The Sea Devils (2025)

Before watching the opening episodes of The War Between The Land And The Sea (reviewed tomorrow) I decided to watch the new re-edited omnibus of The Sea Devils. I must admit I almost didn't bother as the complete story is already available on Blu-ray, and the Season 9 box set includes an existing omnibus put together by the original production team.

There was also the issue of the two previous re-edits from the current team which certainly had their faults.

The Daleks and The War Games had as their main selling point the fact that these were 1960's monochrome stories which were going to be colourised. That process, for me, was successful.

The Hartnell story had its padding, an extra episode having been requested after Terry Nation came up with a 6-parter, so there were obvious edits that could be made. 

The Troughton story was a lengthy 10 episodes in duration, and the editing was much more of a hack job in the middle instalments. The cuts and jumps really jarred.

A problem across both stories was the soundtrack. There was some wholly inappropriate and intrusive music slapped over sections of The Daleks - the escape sequence stands out - whilst bits of Nu-Who music were used on The War Games, where more era specific music would have fitted much better. Using the Saxon Master theme for the War Chief also went against what the co-creator of both characters intended.

The Sea Devils obviously doesn't need to be colourised, so this was all going about the edit and the soundtrack.

I'm pleased to say that this was a much more successful project. 

The cuts made were the right ones in my view, so that all the main narrative beats were present and the story flowed. There were only a couple of new bits of filming edited in - a drone shot of the sea fort and a new initial view of the Master's prison at the start. The opening titles were omitted, to closer match those of the new spin-off. When the Doctor tells Jo about his encounter with the Silurians we get some flashback clips from the Season 7 story.

Some of the cuts are achieved by having dialogue continue over the next scene. The stuff in the prison is where most of the cuts seem to have been made. What we still get are all of Pertwee's more humorous moments, and anyone coming new to this would be encouraged to check out more of the Third Doctor's adventures. The main action sequences and iconic imagery, such as the Sea Devils rising from the waves, were there. Also nice to see the Clangers sequence retained. Unnecessary to the plot but a lovely character moment for the Master and illustrative of Trenchard's unimaginative nature.

There is new music, but fortunately Mark Ayres has been confined to general remastering and kept well away from this aspect of the new edit. Apparently some original unused cues from Malcolm Clarke were employed, along with new themes from another composer which were more mood pieces, and so nowhere near as intrusive and jarring.

If you want to revisit The Sea Devils but don't have the time or inclination to watch the complete six episodes, then this is a perfectly fine alternative.

I'm going to assume it won't warrant a release on its own, but may be an extra on the spin-off Blu-ray when it arrives in the New Year.

The Collection: Season 9 - Review

Season 9 sits at the very heart of the Jon Pertwee era - third of his five seasons. It is also the mid-point for Katy Manning's three seasons as companion Jo Grant. You would expect this set to be full of UNIT adventures - yet they only feature in the first and last stories, and even then are absent from some whole episodes.

After two seasons very much restricted to contemporary Earth, with just one off-planet mission for the Time Lords, Season 9 coincided with frustration on the part of Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks to get the Doctor back into Time and Space again. As such, we have two missions for the Time Lords - out of just five stories. The middle story - neither UNIT nor Time Lord mission - is The Sea Devils. This acted as a means to reintroduce the Master, last seen being captured at the conclusion of The Daemons.

This season saw a major production change - one we take for granted these days. The stories were broadcast out of order. Due to the heavy amount of filming at sea, The Sea Devils was brought forward so that better weather was more likely in the Solent, whilst the all studio The Curse of Peladon could be made in any weather. Barry Letts also wanted to split the two Time Lord mission stories to vary the shape of the season overall.

We open with Day of the Daleks, which began life as a non-Dalek story about time-travelling assassins caught up in a temporal paradox. Deemed not strong enough for a season launch, the Daleks were brought forward from Robert Sloman's closing story. It's probably the weakest of all the classic Dalek stories, hampered by the obvious fact that the director only has three Daleks to play with, and making one of them a unique gold version severely limits their impact in the final battle. The voices are terrible as well.

You get three different versions of this story for your money - the original broadcast one, the souped-up Special Edition, and the omnibus. The latter is a bit of a cheat as it no longer exists, so it is simply the broadcast version newly re-edited.

