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The new screenwriter and director of the next Doctor Who Special, “Legend of the Seas Devils” has been confirmed. The special is set to air on Easter Sunday in April. The writer is an acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Ella’s Road and Haolu Wangthe first female director of Chinese descent to direct an episode of Doctor Who.
Sure, Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill, and John the Bishop are back, and the episode also features Crystal Yu, Arthur Lee and Marlowe Chan Reeves – and Craige Els will play a Sea Devil named Marsissus. Els played the alien poodle Karvanista in series 13, or “Flux” as in Acid Reflux, which was the effect last season had on many viewers. Going from playing a good boy to a fish boy is definitely a sideways move.
“The next special, Legend of the Sea Devils, is a chance for all design departments to totally show off,” Producer Matt Streven said in an interview with the last Doctor Who Magazine. “We built these huge life-size galleons in the studio, the costumes are exquisite – John [Bishop] had fun dressing up as a pirate… And Chris [Chibnall] is a super fan, as we know, so for him it was really important that we do the Sea Devils justice. He really wanted to stay close to classic design.”
The plot seems to involve a female Chinese sea pirate in the 19th century. In fact, there have been at least 2 successful Chinese Sea Pirates in history who led huge pirate fleets that fled and died peacefully in their beds of old age. He will also be a filmmaker Haolu Wangfirst work of television production. It is normal for the producers to hire a director of Chinese origin to supervise the episode. Hopefully this will offset all the cultural fallacies and accusations of Orientalism and racism since Doctor Who has a checkered history when it comes to Asian representation, including the yellow face and Orientalist parts of the classic 4th Doctor (Thomas Baker) “The Greenhouses of Weng-Chiang”.
Haolu Wang is not the first Asian or female director to direct Doctor Who. The original pilot “An Unearthly Child” was directed by Waris Hussein, who is both South Asian and LGBTQ. The late Paddy Russell directed episodes of the series in the 1960s and 1970s with the 1st (Guillaume Hartnel), 2nd (Patrick Troughton), and 4th (Thomas Baker) Doctors. American producer Rachel Talalaywho directed Tank Girl in the 1990s, directed several episodes of the new series in the 2000s. Chinese-British wayne yip was the series’ first ethnic Chinese director who also directed spin-off episodes To classify, Preacher, Happy!, Doom Patrol, wheel of time, and the upcoming Amazon TV series from the Lord of the Rings.
Doctor Who has always been at the forefront of diverse representation, previously more behind the camera but making up for lost time in the 21st century. It seems closed-minded fans only complain when it’s the Doctor who changes gender, but that’s a fight and a discussion for another day.
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