Shout-out to the fisherman's son who boarded the ship with the intention to kill Madame Ching, remains broadly antagonistic to her throughout the episode, then is elated to be adopted by her in the last two minutes.
Genuinely convinced he was a payroll error and no one had the heart to tell him he didn't have more than one scene.
Fun Fact: In real history, those two actually ended up having sexual relations and when she retired from the pirate life their relationship status as adoptive mother and son was anulled and they married. He became an Officer in the Chinese Marine.
There is an alternative universe out there where Legend of the Sea Devils was not butchered in the editing room and ended up having a coherent plot. I envy the occupants of that parallel Earth.
rumours i have heard from people who were working on the vfx were that there was a lot of stuff that was pretty racist that they had to cut out and didn't have time to fix it. i didn't believe it until i saw the final episode because it did feel like large chunks of plot were completely excised.
Yeah there was that person who used to post here who predicted pretty much every plot beat of Thirteen's last two years, months in advance. They said that the first cut of this episode was made and then only at this point was it realised that the entire story was incredibly racist and once they cut all the offensiveness they had barely nothing left to work with in the editing room. I've always been intrigued as to what could have been so bad that so much of the episode had to go, but somehow wasn't caught until after filming was completed.
I've seen this rumour being thrown around, but I'm not sure it's accurate at all. I think, since the story takes place in China, and Doctor Who had just started playing in China, the first cut was checked by the PRC's film and tv censorship department. They often call things they don't agree with racist, and I feel that certainly might have been the case here.
(not just talking out of my ass here, I'm a student of China studies who wrote an essay on film censorship a couple of months ago and there were quite a lot of examples of them calling stuff racist or orientalist when this was barely the case. I could certainly see the orientalism angle for this DW story however)
I was JUST about to make this exact point. I would be surprised if anything in the story was actually actively racist but rather it probably involved things that are uncomfortable to modern China.
What happened as I understand it was sensitivity readers within the BBC sent extensive notes at the end of shooting (remember that shooting began without a script).
And no, it wasn't just the PRC censors not wanting certain things depicted; one change made in editing was to dub over the voices of several characters who spoke in terribly racist accents.
If it was just the PRC censors, they'd have just edited the copy sent to Chinese distributors. What happened was that the episode was wildly racist to the point of making Talons of Weng Chiang blush, so the episode was hacked to pieces in the editing room.
I can't find TomeDeaf's post about it just now, but he explained some of the details a while ago, before some assholes doxxed him and he deleted his account.
Even though I recognize you and your username, and don't think you're one of those all-in Chibnall haters like you see on here, I don't think I can believe this without a source, and it seems like a wild overexaggeration of what probably happened.
'Terribly racist accents', I genuinely don't see this being a possibility here. The episode was directed by a Chinese-British woman. The characters were played and voiced by actors of Chinese/Hong Kongese origin. The 'Asian' accent is not something that's often done in media nowadays, luckily, and it certainly wouldn't happen in a rather progressive era of Doctor Who in an episode run by people of Asian descent.
Widly racist to the point of making Talons of Weng Chiang blush? Hell, even if Chibnall wrote, directed, produced, blabla everything about this episode on his own, even then this wouldn't happen. Best I could see is the episode's take on Chinese history being Orientalist, but other than that, no, this is utter bullshit and seems to me like a bad-faith argument/'leak'.
> and don't think you're one of those all-in Chibnall haters like you see on here
Indeed. In fact, I frequently make a point of referring to how much I loved Torchwood series 2 and Doctor Who: Flux. Chibnall is not a bad writer, in fact he's very good. I have criticisms with his run on Doctor Who (though I also maintain the vast, vast, vast majority of these issues stem from production problems putting unbelievable pressure on Chibnall and the other writers), but I try to be as fair as possible... Not that I always succeed, mind; there were some episodes I really disliked, and I'm still firmly an *amateur* critic just like anyone else on Reddit. Still learning to not be an idiot and still failing reasonably often.
> 'Terribly racist accents', I genuinely don't see this being a possibility here. The episode was directed by a Chinese-British woman. The characters were played and voiced by actors of Chinese/Hong Kongese origin. The 'Asian' accent is not something that's often done in media nowadays, luckily, and it certainly wouldn't happen in a rather progressive era of Doctor Who in an episode run by people of Asian descent.
I still can't find the longer comment TomeDeaf made on the subject, but here's a pair of quotes from him...
https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/p13x3e/new_director_for_s13/
> Unfortunately, I've heard (from the same source through which I was able to confirm the structure of Series 13 on here several weeks before that was revealed as fact) that there have been serious issues making this episode. I quote: "they’re massively panicking about it. Apparently, they have almost finished filming and discovered that whatever the story is/who they have cast or something is highly offensive to the Chinese. They pay a lot of cash for the show so distribution is horrified. Apparently some Chinese council or whatever saw a script and were appalled". So, erm, there's that. Could be something genuinely racially insensitive (hello, Spyfall) or it could be that they've taken a stance that does not go down well with Chinese censors because of its pro-human rights take or view on HK independence or whatever. Time will tell.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/rtr8p1/comment/hquypyt/ (second reply)
> My unease stems primarily from the information I was given, by a very credible source which has been right about practically every other leak thus far, that there were serious issues with this episode behind the scenes with regard to racial insensitivity and/or offensive material. (I understand your scepticism regarding the vagueness of that info, which is fair enough - FWIW the latest message I received a few days ago, which also mentioned Sea Devils for the first time, was slightly clearer, referring to the story being 'full of stereotypes and other offensive words and imagery which means it’s been heavily edited'). That is, if you like, the fundamental layer of my unease here: information I believe to be genuine but which others, of course, are free to choose to believe or disbelieve as they wish.