When it comes to improved picture quality then The Curse of Peladon is the perfect example. The improvements are stunning. I know many people refuse to buy these sets as they are just upscaled SD, but the picture and sound quality is way over and above that seen and heard on the DVDs.

The first colour appearance of the Ice Warriors, accompanied by Alpha Centauri and Arcturus, the story was inspired by The Hound of the Baskervilles but Peladon's entry into the Galactic Federation also mirrored the entry of the UK into the EEC.

The third story is The Sea Devils, which began life as a sequel to The Silurians. Malcolm Hulke opted to feature their marine cousins instead. The Master returned, escaping from prison, whilst ex-Royal Navy men Barry Letts and Jon Pertwee got to play with a lot of military hardware.

This story really should have featured UNIT, and it is very odd that it doesn't, but the production team wanted to keep the RN happy and feature one of their own as the surrogate Brigadier character.

The Mutants is a story inspired by colonialism and racism, from Bob Baker & Dave Martin. It's the second mission for the Time Lords. Some very good location filming in Kentish chalk caves, and the Mutants themselves are a wonderful design (courtesy of future Oscar winner James Acheson).

Bringing up the rear, in more ways than one, is The Time Monster. Like the previous season finale, it's a collaboration between Letts and Robert Sloman, combining mythology with science fiction. Unlike The Daemons, it really fails to work. The Season 8 story had continuity of location and linear narrative, but this story wanders all over the place - a mish-mash of half-baked ideas.

Losing the Daleks, Sloman retained the mixed-up history from his original scripts and inherited the Master as the main villain. It's a rare trip into history for Pertwee's Doctor - even if it is a mythological history.

That's the stories, what of the Extras?

As well as those extra two versions of the Dalek story we also get the omnibus for The Sea Devils - but that's also a modern reconstruction. There are also a few miscellaneous PAL episodes converted from US or Canadian 525-line NTSC episodes, which were used to add colour to the BBC's B&W film copies. These allow you to compare the picture quality between DVD and Blu-ray versions.

On the sofa we have Katy Manning with director Michael E Briant. She is able to talk about her personal role in the season, whilst he can talk more generally about working on the series during this time period, before dealing specifically with his Sea Devil story. Then we have the usual Fifth Doctor panel - Davison, Sutton and Fielding. I've said enough about the latter's negativity previously, so won't say any more. Much more enjoyable is watching Sophie Aldred and Wendy Padbury. The former states that she was 10 when this season went out, so Pertwee was very much her Doctor, whilst Padbury shows loyalty to her Doctor by intimating she stopped watching after she left - but of course actors in the early 1970's were never at home on a Saturday evening in those pre-video recorder days anyway. Davison confirms this - he was too busy working in theatre to watch the series when Pertwee was Doctor.

The Time Monster never got a making-of on its DVD release, and they make up for that now.

Annoyingly they haven't re-edited the Peladon documentary. The two Peladon stories were released on DVD as a double-pack and the documentaries looked at both of them mixed together. Here we are getting interviews about Monster of Peladon mixed in with stuff about Curse.

Another annoyance is the presentation of convention footage, which I've mentioned before. I really don't understand why they can't give us subtitles when it comes to audience questions, which we simply cannot hear. No care at all is taken over these features. On this set, we get Nicholas Courtney and Richard Franklin interviewed at a con in 1986. Both are quite critical of the Trial season, which was being broadcast at the time. A second convention feature has Ingrid Pitt and Terrance Dicks as the panelists.

The main new documentary feature is a locations one. Katy Manning tours Southern England to visit some of the season's locations, meeting up with Anna Barry (Anat) near Bull's Bridge (the tunnel in the Dalek story), Briant on the Isle of Wight, and Ky actor Garrick Hagon at Chislehurst and Stone farm Caves, Kent, which once doubled for the planet Solos. Manning also gets to have a go on one of the trikes seen in Day of the Daleks. It ends with Katy remembering Pertwee and Delgado and becoming quite emotional.

No Matthew Sweet interview on this set, but we do get a couple of new interviews on the second Sea Devil disc - one with Briant (50 mins), which looks at his entire career and goes sailing with him, and another with stunt performer Stuart Fell, again looking at his work both in and beyond Doctor Who (26 mins).

