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

Once we took a take a look at the opening episodes of the new Doctor Who spinoff The Conflict 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 reality: 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 Conflict Between, after its premiere spent an excessive amount 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 so as to deal with 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 immediately turns into the first driving topic of Conflict Between comes off as a Nice Worth Form of Water. Barclay’s infatuation with Salt above anything is just not actually given any time to develop, placing him on an instantaneous 0-100 escalation, however it’s Salt who suffers essentially the most ignominies within the course of, not introduced as Barclay’s political equal and the advocate of Conflict Between‘s most radicalized notions of the local weather disaster, and as an alternative flattened right into a strolling embodiment of the “born attractive 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 Conflict Between‘s most damning of points: the collection merely can’t commit, from second to second, on each stage, to an thought of what it needs to be or say, rendering it utterly inconsequential from each a thematic perspective and a narratively logistical one in its broader place within the Physician Who universe. In some methods, this was a poison capsule 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 end in little or no affect outdoors 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 collection can really feel supposedly “necessary” to Physician Who‘s establishment going ahead.

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

A number of instances within the collection, each side declare to one another that the titular struggle 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, needs to be first rendered unforgivably villainous—which is completed 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, performed 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 last episode.

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

This lack of care extends throughout all of Conflict 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 challenge has been cleaned up within the background, by no means to be touched once more. The collection’ 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 collection 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 non-public 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 hold 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 Conflict Between truly ends on, in a really weird scene that’s emblematic of Conflict Between‘s incomprehensible thought of tone or message. Having seen off Barclay and Salt to dwell 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 pictures of Conflict Between—the ultimate pictures of Physician Who‘s Disney period, the ultimate pictures of the franchise till this time subsequent 12 months—have an more and more indignant and manic Kate pull her gun on the runner, repeatedly screaming that he choose 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 nearly humorous if the present wasn’t immediately making an attempt to deal with it as a critical, darkish second. It’s a weird finish observe 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. Nevertheless it’s additionally the literal final minutes of the present immediately 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 truly had some extent to make, and that by addressing it in its dying gasps, the journey to get there meant one thing.

It’s a symbolic observe for Doctor Who‘s awful year to exit on, reflecting the tip 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 collection’ means to actually decide to commentary and reflection of the world we dwell in by way 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 having the ability to see Conflict Between till some nebulous level subsequent 12 months, when it’ll doubtless 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 Conflict Between the Land and the Sea is now streaming in its entirety within the UK on BBC iPlayer. The collection will stream on Disney+ internationally a while in 2026.

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