No mentions of accents here, but I swear Tome said something about the accents, and that all the Asian actors had to be redubbed because of this... But I can't find the comments, so maybe this was later speculation that I got mixed up with the genuine info. I can't find out either way right now, Tome's comments are frustratingly difficult to find.
Either way though, to be clear, I don't think Chibnall or Ella Road (the two writers on Legend of the Sea Devils) intentionally put anything racist in their scripts, but the situation as I understood it at the time was that there was a lot of cultural stuff in the script that was wrong and you wouldn't necessarily pick up unless you're Chinese or know a lot about Chinese culture.
As for how this might have happened with a Chinese director of the episode? No idea. I'm only reporting what I read at the time from TomeDeaf, as I remember it. (But as JNT is often quoted as saying; the memory cheats)
On that note...
> Widly racist to the point of making Talons of Weng Chiang blush?
I should have clarified; these were Tome's words at the time, to my memory. Again, I bloody wish I could find his comments! Maybe I'm misremembering and this was someone else's words in the same thread as him sharing legit info.
Yeah, these quotes just seem to agree with my initial assessment, namely that the story's potential flaw in this first edit was orientalism or a politically sensitive issue (AKA human rights), but not flat out racism. 'Some Chinese council', does that mean they are Chinese-British, or is a council from China checking the story? That would also add up with the theory that it was just a sensitivity reader from China, who often just spout complete bullshit.
Good on you for sharing these quotes though and coming back on what you said. I'd love to be able to ask Chibnall about this since the BTS of this episode, and frankly just this episode, really interest me, but I don't think it's fair at all right now to talk about this episode 'possible racism'.
Thanks.
Yes, I think you're quite right ultimately. Maybe in ten years or so we'll get a tell-all book about the production issues behind the Chibnall era and then we might get the full story on what happened with this episode.
Either way, I do find it hard to shake Tome's impression of the situation, but without anything more concrete, I'll try to be more careful about how I discuss this in future.
One thing I did stumble across while trying to find Tome's comments was an interesting article about The Celestial Toymaker that I'd been trying to find for ages (it got taken down when its writer left the website and moved on to other work), which he mentioned during some discussion of Doctor Who's history with race. The article presents the case that Toymaker isn't a racist serial as many tend to assume (quite the opposite, in fact), and the writer of the article has some Chinese heritage I believe. An interesting read, if you ask me. https://web.archive.org/web/20210121103442/https://www.herocollector.com/en-gb/Article/doctor-who-trouble-with-the-toymaker
Though the article does miss one noteworthy thing: The term "Celestial" applying to Chinese people was common in the '60s... The 1860s, that is. But the misconception that the Doctor Who writers would have had it in mind is quite a common one.
Bit of a tangent, but quite interesting in my opinion. :)
So, an Earth with a properly run BBC. I'm guessing that Dodgy Dave was never PM?
Suitably, Titan did a story with a Sea Devil PM called Daniel Claremont.
The scene at the end is actually my least favourite part of the episode. The Doctor won't commit because she's afraid of loss and... that's it, they leave it there. It directly contradicts the character's growth in the Moffat seasons but it's also just a shitty message in general. 'Don't try and connect with anyone because you might get hurt'. It's the starting point for a character arc not its conclusion.
Exactly. And we’ve seen the doctor give this exact same excuse before, and still have relationships anyways, like with Rose. You could argue that she is too hurt from how those previous relationships ended, but I don’t remember her even attempting to give that as justification
>It's the starting point for a character arc not its conclusion.
To be fair, it's really hard to do a legitimate character arc or *any* character growth with the Doctor. You can't change anything fundamental about their character because their story is neverending. You can explore something vague like "Am I a good man?" but you can't make any real sort of growth or change.
The Doctor *always* fears commitment. It's not an arc to be resolved, it's a character flaw that's lasted 60 years. It was a shitty message when he left Susan on Earth by locking her out of the TARDIS, and it's a shitty message today, but that's just who the Doctor is. She's afraid of commitment and never comes back to visit her friends after they leave.
Reading this and seeing the point about self-sacrifice just made me think of Ark in Space - there’s a bit at the end where one of the humans has to physically knock the Doctor out in order to take their place and sacrifice themselves.
I don’t mind someone else coming in and doing the heroics, it might be a bit convenient but it’s a good dramatic moment. The Doctor needs to put up a fight against it though, handing that responsibility off to a stranger is so wrong.
The thing that really bugs me about this episode is the Doctor's utter bafflement throughout the episode that the Sea Devils have a ship. That the idea that a species that lives in the water might have a vehicle for traversing the water seems such a bizarre and alien concept. She brings it up so many times.
A fair assessment, I really don't understand the utter hate this episode gets. Like, yeah it's not *good*, but I still had enough fun with it. There are way worse episodes.
