Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils by: Malcolm Hulke

 

Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils was written by Malcolm Hulke, based on his story The Sea Devils.  It was the 9^th story to be novelized by Target Books.

 

Sometimes there’s a novelization that you just struggle to find an angle to talk about.  There are plenty of novelizations that just take the television story and transplant it to prose with nothing special and those are difficult but usually there’s some minor changes you can latch onto.  Doctor Who and the Sea Devils is kind of a special case in that while there are changes (there are two particular continuity errors where Jo is mentioned to have been there for Doctor Who and the Silurians and the events of Frontier in Space are mentioned), most of the changes are artificial.  At this point I’ve covered five of the seven novelizations from Malcolm Hulke and all of them have been some of the best novelizations, so it’s sad to see Doctor Who and the Sea Devils kind of struggle to reach those heights.  The Sea Devils is a story I enjoy quite a bit on television, but a lot of that comes down to the performances of Jon Pertwee, Katy Manning, and Roger Delgado.  The plot itself is essentially a repeat of Doctor Who and the Silurians, something that Hulke really doesn’t do much of to expand upon for Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils.  Now the plot itself does move at a very nice pace in novelization form, simply because Hulke is one of the few novelists to understand that he can play around with format instead of just translating the television episodes to some form of prose flexibly.

 

Now that isn’t to say Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils is by any means bad.  It’s not, it’s actually quite a fun time since the plot to Doctor Who and the Silurians and The Sea Devils is a great plot that explores the Doctor, but what really saves this novelization from being fine to being a good time is some little added character moments.  Early on in the novelization, there is this expanded explanation that the Doctor fought in the court system to give the Master life imprisonment instead of the death penalty, as well as this added idea to ensure he is given reading material while in prison.  There is also an added implication that had the Master stayed imprisoned the Doctor would continually visit as time went by which is honestly wonderful.  There are also small sequences from Trenchard’s perspective up to his death which also make for an exhilarating climax of the novel, even if it still follows the TV series beat for beat.  Minor cuts also include some of the improvised jokes between Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning which have sadly dated the serial so it’s honestly nice to realize they are gone and Hulke didn’t intend them in the script.

 

Overall, Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils suffers from just translating a television story that is regarded as a classic due to its performances while it’s plot is something that had only happened a few stories previously (and broadcast only two years before), though added character moments save the book and perhaps is why it had several reprints.  7/10.