Serial: LLL  Episode Nos. 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, and 317.  Title: The Sea Devils

Ships are disappearing in the English channel, and the Master knows why.  He has secretly made contact with undersea intelligent reptiles from his island prison and plans to use them to both gain his freedom and overthrow humanity as the rulers of the Earth.  Can the Doctor prevent the conflict that his archenemy tries to foment?

This story is the debut for the Sea Devils.

starring Jon Pertwee as Doctor Who, Roger Delgado as the Master, and Katy Manning as Jo Grant. Written by Malcolm Hulke, Produced by Barry Letts, and Directed by Michael Briant.

Originally transmitted from 26 February 1972 to 1 April 1972 on BBC1.

DVD FEATURES:

- All 6 episodes of this story, restored as best-as-possible from the surviving videotapes.

- Graphical menus, episode selection, scene selection features, and subtitles for the hearing impaired.

- Commentary track by producer Barry Letts, script editor Terrance Dicks, and director Michael Briant. Moderated by

Andrew Cartmel.

- Isolated Music option. Selecting this will play all the episodes with only the incidental music playing.

- Information Text option. Turning this on will play the episodes with production notes pop-up trivia subtitles appearing throughout.

- “Hello Sailor” A new 36-minute featurette about the making of this story featuring interviews with Michael Briant, Barry Letts,

Terrance Dicks, actors Katy Manning (Jo Grant) and Donald Sumpter (Cmdr. Ridgeway), stuntman Stuart Fell,

three of the naval sailors who appeared as themselves, and the owner of the castle where some filming was done.

- “8 mm” A 4-minute 8mm home movie that was shot by one of the naval sailors during the making of the story, with the shots narrated

by the crew from the feature commentary.

- “Trails and Continuity” A 6-minute assembly of all the advertising trailers used for this story.

- Photo Gallery. A 9-minute collection of still photos taken during production of the story.

- Coming Soon Trailer. A 1-minute trailer for the forthcoming DVD of The Time Meddler starring William Hartnell.

- Radio Times Listings. A PDF file of the Radio Times television listings for the broadcast of this story in the UK, viewable if

you place this DVD in the DVD drive of a PC or Mac.

- The Making of Doctor Who. Another PDF file, this one the entire 115-page Making of Doctor Who book by Malcolm Hulke and

Terrance Dicks that spotlighted the production of this story and was published shortly after it originally aired.

*** Eagle-eyed viewers will note that episodes 1-3 are noisier than usual and prone to “aliasing,” where sharp edges appear to strobe.

This is due to the surviving source videotapes for these episodes coming from standards conversions to the North American system

that were made via analog methods in the 1970s. The new “reverse standards conversion” process has been applied to improve the

look of these episodes vs. what they looked like on the VHS release, however they’re still not the best ever put on a DVD.

Episodes 4-6 hail from original BBC tapes that have survived and look as good as they did at the time they were made.