The Doctor Who spin-off, The War Between the Land and the Sea, has come to a dramatic conclusion that falls short in one major aspect.
The highly-praised five-part limited series, based on UNIT, follows the confrontation between humanity and aquakind when they reemerge from the depths of the ocean to reclaim the planet.
We’re introduced to Homo Aqua representative, Salt (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who chooses everyman Barclay (Russell Tovey), whose day job is ordering taxis, to be the global spokesperson.
The show kicked off to a strong start, offering a larger-than-life portrayal of the harms of global warming and ocean pollution, such as the Plastic Apocalypse of episode two and the tense moment when Salt attempts to make Barlcay drink murky Thames Water.
Early on, Salt stands out as a forthright and headstrong character who stands on her principles, effortlessly navigates fraught conversations and powerfully imparts the will of her people.
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By the third episode, she has forced humanity to clear up global pollution on an accelerated timeline and convinced Barclay and a group of delegates to travel to the deepest part of the ocean for their next meeting.
This, however, is where it started to fall apart. After their deep-sea negotiations are literally blown up, she chooses to save Barclay’s life and is immediately exiled by Aquakind for her actions.
As soon as she falls out of leadership and into love with Barclay, I can’t help but note that a lot of her will, grit and determination seems to fly out the window in favour of flirting with her new lover.
Perhaps if there had been more episodes, the show could have balanced both aspects of Salt’s character with more nuance, but this was not the case.
By the time we enter the finale, she has accepted her fate as an outcast without even trying to put up a fight and reclaim her authority and is left waiting on Barclay to find her again.
In fact, the only time she shows that spark of power in the finale is towards the end when Barclay attempts to run away with her once more, and she encourages him to return to UNIT and try to end the war.
Before swimming away once more.
It felt like a bizarre decision to have her so stripped of agency when they had spent the first half of the show building her up as a master negotiator with sharp intelligence and steadfast resolve.
As sweet as the romance storyline is, I would much rather have watched Barclay and Salt working together to tackle the injustices of humanity for three more episodes than segueing into this sped-up love story.
The twisting and turning negotiations were a far more engaging and plot-rich storyline than the sudden romance that simply didn’t have enough build-up to entirely pull it off.
And, more importantly, sacrificed well-earned character depth to develop.
In the end, the antagonists are successful and manage to murder the vast majority of Aquakind in a disturbing portrayal of genocide, and we see Salt’s spirit utterly broken as she emerges from the water once more.
The righteous anger that had fuelled her in earlier episodes was swapped out for subdued fury, and the remaining seafolk agree to the human demands.
A devastating and lacklustre ending for what was built up as a mighty and vastly intelligent race.
In the final scenes, Barclay is transformed into an amphibian through a process known as an accord, and we see the two lovers reunited in the water once more.
Despite the two of them getting their happy ending, I couldn’t help but feel unsatisfied with how the show started with a globally-reaching storyline impacting everyone on Earth and ended so zoomed in on just two of them.
Still, there were powerful moments peppered throughout the series, including the finale.
We see the anguish of Aquakind as their brethren are mass-murdered, Tovey delivers a standout performance as a heartbroken Barclay, and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart’s bubbling rage reaches a shocking climax.
And I wasn’t completely against the romance. It showed moxy for the two of them to choose each other despite everything set against them. It just wasn’t the most compelling direction the show could have gone.
If Salt’s characterisation and the grand scale of the crisis had remained strong throughout, this could have been a near-perfect series.
The War Between the Land and the Sea is available to stream in full on BBC iPlayer.
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