The War Between the Land and the Sea

One thing you can rely upon with any Doctor Who series, or spin-off, is that as soon as it airs a whole lot of Doctor Who fans will pop their heads up on social media and tell you how terrible it is, and how the franchise is completely ruined. The War Between the Land and the Sea is no exception.

There are, of course, many things to bear in mind when evaluating the truth of such assertions. For example, it was pretty much a given that the series would be panned in the national newspapers. That’s because Russell T Davies is an unrepentant lefty, and stridently pro-trans to boot. The media hates him. Meanwhile he is having as much fun as he can at their expense.

Another problem is that this is not Doctor Who. The thing that Who critics get wrong most often is that they forget that the show is primarily intended for kids. As Davies is fond of pointing out, the show has to be enjoyable by the average six-year-old, and not spook their parents. The War Between (there are no sensible abbreviations of the title) is very much not a show for children. It was broadcast after all of the little ones were safely tucked up in bed, and it was much more graphic in its depiction of death. There was also some inter-species sex. Coming straight after the exuberance of Ncuti Gatwa, it is a bit of a shock.

The plot, as has been well trailed, uses the Sea Devils from an ancient Jon Pertwee story which the BBC kindly broadcast in colourised form as a prequel. The main things I got from that were that TV was terribly sexist when I was a kid, and that Jo Grant was incredibly talented given that she managed to do all that running around in danger and not get a single dirty mark on her white trouser suit.

The idea of an undersea race that wants to wage war on humanity because of our treatment of the oceans and their inhabitants is not new. Prince Namor and Aquaman both pre-date World War Two, and we have seen the plot used in both the Aquaman movies and Wakanda Forever. Davies ramps up the conflict to the max, with the sea people threatening to melt both poles, and humanity responding even more viciously.

Davies, doubtless aware that the media will eventually manage to get him sacked, does not mince words. The message hits us over the head with all the subtlety of a Dalek. The use of an everyman character who accidentally becomes a key player in the conflict was probably a good idea, but it also strains the credulity quite a lot.

What I think has spooked Who fans most about this series is what it has done with UNIT. To start with, it has become clear that UNIT is an organization that operates entirely outside of any government control. That’s kind of necessary when all they are doing is helping The Doctor (who never has time for politics), but quite worrying when they are working all by themselves.

Also, this is a story in which UNIT fails. On at least three occasions we see operations go wrong because UNIT staff have been suborned by the bad guys. On one of those, someone who is supposed to be in a safe location, and subject to 24-7 monitoring, is accessed by the bad guys. You have to assume that UNIT staff are quite badly paid, and therefore easily bribed.

Finally, the common thread running through all UNIT stories is that The Doctor keeps on saving humanity because he is fond of us, and thinks that, whatever our faults, we deserve to be saved. In The War Between what we see is that humanity very much does not deserve to be saved, and if The Doctor was going to save anyone it would have been Aquakind.

One has to wonder where UNIT can go from here. It seems unlikely that the British government would want them to continue to be based here. Also Kate’s leadership should presumably be called into question given how badly she cracked under pressure. Jemma Redgrave reportedly loves the series, and I can see why. She has been given a very meaty role to play. But people love playing Hamlet and Lady Macbeth too.

Fortunately for Davies, the Whoniverse is infinitely flexible. There is absolutely no reason why The War Between should have any official place in the main timeline.

Meanwhile Davies offers us some hope. Our everyman character, Barclay, and his fishy girlfriend, Salt, seem to have had a happy ending. Multiculturalism FTW! Also there was one lovely scene in which Salt demonstrates the common fishy ability to change sex. It was a brilliantly pointed barb at the whole ‘biological sex’ nonsense that has consumed the UK for the past 8 months. Maybe some good will come of all this, if people are prepared to listen.