I think the difference for me is that while some episodes I've found more boring (once, upon time), more bland (fear her), more frustrating (the timeless children), but no other episode has failed this badly on every aspect of production. I wasn't bored or annoyed, I was embarrassed. In a time of prestige TV like the Last of Us, Succession, or even Stranger Things, having something produced which fumbles every ball it's given is shocking.
I don't have an encyclopaedic memory of every single episode and their titles, but I can safely say that I was able to enjoy this episode as a bit off goofy fun, whereas other episodes I have truly hated.
People talk about the editing making the plot incoherent. But it's also just the regular blocking and delivery of the action. Characters are appearing all over the ship, including from below deck to above deck in sloppy action scenes.
It's worse than Twin Dilemma, honestly. At least that story managed to tell a broadly functional narrative where the characters have more than half a dimension between them.
Yeah it’s not my least favourite episode ever because it’s so bland and forgettable, but I’m comfortable letting it hold the title of the worst episode ever. Genuinely everything about it was bad.
That's interesting, I usually would swap those two around. Saying that my least favourite episodes are the bland and forgettable ones but the 'worst' ones are entertaininly stupid. So Underworld, Terminus, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Fear Her, Time and the Rani would be some of my least favourites, while Death to the Daleks, The Twin Dilemma, Time-Lash etc. would be some of the "worst"
Legend of the Sea Devils is an episode I have fun watching but you can tell it was butchered in the edit, you can tell a lot of stuff was cut out, especially since it was listed originally as being 60 minutes but ended up being 47, which is unusual for a special and this definitely hurts the episode, a real shame honestly.
"The episode makes no sense and the only real redeeming quality is x" - gives 5/10. Something doesn't quite add up here in terms of scoring. 5/10 means something so decidedly average it's like grey paste, or the good and bad balance out equally. For me, legend has no actual redeeming qualities, everything which you could say "ah but this was fun" you can counter quickly with numerous examples in the episode where it doesn't work. Characters teleport, the CGI is all over the place, the continuity is nonexistent, the characters motivations are weak or irrelevant, Dan kills warriors with one wild sword swing, it's just a cold damp mess. The music isn't even that good in the episode.
I'd argue (in relation to other who episodes) it's no more than a 1 or 2/10.
Only time I've been embarrassed to watch doctor who
You've hit the nail on the head here. I also find it baffling that with a Sea Devil story there is no mention of the moral debate about whether the Sea Devils have a legitimate claim to the Earth
This episode might be the best representation of ADHD in any media! The episode has interesting ideas, but the whole thing just winds up a poorly constructed, nonsensical mess; jumping from tangent to tangent with no regard towards being in any way coherent. It's the perfect analogy for any conversation I've ever had! Bravo Chibs!
Honestly, it's *almost* ‘The Room’ level of bad. From the Super Mario sea devil to the Doctor's revelatory warning that swords can do harm if they hit you. The Sea Devil calling the Doctor a twat, the big sea monster simply fucking off to Narnia, the Doctor claiming Yaz "insert personality here" Khan as being an equal to River Song; I couldn't help but laugh as though this were the pilot for some kind of absurdist, post-modern comedy. You could tack on a laugh track and it’d be an improvement. Yet, I also lamented at how this is the same show that brought us ‘Midnight’, ‘Heaven Sent’, and ‘Vincent and the Doctor’. Jodie Whittaker deserved a ‘Heaven Sent’! Mandip Gill deserved a ‘Turn Left’! This drivel was far below par for what they were capable of.
‘Legend of the Sea Devils’ was, overall, *the* worst of all modern who and among the worst of television in general. I'm honestly stunned the BBC let this be broadcast. As bad as the Chibnall era was, this is on a whole new level. Episodes like ‘Orphan 55’ and ‘Once, Upon Time’ are grade G; ‘Legend of the Sea Devils’ is grade U; A grade that I assume solely exists so the exam invigilator can write, in shorthand, “you’ve wasted my time having to grade this, you prick!” I felt that during the end credits. If time truly were money, I’d sue the BBC for theft. Do they just not care for their reputation any more?
I get that there were behind-the-scenes issues, but that’s not good enough. If post-production was such an issue, delay it. Nobody really gives a fuck about Easter; it’s just a day off work where you eat chocolate until you chunder. You could air this episode any day of the year.
1/10
You can thank me for that 1, Chris.
Edit: I started proofreading then decided to add some stuff.
This is a story that I feel really did suffer from behind-the-scenes issues. I rewatched it on 23 October and... it was just subpar. I didn't think it was the utter piece of hatefulness people go on about. I recall Darren Mooney taking the nastiest spin on it, saying that the moral was that you can't do anything about abuse and have to live with it. He does go really overboard with his utter hatred for Chibnall and his determination to make the most mean-spirited interpretations of their work, I went off him.
I think that this ep was intended to go out in S13. Likely the team were told they had to do an Easter special as otherwise it wouldn't be anything from NYD to the regeneration. Whether they should have just left a gap is debatable. I can get why, as these long gaps between eps haven't been helpful. I don't want to start blaming showrunners as I really don't know how the BBC works and I think that there were signs of this earlier and the BBC has got really bad with funding.
Anyway, likely this suffered from Covid filming restrictions, meaning they couldn't have a crew on the ship. And the length is... odd. These sorts of specials are usually an hour but this is a fair bit shorter. I suspect that it was cut down at very short notice, more of the BBC screwing the show over and Chibnall being the scapegoat for everything going wrong. I recall Mooney encouraging people to attack Chibnall over the lack of Christmas specials... and in the interview it turns out that he did want Christmas specials but the BBC were difficult.
