You expect tweaks. As budgets dictated, the costumes of classic era Doctor Who villains were made from tin foil and old pairs of tights, so whenever an alien race is revived for the modern show, they get a brush-up.
The Cybermen went from looking like sock puppets carrying air conditioning units to looking like expensive chrome espresso machines. The Silurians went from creatures from the black lagoon to slinky handbag-faced dinosaurs. The Sontarans… well, they still look exactly like a new potato jammed onto the head of a Ram Man doll, but now with slightly less searching melancholy in their eyes.
The Sea Devils already had a classic-to-modern-era redesign when they reappeared for 2022 Whittaker/Chibnall special “Legend of the Sea Devils”. They lost the panicked tortoise faces and gained a bit of ET chic. That’s nothing though, compared to what’s happened to them for new five-part spinoff The War Between the Land and the Sea. In short: they are smokin’.
Well, at least the one played by Gugu Mbutha-Raw is, in a Borg Queen kind of way. Around the six-second mark in the trailer, there’s also a more traditional Sea Devil, prompting the question of whether Mbutha-Raw is playing a new evolution of her ancient marine reptile race? Take a look:
The trailer shows Russell Tovey’s character Barclay being chosen by Mbutha-Raw’s underwater creature as a potential ally to stop the conflict between their species. “The tides have drawn us together,” she tells him. “I don’t know why you chose me for any of this,” he says. Who knows. Maybe she’s a Midshipman Alonso Frame stan?
With a more serious tone in comparison with the cartoonish technicolour of recent Who adventures, the spinoff seems to be positioning itself more as a descendant of Torchwood (“Cyberwoman” camp notwithstanding) than its parent show. We see helicopters, guns, soldiers and an intimidatingly official-looking international court-style setting.
Here’s the series’ official 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 step into action as the land and sea wage war.”
Joining Tovey and Mbutha-Raw in the cast are UNIT regulars Jemma Redgrave, Ruth Madeley and Alexander Devrient, with Vincent Franklin, Patrick Baladi, Francesa Corney, Adrian Lukis, Colin McFarlane, Mei Mac and more.
Written by Russell T Davies and Pete McTighe (“Lucky Day”, “Kerblam”, “Praxeus”), and directed by Dylan Holmes Williams (“73 Yards”, “Dot and Bubble”), The War Between the Land and the Sea is coming to BBC One and iPlayer in the UK, and to Disney+ around the world.
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