don’t need the ship, they just want to use it to scare humans
Casual announcement that Ji-hun is still alive
Finally, an acknowledgement that the sea devils are acting totally differently.
Why did the Sea Devils bother keeping Ji-Hun alive all this time? It would have made much more sense if he’d popped forward in time with the Doctor.
And the Sea Devils don’t ever bother explaining why they kept him alive beyond ‘punishing’ him
They treat the reveal that Ji-Hun wasn’t working with the sea devils but instead tricking them as iuf it’s a huge plot reveal and we just don’t care about it at all
So the keystone is sea devil tech that Ji-Hun ended up with. How did it get out of sea devil hands in the first place?
The Sea Devils actually look pretty good.
There’s way too much reliance on one shots so that we never get a feeling of connection between the characters.
Here’s the blue sword we’re supposed to be impressed by again.
Raising the ship to get out of danger is a very Doctor thing to do
Did the Doctor know Madam Ching’s ship would be there? I’ve lost track
The orange glow reveal is pretty well handled.
Forced dialog to tell us that the kid is the descendant of Lei-Bao
The Sea Devil after capturing Ji-Hun followed Lei Bao to the shore to get the keystone and got turned into stone.
Seriously, why can they just teleport in mist now. And why is nobody remotely curious about that?
And finally the reveal of the sea devils big plan to flip the magnetic poles. Which will melt the ice and flood the earth. Odd that they didn’t throw ina jab at global warming.
Sea Devil: Our Earth will be gloriously aqua once more.
See, now if they’d bothered to establish these blue swords as a big threat this would be pretty great.
The Doctor even gets a line about how dangerous the swords are.
Old school sea devil noise!
Madam Ching’s redemption by saving the son when she let the father die. It would have been great if they’d set that up properly in the beginning
Main villain dead with twelve minutes left to go. That’s a little badly structured. As is this sentence.
People in this one never seem to travel anywhere, they just magically appear in whatever new location is required
Dan feels that it’s pretty obvious that The Doctor feels the same way about Yaz as Yaz does about her
The Doctor: Only to be used in emergencies.
Dan: What, like the imminent flooding of the entire planet?
I actually like the sea devils plan, but it doesn’t really work because they didn’t bother establishing the sea devils’ backstory properly
Dan taking out the sea devils that quickly should work because of the sword, but they didn’t set up the sword so it looks stupid.
They aren’t addressing at all what woke these sea devils up
I love how awkward the Doctor is about telling Yaz that if she did date, it would be with yaz
River Song mention!
This is really sweet. And very in character for the Doctor to have decided she can’t pursue it.
Ah, the traditional ‘side character takes the Doctor’s place in noble self sacrifice.
Bit of a technobabble solution, but it’s visually interesting enough that they just about get away with it.
The relationship with Madam Ching and the boy is one of the things handled quite well in this episode.
Dan really does have amazing hair
I love that they brought Di back into things. She and Dan are so sweet together.
I want Jodie and Mandip to have more chemistry together than they do, but they just don’t
Did Di call Dan because she saw she missed him call?
Aww. Di and Dan 4 eva
The Doctor. Yaz… I can’t fix myself… to anything.
This whole last scene with the Doctor and yaz is very sweet and well done. And is why the Doctor/Yaz stuff isn’t queerbaiting. It’s very much scripted as the Doctor wanting to give it a go but logicing herself out of it, which feels true to character. Plus it makes it clear that they aren’t just throqing the issue away. Obviously this is going to be a part of the big final special.
Courage and stupidity do indeed share a lot of characteristics.
The Doctor: I wish this would go on forever.
This was a really good ending scene.
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