TV Review - The War Between The Land And The Sea
- arthurpeterchappell
- Dec 9, 2025
- 8 min read
Spoilers.
Episodes 1 & 2 of 5.
Many of us nowadays are conscientiously not chucking any plastic directly into the waterways. It's the industrialists and big polluters and water purification companies who do most of the damage. They are not going to be persuaded by an idealistic TV POV. They know but don't care. It gets like the South Park 'Drugs are bad kids, Okay....' lines. The Sea Devils going as far as to try to ban any contact with the seas or international travel at all is extreme - they even consider a shipwreck like the Titanic as pollution. What happens if their cousins the Silurians wake up too? Would we also be barred from the land? The sea devils are less willing to compromise than the humans. There are many undoubtedly crucially important cases to cut back on climate-environment pollution, but the potential return of a previous owner/absentee landlord isn't one of them.
The reptiles are only getting attention for being powerful enough to annihilate us, and yes we deserve it. The Native Americans could present the same case as the Sea Devils do, but no one would listen as they clearly lack the Aquaman/Submariner tech and powers the Sea Devils have. I do like that there are no outright villains among the humans (or sea devils) so far. The humans, led by UNIT are genuinely trying to sort things out and they are just being realistic in saying it can't be done overnight. We should have started years ago of course. All the wilful aggression is coming from the Sea Devils. That one of them died caught in a trawler net was accidental folly. Them drowning the two UNIT troops in the floorboards was not nice. They could have pushed immediately for the conference they got, even though building the venue was itself a massive drain on resources, including Thames water. The Sea Devils have a more uncompromising sense of urgency, and yes we need to start acting now, but credibly we couldn't resolve the whole mess that quickly with or without super-powered entities holding a doomsday gun to our heads - the pollution is a doomsday in its own right - it is the threat, to us as much as it is to all marine life, real or imaginary. The way to reduce air/sea travel best is for airlines/shipping CO's to reduce supply and increase costs not just for people to choose not to travel. As long as it still looks an attractive economic option, people will still do it.
The Sea Devils are amphibious, capable of at least limited time on land and they have been asked for help but their stance is just a tantrum demanding that we put our house in order now or else. Going too extreme just makes the undoubtedly heartfelt eco-warrior seem like a terrorist and doesn't do their perfectly valid sincerely valid case any favours.
This show is likely to have one of two outcomes. 1/. We get the sea devils to help us clean up the mess. 2/. It goes to the brink of apocalyptic war but we find the key underwater sea devil bases and destroy them, before carrying on as before. That the show touches on environmentalism is great, but it is doing so unrealistically and in an all or nothing right now way. The best SF to show the threat to the environment would be one where the effects of the pollutions and plastics itself is the threat, in a Doomwatch/Death Of Grass kind of story, rather than a super-powered entity popping up and demanding we fix it all now in a way we couldn't practically do with all the best will and intent in the World. Even if we introduce much needed very radical changes now, and I'm all for that, including reduction in sky/ocean travel (at least with fuels), we will simply not see the environment fixed in our lifetimes. Be interesting to see just what we do now with all the junk the sea devils gave back to us. Where can we put it all now? If we landfill it, the Sillurians might well pop up, shouting oy, what's your game! Even without them joining in it will also poison the land.
We do need to point the finger at industrialists, as frustrating as it is that they don't listen. They are more of a threat than the little old lady who accidentally puts a used baked bean tin in the wheelie bin for paper waste. Trouble is, they won't listen to Attenborough or Thurnberg, while groups using eco-terrorist guerrilla tactics don't do us a favour and just get other concerned citizens branded as extremists. There are no simplistic answers and while I think we might and should try to slow down the rot, I think we are already past the point of no return. Our planet is screwed - give it a few generations, and we will be gone
They have so radically redesigned the Sea Devils that they are a totally different amphibious aquatic entity now. Tovey, as Barclay, picked by accident, doesn't do anything for UNIT before the meeting with the Sea Devils (Homo Aqua as they keep rebranding them), and even when the guy he accidentally replaced turns up they tell him to get lost - why? What has Barclay done up to that point?
The Sea Devils see decency in Barclay, but up to that point UNIT have no purpose for him. Lots of blindingly obvious and patronising don't pollute the seas waffle - only when the sea devils start giving us back the plastic (apparently tires and the Titanic are plastic pollutants, who knew. This is at times trying hard to be Torchwood without Captain Jack.