Audio-wise we get Jon Pertwee reading an abridged version of Doctor Who and the Curse of Peladon, as well as a couple of period radio interviews. Other items include a comedy item with Pertwee and Cybermen, and a Nationwide piece on the Science Museum's BBC VFX Exhibition - precursor to the permanent Blackpool and Longleat exhibitions.

All in all - it's another fantastic box-set, which takes us to the half-way point in these releases (13 of 26). The first set came out in 2018, which means we have roughly five more years to see the completion of 'The Collection'. I suspect that Season 20 will be coming later this year - an anniversary season for an anniversary year, and would obviously hope to see a Troughton set added very soon (probably the mostly complete Season 6), though I suspect we will get another Tom Baker release before then. Season 16 - the Key to Time one - marks another anniversary after all: the 15th (and the 100th story).

Season 9 Box Set (update)

The trailer was released this afternoon and, as expected, it featured Katy Manning as Jo. A couple of girls exploring a seaside cave are attacked by a Sea Devil, which is chased off by Jo. The creature was protecting some eggs, so we get some ecological preaching about climate change (as expected from writer Pete McTighe). One nice aspect is the recognition that Cliff Jones is now dead, allowing for a lovely tribute to Stewart Bevan.

As far as extras go, there is a "Making of" for The Time Monster, and a feature on director Michael E Briant. He and Manning share a sofa, with Sophie Aldred and Wendy Padbury on another, and Peter Davison with Sutton and Fielding on the third.

Other previews in the trailer include a locations piece on the season with Manning, and a feature about stunt performer Stuart Fell. There's also convention footage of Nicholas Courtney and Richard Franklin. 

Day of the Daleks comes in three versions - the original, the Special Edition, and the compilation. The Sea Devils also gets an omnibus version.

Amazon list it at £49.99, with a placeholder date of 31st December 2024. 

(Update: Now giving 20th March 2023 as release date).

These are the final Katy Manning episodes. All that remains of Pertwee's tenure are his first and last seasons, which have picture quality issues.

With only a single set to his name, I strongly suspect that the next set later this year will be a Davison one (the 20th Anniversary being the most obvious choice in an anniversary year).

Season 9 coming soon to Blu-Ray

Jon Pertwee's middle season - the Ninth - will be the next release in The Collection. Regarded as a "Monster Season", it features Daleks, Ice Warriors and Sea Devils, along with the Master, Ogrons, Mutants, Kronos and all the varied Peladon creatures.

A trailer is due later today, with more information to follow.

What's Wrong With... The Time Monster

Quite a lot actually. For a start, we missed out on "The Daleks in London" for this hodge-podge of ideas. 

Barry Letts and Robert Sloman were basically attempting to get lightning to strike twice, but missed by miles.

For Season 9 discussions had taken place with Terry Nation to bring the Daleks back into Doctor Who after a gap of some 5 years. Robert Sloman began writing a set of scripts provisionally titled "The Daleks in London", which would have involved them messing about with history - with Roundhead soldiers and V2 Doodlebugs appearing in the 20th Century...

However, Letts and Terrance Dicks then decided that the Daleks would make more of a splash as a season opener, and so Sloman was instructed to stop work on his story, and Louis Marx was asked to shoe-horn the Daleks into his time-travelling-guerrilla-assassins story.

Denied Daleks, Sloman was given the next big villain for a replacement end of season story - and at the time this was the Master. He was available again, having escaped from prison earlier in the year.

Letts and Sloman decided to look to The Daemons for inspiration for The Time Monster. The previous season finale had revolved around alien explanations for ancient Earth mysteries. 

"Ancient Astronauts" were a big thing in the early 1970's. Erich Von Daniken's Chariot of the Gods had been published in 1968, and in 1970 had formed the basis for a documentary film. Many of the New Age beliefs linked ancient aliens with the lost civilisation of Atlantis.

Despite the fact that the two stories are written by the same people, only 12 months apart, the two season finales contradict each other regarding the destruction of Atlantis. And neither quite match with what we learned about the city in The Underwater Menace.

Whilst The Daemons had focussed on a small group of individuals, in an isolated location, borrowing horror movie imagery, The Time Monster wanders all over the place, as though it can't quite make up its mind what it wants to be.

There's a couple of episodes with the Master running around a scientific research establishment; then an episode of time meddling, with people and objects being brought to the 20th Century from various historical eras; then an episode comprising the Doctor and the Master insulting each other from their respective TARDISes; then finally two episodes set in a very studio-bound ancient Atlantis.

