{"id":800395,"date":"2026-10-12T17:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T17:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/800395\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T17:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T17:44:12","slug":"doctor-whos-former-showrunner-details-scrapped-seasons-of-spin-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/800395\/","title":{"rendered":"Doctor Who’s former showrunner details scrapped seasons of spin-off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies has revealed that he planned for spin-off show The War Between the Land and the Sea<\/a> to become a returning series.<\/p>\n

The War Between the Land and the Sea aired in 2025, focused on the work of UNIT, aka the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, and tracked the story of an ancient oceanic species that sparked an international crisis as it made itself known to the human race.<\/p>\n

While it received favourable reviews from critics \u2013 with RadioTimes rating it 4\/5 stars<\/a> and aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes giving an overall 86% rating \u2013 it prompted a more mixed response from fans.<\/p>\n

Davies, who was showrunner of the Whoniverse from 2005 to 2010 before returning in 2023, announced his exit earlier this year<\/a>, alongside the announcement that Doctor Who had been put out to tender. <\/p>\n

A deal between the BBC and Disney<\/a> also came to an end, with currently no announced plans for The War Between… to return. <\/p>\n

\"Gugu<\/p>\n

Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Salt in The War Between the Land and the Sea\u00a0BBC Studios\/Bad Wolf\/James Pardon<\/p>\n

However, in his new book The Queerest of Folk: A Life in Television<\/a>, Davies revealed there were plans for The War Between to become a “recurring format”, exploring other elements of humanity and UNIT\u2019s efforts to protect it from alien and supernatural attacks. <\/p>\n

He wrote: “If the Disney deal had been successful, we would have done a different story every year \u2013 we had such good ideas, like The War Between the Earth and the Moon, The War Between the Men and the Women, and my favourite, The War Between the Cleverer than Not, which is frankly the story of our society now.”<\/p>\n

Davies noted that “the steam\u2019s going out of the concept”, which he considered “a shame”, especially as the planned follow-up, The War Between the Earth and the Moon \u2013 which would also have starred Jemma Redgrave as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart<\/a> \u2013 was already deep in development. <\/p>\n

\"Russell<\/p>\n

Russell T Davies photographed at a SXSW London event\u00a0Jordan Peck \/ Getty Images for SXSW London<\/p>\n

“It was brilliantly contentious,” he wrote. “A mad, tyrannical American president, at the end of his days, about to face impeachment and prison, visits the unit Moonbase and starts a revolution, his private army commandeering the place as his own. <\/p>\n

“He declares independence, and the base has nuclear weapons aimed at the Earth. So, who’s in charge now?<\/p>\n

“At the same time, some weird, creepy, wailing, unearthly essence is being dug up on a nearby crater.”<\/p>\n

In terms of what’s confirmed to be coming up in the Whoniverse, it was recently announced that a Christmas special audio adventure from Big Finish<\/a> will feature Ninth Doctor star Christopher Eccleston and Susan icon Carole Ann Ford.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a CBeebies spin-off called Doctor Who: TARDIS Crew has unveiled a first look at the new animated Time Lord<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Queerest of Folk: A Life in Television by Russell T Davies is available to buy now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Doctor Who is available to stream on BBC iPlayer. Dive into our Doctor Who story guide<\/a>: reviews of every episode since 1963, plus cast & crew listings, production trivia, and exclusive material from the Radio Times archive.<\/p>\n

Add Doctor Who to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app<\/a> \u2013 download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more.<\/p>\n

Check out more of our Sci-fi<\/a> coverage or visit our TV Guide<\/a> and Streaming Guide<\/a> to find out what’s on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies has revealed that he planned for spin-off show The War Between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":800396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-800395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}