Production
Episode one was broadcast during the 1972 UK Miner's strike which had led to scheduled power cuts throughout the country and may account for the lower TV audience.
Working titles for this story included The Sea Silurians. Because of the story's location filming requirements it was allocated the second slot in the production run for Doctor Who's ninth season so as to allow filming in October. However to alternate the stories between those set on Earth and those set on other worlds it was transmitted third in the season. This was the first time stories were produced out of transmission order. The serial was mainly filmed around Portsmouth, Portsmouth HM Naval Base, No Man's Land Fort, the Isle of Wight and HMS Reclaim.
The Royal Navy waived royalty fees on the use of stock footage and clips showing ships in action, happy with on-screen credits and the positive publicity generated by the show. Many sailors volunteered to help with the filming, so that most of the extras during the sequence at the Naval Base were actual service personnel, except in some of the stunts. In the first episode, the script called for Jo Grant and the Doctor to climb up a ladder to get into a sea fortress. The ladder proved too slippery for Katy Manning, so stuntman Stuart Fell did the shot dressed as Grant.
A model of a submarine was created by purchasing a Woolworth's submarine model kit and then altering the propeller. By chance, the alterations to the model strongly resembled an actual prototype submarine being developed by the Ministry of Defence. After footage of the model was broadcast as part of the story, producer Barry Letts received a visit from two Ministry of Defence officials, who were concerned that the footage was of the prototype.
When the wiping of episodes ended in 1978 it was discovered that the first three episodes had only survived as black and white telerecordings for overseas sales. In the early 1980s NTSC transfers of all six episodes were returned from broadcasters in Canada. These were converted back to the original PAL format.
Read more about this topic: The Sea Devils
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