The story begins with the Doctor suffering nightmares. He sees the Master looming over him, volcanic eruptions and a trident-shaped crystal. Realising that the dream is more of a premonition, he decides to seek out the Master. At exactly the same time, a scientist has devised a type of time machine at Wootton - and the Doctor doesn't see the connection. He specifically turns down an invite to go see a demonstration of TOMTIT, thus wasting a whole episode driving around whilst the Master gets on with his nefarious enterprise. What's worse - he has a gizmo for tracing time machines, but doesn't stop to think that TOMTIT might interfere with it - or that TOMTIT might be the very thing he's after.

He's been stuck on Earth for a while now, so why is he using Venusian measurements?

Why is the Doctor not interested in any form of temporal experimentation on Earth at this time? He must at least be reading about projects such as TOMTIT, even if he can't be bothered visiting them. Did he not spot that it was the brainchild of a scientist whose name translates to "I am your mortal enemy, the Master". 

Why is the Master messing about with "Interstitial Time" anyway? Kronos and the crystal are in a specific location at a specific time, so why not just use conventional time travel to go and collect them? TOMTIT seems to be an overly complicated way of doing things.

Why is the Master still using such giveaway pseudonyms anyway?

The Brigadier drags Sgt. Benton along to the demonstration, even pulling him off leave, as if someone has to keep him company. Why does he need anyone with him other than the Doctor? A "plus one" is an offer - not a command.

The Master has set up shop in Wootton in order to make a connection with ancient Atlantis. Why? Surely he could have picked somewhere that didn't have any mortal enemies pledged to stop him nearby - somewhere closer to where Atlantis might actually be, like Crete or mainland Greece.

Why does he choose a publicly funded educational establishment for a base, one that comes with government inspections, when he could have set up TOMTIT anywhere in the private sector? He could steal enough money to set the whole thing up himself.

On his first attempt to summon Kronos he yells "Come Kronos! Come!!!" at the top of his voice, but the Brigadier and Benton don't seem to find this terribly suspicious.

Shortly afterwards, UNIT decide it isn't worth searching the building for the Master, allowing him to sit smoking cigars in the director's office. The Brigadier actually claims that there's no reason the Master will know UNIT is on to him - despite them standing there when he tried to summon a monster from Greek mythology. 

If the Doodlebug was taken out of time to explode in the 1970's, how come the locals can remember it landing in 1944?

The tractor driver is a particularly horrible country yokel stereotype.

The Master is terribly lucky that so many historical incidents happened on this small stretch of road, for him to bring forward to attack the UNIT convoy...

The Doctor and Jo finally turn up at Wootton after using the hand-held gizmo to trace the temporal disturbance. Later on, the Doctor will plug this into the TARDIS console to take it straight into the Master's TARDIS. Why didn't he do this with it in the first place?

Left alone in the Master's TARDIS, why does the Doctor not sabotage it, if he wants to stop him getting to Atlantis?

The whole Time Ram thing seems a bit confusing. Aren't the two TARDISes occupying the same space / time when they are inside each other?

Why does the Master always change his TARDIS decor at the same time as the Doctor? Does Gallifrey send out a Homes & Gardens style magazine every so often?

The Master's chameleon circuit is perfectly operational - so why does his TARDIS look like a computer when it materialises in ancient Atlantis?

In the city, Hippias is told by King Dalios that the crystal must be protected at all costs. Queen Galleia then asks him to fetch it for her, and he meekly runs off to get it - despite the fact that he has stated he no longer has any feelings for her. He knows that it is guarded by a savage minotaur, so doesn't bother taking any weapons with him. The Doctor follows soon after, and he doesn't bother fetching any help either.

If the Master knows that Atlantis gets destroyed around this time, why does he think it's the best place and time to free Kronos. Surely history must have told him that he would fail.

Some behind the scenes problems:

No-one liked the TARDIS redesign. They likened it to a lot of plastic washing-up bowls stuck to the walls. Barry Letts thought he was going to be stuck with it, so was mighty pleased to learn that the set had warped in storage and couldn't be used again for Season 10.

If the whole wine bottle / cup of tea / time flow analogue sequence feels like pointless padding it's because it is - the episode was under-running.

