Warning: spoilers ahead for Doctor Who season 14, episode 4.
Summary
With a knowing wink,Doctor Whoseason 14 casually references its next spinoff series in “73 Yards.” Thereturn of Russell T Davies asDoctor Who’s showrunnerand the franchise’s migration onto Disney+ has triggered an overarching expansion of the Whoniverse. RTD has repeatedly expressed interest in exploring future spinoffs after previous effortsTorchwood,The Sarah Jane Adventures, andClass, and the first of these offerings came withTales of the TARDISin October 2023.
Alas,Tales of the TARDISwas not aDoctor Whospinoff in the original sense. While original material featuring former Doctors was included to bookend each episode,Tales of the TARDISessentially just reran beloved adventures from the classic series, and that leaves plenty of room for further entries into the Whoniverse afterDoctor Whoseason 14’s finale. Indeed,Doctor Who’s next spinoffis seemingly already in the works, according to reports, and this very project is curiously teased by the Fifteenth Doctor in “73 Yards.”
Season 14, Episode 4 All But Confirms Doctor Who’s Upcoming Spinoff
Did You Spot This Line In Doctor Who Season 14, Episode 4?
Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor is barely inDoctor Whoseason 14’s “73 Yards,” but he spends most of his allotted time waxing lyrical about the Welsh coastline the TARDIS is perched upon. During his sales pitch for Welsh tourism, the Doctor uses the term “the war between the land and the sea” to describe the meeting of water and rock he and Ruby are looking at. In a fascinatingly meta Easter egg,The War Between the Land & the Seais the name of the rumoredDoctor WhoSea Devils spinoff currently in development.
No official source has yet confirmedThe War Between the Land & the Seais actually happening, although the rumors have been widely reported and contain various key details regarding the supposed production. Russell T Davies using the rumored title as a line of dialogue inDoctor Whoseason 14 does, however, strongly imply thatThe War Between the Land & the Seais a genuine spinoff coming to the Whoniverse. Back inDoctor Who Magazine#598, RTD hinted that a project with an eight-word title was brewing behind the scenes, lending the name-drop in “73 Yards” even more significance.
New Doctor Who Spinoff Reports Aren’t Anything Like We Expected (But That’s A Good Thing)
Reports give some indication of what Doctor Who’s next spinoff will be about, but the teased concept is very far from what many would have expected.
What “The War Between The Land & The Sea” Actually Means
How Doctor Who’s Spinoff Title Relates To The Sea Devils
As far asDoctor Whoseason 14’s “73 Yards” episode is concerned, the phrase “the war between the land and the sea” is little more than a poetic way of describing the perpetually crashing waves against the Welsh shore - the water never ceasing in its relentless assault and the land never giving an inch in its staunch defense.Doctor Who’s next spinoffwill, presumably, not center upon the geography of Wales' scenic coastline, and so the phrase takes on a much different meaning in the context of the Sea Devils.
If a group of Sea Devils stirs from slumber and attempts to reclaim Earth from the glorified apes who seized it in their absence, a true war between land and sea would occur.
Introduced during the Third Doctor’s era as part of the wider Silurian race,the Sea Devils were dominant on Earth before humanity had evolved, but went into a self-imposed hibernation to avoid a cataclysmic event that ultimately never transpired. Their technology failed, and the Sea Devils remained dormant deep below the planet’s surface while humans reigned on top. On the few occasions a colony of Sea Devils has woken up inDoctor Who, they have reacted badly to Earth’s new number one species.
The Sea Devils are an aquatic offshoot of the Silurians, and these two races have teamed up against humans previously inDoctor Who.
The proposedDoctor Whospinoff titleThe War Between the Land and the Sea, therefore, hints towards another violent awakening from the Sea Devils. If a group of the creatures stirs from slumber and attempts to reclaim Earth from the glorified apes who seized it in their absence, a true war between land and sea would occur - not the metaphorical sort the Fifteenth Doctor muses over in “73 Yards.” Alternatively, the phrase may suggestDoctor Who’s upcoming spinoff will be about a battle for supremacy in the ancient past between the land-based Silurians and their ocean-dwelling Sea Devil cousins.
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Doctor Who: Released on August 21, 2025, this series follows the Doctor and their companion as they journey across time and space, encountering a range of extraordinary friends and adversaries, expanding the universe of the long-running British science fiction series.
