People have been saying for years that Doctor Who is dead and yet right now there's just been a show that has not only been a hit with both critics and Doctor Who fans alike but has also been a ratings hit. With this show proving that if you give us good quality content then we will come back and watch the next show with this show even going as far as to prove that people really do still watch television as well and will be willing to watch it if you give them something good to watch and that is something that the past two series of Doctor Who had failed to do and heck this show has been doing really better then the last two series of Doctor Who has been doing in the ratings and so then join me as I give you my SPOILER FILLED review of the show that now officially marks the end of the Doctor Who and Disney deal with the show in question being called simply just "The War Between The Land And The Sea" enjoy.
The plot of this show is when an ancient alien race calling themselves Homo Aqua suddenly emerges from the sea the human race must hold peace talks with them to prevent a war something that is not helped by the fact that factions on both sides want the other dead. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty really good with this episodes plot being alot more better then what it really should have been as by all rights a Doctor Who spin off written by modern day Russell T. Davies really shouldn't have worked and yet it oddly did with it feeling like that this show was more of a passion project for him as he did put in alot of his best work into this show and into this shows plot and while the show was co-written and co-produced by Pete McTighe Russell does deserve alot of credit here as both her and Pete helped to make this plot as good as it was as by all rights this is a plot that should have fallen flat on it's face and yet somehow they managed to tell a really tight and contained story all in five episodes and it's something that not only makes you remember why Russell is such a good writer in the first place but it also makes you wonder why he didn't bring this level of skill to the last two series of Doctor Who as while this shows plot could be seen as being quite weak alot of the time as the show doesn't spend that much time on it's main plot but when it does that's when you get some of the best scenes in the whole entire show with the plot of this show being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this show is Russell Tovey as Barclay Pierre-Dupont , Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Salt and Jemma Redgrave as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. Also starring in this show is Colin McFarlane as General Austin Pierce , Alexander Devrient as Colonel Christofer Ibrahim , Ruth Madeley as Shirley Anne Bingham , Adrian Lukis as Sir Jonathan Hynes , Vincent Franklin as Harry Shaw , Steward Alexander as General Oscar Gunsberg , Barbara Probst as General Dominique Dussolier , Patrick Baladi as Sir Keith Spears , Francesca Corney as Sergeant Hana Chakri , Ann Akinjirin as Barbara Pierre-Dupont , Cat Gannon as Kirby Pierre-Dupont , Samuel Oatley as Tide , Mei Mac as Min Tso , Waleed Hammad as Colonel Tariq Hashim , Hannah Donaldson as Captain Louise Mackie , William Gaminara as Ted Campbell and Lachele Carl as Trinity Wells.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty really good. With this show getting alot of praise for it's acting and rightfully so as my god is the acting in this show top notch as everybody is just on top form in this show so much so that even if your not that big in to science fiction the show is still worth watching just for the acting alone with all of this shows actors really bringing there A game to this show which is something that does make alot of sense for the actors that are reprising their roles either from Doctor Who or Torchwood as they would have played there characters before but even this shows new actors really do nail there characters down perfectly and turn in some really good performances as a result of that with the shows best actor also being the one that's been getting alot of praise for their acting in this show that being Jemma Redgrave as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart as she is just so good to watch in this show with her character getting put through alot in this show and it is something that does come across in the acting as Jenna does make Kate a really believable character something which Russell Tovey does also manage to pull off quite well as well with the acting that's in this show really being helped by the fact that this shows scripts are just so good that all the actors in this show have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very show.
Doing the CGI for this show is the legends and really the greats that are currently over at Millennium FX. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty really good with this being something that both is and at the same time isn't all that surprising either as while the main show has in recent years had some really good effects in it thanks to the Disney money there was still no way of knowing on if that would translate to this show having some good looking effects in it and yet at the same time it's not all that surprising either as Millennium FX have done some top notch work for Doctor Who in the past and therefor it would have been very wise to expect more of the same here in this show which was exactly what we got as while this show isn't as effects heavy as Doctor Who is what effects we got in this show looked really good with alot of that coming down to the fact that there was a huge effects budget for this show thanks to Disney pumping money into Doctor Who with there not really being a single bad looking effect in any of the episodes as all of this shows effects do look really good with it being clear as day that there was more of an effort to do things practically wherever possible and because of that it does mean that we get a lot less effects shots in this show with the only real effects used in the show looking really good as the effects team would have had alot more time to make them look as good as they possibly could have done.
SPOILERS START HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One of the big things coming out of this final episode was the fact that according to Comicbook . Com they straight up turned Kate into the villain. As the had an article that is headlined "Doctor Who Just Turned One 30-Year-Old Classic Character Into a Villain (In the Best Possible Way)" which with that headline would make you believe that the character has taken a dive off of the deep end and yet if you watch the final episode you'll know full well that she's only telling the man at the end to pick up his rubbish because of the fact that she's trying to avoid another war something which DOESN'T make her a villain as she's trying to do the responsible thing and has been through alot over the course of these five episodes however she does somewhat act a bit evil at the start of the episode where she straight up blackmails someone into letting her continue working on the case despite the fact that she's still seeing her dead lover Colonel Christofer Ibrahim everywhere which she puts down to her suffering from PTSD but is more then likely due to the fact that she hasn't had the time to grieve over him yet as she's not stopped working since he got shot in episode three of this show with the fact that she's willing to stoop to blackmail in this episode being the only thing that she does in this show that could be considered evil and that's it and while it would be nice to see her continue to have this mental breakdown as it would add some depth to the character it is also something that wouldn't really work in Doctor Who and would only really work in these more adult themed spin off shows as then you could really go into what it is that's causing her all of his pain and how she truly feels about loosing Colonel Christofer Ibrahim and how she truly felt about him as well with those things being something that you really can't do in Doctor Who due to the fact that Doctor Who is a show that was created with kids in mind.