There's no point playing Episode Four backwards to see what Jon Pertwee is really saying - it's just "backwards-speech" sounding nonsense.

There was an accident during the knight on horseback sequence, when the animal collided with a vehicle due to a driver mistiming the action.

Dave Prowse was hired to play the minotaur, but refused to do any of the action as he wasn't a stunt man. They therefore had to get Terry Walsh to do all that, which is nearly all of the minotaur scenes. It was pointless employing Prowse in the first place.

The lengthy sequences of the Doctor and Jo driving in the opening episode were done with a camera fitted to the car, and they were out on their own. Driving around country lanes, they quickly got lost - Katy Manning's short-sightedness being legendary, so not an ideal map reader.

Barry Letts hated both of the realisations of Kronos - the man flapping his wings whilst dangling from the ceiling, and the big lady face.

What's Wrong With... The Mutants

For fans who like to stick to earlier story titles, The Mutants poses a problem - for it is also the name of the first Dalek story. This is based on mentions in production paperwork back in 1964. To get round this they refer to this Pertwee story as The Mutants (1972) - i.e. they add the date.

The rest of fandom moved on and adopted the VHS / DVD nomenclature, so simply don't have this problem. The older story was The Daleks and this - and only this - is The Mutants. (By the logic of the more pedantic of the diehard fans, The Claws of Axos ought to be called "The Vampire from Space", as that was the title used by the production team. But it isn't).

Anyway, it's another mission from the Time Lords, which means yet again that they tell the Doctor nothing remotely useful that might help him carry out the mission effectively. If you want a parcel to get to where it is supposed to go, you put the name and address on it, do you not?

The sphere which the Doctor is given to deliver will only open for the person for whom it is intended, so he basically has to shove it against people to see who it responds to.

Trouble is, when it does finally get to its intended recipient - the rebellious young Ky - he hasn't a clue what the contents are, or what they mean. They are totally useless to him. It is only when the Doctor and the Earth scientist Sondergaard take a look at them that they start to make some sort of sense - so why was the Time Lord box not intended for Sondergaard in the first place?

If the tablets in the container are of vital importance to the evolution of the Solonians, what were the Time Lords doing with them in the first place? Talk about interference in the affairs of other races...

In the end, the tablets simply give them the information that Solos has very long seasons. It is the crystal in the cavern and the associated radiation which are the things which actually matter to the Solonians.

Sondergaard knows that the planet takes 2000 years to go round its sun, but hasn't figured out that this would mean very long seasons.

Why would an entire species become dependent on a single crystal for its evolutionary processes? Does life exist on Solos only within a couple of miles of the cave system?

There's also the question of how this race can forget such a Very Big Thing every 500 years, like clockwork. 

And where does the next generation of human-like Solonians come from?

There is a teleport system set up between Skybase and Solos. It only appears to have a single station on the entire planet, right in the middle of nowhere. Not only that, but this vital link with the planet which the Marshal intends to dominate is never seen to be guarded. Anyone can walk in and use it.

The story is about racism and colonialism, so we get things like segregation. The Solonians have to use a separate teleport - but it's in the same building as the Overlords' one, in fact right next to it.

This lack of any form of security is especially odd when you consider that the humans believe there to be a deadly plague ravaging Solos.

Security within Skybase is just as bad. The only door that seems to have a working lock is the storeroom where the TARDIS materialises, which looks empty. The Marshal's office and the hydroponics areas can all be accessed by anyone, any time.

If the Marshal's office does have a working lock, wouldn't it have been sensible to use it before gunning down Varan's son just before daddy walks in on you?

Varan thinks pushing a chair aside to be an effective means of escape from the Marshal's office.

Did Christopher Barry really not twig that calling a Black character "Cotton" might jar, in a story that's supposed to be about race and colonialism? He was responsible for casting. The writers intended him to be a white Cockney character - hence his odd language, which wasn't changed to suit the West Indian actor cast.

Stubbs and he seem to switch sides very quickly. Varan's motivation is all over the place as well. One minute he's friendly to the Doctor for helping him escape Skybase, and the next he's throttling him, just because the cliff-hanger's due. 

End of Part Two sees them fighting outside the teleport. Beginning of Part Three, they're in the teleport...

A later cliff-hanger is much worse for Varan, as his hand disappears due to shoddy CSO work.