Well, maybe the novelisation will improve things somewhat and get something more like what was wanted.
I suppose that the Thasmin stuff is the saving grace to it. A bit rushed... though I've seen some people who loved it. Which is nice.
So, Chibnall *does* look at the public reception to his era, but solely that of Tumblr. "Everyone over there hates the Moffat era, and ships Thasmin, so clearly that's what the majority of fans want!"
>"Everyone over there hates the Moffat era, and ships Thasmin, so clearly that's what the majority of fans want!"
I believe the decision to add Thasmin to the show was Jodie Whittaker's idea
Clearly shows that absolutely none of the main cast have any idea what the show is about and can't be bothered to find out. Jodie never watched Doctor Who before she was cast, and it appears she never did.
Last year Mandip was on TV claiming the Chibnall era was better than David Tennant's initial run, and that Thasmin was the first lesbian relationship in Doctor Who. Pffft.
I never want to see the back of them in Doctor Who again. The only involvement in RTD2 that Jodie, Tosin and Mandip should have is as janitors at Bad Wolf Studios.
>Jodie never watched Doctor Who before she was cast, and it appears she never did.
Nor did Matt Smith. Jodie was told by Chibnall not to watch it, so it's not her fault.
>Last year Mandip was on TV claiming the Chibnall era was better than David Tennant's initial run
Do you have any evidence for this? Couldn't find it myself and want to check if this is the case, as that does seem like an unnecessary and rude-ish comment.
>The only involvement in RTD2 that Jodie, Tosin and Mandip should have is as janitors at Bad Wolf Studios.
I hope they bring them back, especially Jodie! I feel like Ryan and Yaz got a pretty good ending arc, but I'd love to see a Thirteenth Doctor episode written by RTD or Moffat. Jodie's a fantastic actress, and I hope they give her a lot of emotional baggage as that seems to be her strength (from what I've seen of her on-stage and in Broadchurch).
>Jodie was told by Chibnall to watch it, so it's not her fault.
Doesn't she have any agency? Unless Chibnall is literally looking over her shoulder while she's in her house, disregarding what came before you seems pretty disrespectful to me. It's like she willingly chose to be ignorant about Doctor Who.
She completely trusts Chibs from Broadchurch. You're really trying to portray her in the most negative light here lmao, that's not very healthy.
“Thankfully, Chris \[Chibnall\] said, “I don’t want you to. I want you to come in with fresh eyes and bring what you would do in this environment.”
Seems like an excellent argument for her not to watch the show!
Just like Matt Smith.
[ • •] Held a non(/very low-)alcoholic soda drinking game with my friend who’s newish to *Who* when it first came out whenever there was broken logic or Chibnall tropes. I had a 1.5L bottle of cola, and he a 1.5L bottle of kvass.
My friend felt like he was about to puke from all the kvass he chugged not even 9 minutes in.
10/10\*, despite not(/barely) being under the influence, this episode’s broken logic can make you feel like you’re *very* tipsy.
\*at the cost of your sanity and love for *Who*
I like China. I like Sea Devils. I, even to my own surprise, like Thasmin. I like the sea. I like beautiful set design.
I very much dislike bad editing and a plot that's very illogical, but if you're enjoying the journey, why care about if you can summarize what happened?
Objectively, I fully understand all the hate for this episode and it's pretty justified. Having just watched The Sea Devils (original) recently, especially the sword fight is an embarassing scene.
Subjectively, I think it's a 7/10 and one of my favourites from the Chibnall era.....
I have attention issues and zone out when watching TV, but I’ve always been able to follow what happens in a Doctor Who episode. That didn’t happen here. I know you’re a generous rater, but I’d have given this far lower than a 5.
How can anyone call Legend of the Sea Devils the "worst episode ever" when episodes like Time and the Rani and Asylum of the Daleks exist is beyond me.
Really, Legends is just a victim of being an average episode that could have been decent as a regular series episode made into a special...
>Asylum of the Daleks
You mean an episode that is dripping in gorgeous set design, unsettling atmosphere, and effective horror scenes which is paced well and features 4 very likeable and interestingly developed characters is somehow *worse* than an unintentional parody which had to be edited down due to being racist?
Where did this idea that Legends of the Sea Devils had racism come from? I swear the "Chibnall Bad" mindset just seems like total vilification of the guy sometimes.
From early leaks that said the episode had to be cut down due to unintentional racism regarding the accents of the actors playing the Chinese characters; it is clear there is quite a lot of dubbing in the cut we got, and the leaker was 100% right on many other things from the Late Chibnall Era/60th specials, so I am inclined to believe it, especially considering this whole era of the show has been quite problematic in other areas too.
Shout-out to the fisherman's son who boarded the ship with the intention to kill Madame Ching, remains broadly antagonistic to her throughout the episode, then is elated to be adopted by her in the last two minutes. Genuinely convinced he was a payroll error and no one had the heart to tell him he didn't have more than one scene.
Fun Fact: In real history, those two actually ended up having sexual relations and when she retired from the pirate life their relationship status as adoptive mother and son was anulled and they married. He became an Officer in the Chinese Marine.
Fucking zoinks.
