314 The Sea Devils Episode Three

EPISODE: The Sea Devils: Episode Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 314
STORY NUMBER: 062
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 11 March 1972
WRITER: Malcolm Hulke
DIRECTOR: Michael Briant
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 8.3 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - Beneath the Surface (The Silurians / The Sea Devils / Warriors of the Deep)
EPISODE FORMAT: 525 video RSC

"Those reptiles, Doctor, were once the rulers of this Earth. And with my help, they can be so again!"

Trenchard interrupts the fight and has the Doctor arrested. Jo is apprehended leaving the prison but escapes. Captain Hart sends a submarine to the Sea Fort to investigate if anything is going on beneath the surface. The Master tells the Doctor that he intends to help the reptiles take over the Earth. Jo breaks back into the prison to find the Doctor, who distracts his guard allowing Jo to free him. Captain Hart enquires with Trenchard about the missing Doctor & Jo but he denies any knowledge. The submarine detects a signal and suddenly has it's power drained. Hart decides to contact UNIT about the Doctor's whereabouts. The submarine hits bottom and is boarded by the reptiles. The Doctor & Jo escape from the prison onto the beach where they find themselves trapped between a Minefield and the Sea Devil Reptile the Master is summoning from the sea.

The main thing I got from this episode was what a gullible fool Trenchard is.

DOCTOR: Colonel Trenchard, why are you allowing the Master to use you like this?
TRENCHARD: All right, take him away.
DOCTOR: Look, you're jeopardising your entire career.
TRENCHARD: I have nothing further to say to you. The interview is over.
DOCTOR: Didn't anybody else warn you about the Master? Whatever he's told you, it's all lies.

There's no hint that he's been hypnotised by the Master, he really believes the story the Master has told him:

MASTER: Well, Trenchard. I think that you handled Captain Hart exceedingly well.
TRENCHARD: I can't keep it up, you know. The lies I've told. How long before that device of yours is ready?
MASTER: Oh, just a few hours now.
TRENCHARD: What is exactly is it?
MASTER: It's a perfect replica of the communications device used by the enemy agents. We are going to use it to lure them into a trap.
TRENCHARD: I only hope it works. If it doesn't, I'm for it, you know?
MASTER: Oh, it'll work. Don't you worry about that. Just think of it, Trenchard. You will be responsible for exposing some of the most dangerous saboteurs this country has ever known. I think you'll find that a grateful government will give you anything that you ask for.
TRENCHARD: Oh, don't want any reward, of course. Just doing my duty.
MASTER: Yes, of course.

Because he believes, he'll do anything to help The Master including helping him break into a naval base, letting his prisoner roam free and imprisoning agents for an internationally recognised agency. I'd say he was Horatio Chinn II (Claws of Axos) but he's nowhere near as annoying as Chinn was. Just stupid.

We see the naval submarine in this episode represented by some stock Royal Navy training footage and a model kit, bought from Woolworths, with a propeller modified by the visual effects department to disguise it's origins.

After this episode went out Barry Letts, the series producer, had a visit from Ministry of Defence officials concerned that their new top secret propeller design had been shown on tea time television. By chance visual effects had come up with something virtually identical to secret cutting edge military technology.

The inside of the sub meanwhile bears a passing resemblance to the SkyDiver sub seen in UFO, which had recently completed. Other set elements from the show, notably a computer panels which we'll keep an eye out for, crop up regularly in later episodes of Doctor Who, but this is a little too early for them to be featuring here.

Instead on the sub's wall we see a panel from the ICT 1300, as previously seen in Terror of the Autons & Mind of Evil.

Further up the wall there's more of the panels used in the Ambassadors of Death spaceship.

The submarine crew features some familiar faces:

Commander Ridgeway is played by Donald Sumpter who was Enrico Casali in The Wheel in Space. He's been in loads of things including Drop the Dead Donkey where he was The Inspector in The Strike, Cold Lazarus where he played Dr. Rawl and the modern Doctor Who where he was The Time Lord President in Hell Bent.

His number two, Lt. Commander Mitchell, is played by David Griffin who gained fame as Sqdn-Ldr Clive Dempster DFC in Hi-de-Hi! & Emmet Hawksworth in Keeping Up Appearances. He's got a 1971 Out of the Unknown to his name where he plays Hamilton White in The Sons and Daughters of Tomorrow.

Christopher Wray, here as Ldg. Seaman Lovell, was PC Groom in The Dæmons.

Stanley McGeagh, Castle Guard Drew, was another actor who was in director Michael Bryant's previous production Colony in Space where he played Allen. He appeared in UFO as a SHADO Security Man in E.S.P. and a SHADO Guard in Mindbender.

Castle Guard Barclay is a very familiar face: stuntman Terry Walsh who's been in more Doctor Who than I can count!

The clifftop sequence was filmed at Red Cliff near Sandown on the Isle of Wight.

However the beach used for the Sea Devils coming ashore was White Cliff Bay a little further north on the Isle of Wight and not directly beneath the cliff!