This is the scene where an exterior wall has been blown open, and the warrior is sucked into space. For the others it looks as if there is just a bit of a strong breeze blowing, which they then just walk away from, now that the cliff-hanger is finished.

It's a good job that they opt to make the Marshal insane, as otherwise his scheming makes no sense at all. He clearly hates the planet and its people, so why so determined to hold on to it? A return to Earth and a nice office job should have been far more inviting than this. How does he intend to populate his "New Earth" if the natives are wiped out, with Skybase only having male staff and crew?

Why does he go to such lengths to fool the Earth Investigator, if he's simply going to lock him and his guards up and force them to live on Solos anyway?

Bob Baker and Dave Martin liked to do a lot of research for their stories, including scientific research. Yet they seem to think that "particle reversal" is the same as time travel - i..e. that it will put things back the way they were, rather than turn things inside out as the phrase is used to mean in other parts of the story. The Bristol Boys wrote two stories set in nuclear power stations, yet they don't seem to understand the way radiation works at all. Sondergaard dons a protective suit when visiting the cavern, yet later the radioactive crystal is handled by him and the Doctor without any form of protection. We know that the Doctor is only ever harmed by radiation when there's a regeneration in the offing, but Sondergaard should have been harmed by it. Later, its radiation seems to pour into Ky to help him evolve into Super-Ky. Why did it not do this with the Mutants in the cave system earlier?

To replicate the effects of earth tremors, director Barry employs the old Mirrorlon trick. You point your camera at this flexible mirrored material then poke it from behind so that it wobbles. It's been the way in which Ice Warriors kill people since 1967. Unfortunately he decides to film some other non-earthquake scenes in the laboratory bounced off Mirrorlon, making them look distorted.

There's a very rare Pertwee fluff, when he accidentally says "I couldn't even if I wanted to..." twice in the same sentence in the UNIT lab scene.

Finally - that hirsute old man rushing towards the camera in the opening shot. When they do the commentary on the DVD, the assembled team go "It's...!" as in the opening of any Monty Python episode. Surely Barry should have noticed this at the time.

What's Wrong With... The Sea Devils

 

For the ninth season of Doctor Who it was decided to bring back a few monsters from previous years. The Daleks were coming back, in colour for the first time, as were the Ice Warriors.

A creature from the more recent past was also to make a return - the Silurian. Malcolm Hulke elected to do something new with them, however, and so came up with a story tentatively titled "The Sea Silurians".

This would feature their marine cousins, and in the end they went with an entirely new design, based on sea turtles.

Hulke was aware that people had spotted that the name "Silurian" had been wrong. He had just liked the sound of it, but claiming that the reptile people originated in the Silurian era was just not possible. There certainly wasn't any crossover then of small ape-like creatures with dinosaurs, as The Silurians implies.

Hulke chose to deal with this mistake head on, by actually talking about it in this new story.

The Doctor tells Jo that the man who discovered the Silurians (Dr Quinn as you'll recall) had simply made a mistake, and the creatures should more accurately be called Eocenes.

Trouble is, this is just as wrong.

The Eocene epoch lasted from 56 to 34 million years ago. The name derives from the Greek for "new dawn" as many animals and plants which are still around today made their first appearance. 

There were primates in this era, but the age of the dinosaurs was long over (as everyone knows, a space freighter from the 26th Century crashed into Earth around 65 million years ago and wiped them out).

We shouldn't knock Dr Quinn for his initial mistake - he was a physicist working in an experimental power generating plant, not a palaeontologist - and I'm sure Hulke would have done better too, had he had access to Wikipedia in 1972.

I've generally ignored coincidences in these What's Wrong... posts, as they are a necessary evil when it comes to writing half-hour TV drama series. The coincidence here, however, is too big not to let pass.

There just happens to be a great big Sea Devil shelter right off shore from the prison that the Master has been sent to - and he just happens to know all about Sea Devils.

He got his information about them from some files he stole from the Time Lords. Presumably these files also covered the land-based Silurians, so why did they not tell the Doctor about them when they exiled him to Earth?

As with the previous story, the Doctor attempts to make peace between human and reptile. Surely he would be aware if this came to pass or not. He has visited the Earth's future many, many times, and there have been no signs of cohabiting Silurians. Either he must know that his efforts are doomed to failure, or he is about to make a drastic change to Earth's future timeline.

