Doctor Who: Legend Of The Sea Devils Review - 6 Ups & 7 Downs
12. DOWN - Choppy Pacing And Editing
We’ve buttered the episode up a little bit, now it’s time to discuss the elephant in the room. This episode was a mess. It’s impressive that an episode with an extended runtime manages to feel so consistently rushed that, at times, it makes an incredibly simple story feel incoherent. Chibnall seems to be in a hurry to get this one out the door, and this is not at all helped by the fact that the editing makes us want to file an insurance claim for whiplash.
There are some abysmal cuts in this episode that make it seem like entire scenes have been removed - be that the sudden appearance of a convenient net during The Doctor’s first underwhelming confrontation with the Sea Devils, or the TARDIS being eaten by a sea monster, only to appear in the Sea Devil’s underground base in the next scene.
In its most brazen moment of bullsh*t, the episode has the Doctor set the Sea Devils’ ship to resurface, and then, in her next scene, rope-swing in onto Ching’s ship, along with Ji-Hun, who was last seen held in a stasis-prison which has held him for almost 300 years. We are provided with zero explanation here, and Chibnall tries to hide this nonsense by popping an Eleventh Doctor ‘Geronimo’ callback over the top (you almost got me…)
When your rope-based shenanigans would leave even Jack Sparrow scratching his head, you’ve probably gone too far…