The War Between the Land and the Sea

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2025

Sci-fi
Action

Summary

Doctor Who spin-off, about a conflict between the human race and an ancient species of aquatic reptiles. Starring Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw

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Review

David Brown

Russell T Davies is on rousing, environmentalist form in this Doctor Who spin-off. It’s sci-fi as social commentary, its concerns about man’s vandalisation of the Earth’s seas made tangible by the rising from the fathoms of the ancient Sea Devils (now given the less-demonising name of “Homo aqua”), who want to pay us back for our crimes of pollution.

There to negotiate on behalf of humankind is the always relatable Russell Tovey, here playing lowly Unit operative Barclay, someone who feels out of his depth on dry land, never mind the ocean. After rules-based diplomacy fails, it’s to Barclay’s everyman-ifesto that the world turns. Can he succeed against the odds?

Those who’d like to trace the lineage of the drama’s aquatic foe can do so in a new re-edit of 1972’s The Sea Devils, a Doctor Who serial available on BBC iPlayer.

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6.2/10