We’re only a few weeks away from Jodie Whittaker’s penultimate Doctor Who episode, which sees the Thirteenth Doctor battling classic foes the Sea Devils as well as some dastardly human foes on the Chinese seas.
And while we don’t know too much more about the episode than we did when it was first announced in January, some new details have emerged of how the Sea Devils were updated for the 21st century, thanks to the Who production team.
“It’s always a bit nerve-wracking,” costume designer Ray Holman told SFX. “You have to go through the process of thinking, ‘Do we change it so much that it becomes something different?’
“And if it’s something modern and different, which has animatronics and all sorts of other things, will it have the same flavour as the originals?”
“Chris [Chibnall, showrunner] was quite clear that that was what he wanted,” added Creature Costume Maker Robert Allsop. “He wanted it to be instantly recognisable by people who’d seen the original ones in the ’70s. And so it was just trying to be as faithful as possible to what had been done then.”
Still, some changes had to be made to the classic design. For starters, the Sea Devils are now a little shorter than they were in the 1970s, thanks to the varying stature of the two Doctors facing them.
“You have to bear in mind the original ones were appearing next to Jon Pertwee, who was very tall compared to Jodie, so it wouldn’t really have worked to have them towering over her quite so much,” Allsop said.
“So what we did was drop the heads a little bit, so that the eyeline was through the mouth instead, just to make it less of a height difference between Doctor and Sea Devil.”
Another more obvious change comes from the Sea Devils’ fashion choices, with the iconic silver nets (and so-so “samurai” costuming) from their earlier appearances eschewed in favour of something more piratical.
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Holman said: “I talk to Chris about everything we design, and his words were, ‘Sea Devils as pirates – swashbuckling Sea Devil pirate adventure!’
“Basically they’re in pirate costumes. They have stripy britches, bucket boots, arming jackets and leather armour. They’re kind of a cross between a seafaring pirate and a science fiction creature, which references the original Sea Devils, but our Sea Devils have armour.
“Their leader has a big 18th century coat which is covered in molluscs, and we’ve put molluscs and mussels all over their boots and their arming jackets. But within the design of the new Sea Devils I’ve brought a lot of elements of the old.”
For examples, those net costumes are still in play, albeit more subtly than fans saw back in the day.
“I’ve used fishing net within the new costumes,” Holman explained. “They have leather armour and I found some fishing net to be compressed beneath the leather that we’ve used on the armour. You get the criss-crosses and the shape of the net. Plus, I added strands of fishing net throughout their costumes.
“They’re a real delight to look at. The leader of the Sea Devils is more heroically dressed and slightly different to the big gang of Sea Devils around him.”
Behind-the-scenes, Creature supremo Allsop was also turning to classic Who for inspiration, using a vintage mould of a Sea Devil head to make sure there was continuity.
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“I didn’t have access to an existing head, although I think one or two do survive in slightly crunchy form now, the latex having deteriorated,” he told SFX.
“I did have access to a plaster cast that was taken, I’m guessing, around 1980. So I was able to take some key measurements for the overall proportions from that, and then I was working very much from photos of the original episodes. I can remember seeing the episodes when they went out originally and I really wanted to recapture that feeling.”
He added: “It was very much using the same techniques that had been used in the ’70s, partly because there was so little time – there was no real time to experiment with doing anything different, and so we just went with things that we knew would work.”
In other words, the new Sea Devils may have some updates, but there’s more than a touch of the old series about them – and the team are happy with the early reactions they’ve had to the revamped design.
“I didn’t know they were going to show the trailer at the end of the New Year’s Day special, and I’m really pleased that they did, because the reaction has been amazing,” Holman said.
“You instantly know what they are, and there’s an anticipation that this creature is crossing the classic series with the modern series. It’s a really big amalgamation and, hopefully, a respectful one. This is quite a responsibility!”
You know what they say – the (Sea) Devil’s in the details.
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Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils comes to BBC One this spring – previous episodes of Doctor Who are available on BBC iPlayer. For more, check out our dedicated Sci-Fi page or our full TV Guide.
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