Tick tock, goes the clock. It’s the penultimate 13th Doctor adventure, Legend of the Sea Devils. Simon and Eugene discuss.
Episode Synopsis
The year is 1807, and the infamous pirate Zhen Yi Sao is assaulting a statue of a sea devil over the protestations of one of the locals. The statute cracks, and out pops a sea devil, killing the local.
The Doctor and the Gang arrive, possibly searching for the lost 16th-century Portuguese ship, the Flor de la Mar, or, if not, Dan is remarkably well-versed on the subject. Nonetheless, they are in the wrong place at the wrong, sort of.
They meet Zhen Yi Sao, AKA Madame Ching, and the sea devil with a sword. The sea devil has killed mostly everyone in town and quickly escapes the Doctor’s simplistic trap, escaping with a mighty hop and a leap onto a flying 16th-century Portuguese ship.
Madame Ching leaves. She got what she was looking for, the location of the wreck of the Flor de la Mar.
Dan wanders off following the son of the slain local as they try to board Ching’s ship. The task seems unusually easy because the vessel operates on complete COVID restrictions, and there’s no crew whatsoever.
Unconcerned about Dan, the Doctor and Yaz also wander off, although they wander off in the TARDIS, heading back two centuries to 1511, trying to locate the wreck of the Flor de la Mar. They witness the dread pirate Ji-Hun throwing his crew overboard and pledging his loyalty to the sea devil, only to be betrayed by it.
Knowing where the ship was scuttled, they head back to 1807, at the bottom of the sea, to find it before Madame Ching. It’s not there, but the TARDIS is swallowed by the HuaSheng, an improbable sea beastie controlled by the sea devils.
On Madame Ching’s ship, Dan and the boy are rapidly captured because they’re rubbish at hiding. The boy wants to kill the pirate; the pirate wants to get the treasure of the Flor de la Mar to pay ransom to get her sons and crew back. Dan and the boy agree to crew her ship rather than be killed.
Trapped in the sea devils’ underwater base, the Doctor tries to bluff that she has the keystone, which is a thingy that the sea devil needs to flip the poles, melt the ice caps and make the world all wet and wonderful again.
The sea devil has also, inexplicably, kept Ji-Hun alive for the last two centuries and converted the Flor de la Mar into his flying ship. “Oh, of course!” says the Doctor, having just apparently come out of having a lobotomy. They rescue Ji-Hun and escape to Madame Ching’s ship.
There’s some pirate fighting on the high seas; Dan slaughters multiple sea devils without a moment’s hesitation or introspection. The Doctor rigs up a thingy to trap the sea devils in a bubble, but it requires a sacrifice to make it work; Ji-hun stays behind to hold the wires together, and they all escape.
Back in the 21st century, Dan calls Di, and she wants to get together, no doubt just before she reveals that she is a world-threatening menace intent on killing the Doctor or something. The Doctor dumps Yaz hard with the old chestnut, “It’s not you, it’s me. But hey, we can keep on having fun, right?”
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