XPost: rec.arts.drwho   
   From: blueshirt@indigo.news   
      
   "The War Between the Land and the Sea" was obviously going to be   
   a political allegory with plenty of propagandisations… so all in   
   all, it was fairly predictable how this mini-series would play   
   out once we knew the people writing it and its premise. There   
   was nothing in the five episodes that caused me any surprises...   
   One thing that was missing though was an actual WAR!   
      
   The Message: Humans are destroying the planet - TICK   
      
   Sea Devils are not Devils: They are cute fish-reptiles with   
   feelings - TICK   
      
   Human-Sea Devil relationship: TICK   
      
   Unnecessary Soap Opera family members: TICK   
      
   US Military Warmonger: TICK   
      
   Etc...   
      
      
   "The War Between the Land and the Sea" started out interesting,   
   and looked quite good. There was a lot of promise in the first   
   episodes, but there needed to be huge leaps of faith to believe   
   the characterisations and their reasoning in this series, so as   
   the narrative progressed and the plot got thinner, it sunk to   
   the bottom fairly fast, like a lead anchor. As this was   
   basically the 'Barclay & Salt Show' everything else was pretty   
   much just your stereotypical political types, military   
   warmongers, corrupt rich industrialists and UNIT... in an   
   eco-drama by the numbers. Five episodes was overkill for this   
   and the story might have worked a lot better had it been   
   much tighter, say two episodes or a 90 minute TV movie.   
      
   Barclay seemed the most unlikely character to lead negotiations   
   on behalf of the world, and quite frankly, I wasn't convinced by   
   Russell Tovey's performance at all. The first two cliff-hangers   
   were basically Barclay just saying a reluctant yes to an   
   outlandish proposition. Which might have conveyed his unwilling   
   participation but they were lame episode endings for a series   
   that wanted people to come back for more... The only reason   
   Russell Tovey wasn't playing a gay man in this was so that his   
   character could have a sexual relationship with Salt. Other than   
   that, it was perfect RTD tick-boxing; Barclay had a mixed race   
   family and a non-binary child... neither of whom did anything   
   much as it turned out, bar provide the soap opera family drama.   
   In RTD Land, everyone has to have their home life shown to prove   
   their are real characters, even if they are irrelevant to the   
   actual story. If you want to write Coronation Street Russell, go   
   write it! Barclay's family literally had no impact on the story   
   whatsoever. So why waste our time on them?   
      
   Salt started off as the angry fish-lizard whose habitat and   
   off-spring had been destroyed by humans polluting the oceans.   
   However, once she got a taste of life on the surface - and a   
   taste of Barclay - she became totally different. By the final   
   episode, a large percentage of the Sea Devils had been killed   
   off and Salt seemed happy enough to tell the humans that they   
   had won the war... and then after some kissing in the waves swam   
   off with the Homo-Aqua convert Barclay to live happily ever   
   after at the bottom of the deep blue sea.   
      
   Kate Lethbridge-Stewart got a big role in this series, which is   
   great for her, as it's a bigger role than the character   
   deserves. But she didn't add much to the proceedings overall   
   either. She just came across as an unstable depressed woman with   
   hallucinations that needed to blackmail her GP for increased   
   medication to get through the day. Then she threatened to kill   
   some guy on a beach because he dropped a plastic bottle! WTF?   
   Some UNIT hero!   
      
   As for Kate's toyboy soldier getting killed... clearly he was   
   the disposable one out of the UNIT ensemble. Which says a lot   
   about his whole character during the past few years! He was   
   Colonel Nobody. I'd have killed off the wheelie woman too but of   
   course you can't do that sort of thing these days or people   
   would protest about an anti-wheelchair agenda, or something. The   
   funny thing is, in "Doctor Who" Shirley Bingham was the   
   scientific advisor but in this series she's handling diplomatic   
   relations between the humans and fish-lizards... and even then   
   she doesn't really do much. But it's good to show people in   
   wheelchairs, inclusivity and all that, so we'll keep her around   
   for next time... she might even get to roll up that TARDIS ramp   
   one day.   
      
   Whilst UNIT not calling The Doctor in was strange for this   
   mini-series set in the "Doctor Who" universe. So what, the   
   Doctor just sat idly by and watched all that garbage rain down   
   on London and not wonder where it came from? Or saw on the TV   
   news that UNIT were part of the negotiations between mankind and   
   his old foes to stop a war, but just said "put the Kettle on   
   Donna, I'll leave them to it". Nah sorry, that just doesn't work   
   for me.   
      
   RTD claims this was his big idea when he returned to producing   
   Doctor Who, well he can shove his big ideas if they're going to   
   keep turning out to be badly plotted messes like this. He might   
   be good at writing gay dramas, obviously he understands that   
   sort of stuff as it's something he has the feel for, but as a   
   sci-fi/fantasy writer he isn't at the races. This could, and   
   should, have been so much better.   
      
   Overall, for a series that was interesting and had potential, it   
   all got a bit muddled and the end result was something entirely   
   forgettable... I'd give it a 3/10 rating, and one of those   
   points is only because the Sea Devils were not leaping around   
   like Super Mario as they were in their last on-screen outing.   
      
      
   Quote of the series:   
      
   Human: "You ate our dogs!"   
   Sea Devil: "You eat our fish!"   
      
   Yep, that's definitely a BAFTA winning script we've got here!   
      
   Notes:   
      
   Humans are accused of dumping their rubbish and excrement into   
   the sea... which is true, but fish also shit in the sea and   
   nobody blames them for polluting the oceans! I presume the Sea   
   Devils also shit in the sea too, or under it somewhere... or do   
   they secretly come onto land to take a dump?   
      
   Barclay and Salt getting it on was something akin to the Madam   
   Vastra-Jenny situation. As actors are playing the roles it all   
   seems perfectly normal to the viewer that two characters are   
   having a relationship in a drama... but, humans and   
   lizards/reptiles are not supposed to have sexual relations with   
   one another and only deviants would write such stuff. This is   
   blindsiding the audience and making such perverted acts seem   
   normal. Which is pretty much what those type of writers try to   
   do. Normalise deviancy!   
      
   Because of the happy ending for Barclay & Salt, I'm not sure now   
   what actually was the main message of this series. Was it really   
   all about the environment, or was this basically just a   
   human-lizard romance story whilst virtue signalling   
   environmental concerns?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)