In something that could be seen as being both a smart move and a really obvious move the show doesn't have Homo Aqua be the main villains of the show. As rather it's both them and us humans that are meant to be seen as being the true villains of the show as Homo Aqua only start acting out when we kill one of theirs and they start pushing back by threatening us with them even melting the Polar Ice caps as a way to flood the earth so that they may take control of it once again with this being something that could be seen as a being a smart move as a show like this one really doesn't need to have one central villain as due to the fact that it's more of a drama and political thriller then what Doctor Who is there should be this intrigue there that wants you to want to keep on watching the show with both sides actually making some very valid points as to why in their eyes it's the other side that's meant to be seen as the main villain but on the other hand this could be seen as being rather predictable due to the fact that the show does have a heavy environmental message to it which does borderline on being a tad bit preachy and yet at the same time given the race of aliens that we are meant to be dealing with in this show and where these characters have it does make sense for this show to have that kind of a message and while the message does come across as being a bit heavy handed alot of times as they mention the fact that the water is filthy several times an episode when really they only needed to do it once or twice early on in the show and that's it it is something that is more fitting in this show then alot of the forced messaging that's been creeping up more and more in the last two series of Doctor Who as here the message actually plays apart in the shows story and is key to the story of the show whereas in Doctor Who those kind of heavy messages weren't needed.
To be blunt the romance subplot between Barclay and Salt just didn't work as it kind of felt like the makers of the show were trying to replicate what Guillermo Del Toro did with his film The Shape Of Water. Only here due to the fact that this show was only five episodes long they don't really take the time to fully set up the fact that Barclay and Salt do have these deep and strong feelings for each other as it comes across in one episode as them just being friends and nothing more then that and yet by the end of episode four there sleeping together where as if there was a few more episodes to this show then they could have had some extra time devoted to making there relationship feel more real and feel more earned as on paper there relationship should have worked as there basically meant to be like Romeo And Juliet only instead of being in an intense romantic drama there in an intense science fiction drama and while both characters do work really well together so much so that you want to see more of them it's there relationship that really does need fixing with this being something that should have been fixed at the script writing stage due to how vital that there relationship is for the show but for one reason or another the makers of this show instead gave us a scene where Barclay now gets gills for no reason which isn't explained with it only being hinted that that's what accord was meant to be when there should have been more screen time devoted into giving their relationship some development as there scenes together in episode four where some of the more sweetest scenes as they told us alot about both characters and if we had more scenes like that in this show then there relationship would have been really good.
Now then this episode has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly fifty three minuets and forty one seconds. With each episode of the show having a very similar running time to them with the fact that this sow being five episodes long is something that does harm the story as there's more then enough plot to cover at the very least six or seven episodes with this episode having more then enough plot to really cover it's running time but at the same time tho this episode really doesn't use it's running time in one respect as while it doesn't need to fully develop it's plot as that's what the previous four episodes do this episode does feel like it's trying to do a bit to much as it's trying to wrap up the shows storyline whilst also trying to tell it's plot and it just can't do that with this being another reason as to why this show should have had a few more episodes to it and yet the episode still does give the time to alot of it's characters to give them some character development as the Barclay that we meet at the start of the show is vastly different character to the one that we meet at the end of the show as he has gone through and has over come alot of things with the same thing also being true for Kate who went from being this person who also saw the best in humanity due to her exposure to The Doctor to someone who has now gone through this life changing event that she has to learn to navigate with The Doctor there to ground her in someway with the only character that doesn't really go through any kind of character development being Salt herself which it could be argued is the point of the character and is also due to the fact that we don't get to spend alot of time with her outside of these meetings and yet what little time we do spend with her outside of these meetings to offer some insight into who she is as a character as we find out that she's basically afraid of being alone something which the show could have gone into more detail about but it doesn't due to it shorter episode count but i really will admit that this show really does have some really good pacing to it tho.
So now then as this is a drama that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual drama that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual drama that's actually featured / presented to us in this very show was in all honesty really good. With this show really taking full advantage of the fact that it's a more adult show then what Doctor Who is as the characters are now given the chance to talk about things that they can't do in the other show with the fact that there also dealing with what they think is a hostile alien race with the fact that there are even people within the human race all wanting different things being more then ways to create some really good drama something which this show does take as full advantage of as it really could have done with the best drama in the whole show being a small scene between Barclay and his wife as at the start of episode three of this show before he and some others are about to go to the home of Homo Aqua Barclay breaks down infront of his ex-wife and admits that he's scared as if he messes up here then that's it for the human race with him even admitting that he's scared because of the fact that he doesn't know if the machine that's going to lower them down there several thousand miles under the water will hold up and keep them alive and that is something that does remind us that Barclay is this normal ordinary person who has been put into this extraordinary situation as we are so used to seeing two hearted aliens who are confident walk into these very dangerous situations that we forget that these kinds of situations would be seen as being really scary for a normal person with the show itself having alot of really good dramatic moments in it in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
SPOILERS END HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Overall this show is everything that the past two series of Doctor Who should have been as this show puts alot more focus on telling a tight story with characters that you like with this show reminding us of just how good of a writer that Russell T. Davies still is a writer even tho this episode still does fall into the same old trappings that all of his Doctor Who finales fall into in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly an 8.5 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Tardis . Wiki and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very show that I used in this very review being the really great Tardis . Wiki really simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that really are all really from this very show with alot of them being really better quality then what you'd really think of and all of the images are really of course up and really on Tardis . Wiki really are also really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.