It’s interesting to see that there’s a new Doctor Who spinoff when we don’t exactly know what the future holds for the show itself. The War Between the Land and the Sea focuses on the Sea Devils, but with the Doctor missing, the responsibility of saving the world falls on the very trembling shoulders of an ordinary man named Barclay Pierre-Dupont. The show is focused on UNIT, the unified intelligence task force, and it almost feels like an answer to Torchwood for the 2020s. The series introduces us to the Homo Aqua species, ready to fight back for what is rightfully theirs: the ocean and everything within it. In typical Doctor Who fashion, the show sees Barclay of “gen pop” trying to be rebellious for the sake of human society. With that said, though, let’s jump into the events of the first two episodes.
Spoiler Alert
Why Is The Homo Aqua Species Angry?
Episode 1 of The War Between the Land and the Sea opens with a fishing boat and a stray water bottle in the ocean. Out of the blue, when the net comes up, everyone on board hears a shocking screech from within. Of course, this immediately instills a fear in them, so they kill the creature in an instant. Deep in his slumber, a man named Barclay in admin is suddenly awakened. He wakes up his 16-year-old daughter, Kirby, and goes straight to the assigned car waiting to pick him up. It’s a woman in uniform, and Kirby’s immediate question is why he’s being accompanied by the military. Barclay’s got to quickly get Kirby dropped off at her mother’s (they’re split) so that he can go straight to whatever secret mission this is. He’s replaced a guy, and that’s a big part of his character—the fact that he’s not actually meant to be on this mission. He’s only there because Roger didn’t make it. However, very soon, General Austin Piecer offers him relief by telling him that when it comes to situations like the one they’re going to be in soon, there is always a need for a civilian to play witness.
The dude gets to go on a private flight to a remote island that most people have probably never heard of. They’re decontaminated, and as they enter a secure facility, what lies before them is completely shocking to the layman like you and me and Barclay. A dead aqua man—i.e., Homo Aqua—is strung up for them to see. What’s revealed is that they’ve always got a pearl lodged in their throat, a very recognizable trait of the species. But somehow, after everyone leaves, the one person who pays his respects to the dead is Barclay.
The next thing you know, while everyone is asleep, the body is taken back by the creatures of the sea, but two humans are also killed simultaneously, being drowned in a slush-like water thing that they can’t even understand before someone can come rescue them. After making small talk (Barclay even mentioning how he’s met the Doctor before), the gang is met with the people of the ocean. The Homo Aqua, communicating through a translation device, let the people know that they’re not going to keep quiet any longer. This is something that’s never been seen before. Anyway, the General tries to persuade the Homo Aqua to agree to peace, but long gone is the time for negotiations. Sure, they won’t kill anybody right now because the revenge has already been done, but they have a message for all of humanity, one that needs diplomacy to handle the situation.
Still, at this moment, nobody seems as worried as they should really be. Barclay goes back to his child and ex-wife, pays his ex-wife 3000 pounds because he’s just been “promoted,” and then leaves for work as if nothing big’s happening. But soon, everything will change forever, and history will be made.
The H2O diplomacy meeting will take place on the banks of the River Thames, and there will be a waterway that’ll help the Homo Aqua, who are amphibious, come to land and make their point. What Barclay (who is suited up and sitting in on this meeting) doesn’t know is that the whole world is watching this one room, and the only thing on his mind is the fact that his daughter and the mother of his child don’t know where he is. Anyway, soon after, a familiar face greets us and establishes UNIT leadership. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, commander-in-chief of UNIT, invites the Homo Aqua to join them in conversation, but to everyone’s surprise, there’s more than one species trying to make contact, and they’re all invited to join the conversation. One of the unknown species just looks like a big fish and gets the name Piscimorpha Grandis, i.e., big fish, and the other gets Homo Amphibian, because not only are they able to stand on land, but one of them is even able to speak human languages. Anyway, the ambassador presents the creatures with a gift, and then the creatures return the favor, only it’s the leader’s eggs, which have been poisoned by human oil spills and pollution.
But despite all of these frightening things, at the end of the first episode, the most shocking thing is that the creatures want to talk to one man, and that is not the ambassador standing in front of them; it is Barclay. The reason? Because Barclay paid his respects to the dead, not knowing he was just going to make history.
Why Are The Homo Aqua Eager for Change?
In typical “Whoniverse” fashion, this story is here to teach us a lesson, and currently, we’re talking about a climate crisis as well as the question, “Who does water really belong to?” In episode 2, Barclay gets interrogated, and his entire background is studied by all of UNIT. But for the moment, the press doesn’t know who he is, and everyone is simply talking about a civilian getting picked by the creatures to be humanity’s ambassador. Soon after, Kate talks to Barclay and tells him that she can work with him, but she needs him to cooperate. He agrees, of course, because he finally feels like he’s doing something huge. Kate invites the leader creature to a secret meeting, which she obviously doesn’t like, but this is when she introduces herself to Barclay as “Salt.” It appears Salt and Barclay have made an emotional connection, something diplomacy can’t understand for obvious reasons.
In the middle of all this, there’s a businessman who wants to find out about the cells in the eggs of the amphibian and also convince the PM not to listen to Kate of UNIT. All he and a couple of other people care about is the economic state of the world. Funny when they won’t have anywhere to live soon, but okay. A French diplomat then releases Barclay’s information to the press. But it doesn’t matter; they stick to the plan, and Barclay just has to read off teleprompters. Salt requests a glass of water from the river and shockingly asks Barclay to drink it. He refuses because it’s contaminated and then admits that humans have ruined everything, going off on his own tangents and not following the prompter. He becomes really brave, but it works for Salt, because it seems like genuine passion rather than just a speech read off a prompter. Now, the interesting thing is that all 3 species are able to feel what Salt feels, and she speaks for all of them, but she’s also connected to all of them; it isn’t like she needs to talk to them to figure out what they want. It’s like they’ve got a hive mind, and it’s possible the connection is the pearl at the base of their throat.
The next day, the human race tells the Homo Aqua that they will guarantee a 50% reduction in pollution by 2065, 40 years into the future. The argument? They’ve waited millions of years underneath the ocean; what’s a mere 40 years? Salt doesn’t like the sound of this at all, and she (we’re still guessing gender, but for the sake of this article) reminds them how many people are dying and how their species as a whole is dying from human plastic.
The only thing Barclay has to say is that we’re sorry, but Salt says she believes he’s sorry specifically, but does this apply to all of humanity, too? Do they really care and wish that they could right their wrongs? Barclay’s answer is simply yes, of course, they want to fix it, but what he doesn’t realize is that this means Salt is going to signal her species to dump all the waste in the sea back onto land, now falling from the sky like the food from “Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.” Now, Barclay’s own family is out in a car at this moment, but fortunately, they make it to the building he is in unharmed.
At the end of The War Between The Land And The Sea episode 2, Barclay goes off script again and tells Salt this was a mistake, because when humanity is afraid, it does stupid things out of fear. She wonders if he’s threatening her, and he immediately retreats. Finally, Salt pronounces 3 conditions to stop any more damage from happening. First, all pollution of oceans and waterways stops immediately. Second, all the water belongs to Homo Aqua. This means no more water transport for any reason. This gets all of the diplomats agitated, and people start speaking up one by one. To quiet things down, Salt takes on a masculine form, which somehow shuts everyone up for real. The final condition is that the humans meet the Homo Aqua in the deepest part of the ocean. Meeting them in the middle, in their world. Salt asks Barclay directly if he’ll meet them at the bottom of the ocean, and he simply replies, “ok.” Well, exciting times lie ahead of us (viewers, not humanity necessarily, oop).
