Disney Is Doing the World a Favor by Not Letting You See That ‘Physician Who’ Spinoff But

Once we took a have a look at the opening episodes of the new Doctor Who spinoff The Struggle Between the Land and the Sea a few weeks ago, there have been a couple of nuggets of potential swimming beneath its in any other case largely murky floor. However now that the present has come to an finish, we all know for a truth: that potential is useless and buried and has solely sunk additional into the depths the longer the present went on.

The remaining three episodes of Struggle Between, after its premiere spent quite a lot of time taking part in up the political relationship between the revived Sea Devils—reborn as “Homo Aqua”—and humanity, spending their time squandering the distinctly unsubtle, but nonetheless intriguing, local weather change messaging that sat at that plot’s core as a way to give attention to establishing a quickly burgeoning romantic relationship between Salt (Gugu Mbatha-Uncooked) and Barclay (Russell Tovey).

Sparked by the previous saving the latter after a diplomatic mission to Homo Aqua’s territory beneath the waves was disrupted by a double agent unleashing a bomb to kill the human and aquakind attendees alike, regardless of Mbatha-Uncooked and Tovey’s chemistry, the romance that all of the sudden turns into the first driving topic of Struggle Between comes off as a Nice Worth Form of Water. Barclay’s infatuation with Salt above anything just isn’t actually given any time to develop, placing him on an instantaneous 0-100 escalation, but it surely’s Salt who suffers probably the most ignominies within the course of, not introduced as Barclay’s political equal and the advocate of Struggle Between‘s most radicalized notions of the local weather disaster, and as a substitute flattened right into a strolling embodiment of the “born horny yesterday” trope, thematically and narratively taken out of the image for a lot of the present’s center act as soon as Barclay rescues her from UNIT detention.

This jarring pivot in focus is broadly emblematic of Struggle Between‘s most damning of points: the sequence merely can not commit, from second to second, on each degree, to an thought of what it desires to be or say, rendering it utterly inconsequential from each a thematic viewpoint and a narratively logistical one in its broader place within the Physician Who universe. In some methods, this was a poison tablet baked into the present’s very premise—most of the time, a Physician Who story concerning the Physician’s absence in the end has to lead to little or no affect exterior of that individual story, each as a result of it calls into query what it takes for the Physician to contain themself in a given disaster and since it calls into query simply how a lot a derivative sequence can really feel supposedly “necessary” to Physician Who‘s established order going ahead.

The Struggle Between might by no means ship on the concept of aqua and humankind negotiating an amicable, symbiotic strategy to their shared existence on earth, as a result of it might shunt Physician Who‘s depiction of the “actual” Earth a step even additional past our personal actuality. However as a substitute of taking part in inside that tight constraint to inform a contained however nonetheless fascinating story, Struggle Between tried to go massive, solely to be unable to ship on that scale in a passable means, abandoning something that gave it weight because it hobbled in the direction of a muddled finish.

A number of instances within the sequence, either side declare to one another that the titular conflict is coming, that it’s right here, that it’s over, however we by no means actually get to see that battle, as a result of Homo Aqua, after elevating uncomfortably true considerations about humanity’s position in local weather change, must be first rendered unforgivably villainous—which is finished within the weird opening sequence of the ultimate episode that depicts a retaliatory act by Homo Aqua summoning, capturing, and consuming each canine on the planet, a situation that’s raised inside a matter of minutes after which by no means touched once more—after which successfully eradicated as an ongoing concern, carried out so by way of an ill-explained engineered virus, dubbed “Severance,” that in the end kills all however 10% of aquakind as shortly because it’s launched within the again half of the present’s remaining episode.

Humanity’s express genocide of Homo Aqua can be a fascinatingly darkish level to finish the present on, however Struggle Between doesn’t truly care. The extermination and capitulation of Homo Aqua are executed and resolved within the again half of the present’s remaining episode, giving Struggle Between little or no time to have its human gamers wrestle with the ethical value of what it’s carried out (a couple of transient, awkwardly inserted flashforwards suggest that what stays of Homo Aqua will get its comeuppance on the direct people chargeable for Severance’s deployment, however that’s about it). As a substitute, it continues to give attention to Barclay and Salt, the previous rewarded for his allyship with what’s now a minority species by being slowly remodeled into an aquakind/human hybrid, the only real particular person allowed to reside among the many remnants of Homo Aqua on the expense of leaving his human life behind.

This lack of care extends throughout all of Struggle Between‘s narrative threads. The affect of Homo Aqua’s radical makes an attempt to shift humanity into motion are dropped as shortly as they’re launched. Episode two climaxes with Salt dumping each piece of water-bound waste onto land, successfully burying the planet in garbage and severely disrupting the logistical bedrocks of society, however by episode 5, that concern has been cleaned up within the background, by no means to be touched once more. The sequence’ continued failure to interrogate UNIT’s position as a company that’s seemingly gleefully obsessive about weaponizing a surveillance state solely compounds the problems raised by sequence co-creator Pete McTighe in his 2025 Doctor Who episode “Fortunate Day,” climaxing not with a self-reckoning, however with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart threatening her personal therapist with the publicity of her husband’s infidelity (why does UNIT have entry to that type of particular person surveillance? The present doesn’t care; it’s simply cool hero spy stuff) if she doesn’t let her preserve having a job within the ongoing negotiations, a win for our hero, and by the present’s finish, it’s constant sufficient that Kate simply begins threatening gross invasions of privateness as a jokey apart.

It’s Kate that Struggle Between truly ends on, in a very weird scene that’s emblematic of Struggle Between‘s incomprehensible thought of tone or message. Having seen off Barclay and Salt to reside their new underwater life collectively, she comes throughout a runner on the seashore who casually tosses his water bottle as litter beside her. The ultimate photographs of Struggle Between—the ultimate photographs of Physician Who‘s Disney period, the ultimate photographs of the franchise till this time subsequent 12 months—have an more and more offended and manic Kate pull her gun on the runner, repeatedly screaming that he decide up the bottle as her finger inches nearer to the set off.

Tonally it instantly follows up an prolonged, dialogueless sequence of Barclay and Salt’s reunion set to a Goldfrapp cowl of David Bowie’s “Heroes,” so it’d be virtually humorous if the present wasn’t all of the sudden attempting to deal with it as a critical, darkish second. It’s a weird finish notice on Kate’s character (for now, no less than), launched 13 years in the past because the level-headed, “science leads” future stepping away from UNIT’s militarized previous. However it’s additionally the literal final minutes of the present all of the sudden lurching again to an thought it had broadly deserted for many of its runtime, as if it lastly remembered that it as soon as yearned to be a present that really had a degree to make, and that by addressing it in its dying gasps, the journey to get there meant one thing.

It’s a symbolic notice for Doctor Who‘s awful year to exit on, reflecting the top of an period that had a lot promise and potential when it started simply two years in the past solely to get slowed down in an aimless malaise that muddled the sequence’ potential to actually decide to commentary and reflection of the world we reside in by means of its sci-fi lens. It’s becoming, maybe then, that the less-than-amicable breakup between Disney and the BBC has resulted in a lot of the world not legally with the ability to see Struggle Between till some nebulous level subsequent 12 months, when it’ll seemingly be dropped in its entirety with little in the way in which of fanfare: a present with nothing to say, buried within the deep to by no means be considered once more.

The Struggle Between the Land and the Sea is now streaming in its entirety within the UK on BBC iPlayer. The sequence will stream on Disney+ internationally a while in 2026.

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