The Sea Devils 2025 Mix

 Classic Doctor Who has reached that point where it’s been through so many different formats from the original broadcasts through releases on video, DVD, Blu ray and streaming, individually and in collections. The stories have been novelised, analysed and enjoyed multiple times.  Many have had updated effects and re-edits applied, others have had AI additions made by fans. So you could argue that the only option left is to allow a new generation to tinker with them enabling them to be more relatable for the TikTok generation for whom even ninety minutes is a very long time.

The Sea Devils

 

I remember when a continuity announcer said that the next story would be called `The Sea Devils` and I had no idea if this was some sort of monster or period pirate piece. Since then I’ve always loved `The Sea Devils` and now I can't quite believe its fifty years since I first saw it. Inevitably it can’t thrill me like it did as a child but yet it still has a magic. Many parts of it fizz with energy and even if from this distance it can look ramshackle at times the overall effect is still strong. Part of the reason why its endured is the very experimental incidental music by Malcolm Clarke and the design of the Sea Devils themselves. Even if their eyes don’t move! So forgive if this is less a review and more notes. 

 

The Making of Doctor Who 1972

A look back at one of the best ever Doctor Who non fiction books.

For the first eight years of Doctor Who there was precious little in the way of behind the scenes information beyond whatever appeared in Radio Times. Then in 1972 a book appeared that changed all that and really started the momentum of the series moving from popular to iconic. The Making of Doctor Who was published by the Piccolo range of Pan Books, penned by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks and sold at the princely price of 25p! The cover features a rather odd photo from `The Sea Devils` of the moment where the Doctor is a prisoner of the titular creatures. Hardly the heroic posed stance you might expect it has the Doctor looking rather worried and sharing the cover with a Sea Devil rather than Jo Grant. Nonetheless the red on Jon Pertwee’s cape matches that of the series logo above it and the end result is a charismatic photo that was also rare at the time.
Considering the joint author’s pedigree on the series the text at the start of this book is somewhat less loquacious than you might imagine. Obviously written with a younger reader in mind it nonetheless sometimes resembles something translated from another language. The content may seem basic to the modern eye yet bear in mind that in 1972 nobody outside of a few primitive fanzines had undertaken any archiving of the series nor detailed the production process. In 2016 even Mrs Putey in the corner ship is aware of arc stories, CGI and the like but in the Seventies people just watched telly, enjoyed it, chatted about it and that’s all. A book which offered a window into the way the programme is made was a rare treat and a half. If the prose early on is sometimes awkward, the authors go on to achieve a nimble mixture of fact and fiction presenting some of the history of the series in the form of supposed found documents produced by the Time Lords or UNIT.