The Cutprice Guignol

In case you had somehow missed it, this year has…well, not been my favourite to be a fan of all things Doctor Who.

Between the disastrous second season of Ncuti Gatwa’s run, the nebulous return of Billie Piper, and the constant rumours swirling around the continuation of the show, if you love the Whoniverse like I do, it’s been a Bit of a Weird One, to say the least. The kind of weird that gave me pause when, a few weeks ago, I was reminded of the existence of The War Between the Land and the Sea, the UNIT-centric spin-off to the mainline show starring Russel Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

Helmed by Russel T Davies, the show seems to have been crammed in rather dissuading fashion into the Christmas TV schedule with little ceremony, five episodes spread out over just three weeks on the BBC to get it all wrapped up by the end of the year before it drops on Disney’s streaming platform in January. There’s been a bit of rather half-hearted promo in the run-up to the first two episodes’ release tonight, but, as a whole, The War Between feels like a bit of a wet squib to close out a distinctly uneven year for the Whoniverse. Unless you were someone who happened to have a weird obsession with getting a good modern iteration of the classic Who villains the Sea Devils, you might have missed that it was coming out at all.

So good thing, then, that I am exactly that someone. If you’ve been reading my Doctor Who reviews for a while, you’ll know that I love the Sea Devils; they were some of the first monsters from the show that I found really unsettling, in their original introduction during Jon Pertwee’s run as the Doctor, and I’ve yet to see them implemented in the modern iteration of the show in a way that really scratches that itch. Sure, we’ve had the Silurians appearing in a few stories to varying degrees of impact; we’ve had, whisper it, the Legend of the Sea Devils, though the less said about that, the better. But The War Between, at least, seems to offer a chance to put that right – touting itself as a specifically Sea Devil-centric story, it follows UNIT’s attempts to contain the threat of the Sea Devils after the ancient species, led by Salt (Mbatha-Raw), reveal themselves to humanity once more.

But what exactly do these first two episodes, written by Russel T Davies and Pete McTighe respectively and both directed by Dylan Holmes Williams, have to offer? Let’s dive in (heh) to The War Between the Land and the Sea, starting with our premiere in the form of Homo Aqua and Plastic Apocalypse.

And, look, I have to admit – I had a glimmer of hope after that first episode. Homo Aqua, to me, has the feel of some of the earlier Who reboot series like World War 3/Aliens of London – that sense of the supernatural clashing with the everyday, the real-world impact of the seemingly impossible, the alien figures and structures looming against the backdrop of iconic world landmarks. Russel Tovey as Barclay, a transportation assistant for UNIT, is a good way in to this story – enough of an outsider to give the audience a surrogate into this world, grounded enough in it as not to feel like he doesn’t belong at all.

Tovey (who will always be the werewolf from Being Human to me, and I mean that in the most complimentary way imaginable) does a good line in Looking Wet-Eyed with Equal Parts Wonder and Terrible Awe, which comes in useful for this kind of role, particularly during the introductions to the Sea Devils, which are shot with a strikingly reverent feel. Jemma Redgrave is there to stalk around in a sensible pantsuit being dryly witty and commanding, and Colin McFarlane delivers a bit of booming over-the-top ham to sell the enormity of the initial encounters with these creatures. I could have done without the levered-in references to the Doctor to prick up the ears of Doctor Who proper, but hey, you can’t win them all, you know what I mean?

And then – oops! – that second episode comes along and drags everything to a screeching halt. Plastic Apocalypse is structured around a series of meetings between Salt as she demands Barclay as the ambassador to humankind, and the episode slows to a crawl as the show tells us a bunch of what’s been happening to get us to this point without really showing us much. This is what the first episode should have been about – showing us the environmental crisis point that the world has reached, how the apathy of world leaders and corporations alike has led to this state of emergency. In a grand speech covering all of this, Barclay even makes reference to how he has reason to believe that the next generation of children will set about addressing these issues – he’s got a damn child of his own! How was this detail not introduced through his interactions with them than with this monologue that insists on laying out in excruciating detail what should already have been established? These scene could have felt like a really climactic moment, seeing humanity acknowledge the harm that we have already seen in the show, but instead, it feels like artlessly hurried world building. The political message is not one I take issue with, but the delivery of it here is strikingly clumsy.

It might help if the Sea Devils themselves felt a bit more weighty; visually, they range between “actually pretty cool” to “laughably bad CGI fish”, though their underwater structures are honestly stunning. The big twist of having the Sea Devils rain plastic and other ocean debris on to the land is a good sting, and gives the climax at least a bit of spectacle. Mbatha-Raw, who does most of the interacting on behalf of our people, is never quite leant the command she really needs to have by either the script or the direction. I don’t hate the performance, and I suppose much of the development in weeks to come will focus on her, so I’m willing to see how it turns out, but it wasn’t exactly the imposing turn I had hoped for.

And while we’re on the matter of direction, there’s some seriously clunky choices that crop up at random through this episode. A scene between Barclay and his child, Kirby (Cat Gannon) that should have been an emotional centrepoint is shot primarily from birds-eye view, giving us a head-down look at the characters that strips away the emotion from the performances, and attempts at dynamic, roving long takes are awkwardly blocked to leave characters with their backs to camera while they’re delivering dialogue. It feels showy, and not in the kind of accomplished way I’d look for in a sci-fi story like this.

Kate (Jemma Redgrave) is the most prominent character making the jump from the main series to this one, and, while I always enjoy Redgrave’s performance and truly think she’s one of the standout introductions across all of New Who, she never quite feels like she gets going here. That might have something to do with her love interest, Christofer (Alexander Devrient), who we’ve only caught glimpses of in Doctor Who; they share a few intimate moments here that only serve to highlight their lack of chemistry, erring on the side of cringe as they pointedly snuggle up to each other. I get the feeling, with this story being touted as having romantic elements, that it won’t be the last we see of them together, but God, I really hope it is.

The War Between the Land and the Sea is off to a rocky start – pacing issues, clumsy world-building, and some weird behind-the-camera choices are leaving me pretty cold after what at first like a moderately fun throwback. I’d love to hear what you made of these first couple of episodes in the comments – are you looking forward to the rest of the season or are you ready to return to surface already?

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(header image via Radio Times)