At San Diego Comic Con 2024, Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies officially announced the upcoming spinoff series, The War Between the Land and the Sea. The series had been all but confirmed via online rumors ahead of SDCC, but the spinoff will see the return of classic Doctor Who villains, the Sea Devils, in a battle against UNIT. The series will feature Jemma Redgrave and Alexander Devrient reprising their roles of Kate Stewart and Colonel Ibrahim respectively. Likewise, Doctor Who alums Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw are joining the cast in new roles. It is expected to enter production in September 2024, with a release date yet to be announced.
Speaking at SDCC, Davies confirmed the series will see the long dormant Sea Devils awakening to discover the harm humanity has done to Earth’s oceans, leading them to declare war on the human race. The Sea Devils’ conflicts with humanity for ownership of the planet have been at the heart of the species’ story since their first Doctor Who appearance in 1972. The War Between the Land and the Sea is set to add a new dimension to this conflict with the introduction of an environmental narrative concerning the Sea Devils’ native oceans.
The Sea Devils are the Silurians’ Aquatic Cousins
The Sea Devils are not the only species in Doctor Who to have walked the Earth before humanity and who have looked to reclaim their world by force. The land-dwelling Silurians have often been caught in similar feuds with the Doctor and the human race and that’s no coincidence. The Sea Devils are actually a separate subspecies of Homo Reptilia, aka Silurians. While the Silurians lived on land and entered hibernation in subterranean hibernation units, the Sea Devils lived in the Earth’s oceans and built their own hibernation units under the sea. Both species were motivated to enter hibernation when they saw a planetoid approaching Earth and worried it would wipe out all life on the planet. In reality, this planetoid became Earth’s moon.
The Sea Devils and Silurians are both reptiles, though the Sea Devils possess amphibious traits and the Silurians do not. The Sea Devils also do not appear to vary as much in appearance as different populations of Silurians do. The Silurians seen in the classic series of Doctor Who had a third eye and a more alien appearance, while those of the modern series had more humanoid facial features. The Sea Devils, on the other hand, returned to modern Doctor Who with an appearance practically identical to their classic series counterparts. It’s possible The War Between the Land and the Seawill redesign the Sea Devils, but it has thus far seemed that all Sea Devils have pointed, turtle-like faces with large fins for ears and long necks.
The Sea Devils first crossed paths with Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor in the 1972 serial, “The Sea Devils.” This story saw a group of Sea Devils emerging from the English Channel and terrorizing a naval base. They had formed an alliance with the Master, who was being held in an island prison in the Channel and who had tricked Colonel Trenchard, who ran the prison, into assisting him. By awakening the Sea Devils and aligning himself with them, the Master hoped to take control of the Earth from humanity. However, the Master was ultimately betrayed by the Sea Devils, who imprisoned him and the Doctor as they prepared to awaken Sea Devils around the planet. The Doctor, having failed to broker a peace between the Sea Devils and humans, destroyed the Sea Devils’ base by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow in the sonar device that they were using to activate their hibernation units.
Later, the Sea Devils worked alongside the Silurians to wage war on humanity in the year 2084. This scheme saw the Sea Devils and Silurians facing off against Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor, in 1984’s “Warriors of the Deep.” In a Cold War analog, the serial saw Earth divided between two superpowers, poised on the brink of war. A group of Silurians awoke Sea Devil forces to aid them in an attack on Sea Base 4, in the hopes of igniting war to eradicate the human race. In the end, the Doctor was forced to use poisonous Hexachromite gas against the two groups of Homo Reptilia, leaving him to lament that there was no better way to resolve the conflict.