I'm certainly not opposed to the show touching on environmental concerns or the very real and relevant threat of plastics dumped in the oceans. The problem is that it is moving to seeing the Sea Devils as the more immediate threat than the plastics. Be worse if the Autons/Celestine Intelligence worked out how much they could do with it all. The plot looks as if it will move to developing the bromance between Salt (lipstick wearing Sea-Devil) and Tovey's Barclay, the fish out of water ordinary bloke who goes off-script and says all the right stuff. We have yet to see what 'Big Fish' is even there for. It looks rather piranha-like and likely to go into attack mode at some point when we say or do something to piss the sea-devils off because some people will whinge if there isn't a big action set piece soon.
The lack of willingness to see that sorting the mess out instantly with the best will in the World (which many sadly lack anyway) is the problem. It's like instead of giving his get your act together or we'll be back speech in The Day The Earth Stood Still (Original version, not the Keanu Reeves travesty), Klaatu insisted on the eradication of all our nukes on the spot there and then. Clearly this cannot have a 'so we cleaned up the seas and all lived happily ever after' outcome.
By the closing (5th) episode the Sea Devils are likely to be defeated, killed off or forced to give us an unspecified period of grace. The extent to which the sea devils are intolerant of us having any contact with the waterways will kill the fishing industry, and there are small island communities rather dependent on that. Their stance seems to suggest a willingness to wipe us out if someone so much as takes their kids paddling in the sea at Blackpool or takes a fishing rod down canalside to catch a few minnows. Their position isn't to pressure us into reducing carbon footprints by reducing international flights but to shut down all our air travel overnight and turn our land areas into containment camps. It will be economic carnage bordering on the apocalyptic.
There is a war going on, even if there isn't yet all out fighting. They are holding a gun to our heads in a way the plankton can't. Do we deserve it? Hell, yes. Given that the sea devils can liquify the ground and drown people where we stand they would win outright war easily. They suddenly have Wakanda quality tech the Pertwee era sea devils never had. Again, no mention of their Silurian cousins. We are not exactly doing the land any favours either.
Given the magnitude of the crisis accelerated by the Sea Devils it seems odd that UNIT haven't tried to at least contact the Doctor. They have summoned him and/or engineered getting him here to sort out lesser situations. My stance isn't some anti-woke "Oh god, not this again" one, but a recognition that it could be conveyed very much better. Great that RTD is trying, especially after giving poor Ncuti so many crap stories to be bowing out with - The trouble is that the threat presented by the sea devils is overshadowing the climate crisis point. Quite why they even want to play the diplomacy talks game and don't just get on with irradicating us is unclear. There is also the very united one voice stance they have, with their hive mentality. Salt is the only one speaking, and the others even breathe in tandem with their Borg Queen with gills. It hints to a possible unwelcome outcome - kill one in a way that wipes the lot of them out and then vow to have a jolly good look at the crisis later as we shovel all the muck they returned to sender right back into the sea.
The 'there is no war' gripe is likely to come from many who don't see pitched beach battles between UNIT squaddies and gill-folk but in a way I hope it doesn't go down that path. We are in effect now still in a cold war that the powers that be still claim ended with Glasnost. I do think the sea Devils are way too anti-human. Obviously them popping to the talks with, 'I see you have a bit of a problem here, what can we do to help?' stance wouldn't be much of an adventure story. Their 'you can't go near water or sky ever again starting right now' stance is clearly and quite realistically way too much to take on board for poor humanity. It is an instant boil in the bag revolution solution to the problem that would destroy us economically and socially. These sea-devils are resentful of the fact that we evolved at all while they dodged the dinosaur mashing comet and forgot to set the alarm clock. They don't come over as eco-champions but colonial conquerors. Their totally uncompromising stance is itself a threat. The human position is not unlike that of native peoples finding European settlers destroying their everything overnight from the moment Colombus set foot on their soil. The land immediately becomes our reservation or a ghetto. As I said earlier, they could liquify us to death any time they want. Inevitably, the powers that be are going to look for their weaknesses to push back on. It'll all end in tears but Barclay & Salt will turn into Tom Hanks & Daryl Hannah in Splash and swim off happily into the depths.
In Aquaman (First film, not seen the 2nd), Orm wants to attack the dry-folk and even throws much of our pollution and a few shipwrecks on the beaches before Arthur (yes he shares my name) gets his fish and squid army together with Mum to stop him. Maybe the Sea Devils watched that before making their plans.
Photos taken by myself.
Arthur Chappell
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