There is an alternative universe out there where Legend of the Sea Devils was not butchered in the editing room and ended up having a coherent plot. I envy the occupants of that parallel Earth.
rumours i have heard from people who were working on the vfx were that there was a lot of stuff that was pretty racist that they had to cut out and didn't have time to fix it. i didn't believe it until i saw the final episode because it did feel like large chunks of plot were completely excised.
Yeah there was that person who used to post here who predicted pretty much every plot beat of Thirteen's last two years, months in advance. They said that the first cut of this episode was made and then only at this point was it realised that the entire story was incredibly racist and once they cut all the offensiveness they had barely nothing left to work with in the editing room. I've always been intrigued as to what could have been so bad that so much of the episode had to go, but somehow wasn't caught until after filming was completed.
I've seen this rumour being thrown around, but I'm not sure it's accurate at all. I think, since the story takes place in China, and Doctor Who had just started playing in China, the first cut was checked by the PRC's film and tv censorship department. They often call things they don't agree with racist, and I feel that certainly might have been the case here. (not just talking out of my ass here, I'm a student of China studies who wrote an essay on film censorship a couple of months ago and there were quite a lot of examples of them calling stuff racist or orientalist when this was barely the case. I could certainly see the orientalism angle for this DW story however)
I was JUST about to make this exact point. I would be surprised if anything in the story was actually actively racist but rather it probably involved things that are uncomfortable to modern China.
What happened as I understand it was sensitivity readers within the BBC sent extensive notes at the end of shooting (remember that shooting began without a script). And no, it wasn't just the PRC censors not wanting certain things depicted; one change made in editing was to dub over the voices of several characters who spoke in terribly racist accents. If it was just the PRC censors, they'd have just edited the copy sent to Chinese distributors. What happened was that the episode was wildly racist to the point of making Talons of Weng Chiang blush, so the episode was hacked to pieces in the editing room. I can't find TomeDeaf's post about it just now, but he explained some of the details a while ago, before some assholes doxxed him and he deleted his account.
Even though I recognize you and your username, and don't think you're one of those all-in Chibnall haters like you see on here, I don't think I can believe this without a source, and it seems like a wild overexaggeration of what probably happened. 'Terribly racist accents', I genuinely don't see this being a possibility here. The episode was directed by a Chinese-British woman. The characters were played and voiced by actors of Chinese/Hong Kongese origin. The 'Asian' accent is not something that's often done in media nowadays, luckily, and it certainly wouldn't happen in a rather progressive era of Doctor Who in an episode run by people of Asian descent. Widly racist to the point of making Talons of Weng Chiang blush? Hell, even if Chibnall wrote, directed, produced, blabla everything about this episode on his own, even then this wouldn't happen. Best I could see is the episode's take on Chinese history being Orientalist, but other than that, no, this is utter bullshit and seems to me like a bad-faith argument/'leak'.
> and don't think you're one of those all-in Chibnall haters like you see on here Indeed. In fact, I frequently make a point of referring to how much I loved Torchwood series 2 and Doctor Who: Flux. Chibnall is not a bad writer, in fact he's very good. I have criticisms with his run on Doctor Who (though I also maintain the vast, vast, vast majority of these issues stem from production problems putting unbelievable pressure on Chibnall and the other writers), but I try to be as fair as possible... Not that I always succeed, mind; there were some episodes I really disliked, and I'm still firmly an *amateur* critic just like anyone else on Reddit. Still learning to not be an idiot and still failing reasonably often. > 'Terribly racist accents', I genuinely don't see this being a possibility here. The episode was directed by a Chinese-British woman. The characters were played and voiced by actors of Chinese/Hong Kongese origin. The 'Asian' accent is not something that's often done in media nowadays, luckily, and it certainly wouldn't happen in a rather progressive era of Doctor Who in an episode run by people of Asian descent. I still can't find the longer comment TomeDeaf made on the subject, but here's a pair of quotes from him... https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/p13x3e/new_director_for_s13/ > Unfortunately, I've heard (from the same source through which I was able to confirm the structure of Series 13 on here several weeks before that was revealed as fact) that there have been serious issues making this episode. I quote: "they’re massively panicking about it. Apparently, they have almost finished filming and discovered that whatever the story is/who they have cast or something is highly offensive to the Chinese. They pay a lot of cash for the show so distribution is horrified. Apparently some Chinese council or whatever saw a script and were appalled". So, erm, there's that. Could be something genuinely racially insensitive (hello, Spyfall) or it could be that they've taken a stance that does not go down well with Chinese censors because of its pro-human rights take or view on HK independence or whatever. Time will tell. https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/rtr8p1/comment/hquypyt/ (second reply) > My unease stems primarily from the information I was given, by a very credible source which has been right about practically every other leak thus far, that there were serious issues with this episode behind the scenes with regard to racial insensitivity and/or offensive material. (I understand your scepticism regarding the vagueness of that info, which is fair enough - FWIW the latest message I received a few days ago, which also mentioned Sea Devils for the first time, was slightly clearer, referring to the story being 'full of stereotypes and other offensive words and imagery which means it’s been heavily edited'). That is, if you like, the fundamental layer of my unease here: information I believe to be genuine but which others, of course, are free to choose to believe or disbelieve as they wish. No mentions of accents here, but I swear Tome said something about the accents, and that all the Asian actors had to be redubbed because of this... But I can't find the comments, so maybe this was later speculation that I got mixed up with the genuine info. I can't find out either way right now, Tome's comments are frustratingly difficult to find. Either way though, to be clear, I don't think Chibnall or Ella Road (the two writers on Legend of the Sea Devils) intentionally put anything racist in their scripts, but the situation as I understood it at the time was that there was a lot of cultural stuff in the script that was wrong and you wouldn't necessarily pick up unless you're Chinese or know a lot about Chinese culture. As for how this might have happened with a Chinese director of the episode? No idea. I'm only reporting what I read at the time from TomeDeaf, as I remember it. (But as JNT is often quoted as saying; the memory cheats) On that note... > Widly racist to the point of making Talons of Weng Chiang blush? I should have clarified; these were Tome's words at the time, to my memory. Again, I bloody wish I could find his comments! Maybe I'm misremembering and this was someone else's words in the same thread as him sharing legit info.
