Doctor Who has been around since 1963, and in that time various spinoffs have expanded the lore surrounding the title Time Lord, including Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Class. But now that we’re in a time when, if you don’t live in the United Kingdom, a Disney+ subscription is required to watch Doctor Who, the Mouse House’s streaming service and BBC are partnering up for the first spinoff being released in this era. What’s especially exciting about the official news just announced at San Diego Comic-Con is the return of an actor from David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor years.
Disney Branded Television and BBC jointly announced at SDCC that The War Between The Land And The Sea is on the way, with the five-part series set to begin filming next month. The Doctor Who spinoff will follow an “a fearsome and ancient species” emerging from the ocean and revealing itself to humanity, triggering an international crisis and prompting UNIT to get involved. This will mark the return of the Sea Devils, who’ve been Doctor Who villains since 1972 and last appeared in 2022’s “Legend of the Sea Devils.” Jemma Redgrave and Alexander Devrient will respectively reprise Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and Colonel Ibrahim, and Loki’s Gugu Mbatha-Raw is also coming aboard.
However, I want to draw attention to Russell Tovey, the fourth of The War Between The Land And The Sea’s main cast members. If the above picture isn’t jogging your memory, Tovey previously appeared in Doctor Who as Midshipman Alonso Frame in the 2008 Christmas special “Voyage of the Damned,” a crew member aboard the starship replica of the USS Titanic who helped the Tenth Doctor prevent it from crashing into Earth. Alonso then cameoed in “The End of Time Part 2,” i.e. Tenant’s final regular Doctor Who appearance, when the Tenth Doctor arranged for him and Jack Harkness to meet at a bar. Tovey’s other notable credits include Quantico, Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans and playing The Ray in the Arrowverse crossover “Crisis on Earth-X.”
So is Russell Tovey reprising Alonso Frame in The War Between The Land And The Sea? Nope, as it was stated at SDCC’s Doctor Who panel that he’s instead playing a new character. This doesn’t come as a shock since Doctor Who frequently brings back actors to play different and bigger roles, with the best examples of this being Colin Baker and Peter Capaldi, who were respectively tapped to play the Sixth and Twelfth Doctors after previously playing minor characters. Whether Tovey’s unnamed character in the spinoff is another member of UNIT, one of the Sea Devils or perhaps a human antagonist remains to be seen.
Behind the scenes, The War Between The Land And The Sea will be directed by Dylan Holmes-Williams, who previously helmed the episodes “73 Yards” and “Dot and Bubble” from this past season of Doctor Who. Current Doctor Who showrunner and executive producer Russell T. Davies created the spinoff and wrote it with Pete McTighe. He also shared the following statement:
I’m so lucky to work with such a magnificent cast. And this is a huge, muscular, thrilling drama which will shake The Whoniverse to its foundations. When the Doctor’s not in town, the whole of humanity is in trouble.
Now that The War Between The Land And The Sea is officially on the books, CinemaBlend will continue sharing major updates about what to expect from the spinoff. As for Doctor Who, its next Christmas special is titled “Joy to the World” and will feature Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan, and the next season, officially labeled as Season 2, will air sometime in 2025 and see Varada Sethu playing a new companion named Belinda Chandra opposite Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor and Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday.
