Those expecting The Doctor to appear in new Doctor Who spinoff The War Between the Land and the Sea will be left disappointed. Not only does the Time Lord fail to show up, they’re only granted a couple of mentions throughout the entire series. In general, The War Between the Land and the Sea steers the franchise away from aliens and time travel and toward grounded political drama territory, albeit political drama territory with fish people.

The Doctor’s absence benefits The War Between the Land and the Sea, allowing it to exist as a show in its own right, and shining a spotlight on strong characters like Barclay, Salt, and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. But explaining why The Doctor doesn’t appear in canon terms is another matter altogether, and even though plenty of excuses are on the table, only one actually makes sense.

Doctor Who’s Previous Excuse For The Doctor Going Missing No Longer Works

It’s not like Doctor Who hasn’t run into this issue before. Past spinoffs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures revolved wholly around the idea of “who protects Earth when The Doctor isn’t around.” Back then, the reason for The Doctor being a no-show was relatively straightforward – they couldn’t be everywhere all of the time. While The Doctor was off rescuing bees on Raxacoricofallapatorius, Torchwood or Sarah Jane Smith had to protect Earth.

It was a clean and efficient explanation to get The Doctor out of the way. Unfortunately, The War Between the Land and the Sea can’t use it.

Even if we ignore Billie Piper’s incarnation of the Doctor, Doctor Who‘s 60th anniversary ended with the Fourteenth Doctor taking up permanent residence on Earth after bi-generating. Even better, this Doctor was able to keep his TARDIS, which somehow performed a bi-generation of its own.

There’s a version of The Doctor stationed on Earth with his TARDIS ready to respond to any threats. One could argue that Fourteen didn’t show up against Sutekh because he got dusted, and didn’t fight the Rani because he got caught up in Wish World. But when plastic begins raining down upon the Earth and Homo aqua makes aggressive moves onto land, Fourteen would surely have no choice but to respond.

This is the corner Doctor Who has written itself into with the Fourteenth Doctor’s ending, and it means the franchise can no longer wheel out its “The Doctor wasn’t around” excuse whenever someone else saves the Earth. The Doctor is always around now.

The War Between The Land And The Sea’s Excuse Doesn’t Work Either

The War Between the Land and the Sea makes its own argument for why The Doctor doesn’t bother helping out with Homo aqua. The spinoff claims that the Time Lord’s role is to protect Earth, not guide it.

That may be true for the most part, but it’s worth remembering that The Doctor has acted as a mediator between humanity and either Homo aqua or its cousin, the Silurians, at various points across Doctor Who history. Either negotiating directly or guiding human representatives, The Doctor has never shied away from helping Earth’s native species make peace.

Even during the Twelfth Doctor’s era, we saw the time traveler attempt to broker a truce between humans and Zygons, so there’s no reason The Doctor wouldn’t at least show an interest in the arrival of Homo aqua during The War Between the Land and the Sea. It’s not like UNIT wouldn’t have been grateful for The Doctor’s assistance.

The Only Logical Reason The Doctor Doesn’t Help Out With Homo Aqua

It’s inconceivable that at least one Doctor – Fourteenth, Sixteenth, any of them – wouldn’t notice the Homo aqua situation developing on Earth. Having witnessed this collision of land and sea, The Doctor must have then made a conscious decision to not involve themselves.

The War Between the Land and the Sea wants viewers to believe this decision was made because Earth needs to stand on its own two feet without Time Lord interference, etc. Instead, it would make more sense that The Doctor doubts their ability to make a meaningful difference.

As mentioned above, various iterations of The Doctor have mediated on humanity’s behalf with both the Silurians and the Sea Devils, but on no occasion has this mediation actually had a positive net result. The Third Doctor’s encounter with the Silurians ended with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart committing genocide. The Fifth Doctor’s interactions with the Silurians and Sea Devils also ended in mass slaughter.

The Eleventh Doctor could claim to have enjoyed greater success, but humanity has nevertheless continued to pollute its planet in the years since.

Doctor Who‘s only real explanation for The Doctor’s absence in The War Between the Land and the Sea, therefore, is that the Time Lord genuinely believes they cannot help – that inserting themselves into the situation will either result in more violence, or, at best, have no impact whatsoever. Put another way, The Doctor is so exasperated with humans and Silurians/Homo aqua bickering, they’ve given up trying to help us.

Release Date

May 11, 2024

Network

BBC One

Directors

Alex Pillai, Peter Hoar, Ben Chessell, Julie Anne Robinson, Jamie Donoughue, Amanda Brotchie, Dylan Holmes Williams

Writers

Steven Moffat, Pete McTighe, Kate Herron, Inua Ellams, Juno Dawson

Franchise(s)

Doctor Who / Whoniverse