(This issue has come up again more recently during Steven Moffat's tenure. He tries to have it both ways - with the Silurians popping up whenever he feels like it, yet they never seem to co-exist with humans in the future. Either they're still hibernating or they aren't).

The Sea Devils have been woken up by some refurbishment that's going on at the sea fort. If that's the case, why were they not awakened when the fort was first built, when far greater disturbance would have been created?

We get a nice clear view of the map in Captain Hart's office, with the ship sinkings clustered neatly around the fort - yet it doesn't dawn on him that there might be a connection between it and the incidents.

To make matters worse, the dialogue actually states that some 70 ships have gone down in the same area over the last 10 years. It isn't clear if this was all the work of the Sea Devils, as the implication is that they have only just been woken up.

If they are behind these sinkings - why? All they're doing is drawing attention to themselves (so it's very fortunate that it's Captain Hart who is in charge of the navy base).

This is a man who leaves a vital piece of forensic evidence - the lifeboat - sitting unguarded on the beach without any sort of covering.

Something stupid which actually gets picked up on in the dialogue - Colonel Trenchard just has to go and talk about the mysterious ship sinkings to the Doctor.

We've talked a lot before about people getting positions of great responsibility when they are plainly not suited to them, and Trenchard probably takes the biscuit. I would love to have seen how the Master came to wrap him round his little finger without recourse to hypnotism, and how the nation's No.1 criminal was permitted to take over the prison when the Doctor and UNIT would surely have been keeping a very close eye on him. 

Trenchard doesn't seem to have been told anything about his own prisoner - and he's only got the one to worry about.

When the Doctor does finally decide to pay the Master a visit, he and Jo are only there for a couple of minutes before they announce they have to leave again.

Trenchard says that the Master can't get the exercise these days, just before the Doctor and Jo go to his room and see him on a rowing machine.

On escaping on the beach later, the Master has a high vantage point, and would see that the Doctor and Jo are stuck between armed guards with a shoot to kill policy and a minefield. Why then does he call forth a Sea Devil - other than it might make for a good cliff-hanger? Its appearance gives the game away to Trenchard that they aren't really dealing with foreign saboteurs as he claimed.

In production terms we know why UNIT are absent from this story - the Royal Navy are being very helpful, have supplied all sorts of facilities, and want to be shown in a good light, so Captain Hart takes on the role that the Brigadier would have had. In story terms, however, it is just plain wrong that UNIT aren't called in straight away.

At no point does Hart ever seem to contact the Brigadier to ask about the business in the caves a couple of years ago. He plays golf with Trenchard, yet doesn't seem to know anything about what Trenchard actually does at the prison.

The English Channel no doubt gets some nice sunny weather, but are there really enough hot dry days to justify ripping all the doors and windows off the prison vehicles?

And whose idea was it to have swords hanging on the walls of a prison?

Since when do civil servants, senior or otherwise, have the authority to order nuclear attacks? Is launching nuclear weapons only a few miles off Portsmouth ever going to be a clever idea - especially if you look as if you are planning to hang around and not flee to the hills?

The helicopter which takes off to search for the Doctor and Jo is a different one to the one that actually finds them - noticeably so as it has a different colour scheme.

In the final episode, the Doctor carries out some sabotage on a device he is helping build in the base's spares store. It makes a noise which overpowers the Sea Devils. This sound goes on for several minutes, with the Master just standing there. It's not that he is unaware of what is going on, as there's a Sea Devil clutching its head and dancing about in front of him the whole time.

If the Master needed the Doctor's help with this device, why has he been trying to kill him up to this point?

In the spares room earlier the Doctor has told an officer to "keep an eye" on the Master and "watch him" - advice best not given when you're dealing with an expert hypnotist.

Finally - not so much a mistake as something that just looks silly: all the guards have Freddie Mercury moustaches (Clones, in more ways than one..?) and look like comedy French Gendarmes. You keep expecting them to introduce themselves with "Good moaning...".

What's Wrong With... The Curse of Peladon

 

This story begins with the Doctor believing he has fixed the TARDIS, and is so confidant in his abilities that he is using it to take Jo Grant to her date with Captain Yates. Why so sure when he knows for a fact that the Time Lords will always ensure that he cannot leave Earth on his own?