The Sea Devils Returned to Doctor Who in 2022
“The Sea Devils” and “Warriors of the Deep” were the only serials to feature the Sea Devils as central antagonists in Doctor Who’s classic era, but those stories were enough to earn these aquatic foes their reputation as an iconic Doctor Who monster. The Sea Devils were glimpsed again in modern Doctor Who via flashbacks and recycled footage in 2010’s “The Eleventh Hour” and 2020’s “The Timeless Children.” Then, in Jodie Whittaker’s penultimate outing as the Thirteenth Doctor, the Sea Devils finally made a full return to Doctor Who. 2022’s “Legend of the Sea Devils” saw the Doctor, Yasmin Khan and Dan Lewis arriving in China in 1807, where they discovered a Sea Devil terrorizing a local village, having been unleashed by the pirate queen Zheng Yi Sao, aka “Madam Ching. ”
The Chief Sea Devil who appeared in “Legend of the Sea Devils” was called Marsissus (though he was not named on screen) and was a zealot-turned-pirate. In 1533, he sought out the pirate Sin Ji-Hun, who had discovered the legendary treasure of the Flor de la Mar. Among this treasure was a powerful Sea Devil artifact called the Keystone, which Marsissus sought for his own use. Sin Ji-Hun feigned an alliance with the Sea Devil in order to save his crew, handing his ship over to Marsissus, who modified the vessel with his own advanced technology and filled it with a crew of Sea Devils. However, one of Sin Ji-Hun’s crew, Lei Bao, had taken the Keystone and used it to imprison Marsissus in stone, suspending him in time. While Marsissus was trapped, his crew of Sea Devils returned to hibernation.
Zheng Yi Sao freed Marsissus in hopes of using him to recover the treasure of the Flor de la Mar herself, which she needed to meet the ransom placed on her own captured crew, which included her two young sons. Released from imprisonment, Marsissus reawakened his crew and summoned the Hua-Shen, a sea monster under the Sea Devils’ control, to their aid. This wasn’t the first time the Sea Devils had been seen with such a monster on Doctor Who. In “Warriors of the Deep,” the Fifth Doctor also met a sea monster in the form of the Myrka, a genetically modified dinosaur controlled by the Silurians and Sea Devils in their efforts to overthrow humanity.
Ultimately, Marsissus was slain by Ji-Hun, whom he had kept in suspended animation since their first meeting in 1533. The Chief Sea Devil had planned to use the Keystone to flood the Earth, eradicating the human race and turning the entire planet into an ocean for the Sea Devils to inhabit. However, the Doctor was able to use the Sea Devils’ technology against them, causing their base to collapse in on itself. This destroyed the Sea Devils under Marsissus’ command, but also cost Ji-Hun his life, as he volunteered to stay behind and hold the compromised circuitry in place to ensure the Doctor’s plan succeeded.
The Sea Devils Pose a Difficult Question for UNIT
When the Sea Devils return to the Whoniverse in The War Between the Land and the Sea, it will be a different group from those seen in “Legend of the Sea Devils.” Marsissus’ crew and approach to his conquest of Earth were unique among the Sea Devils of Doctor Who, who have not previously relished opportunities to strike fear into human hearts as Marsissus did with his pirate ship and the Hua-Shen. Instead, the Sea Devils’ feuds with humanity have usually been motivated by a more pragmatic desire to reclaim the planet they believe is rightfully theirs. The fact that the Sea Devils’ time on Earth predates humanity’s already poses an ethical dilemma for UNIT in the upcoming spinoff. However, the issue is made worse by humanity’s mistreatment of the oceans.
The War Between the Land and the Sea will see the Sea Devils awakening from hibernation to an ecosystem that has been devastated by human pollution. Doctor Who has already looked at the harm done to Earth’s oceans by human activity in the 2020 episode, “Praxeus.” In The War Between the Land and the Sea, though, the ocean’s inhabitants will be seeking their revenge on humankind for the damage that has been done. While UNIT will be tasked with protecting humanity, they will also have to face up to the fact that the Sea Devils’ natural habitat is suffering as a result of the planet’s human population. As a result, humanity cannot be entirely absolved of blame for the impending war with the Sea Devils.