Doctor Who: Legend Of The Sea Devils Review - 6 Ups & 7 Downs

Madame Ching should have been so cool. If you don’t believe us, have a poke around her Wikipedia page. This is a character with a story and past that wasn’t even touched on, let alone explored. A past infinitely more interesting than the plot of this episode, we might add. Sadly, we see her relegated to barely a secondary character here, with so few ties to history that she might as well have been an original character created for the episode. If the episode had kept with the original setup of Ching as a secondary antagonist, or even a wildcard, we would have had a far more compelling story on our hands.

And then there’s Ying Ki. We’re willing to bet you aren’t even entirely sure who we’re talking about here, so we’ll save you some time: Ying Ki is that guy who follows the main cast around until it’s time for the Keystone around his neck to glow when it is mentioned, then decides to forgive his father’s death and turn pirate because he had one sword fight and it was sort of a laugh.

Don’t you miss the days where supporting casts shone in their own right, even with limited screen time? If you’re sitting there saying this can’t be done in a single hour with a large cast, go rewatch Voyage Of The Damned.