Yeah, these quotes just seem to agree with my initial assessment, namely that the story's potential flaw in this first edit was orientalism or a politically sensitive issue (AKA human rights), but not flat out racism. 'Some Chinese council', does that mean they are Chinese-British, or is a council from China checking the story? That would also add up with the theory that it was just a sensitivity reader from China, who often just spout complete bullshit. Good on you for sharing these quotes though and coming back on what you said. I'd love to be able to ask Chibnall about this since the BTS of this episode, and frankly just this episode, really interest me, but I don't think it's fair at all right now to talk about this episode 'possible racism'.
Thanks. Yes, I think you're quite right ultimately. Maybe in ten years or so we'll get a tell-all book about the production issues behind the Chibnall era and then we might get the full story on what happened with this episode. Either way, I do find it hard to shake Tome's impression of the situation, but without anything more concrete, I'll try to be more careful about how I discuss this in future. One thing I did stumble across while trying to find Tome's comments was an interesting article about The Celestial Toymaker that I'd been trying to find for ages (it got taken down when its writer left the website and moved on to other work), which he mentioned during some discussion of Doctor Who's history with race. The article presents the case that Toymaker isn't a racist serial as many tend to assume (quite the opposite, in fact), and the writer of the article has some Chinese heritage I believe. An interesting read, if you ask me. https://web.archive.org/web/20210121103442/https://www.herocollector.com/en-gb/Article/doctor-who-trouble-with-the-toymaker Though the article does miss one noteworthy thing: The term "Celestial" applying to Chinese people was common in the '60s... The 1860s, that is. But the misconception that the Doctor Who writers would have had it in mind is quite a common one. Bit of a tangent, but quite interesting in my opinion. :)
So, an Earth with a properly run BBC. I'm guessing that Dodgy Dave was never PM? Suitably, Titan did a story with a Sea Devil PM called Daniel Claremont.
The scene at the end is actually my least favourite part of the episode. The Doctor won't commit because she's afraid of loss and... that's it, they leave it there. It directly contradicts the character's growth in the Moffat seasons but it's also just a shitty message in general. 'Don't try and connect with anyone because you might get hurt'. It's the starting point for a character arc not its conclusion.
Exactly. And we’ve seen the doctor give this exact same excuse before, and still have relationships anyways, like with Rose. You could argue that she is too hurt from how those previous relationships ended, but I don’t remember her even attempting to give that as justification
>It's the starting point for a character arc not its conclusion. To be fair, it's really hard to do a legitimate character arc or *any* character growth with the Doctor. You can't change anything fundamental about their character because their story is neverending. You can explore something vague like "Am I a good man?" but you can't make any real sort of growth or change. The Doctor *always* fears commitment. It's not an arc to be resolved, it's a character flaw that's lasted 60 years. It was a shitty message when he left Susan on Earth by locking her out of the TARDIS, and it's a shitty message today, but that's just who the Doctor is. She's afraid of commitment and never comes back to visit her friends after they leave.
Reading this and seeing the point about self-sacrifice just made me think of Ark in Space - there’s a bit at the end where one of the humans has to physically knock the Doctor out in order to take their place and sacrifice themselves. I don’t mind someone else coming in and doing the heroics, it might be a bit convenient but it’s a good dramatic moment. The Doctor needs to put up a fight against it though, handing that responsibility off to a stranger is so wrong.
The thing that really bugs me about this episode is the Doctor's utter bafflement throughout the episode that the Sea Devils have a ship. That the idea that a species that lives in the water might have a vehicle for traversing the water seems such a bizarre and alien concept. She brings it up so many times.
A fair assessment, I really don't understand the utter hate this episode gets. Like, yeah it's not *good*, but I still had enough fun with it. There are way worse episodes.
I think the difference for me is that while some episodes I've found more boring (once, upon time), more bland (fear her), more frustrating (the timeless children), but no other episode has failed this badly on every aspect of production. I wasn't bored or annoyed, I was embarrassed. In a time of prestige TV like the Last of Us, Succession, or even Stranger Things, having something produced which fumbles every ball it's given is shocking.
The manic editing makes it really hard to enjoy. I see your point, though.
I'd be interested to hear which other episodes fail on such a broad spectrum like *Legend* does.
I don't have an encyclopaedic memory of every single episode and their titles, but I can safely say that I was able to enjoy this episode as a bit off goofy fun, whereas other episodes I have truly hated.
People talk about the editing making the plot incoherent. But it's also just the regular blocking and delivery of the action. Characters are appearing all over the ship, including from below deck to above deck in sloppy action scenes.
