Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils

Really there were two parts to this special.

The bulk of the show, in terms of minutes at least, was a story about the Sea Devils returning and Chinese pirates across three centuries. It was a perfectly solid story although I’ll have to admit I needed to watch it twice to really take it in. The time travel aspect was nicely handled and wasn’t a silly timely-wimey loop with a reset button (Moffat, I’m looking at you) but someone smart using a time machine to try and work out what happened to a ship that mysteriously disappeared three centuries earlier. There are some rather dubious costume choices in places, but since Yaz is raiding the TARDIS’ wardrobes I’ll let most of them go. The Chinese swords - look, I played taijiquan for years, I learnt and taught dao and jian styles. I don’t know where they got those swords, but once they left the guards, the blades are not Chinese. Also, given the position of the characters we see wielding them, probably the wrong sort of blades. But, oh well. I am picking up fussy details.

The smaller part, in terms of time, but more important to me at least the first time, was the “sensitively handled reaction to Yaz's declaration of love.” It felt sensitive, it felt like, a conversation I’ve had a time or five, it was kind of in character (for some versions of the Doctor at least) but it was really disappointing. We’ve had Ten and Rose, Eleven and River, Twelve and Clara. These don’t always become canon, so Thirteen and Yaz being canon is a set forward, but the Ten clone and Rose had a HEA, Eleven and River got married FFS… and River’s relationship with The Doctor crossed over with Ten and Twelve. I appreciate that Yaz and Thirteen only really have this special and the next one, plus Thirteen's wish things were different, but I can’t help feeling disappointed.

Rationally I don’t know what else they could have done, but I’m still struggling to separate my disappointment in how that played out from what is actually a story that I liked (apart from the swords). It does strike me as ironic that, now his time is coming to an end, Chibnall has final delivered two good stories without just fucking up the history of the show for no good reason... shame he couldn't do that before.

Bechdel Test: Pass. Yaz, The Doctor and a female pirate captain all talk to each other. They plot and plan. Sometimes they talk about Dan too though.

Ko Test: Pass. Yaz and the pirate captain both talk a lot, in English.

Russo Test: Pass. After all the time talking about how disappointed I was that they didn’t make more of the potential romance between Yaz and Thirteen it’s easy to say they’re both canon queer of some flavour.