| Production Code LLL
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Plot Outline from Wikipedia The Doctor and Jo visit the Master, held in captivity on a small Island Prison, after being captured by UNIT. The Master is being imprisoned indefinitely and is the only prisoner. He is watched by CCTV and the island is patrolled by armed guards and protected by minefields. As they depart, the governor, Colonel Trenchard, tells them that some ships have been mysteriously disappearing. He cannot resist investigating and the Doctor is attacked by an underwater Silurian, a man-like lizard called a Sea Devil, while examining a Sea Fort. They escape to the nearby naval base run by the efficient Captain John Hart, HMS Seaspite, and an alliance forms. He is in charge of the adaptation of the sea fort for use as a SONAR testing station. The Doctor meanwhile discovers that the Master, assisted by a misguided Trenchard, is stealing electrical equipment from a naval base to build a machine that will control the Sea Devils. He intends to use them as an army to enable him to conquer the world and begins by using the machine to summon some of them from the sea. A battle for the prison ensues during which Trenchard, who had believed he was aiding his country against enemy agents, is killed. The Doctor and Jo escape to HMS Seaspite, where Hart tells them a naval submarine has disappeared. The Doctor investigates in a submarine bell and is seized by the Sea Devils, who take him to their leader. The Doctor enters the Sea Devil's base and tries to encourage peace, recalling how he had failed to broker an agreement between mankind and the Silurians. The Master too ventures to the Sea Devil base, intent on provoking war, but matters are left unresolved when the base is attacked by depth charges. This attack was ordered by a gluttonous and short-sighted politician, Robert Walker, who has arrived at HMS Seaspite to take control of the situation and is intent on repeating UNIT’s actions on Wenley Moor: blowing up the creatures. Hart and Jo are opposed to the attack but at least it allows the Doctor cover to flee, even if he has failed in his initial peace attempt. The Doctor persuades Walker to allow him a final attempt at negotiating peace but in the meantime the Sea Devil's capture the naval base. They have been inspired to such actions by the Master, who still wishes to create a war. The Master then forces the Doctor to help build a machine to revive Sea Devil colonies all over the world. They both end up back at the Sea Devil base where the creatures try to kill the Master, who is now useless to them. The Doctor succeeds in sabotaging the machine and they both escape the base in a captured submarine. Just like the Silurians, military forces blow up the Sea Devil colony. As usual, the Master is able to escape capture (this time by faking a heart attack and hijacking a medical boat) and flees the scene of his imprisonment.
The opening scenes with The Doctor and Jo visiting the island prison were The Master is the only prisoner are very well done. The Doctor’s sympathy for the prisoner despite their hostile past is wonderfully genuine, while The Master is wonderfully devious. The Doctor is taken in completely by the faked exercise where a prison guard is apparently impervious to his attempt to hypnotise him. In fact, The Master is using the prison as a home away from home, and is in control of his guards. The Doctor takes a surprisingly long time to cotton on to the trick. Incidentally, the meeting between The Doctor and The Master makes an interesting comparison with the meeting in the first part of X-Men II between Doctor Xavier and Magneto, two similar characters in a way. The Doctor and The Master come from the same origins but one chose the light and the other the dark. The same is true of Xavier and Magneto. In both cases, there is sympathy and understanding for the former adversary, now a caged prisoner. And of course, in both cases, the sympathy is rejected by an adversary already plotting escape and revenge.
But of course he isn’t dead. He is down in the Silurian den trying to persuade them that The Master is the evil one, not himself. The Master, of course, wants power, and sees the Sea Devils as an aide to that effort. The Doctor simply wants peace and tries to make amends for the failure to do so with the Sea Devils’ near relative, the Silurians. But his attempt fails because of military intervention. Interestingly, the attack on the Sea Devils was the result of orders given to the military by a politician. The character of Walker, who the scriptwriters made as obnoxious as possible, treats the female naval officers as tea ladies and typists, demands food to be served constantly and overrules decisions made by intelligent and experienced naval officers who had a much better idea of the situation than he did. He seems to have no real life counterpart in early 1970s politics. For which we should probably be grateful. But again, put this story in historical context. This was broadcast in March 1972, a little over a month after the British Army in Northern Ireland had been at the centre of the “Bloody Sunday” incident which, as far as anyone can guess, was a result of the very same sort of precipitous actions as we saw here in the Sea Devils. Was art echoing life or life echoing art? Either way it is yet another proof that a British military presence in any situation, no matter how inappropriate, had become acceptable to the TV watchers of the time. I don’t think programmes like The Sea Devils are the reason why the British public didn’t react with outrage at events like “Bloody Sunday”. The situation was much more complicated than that, but this episode still stands as a rather interesting and ironic social comment on the early 1970s. Just for a change it is the navy shooting first and asking questions later, not U.N.I.T.! But the result is the same as far as The Doctor is concerned. To some extent this is a re-run of the Silurians but in an undersea world. The Doctor’s desire to make peace is again dashed by the military, and he is understandably angry with the Human race for it's short-sightedness. The Doctor is, in these instances, the conscience of us all, questioning our right to be the superior species on this planet.
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