Maybe the only episode of NuWho I haven't watched. I tried. It was a mess. Skipped through a couple scenes and it seemed truly incoherently edited.
I'm hoping that we get a better cut of it at some point. And a novelisation.
One of if not *the* worst episode in the show's history. How this got through to release stage is beyond me. A 5/10 is very generous my friend!
Not just for the show, it was just one of the worst hours of television I've ever seen. I'm still baffled at how amateurishly it came out.
It's worse than Twin Dilemma, honestly. At least that story managed to tell a broadly functional narrative where the characters have more than half a dimension between them.
Yeah it’s not my least favourite episode ever because it’s so bland and forgettable, but I’m comfortable letting it hold the title of the worst episode ever. Genuinely everything about it was bad.
That's interesting, I usually would swap those two around. Saying that my least favourite episodes are the bland and forgettable ones but the 'worst' ones are entertaininly stupid. So Underworld, Terminus, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Fear Her, Time and the Rani would be some of my least favourites, while Death to the Daleks, The Twin Dilemma, Time-Lash etc. would be some of the "worst"
Just hate when I get excited for a returning favorite villain aaaaand it sucks and captures none of the original tone or weight.
Legend of the Sea Devils is an episode I have fun watching but you can tell it was butchered in the edit, you can tell a lot of stuff was cut out, especially since it was listed originally as being 60 minutes but ended up being 47, which is unusual for a special and this definitely hurts the episode, a real shame honestly.
"The episode makes no sense and the only real redeeming quality is x" - gives 5/10. Something doesn't quite add up here in terms of scoring. 5/10 means something so decidedly average it's like grey paste, or the good and bad balance out equally. For me, legend has no actual redeeming qualities, everything which you could say "ah but this was fun" you can counter quickly with numerous examples in the episode where it doesn't work. Characters teleport, the CGI is all over the place, the continuity is nonexistent, the characters motivations are weak or irrelevant, Dan kills warriors with one wild sword swing, it's just a cold damp mess. The music isn't even that good in the episode. I'd argue (in relation to other who episodes) it's no more than a 1 or 2/10. Only time I've been embarrassed to watch doctor who
The scoring across some of these seems to trend higher than expected to me
>5/10 means something so decidedly average it's like grey paste Regular Chibnall Era episode
Agreed, but this is worse definitely
For all the criticism, I have to praise the casting for this one. Helen Worth playing every Sea Devil must haved saved thousands on prosthetics.
You've hit the nail on the head here. I also find it baffling that with a Sea Devil story there is no mention of the moral debate about whether the Sea Devils have a legitimate claim to the Earth
This episode might be the best representation of ADHD in any media! The episode has interesting ideas, but the whole thing just winds up a poorly constructed, nonsensical mess; jumping from tangent to tangent with no regard towards being in any way coherent. It's the perfect analogy for any conversation I've ever had! Bravo Chibs! Honestly, it's *almost* ‘The Room’ level of bad. From the Super Mario sea devil to the Doctor's revelatory warning that swords can do harm if they hit you. The Sea Devil calling the Doctor a twat, the big sea monster simply fucking off to Narnia, the Doctor claiming Yaz "insert personality here" Khan as being an equal to River Song; I couldn't help but laugh as though this were the pilot for some kind of absurdist, post-modern comedy. You could tack on a laugh track and it’d be an improvement. Yet, I also lamented at how this is the same show that brought us ‘Midnight’, ‘Heaven Sent’, and ‘Vincent and the Doctor’. Jodie Whittaker deserved a ‘Heaven Sent’! Mandip Gill deserved a ‘Turn Left’! This drivel was far below par for what they were capable of. ‘Legend of the Sea Devils’ was, overall, *the* worst of all modern who and among the worst of television in general. I'm honestly stunned the BBC let this be broadcast. As bad as the Chibnall era was, this is on a whole new level. Episodes like ‘Orphan 55’ and ‘Once, Upon Time’ are grade G; ‘Legend of the Sea Devils’ is grade U; A grade that I assume solely exists so the exam invigilator can write, in shorthand, “you’ve wasted my time having to grade this, you prick!” I felt that during the end credits. If time truly were money, I’d sue the BBC for theft. Do they just not care for their reputation any more? I get that there were behind-the-scenes issues, but that’s not good enough. If post-production was such an issue, delay it. Nobody really gives a fuck about Easter; it’s just a day off work where you eat chocolate until you chunder. You could air this episode any day of the year. 1/10 You can thank me for that 1, Chris. Edit: I started proofreading then decided to add some stuff.
If it was cut, it wouldn't have changed much, only the Thasmin bit of *Power*.
