Physician Who‘s latest spinoff, The Battle Between the Land and the Sea, has been praised by an internationally famend group for its depiction of local weather change and the environmental disaster.
The Battle Between the Land and the Sea is a Physician-less spinoff set throughout the Whoniverse, the place the Basic Who monsters previously often called the Sea Devils — now extra precisely known as Homo Aqua — emerge from the ocean’s depths to demand reparations from humanity for the continued air pollution of the Earth’s waterways and seas.
Although the collection has but to premiere within the US and internationally by way of Disney+, 4 of its 5 episodes have already aired on BBC One and BBC iPlayer within the UK (the finale will air on Sunday, December 21). The response to Physician Who showrunner Russell T Davies’ newest Who creation has largely been optimistic, together with the present’s most up-to-date endorsement from Will McCallum, the co-executive director for Greenpeace UK.
Talking to RadioTimes.com, McCallum praised The Battle Between the Land and the Sea‘s spectacular visualization of the world’s local weather emergency and famous how main franchises like Physician Who can encourage change. “Reveals like this have the facility to visualise the unseen hurt we inflict on our fragile planet,” McCallum defined.
“With out particular results, it is onerous to think about the 460 million tons of plastic produced globally,” McCallum continued, referring to one of many present’s most harrowing sequences in episode 2, “or the three.6 million hours’ price of sewage spilled into rivers and seas in England alone final yr.”
“In contrast to Homo Aqua, the atmosphere and all of the magnificent life it helps shouldn’t have a voice. However the actual superpower of exhibits like that is to maneuver thousands and thousands of viewers to take a seat up and do one thing about it.”
All through its 60-year historical past, Physician Who has lengthy been politically charged, although that is arguably the primary time a person Physician Who spinoff has gone to such nice lengths to painting and dissect a globally related concern throughout a number of episodes.
“If I’m writing concerning the oceans in 2025, then they are surely filthy and stinking and half-destroyed. I might be mendacity if I didn’t point out this stuff. It’s solely politically engaged as a result of it has no selection,” Davies beforehand defined to Radio Occasions. Air pollution and local weather change are points which can be uniquely related to humanity, which additionally explains why the Physician is not concerned on this specific story.
Within the lead-up to the present’s launch, The Battle Between the Land and the Sea‘s creator defined that “one of the vital fascinating issues you are able to do with Physician Who’s to take the Physician out. This can be a world with out the Physician, and we’re seeing how we cope because the human race. Usually, the Physician has a magic blue doorway they’ll take all people safely by way of, that security internet has gone.”
Davies and McCallum aren’t the one ones keen about The Battle Between the Land and the Sea‘s messaging and affect. Star Russell Tovey, who portrays the ill-prepared however deeply empathetic human ambassador Barclay Pierre-Dupont, additionally hopes that the spinoff will give audiences a motive to develop into invested in real-world points. “I might need [viewers] to really feel activated and indignant,” the actor advised Radio Occasions.
“I hope that there will probably be a complete technology who will watch this and really feel that that is going to encourage them to do one thing. I hope, by way of the humanizing of what the hell is occurring on our planet, it’ll do what David Attenborough does, however by way of drama, to compel individuals to get up and acknowledge that we’ve got to do one thing about this.”
Although it is onerous to say how this story will have an effect on the actual world, one factor is definite: after the devastating occasions of The Battle Between the Land and the Sea, the Whoniverse’s model of Earth, and its inhabitants — each on land and underwater — won’t ever be the identical once more.
The Battle Between the Land and the Sea‘s finale premieres on BBC One and BBC iPlayer within the UK on Sunday, December 21. The collection is slated for a large launch on Disney+ in 2026.
- Launch Date
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December 7, 2025
- Community
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BBC One
- Showrunner
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Russell T. Davies
- Administrators
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Dylan Holmes Williams
- Writers
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Russell T Davies, Pete McTighe