It’ll be cancelled before it even launches

This is Goth Witch, from his side series.

The War Between The Land And The Sea comes to BBC One and iPlayer from 7 December, and Disney+ in 2026.

For a “very 2025” show, I see they’re keeping up the age old tradition of delaying international release for no good reason. I don’t care, I’m in the UK, but just… why?

A website generator built by a human still gave a human the chance to make some choices, feel useful, validate it worked right, possibly even an income.

This is just RTD being RTD, and I should ignore it. But it sent me on a wikipedia rabbit hole,

If we’re being pendantic that wouldn’t be “racist”, it would be “speciesist”,as race in biology refers to subspecies differences, not species-level, which is what the aqua/sapiens distinction means.

Also, if we’re being inclusive implying that homo aqua are not “sapient”, i.e. intelligent, seems about as insulting as calling them devils.

Totally unrelated, but I learned that from the latin genus name, you can refer to the chimpanzee tribe as “Panini”, which is fun.

If there are no dangerous predators, then there is no problem voting third party

I take issue with this comment from the article:

A Doctor Who source says the show suffered because Gatwa never fully embraced the role. “There is more to that role than performing,” this person says. “You have got to be an ambassador for the brand and embrace being that generation’s Doctor. Matt Smith and David Tennant fully understood the responsibility it carried.”

What nonsense. An actors job is to act, and Gatwa acted well. He had gravitas, he had presence, he was entertaining to watch. And much like with Eccleston’s run (who was there even less time than Gatwa by the way), the problems I saw had nothing to do with an actor failing to be a “brand ambassador”. If there are problems with branding, that’s the broadcast executive team’s fault, not the cast and crew.

I first read this as MPEG and thought they were talking about the video encoding.

I wish they were talking about the video encoding.

No, the better solution is to add more black bars to the side so that it fits on to a wide screen.

I\ don\'t\ know\ what\ you\ mean,\ I\'ve\ never\ encountered\ any\ annoyances.

Oh, look at that pretty twinkling shooting sta- oh shit, that’s another one of elon musk’s pointless billionaire space toys. I can’t even relax by just looking at the stars anymore.

The Doctor tricking Rose is a very well done scene. He acts as if he’s just figured something out off the cuff of what Rose just said and then as Rose is kept busy in the Tardis he runs out and comes to an abrupt stop. It’s a good subversion of the “doctor will magically solve everything” trope.

I agree we needed a bit more from the Daleks being behind the scenes on earth. We get that from Rose/Bad Wolf’s meddling in history, and the spreading of the message around, but we didn’t really see much about what the Daleks really did throughout history. Which is odd because at one point we hear a human say they died off ages ago - so humans at this point in time know what Daleks are… but we the audience have no clue for the context.

This was a pretty good finale and a nice send off for 9/Eccleston. It wrapped up the various story threads fairly satisfactorily, it managed to be exciting enough, and there were plenty of jokes, meaningful choices, and good direction.

I like the Dalek emperor concept - a sort of napoleon complex megalomanic dalek that fancies itself as a god. The religious language feels very human, which helps to sell the corruption as one thats gone beyond just the basic biology. In a way, these Daleks are less Dalek than the Rose-Dalek we saw earlier in the series. Doctor’s speech here is very good - at the core of hate there lies fear. Fear that you might become the thing you hate, or that you might have to face it, or that you may have to question your hatred. Eternally applicable message for the real world.

When the Daleks are invading the station, as pointed out, they have no need to go and kill the humans on level 0. They do it anyway - maximum cruelty is the point. Later Lynda in her safe bubble (though not as safe as Rose’s) also meets the her cruel fate. The use of the slow-cutter-through-steel trope subverted by a silent extermination is an excellent piece of writing and direction. The idea that they’re not just exterminating individually rather melting entire continents at once is horrifying.

This is really where Rose’s feelings for the doctor turn into something beyond simple friendship. You can see it in the jealous look she has for Lynda-with-a-Y, and her later saying she has nothing left to live for in 2005. The doctor-initiated kiss scene still feels a little too early for the Doctor for it to be romantic, but it is a nice moment all the same, and it works in a breath-of-life metaphor kind of way.

On The Bad Wolf - this is a very nice wrapping up of the storyline as it mirrors well what the Daleks have done. They went through humanity’s history and changed it to drive the outcome they wanted, which is exactly the same as what Bad Wolf did. It also sets up a character that gets to appear later on (and maybe a second time, depending on what the most recently finale meant).

Both the mid-episode goodbye and the final farewell are really very well done. Holo-doctor turning to face Rose is a nice touch. It could be programmed in, or her might just have known exactly how she’d react when recording it. 9’s sorrow at not being able to follow on with Rose is a good lead in to her and 10’s much closer relationship. 10’s regeneration is nice, his spiky hair popping in was a nice touch, and Tennant looks so young here.