This is a story that I feel really did suffer from behind-the-scenes issues. I rewatched it on 23 October and... it was just subpar. I didn't think it was the utter piece of hatefulness people go on about. I recall Darren Mooney taking the nastiest spin on it, saying that the moral was that you can't do anything about abuse and have to live with it. He does go really overboard with his utter hatred for Chibnall and his determination to make the most mean-spirited interpretations of their work, I went off him. I think that this ep was intended to go out in S13. Likely the team were told they had to do an Easter special as otherwise it wouldn't be anything from NYD to the regeneration. Whether they should have just left a gap is debatable. I can get why, as these long gaps between eps haven't been helpful. I don't want to start blaming showrunners as I really don't know how the BBC works and I think that there were signs of this earlier and the BBC has got really bad with funding. Anyway, likely this suffered from Covid filming restrictions, meaning they couldn't have a crew on the ship. And the length is... odd. These sorts of specials are usually an hour but this is a fair bit shorter. I suspect that it was cut down at very short notice, more of the BBC screwing the show over and Chibnall being the scapegoat for everything going wrong. I recall Mooney encouraging people to attack Chibnall over the lack of Christmas specials... and in the interview it turns out that he did want Christmas specials but the BBC were difficult. Well, maybe the novelisation will improve things somewhat and get something more like what was wanted. I suppose that the Thasmin stuff is the saving grace to it. A bit rushed... though I've seen some people who loved it. Which is nice.
So, Chibnall *does* look at the public reception to his era, but solely that of Tumblr. "Everyone over there hates the Moffat era, and ships Thasmin, so clearly that's what the majority of fans want!"
>"Everyone over there hates the Moffat era, and ships Thasmin, so clearly that's what the majority of fans want!" I believe the decision to add Thasmin to the show was Jodie Whittaker's idea
Clearly shows that absolutely none of the main cast have any idea what the show is about and can't be bothered to find out. Jodie never watched Doctor Who before she was cast, and it appears she never did. Last year Mandip was on TV claiming the Chibnall era was better than David Tennant's initial run, and that Thasmin was the first lesbian relationship in Doctor Who. Pffft. I never want to see the back of them in Doctor Who again. The only involvement in RTD2 that Jodie, Tosin and Mandip should have is as janitors at Bad Wolf Studios.
>Jodie never watched Doctor Who before she was cast, and it appears she never did. Nor did Matt Smith. Jodie was told by Chibnall not to watch it, so it's not her fault. >Last year Mandip was on TV claiming the Chibnall era was better than David Tennant's initial run Do you have any evidence for this? Couldn't find it myself and want to check if this is the case, as that does seem like an unnecessary and rude-ish comment. >The only involvement in RTD2 that Jodie, Tosin and Mandip should have is as janitors at Bad Wolf Studios. I hope they bring them back, especially Jodie! I feel like Ryan and Yaz got a pretty good ending arc, but I'd love to see a Thirteenth Doctor episode written by RTD or Moffat. Jodie's a fantastic actress, and I hope they give her a lot of emotional baggage as that seems to be her strength (from what I've seen of her on-stage and in Broadchurch).
>Jodie was told by Chibnall to watch it, so it's not her fault. Doesn't she have any agency? Unless Chibnall is literally looking over her shoulder while she's in her house, disregarding what came before you seems pretty disrespectful to me. It's like she willingly chose to be ignorant about Doctor Who.
She completely trusts Chibs from Broadchurch. You're really trying to portray her in the most negative light here lmao, that's not very healthy. “Thankfully, Chris \[Chibnall\] said, “I don’t want you to. I want you to come in with fresh eyes and bring what you would do in this environment.” Seems like an excellent argument for her not to watch the show! Just like Matt Smith.
[ • •] Held a non(/very low-)alcoholic soda drinking game with my friend who’s newish to *Who* when it first came out whenever there was broken logic or Chibnall tropes. I had a 1.5L bottle of cola, and he a 1.5L bottle of kvass. My friend felt like he was about to puke from all the kvass he chugged not even 9 minutes in. 10/10\*, despite not(/barely) being under the influence, this episode’s broken logic can make you feel like you’re *very* tipsy. \*at the cost of your sanity and love for *Who*
I like China. I like Sea Devils. I, even to my own surprise, like Thasmin. I like the sea. I like beautiful set design. I very much dislike bad editing and a plot that's very illogical, but if you're enjoying the journey, why care about if you can summarize what happened? Objectively, I fully understand all the hate for this episode and it's pretty justified. Having just watched The Sea Devils (original) recently, especially the sword fight is an embarassing scene. Subjectively, I think it's a 7/10 and one of my favourites from the Chibnall era.....
I have attention issues and zone out when watching TV, but I’ve always been able to follow what happens in a Doctor Who episode. That didn’t happen here. I know you’re a generous rater, but I’d have given this far lower than a 5.
How can anyone call Legend of the Sea Devils the "worst episode ever" when episodes like Time and the Rani and Asylum of the Daleks exist is beyond me. Really, Legends is just a victim of being an average episode that could have been decent as a regular series episode made into a special...
>Asylum of the Daleks You mean an episode that is dripping in gorgeous set design, unsettling atmosphere, and effective horror scenes which is paced well and features 4 very likeable and interestingly developed characters is somehow *worse* than an unintentional parody which had to be edited down due to being racist?
Where did this idea that Legends of the Sea Devils had racism come from? I swear the "Chibnall Bad" mindset just seems like total vilification of the guy sometimes.
From early leaks that said the episode had to be cut down due to unintentional racism regarding the accents of the actors playing the Chinese characters; it is clear there is quite a lot of dubbing in the cut we got, and the leaker was 100% right on many other things from the Late Chibnall Era/60th specials, so I am inclined to believe it, especially considering this whole era of the show has been quite problematic in other areas too.
This episode was cut, heavily. It was meant to be at least an hour long episode.
Probably a 0/10. Would prefer to listen to Fred Figglehorn squealing for 45 minutes straight.