Ever since Season 7 he has concentrated on making a new Dematerialisation Circuit, as if that will sort everything out, when he knows that the Time Lords have blocked certain mental processes as well.

If the production team wanted another off-world story, all they had to do was make it another Time Lord mission like Colony in Space. At the conclusion, the Doctor tells Jo that it was a Time Lord mission all along - so once again we have to ask why they insist on sending him places without giving him a clue as to why he's there and what's expected of him. For all he knows the Time Lords might have wanted Peladon not to have joined the Federation.

And why have the Time Lords parked the TARDIS on a narrow ledge overlooking a sheer drop? They might have killed the Doctor before he had even started on his mission.

When the Doctor and Jo arrive in the citadel, they are mistaken for the delegates from Earth. 

Surely there ought to have been some communications in advance about who would be attending - their name at the very least.

Talking of names, why are some delegates named after their home planets whilst others have proper names? The Doctor isn't referred to as "Earth", and Izlyr isn't called "Mars", yet Alpha Centauri and Arcturus get called after where they come from.

Things aren't helped by the fact that the King of this planet is named after it as well.

We learn that the delegates' communications devices have been smashed, but not until quite a bit into the story. Was Amazonia's ship not keeping in touch to say that they were running late but still on their way, so please don't start negotiations without her?

What exactly are the villains' plans? 

High Priest Hepesh has entered into a deal with Arcturus in order that his planet doesn't get exploited by aliens and loses its old traditions... That's Arcturus, an alien who wants to exploit the planet and doesn't give two hoots about the old traditions.

Arcturus seems to be trying to provoke a fight with the Ice Warriors - even though this could lead to Peladon being destroyed in the cross-fire. Why do something which will destroy the planet whose mineral resources you are so desperate to obtain?

Hepesh keeps telling the Doctor that he doesn't want him harmed, as that will provoke a terrible retribution from the Federation - then goes out of his way at every opportunity to harm the Doctor.

In the fourth episode he tells the delegates that he does not want them as either guests or hostages, and yet he has done everything he can to cut them off from their means of departure.

How does Arcturus shooting down the Doctor in cold blood in the arena, in full view of everybody, help throw suspicion onto the Ice Warriors?

Hepesh throws a fresh sword down to Grun, the Doctor's opponent, yet no-one gives the Doctor a fresh weapon. Is Hepesh allowed to intervene in this way? If yes, why is the Doctor not helped equally. If not, it's a rather blatant show of treachery by the High Priest in front of witnesses.

We're lead to believe that Hepesh is doing what he is doing mainly because of his religious beliefs, yet he knows that Aggedor is not a deity because he's got one of the creatures secreted in the caves near his temple. He is a total hypocrite, yet this aspect of his character is never touched upon.

Surely the appearance of a real Aggedor creature would totally undermine Hepesh's position and destroy the planet's entire belief system. A massive risk to keep it alive so close to the citadel.

If he was able to placate and manipulate it then obviously someone else might be able to do it - which is exactly what happens.

We know that Hepesh argued against Federation membership, yet when Torbis is killed it is he who is elevated to the dead Chancellor's position in the negotiations. Why has Peladon not replaced him with someone else from Torbis' faction? Not only is he never going to change his views on membership, he is likely to actively work against it. 

Then again, the King seems to have been guided by only the two men - there is no sign of any kind of council on the planet.

The one everyone always talks about - where does Ssorg sleep? The Ice Warriors appear to share a room, with a single bed.

Jo gets locked in this room. She escapes by climbing out of the window - surely making herself look even more guilty as far as Izlyr is concerned.

(And is there some invisible force-field around Peladon's unglazed windows, which keeps the seemingly permanent gales from getting into the bedrooms?).

How does the Doctor think that the Ice Warriors managed to extract that tiny device from Arcturus' life-support system with their big pincer hands? (A problem with this race ever since their first appearance - just how do they manipulate delicate equipment?).

The Doctor says Aggedor would simply have smashed the protective dome - but wouldn't the Ice Warriors have just done the same thing? As it is, whoever sabotaged Arcturus did so in such a way that he would not die - so flagging up his complicity from the outset.

Lastly, Alpha Centauri is described as a hexapod - having six feet. It appears to have six arms, but moves about on what looks like a single foot, like a snail. So shouldn't it be a hermaphrodite unipod or pseudopod instead?