Nit pick: As much as I like the concept of the Dalek Emperor, its design is silly. It’s totally impractical. Not a nit-pick for this ep, rather for the state of current TV: I remember when it was only ever at most a couple of months hiatus between a season and holiday specials. Not years-and-maybe-never.

Final remarks for 9s run: It was a good revival, as revivals go, and it definitely got the momentum going even if it had a couple of off moments. It is a pity that 9 never had longer to develop his character.

I think this one is better seen as a black mirror episode starring the doctor than it is a doctor who episode. The overall plot is OK as an introduction to the finale, I’ll need to reserve my thoughts on the two parter as a whole once I rewatch the next episode.

I was never a fan of reality shows, so I didn’t really like that part of it first time I watched, nor this time. There is something interesting I noticed here, is that the station could have easily automated everything in a dystopian hellscape, instead the humans are assisting in managing and controlling the shows, which makes it worse (in a good way). I feel like the trope of this kind of televised murderporn used to be a kind of niche in scifi with stories like The Running Man, but more recently you have stories like Squid Game that are reaching into the mainstream, and I have to wonder if that’s a sign of things to come. It hits harder with the news coming out this past week of the french streamer dying live while being tortured by his captors, and apparently no-one lifting a finger to stop it.

The story also uses the “your whole civilisation depends on the abuse of a child” plot point. That’s a good litmus test for when things have really gone off the rails - are you willing to sacrifice innocents for the status quo. My only small gripe there is it’s only been 100 years, things must have gotten pretty bad for a society to change that much on so little time. Given it’s the future, the before times are probably within living memory for a lot of people. This is sort of acknowledged with an offhand remark about big brother housemates that went on strike some time ago.

On news, the doctor having to face the consequences for his meddling is a good plot point. So often the doctor jumps in, changes time, and then leaves without ever looking back. Here he is forced to confront the fact that, when he shuts down the news, no-one “does the right thing” as he would have done, nobody steps up to take charge and make things right, no-one comes together. Instead he makes a power vacuum that leaves things worse than when he started. This plot point is undermined by the fact that the Daleks would never allow this to happen anyway, it otherwise would have been a great idea to explore. It’s important especially now in the Fake News era, and at a time when younger people show an increase in distrust of democracy. Might be worth revisiting.

One thing the episode does very well is setting the stakes for what is happening. It starts off presenting things as incredibly bland, but then Rose gets thrown into the deep end very quickly with blood on her hands. Then the Doctor is shown acting incredibly nonchalantly when we the audience know what’s about to happen, and that makes the big brother death more impactful. For once they didn’t play any background score and just kept it silent, which really helps a lot. On top of this we get foreshadowing of Lynda with a Y joining the doctor, and he is incredibly taken with her, so when Rose gets killed at the end of the very tense quiz head to head you do wonder for a moment if she was killed off for good (or you would if you weren’t rewatching). The only thing that doesn’t really fit is Jack’s story. I never really got the sense that he was in any danger, and the handling of his episode is a bit disjointed from the rest of the episode. The whole “Nude barrowman” thing hasn’t aged especially well.

The handling of the bad wolf meme and the eventual reveal that the Daleks have been behind everything is great. As a kind watching this, even though it lacks any subtlety, I loved it. The episode would have been better without the satellite 5 “last time” recap the and the 100 years later title card, this was too hand-holdy, and the implication is that the Daleks have been pushing things for a lot longer than just 100 years anyway. That does make the, what I felt was unsatisfying, blob monster from the previous Sattelite 5 episode a bit better.

The doctors final line “I don’t have a plan and doesn’t that scare you” is great. No amount of planning will help you go up against a lone wolf.

Random notes:

• In The Weakest Link, Ann Robinson is basically just playing herself, robot not required.
• I now have those 2 or 3 bars from the big brother music now stuck in my head, they’re going to be there a while.
• I’d seen Nisha Nayar in a few other BBC shows, forgot she was in this one. I looked her up on IMDB, and in addition to Tracy Beaker that I remember her from, turns out her first role was one of the kids in the doctor who serial “Paradise Towers”. Neat.
• In the time between Cardiff and Now, the tardis crew went off to 14th century kyoto. I want to see that episode.
• From a quiz question, Cardiff has a massive pyramid built in it’s centre. We also get a torchwood namedrop here.
• I don’t like the fluorescent blue bloom effect in the control room - it’s very early 2000s, of this era, and is reminiscent of bad graphics in video games of the time.
• The economy of this time is said to be in ruins, which makes one wonder why the weakest link contestants were playing for money when no-one else was, and why the control room folk were doing what seems to be a paid job. It feels a tad inconsistent.

