Russell T Davies, showrunner of Doctor Who, says that spin-off programme, The War Between the Land and the Sea, is “even better” than the production team thought it would be… but no one has any idea when it’ll air on TV and Disney+.
On the Pilot TV podcast, Davies enthuses:
“Sometimes you finish a show and they’re like, ‘Great, good, we did a really good job’… Sometimes they go through post-production where everything comes in. You work on the effects, on the music and the grading of it. Sometimes magic happens — and it’s happening with this. It’s even better than we thought it was! I’m delighted with it.”
However, he says the airdate is “up in the air”, so we don’t know if we’ll see the series any time soon.
The War Between the Land and the Sea is expected to feature the Sea Devils vs UNIT, though the former looks rather different to anything we’ve seen before, looking more humanoid than appearances in, say, Warriors of the Deep and Legend of the Sea Devils. Otherwise, it’s an aquatic species coming into conflict with mankind.
The show features Gugu Mbatha-Raw (who previously played Martha Jones’ sister, Tish) as Salt, and Russell Tovey (Voyage of the Damned) as Barclay, alongside Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart. It also stars Ruth Madeley, Colin McFarlane, Alexander Devrient, Adrian Lukis, Mei Mac, Patrick Baladi, Francesca Corney, and Vincent Franklin.
The series is co-written by Davies and Pete McTighe (Kerblam!, Lucky Day).
The War Between the Land and the Sea will screen on BBC1, BBC iPlayer, and internationally on Disney+… at some point in the future, we think/hope. Could it be the last gasp of this era of Doctor Who? It seems likely.
