Disney+ and the BBC have ordered a new Doctor Who spinoff titled The War Between The Land And The Sea. The five part series will star Doctor Who semi-regulars Jemma Redgrave and Alexander Devrient as well as newcomers to the franchise Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The series will be written by Doctor Who showrunner and executive producer Russell T Davies with Pete McTighe. The series is the first Doctor Who spinoff under the joint production deal for the franchise between the BBC and Disney.
According to the show’s released synopsis, “when a fearsome and ancient species emerges from the ocean, dramatically revealing themselves to humanity, an international crisis is triggered. With the entire population at risk, UNIT steps into action as the land and sea wage war.” The fearsome and ancient species in question is the Sea Devils, a classic monster race that were first introduced in 1972 during the original Doctor Who‘s ninth season. They made a handful of appearances in both the original series and the relaunched series that started in 2005. The popular antagonists have also made appearances in numerous spinoff books, comics and audio adventures.
In the Doctor Who world, UNIT is the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, a multinational taskforce that combats threats to Earth whenever the timetraveling Doctor can’t be around to lend a hand. Redgrave’s character of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart has been seen sporadically on Doctor Who over the last several seasons as the current head of the organization. (Her father, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, played by the late Nicholas Courtney, was the organizations founder and leader through much of the show’s classic era.) Devrient is a relatively newcomer to Who, with his character of UNIT Colonel Christofer Ibrahim only appearing during the show’s most recent season.
The development of the spinoff show was not one of the Doctor Who production team’s best kept secrets. The return of Davies to the show saw the writer declare that he wanted to expand upon the series with a number of spinoffs, creating, in his words, a “Whoniverse.” That this first spinoff would focus on UNIT and possibly involve the Seas Devils was a rumor that was in heavy rotation for some time now.
Doctor Who as a franchise is no stranger to spinoffs. During the show’s classic era, an attempt was made to spinoff popular companions Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and robotic dog K9 to their own series, K9 And Company. But it only yielded a pilot episode which was not well received by fans. When Davies relaunched the series in 2005, he also oversaw the development of two other live actions series – Torchwood which ran for four seasons and The Sarah Jane Adventures which gave Sladen a second shot at a solo series that would eventually run for five seasons. The BBC also produced a third live action spinoff Class in 2016.