Jack is definitely much better in this episode. His banter is much less in your face, and having Mickey call him out on it is a nice bit of self referential humour.

I’ve never been to Cardiff. I looked up the filming location as it’s one that seems to get reused a lot, it’s called “Roald Dahl Plass”, which incidentally is a great author to recognise, and as a filming location it is very striking.

I enjoyed this episode. Seeing a return of a villain that makes them better than they were originally is rare. The central theme of this episode is how to do right by people - whether that’s treating your friends right or your enemies.

I am glad that Rose finally had to confront Mickey. It is hard to blame her for wanting a more exciting life, but just running off leaving her boyfriend in the lurch is terrible behaviour. But on this the Doctor (and Jack) haven’t been great supports. At the very end, when Rose clearly needs to talk to someone, they both just completely ignore her. They are all getting along quite well at the start of the episode, so it is rather jarring to end like that.

Being forced to confront justice is a really interesting dilemma. It is pretty clear that Blon has not and will not change, and that she’s manipulative, and a killer. But the raxacori…, the Rs, are not much better, engaging in public torture shows and collective punishment of whole family groups. Ultimately I feel like the resolution could have been better - the doctor and co doesn’t end up having to make a choice as Blon and the Tardis make it for them. The idea seems to be that by reverting to an egg and growing up in a happier family, Blon will live a better life… but If you’ve had your whole life reversed and live a different one, I’m not sure that’s all that much better than a slightly expedited death penalty.

Annette Badland does some really good performance here, especially in the restaurant. Which is nice because it offsets the somewhat Scooby-Doo-esque “And I would have gotten away for it if it weren’t for you pesky kids” at the start and the gloating double cross at the end. I did like that they managed to direct it such that the slightly dead-eyed slitheen costume actually show some sad emotion.

Other notes:

• The doctor is wearing a blinking bike rear light for a headlamp, did they run out of props?
• The jokes about Margaret as Mayor feel like they could have come out of a Thick of it or yes minister episode. I wonder if there was any inspiration there.
• The punchline of jack’s story is “I knew we should have turned left” - I wonder what RTD was thinking there
• I know this is set in the early 2000s but even then there was no way that a politician running for mayor would get a whole 6 months without a single press photo
• “A skip on the isle of dogs” - this is a suburb of east london, apparently, nothing to do with the excellent Wes Anderson film set in a scrapheap which came much later
• I liked the music in this one, especially the way it was used in the Bad Wolf joke, but there were some points in this episode where I could barely hear the dialogue because of the music and sfx
• That’s the same restaurant as ep 1, and I’m fairly sure they reused some of the downing street set.
• The “next time” trailer really doesn’t leave anything to the imagination

My thinking was he was almost dead. What’s a kid’s last words going to be if he’s almost dead? “I want my mummy”. If that was the last thing coursing through his neurons, the nanogenes would pick that up and might think it “normal”.

The banana gag was great, and I think it starts to signal the doctors ongoing hatred of guns. He was quite quick to grab one at the end of Dalek, but now he’s more critical of them.

As for the cliffhanger resolution, I would struggle to answer if you asked me to name one episode where a cliffhanger was resolved well.

This is a really good episode and pairs nicely with the previous one.

It’s got really nice character work - Nancy being street smart enough to turn tables on the home owner, and a touching twist of her being a single teen mother (and everything else that implies). Jack is a lot more tolerable on this one now he’s stopped his fake persona, even if the sonic pissing match is a bit much for me.

The direction in this one is really nice - multiple times there is a sequence where the characters are chatting away and not realising something critical has happened around them. For that I absolutely love the scenes in the doctors room, with the typewriter, and the teleport during the dance.

The explanation of how the child is able to control radios and all the hints leading to the final answer to the puzzle of what’s happening are well written. It’s a story straight out of black mirror with an all powerful AI gone wrong - a story still very of our times. My only gripe there is his on earth does the child remote control the typewriter, but given how well that scene was done I don’t mind it.

The set design of the bomb site is great and really gets the vibe of a hastily erected military encampment. Music wise I again feel that it was a bit much, especially when it interrupts the sweet but creepy lullaby.

Random other remarks :

• why on earth was Jack riding the bomb? It’s so ridiculous but it works for his character
• the doctor says he’s done a software patch and will email the upgrade - even in 2005 those words in that order are a bit dated
• doctors final words to doctor Constantine made me wonder if this was meant to be a real historical person, but I did a quick search and apparently that’s not the case. Maybe a missed opportunity there?

You know what? Do it. I want one of these guys to actually built one of these mega data centres. If we’re going to ruin the environment anyway, we might as well encourage the billionaires to bankrupt themselves at the same time.