Doctor Who has returned, for its second season, with Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, alongside new companion Belinda (Varada Sethu). And this current season isn’t the only time you’ll be able to see UNIT and some familiar faces, including Jemma Redgrave as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. She and other characters Who fans know will be showing up in the new spinoff, The War Between the Land and the Sea. So could there be a crossover in the future? Doctor Who showrunner and the spinoff’s creator Russell T Davies says there are none planned for the moment.
While Kate, Colonel Ibrahim (Alexander Devrient), and Shirley (Ruth Madeley) will appear on the new show, which stars two other familiar Doctor Who actors, Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, playing different characters, “it’s a brand-new story,” Davies tells TV Insider.
“Some people think it’s like a UNIT spinoff with UNIT investigating cases of the week. It’s not that. It happens to involve UNIT because it takes place on a worldwide scale, but it’s very much its own story and led by Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, which, what a joy to work with them,” he continues. “Talk about actors you want to work with and push and embrace and celebrate. They are fantastic in it, and they’re so good. I can’t wait for you to see that. It’s lovely.”
When it comes to crossing over in the future — for example, we saw the Torchwood cast on Doctor Who in its fourth season in 2008 for the two part “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End” — Davies is cautious.
“We’ll see how it goes, to be honest,” he says. “If there’s a demand for that kind of thing, then yes. At the moment, that’s not the plan. I think you have to beware of overcomplicating these worlds sometimes. And bear in mind, it’s still quite a new program for a lot of territories, for Disney+ and for if you’re 8 years old in Great Britain. It’s still a new show with a new Doctor. So I’m being slightly cautious about that. But let’s see where it goes.”
We would expect, of course, any crossover for the Doctor to remark about how Tovey and Mbatha-Raw’s characters look like people he’s crossed paths with in the past, but that would be nothing new for Doctor Who.
Disney Branded Television and the BBC announced the War Between the Land and the Sea spinoff at San Diego Comic-Con in 2024. The logline teases, “When a fearsome and ancient species emerges from the ocean, dramatically revealing themselves to humanity, an international crisis is triggered. With the entire population at risk, UNIT steps into action as the land and sea wage war.” It brings back a classic Doctor Who villain, the Sea Devils, first seen in 1972 and most recently part of Doctor Who‘s 2022 specials.
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Doctor Who, Saturdays, 3a/2c, Disney+
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