The second of this year’s Doctor Who specials, Legend of the Sea Devils, aired this Sunday, and fans had a lot of thoughts about the Easter special.
Fans have waited since New Year’s ‘Eve of the Daleks’ for the return of Jodie Whittaker’s thirteenth doctor, along with companions Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Dan (John Bishop). With only one more episode with the first female doctor, did her penultimate episode disappoint?
Fan thoughts
As with any Doctor Who episode, reactions were very mixed. Some praised the swash-buckling escapist adventure, thrilled with the amount of fun it offered.
Others were disappointed that the episode was ‘filler’, mostly interested in the ‘Coming Soon’ trailer for the Centenary special, airing later this year.
What did I think?
As a Doctor Who fan myself, I thought the episode was fine. Definitely not the best, or worst, Jodie’s had. But I share the disappointment of it being a bit ‘filler’. There were pacing and editing issues that were really distracting, and lots of unanswered questions remained. Even though I’ve not been this era’s biggest fan, I wanted more for Jodie in her second to last episode.
However, this episode seemed a little doomed from the beginning. A speculated late commission from the BBC, an apparent 13-minute cut, and made in the midst of covid – Legend of the Sea Devils was never going to be perfect.
Do ratings still matter?
Unfortunately for Whittaker’s era, it’s been plagued with ‘not my doctor’ fans who criticise the show purely because the doctor is now female. This often results in unfair iMDB scores for her episodes – Legend of the Sea Devils currently sits at 5.5.
With overnight viewing figures of 2.2 million, the special has the lowest ratings since the revival, possibly ever. However, with the highest-watched show, Britain’s Got Talent, only racking up 5.2 million viewers, it begs the question whether live TV has the same appeal it used to. Can we still use ratings as a judgement of a good show?