The War Between the Land and the Sea

A Dr Who spinoff in which a lowly admin guy gets vaulted into the team negotiating with sentient all-powerful sea creatures. Ultimately becoming ambassador representing the human race. It's an environmentally friendly, family friendly, middle-of-the-road romp. It's perfectly okay, and watchable. Given its pitch, it will neither break the sci-fi mould nor offer much more than a camp commentary on day-to-life.

I'm really surprised by the negative reviews. Science Fiction has always been a commentary on the modern day. Some interesting ideas here and it feels like Torchwood. The question in the background seems to be "Can humans be better even when the doctor isn't around?" It'll be interesting to see how the story unfolds.

After watching only two episodes so far I'm really enjoying it. Those who knock it are only thinking about their required standards of entertainment in my view. I think that the environmental message is far more important and this is a very good way of getting it across. OK, so nothing's probably going to change, but it certainly highlights how pathetic we humans are at managing our planet. I won't be missing a minute of the remaining episodes.

What this show has:

• good premise that isn't utilized well
• a highly compressed super rushed story that should have been at least 8 episodes long
• love story sideplot which eventually takes over the central spot in the narrative for whatever reason
• moral lesson about how polluting sea is bad with absolutely no subtlety at all
• decent acting, budget and visual effects

What this show doesn't have:

• war (it was actually a series of meetings, and also some garbage was thrown)
• nuance (who would have guessed it, humans are the bad guys)
• authenticity (there was nothing unique or unpredictable about this show)

Skip, unless you are a hard-core sci-fi fan or you have a fantasy about dating a fish.

Back in 2009 James Cameron gave us a huge hit Avatar telling the story of an Everyman who finds himself encountering an exotic new species and acting as the go between in a story with obvious themes of environmentalism, militarism and displacement. There of course was even a little romance too between our male human hero and our female alien.

Fast forward to 2025 and Russell T Davies has dreamed up this highly highly original series which of course bares not the slightest relation to the James Cameron hit film franchise!