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Welcome back to ‘Don’t Blink’, the podcast that brings you Doctor Who, Sea devils, a pirate queen, floating pirate ships, and really awkward scenes of immortals gently ripping apart the hearts of companions. Thanks once again faithful listeners. We know these long stretches of months that often separate seasons can be tedious. Fear not, we have returned to review the 2022 Easter special “Legend of the Sea Devils”.
Well this is it folks, the penultimate episode of the Whittaker/Chibnal era. While it seems that the obvious and logical way to go would be to cram as much resolution as possible into this one episode. That is not what happened. Instead we are given a middling story with poorly fleshed out historical characters and Sea devils. Don’t get me wrong, the story makes for an entertaining pseudo historical with great visuals and interesting plot threads, but somehow it misses the mark slightly. Possibly suffering from it’s placement after season 13, “Legend of the Sea Devils” is an average episode at best. It’s heretical omission of information concerning the historical figure of Madame Ching, feels like a hugely missed opportunity to inform the public of the greatest pirate ever! If you were not aware of the Sea Devils, this episode did nothing to help. That being said, it was far from the worst we have seen on this show. I believe most viewers were expecting a resolution to The Fluxx or a setup for the next regeneration. Thats par for the course for most Whovians. We wait for abnormally long periods of time and seldom get what we imagined.
Our story begins in 1807 and the place is a small fishing village in what is now modern-day China. The pirate queen Madame Ching unwittingly unleashes an ancient Sea Devil from it’s imprisonment in a giant statue. As the Doctor and Fam arrive, four centuries off the mark, a swashbuckling adventure ensues that will end in one of the Tardis crew being changed forever.
Join us as we discuss this 2022 Easter special with Chris Chibnall’s Doctor Who. As usual, Wayne and Jada review what they liked and didn’t like about the episode, they discuss listener feedback and go over unanswered questions and share fan theories. Remember, don’t blink, don’t even blink.
Be sure to let your voice be heard on all future episodes of Don’t Blink, by submitting your listener feedback by Monday nights at 11:00 pm Eastern by calling our Golden Spiral Media voicemail at (304) 837-2278 or by submitting at https://GoldenSpiralMedia.com/feedback.
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I have only recently learned of Madame Cheng the greatest pirate (she retired, kept her treasure, and didn’t catch charges because otherwise she would continue and the government is like “we accept” – that’s boss) but I very much felt they could have made the female pirate character anyone and it wouldn’t have changed a thing. They used Cheng for a name drop and that’s it. Like everything with the Whitaker era it’s good set up with no real payoff; this is no fault of Jodie’s mind you, it’s completely on the writing!
The best thing I can say for this episode was the sea Devil costumes looked good for the budget I felt. 🙂
They’ve always super annoyed me with Yaz honestly because she’s suppose to be this cop, a rookie yes but still, and yet she makes some crazy leaps and waits around for people to tell her what to do instead of taking charge at times in areas she knows she can help. They wasted her time and time again and it’s just sad. I got her not getting a much attention as Graham and Ryan in season one for them because they’re loss was kind of the focus but post that she should have been more upfront and she has never been and it’s like “why?”. ?
The CGI this episode was good, I’ll agree!
They should have started Yaz/13 back in the last season of the show not the films they’re doing now because it’s too little too late to get it started; we always knew it was never going to last and as best we can hope to see Yaz meet a blonde woman (maybe played by Jodie) in London when they go back so it’s kind of Rose/who but Yaz/13 was never going to happen so her saying all she did on the beach felt annoying more than anything in my opinion. Also a little hypocritical as Doctor is tied to someone forever – River. There were good lines in the beach scene but nothing that would make me as a Thasmin shipper get excited or appreciate the tragedy of Doctor wanting to be with her but can’t because she’s going to change in the next special. That would be interesting to see Doctor talk about – how they change and so they’re never the same and can someone love them like River does when it happens or is it a looks thing only? We finally made it to the beach and the beach isn’t all that. Ha
This Master is awesome; him in the trailer along with Kate is why I got excited for the next special!
The next Doctor is definitely going to be a man I feel just because some gave such crap about Jodie even though again she was never the issue. I hope we see a female Doctor again but I don’t think it will be for at least 4 more regeneration minimum. 🙁
Fall is a good guess for the next special air date.