Doctor Who's Spring Special Wasted Its Sea Devil Return

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This article contains spoilers for the Doctor Who Spring Special, «Legend of the Sea Devils.»

Doctor Who sadly wasted its Sea Devil return in its recent Spring Special. Current Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall is an old-school fan; he grew up in the 1980s, before the BBC canceled Doctor Whoin 1989, and his tenure has increasingly drawn on elements of the classic series for a nostalgia fix. The Spring Special featured the return of a classic monster, the Sea Devils, an aquatic race who once ruled the Earth.

The story of the Sea Devils is a tragic one. Along with their evolutionary cousins (misnamed the Silurians), they evolved on Earth during the days of the dinosaurs. Silurian technology predicted a major asteroid impact that would lead to a mass extinction event, and so the entire race placed itself in cryogenic suspension to sleep through the apocalypse and reclaim their world when they awoke. Their predictions were incorrect, however; rather than strike the Earth, the asteroid instead slipped into the planet's orbit and became the Moon. The Silurians and Sea Devils slept on for millions of years, with Earth claimed by the primitive apes they had considered pets.

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This tends to give Doctor Who stories featuring Silurians and Sea Devils something of a unique character. There's an ethical edge to these stories that isn't seen in the standard "alien invasion" plot, because the reptilian beings actually have a legitimate claim to the planet; the Doctor typically winds up focused on attempting to broker a truce, reluctant to allow an act of genocide. Surprisingly, Chibnall chooses to avoid this kind of idea altogether, largely because he clearly