Russell T Davies confirms future of Doctor Who spin-off ahead of release

Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies has spoken about the future of The War Between the Land and the Sea.

The five-episode UNIT spin-off series will be the final project to be released as part of the now-cancelled deal between the BBC and Disney Plus. After a lengthy wait, Davies has made it clear to Metro that it will have been worth it.

The lead character is ‘everyman’ Barclay (played by returning star Russell Tovey), whose day-to-day is spent booking taxis for the higher-ups rather than battling aliens… until he accidentally finds himself at the centre of an international crisis beyond his imagination.

When an ancient species emerges from the water (historically known as the Sea Devils, but freshly dubbed Homo Aqua in the new season), humanity must confront the way it has treated the oceans, or disaster looms.

Joining Tovey is fellow Doctor Who alum, Gugu Mbatha-Raw – who previously played Tish, the sister of former companion Martha (Freema Agyeman) – although she is entirely transformed in her new role as Salt, an amphibious ambassador for this mighty species.

Billed as a standalone series, Davies has now categorically confirmed that there is no scope for this story to expand beyond the five episodes.

Speaking with Metro at the premiere on Tuesday night, the 62-year-old TV legend said: ‘It is a limited series because there is a very, very definite ending, and I would say to people stay tuned for the very end [post-credits].

‘That doesn’t mean the Doctor appears; it stays within its own universe, but the credits start to roll, and you get one of the best scenes ever recorded in the last seconds.

‘It’s a stunning performance from one of the stars of the cast that I’m very proud of.’

The decision to bring back Tovey and Mbatha-Raw was a no-brainer, given they are ‘two of the greatest possible actors you can pull’ and the show has a long history of bringing the same actors back for different characters.

Sometimes with, sometimes without explanation.

Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi previously played Pompeian Catullus, and in the same episode, future companion Karen Gillan starred as a priestess. In Ncuti Gatwa’s run alone, Varada Sethu guest-starred in season one episode Boom before returning as a full-time companion.

As for Tish and Alonso, who viewers will get to know as Barclay and Salt, Davies added: ‘I think 99.9% of the audience will have no concept of them coming back. They are completely different characters, so you don’t need to know anything about their past roles whatsoever.’

Meanwhile, the show also delves further into the life of the UNIT Commander-in-Chief, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), than ever before – although her future beyond this season remains up in the air.

After first bursting onto Doctor Who screens in 2012, over a decade later, could this be her swan song?

‘I know nothing, absolutely nothing, about what the future holds, but if this was it for Kate, then I would be proud to finish here. I hope it’s not the end, but we’ll see,’ Redgrave poignantly remarked.

This season confronts the pollution of the oceans head-on, which Davies said was an inevitability when writing anything about a species that inhabits the waters.

‘They are a race of creatures who come from the sea and exist in Doctor Who history way back [first appearing in a 1972 Classic Who adventure], so you can’t not mention it,’ he reflected.

‘It’s not like I sat there with an evangelical fervour to talk about the pollution of the oceans. How on earth can you have a living undersea creature step from the ocean and not say what we’ve done to it?

‘I didn’t force the story, the world made this absolutely vital, and you know if we hadn’t done that, every child watching would have seen this as fake.’

Davies cites one sequence from the second episode, called the plastic apocalypse, in which the sea spits everything back onto the land in a moment of karmic justice.

He teased: ‘That is absolutely epic and terrifying, imagine what we’ve got sitting in those depths. It’s beautifully realised, it’s exciting, it’s epic. I think it’s also very funny cause we deserve it. We can’t exactly complain about what we’ve done, so I think that’s a majestic sequence.’

The War Between the Land and the Sea premieres the first two episodes on BBC One at 8:30pm on Sunday, December 7.

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