Writer Pete McTighe Talks BBC Doctor Who Spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea

A Deeper Dive

Doctor Who spin-off The War Between The Land And The Sea starts tonight and here’s its Writer and Executive Producer Pete McTighe talking about it…

How would you describe The War Between the Land and the Sea?

The War Between is quite different in tone to Doctor Who. It’s a shared universe, but because we have five hours to explore this story, we’re able to tell it very differently. I’m always attracted to longer-form storytelling, to writing propulsive thrillers with big cliffhangers, and of course Doctor Who has been my favourite TV programme since I was a kid, so for me this was the perfect mix.

We’re able to spend a lot more time with the characters and dig a bit deeper – someone like Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), for example, we’ve been seeding little bits of story for her across the last few series of Who and we’re now able to pay those off. And then for new characters like Barclay (Russell Tovey) and Salt (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), the journey that both these characters go on across the series is really quite epic, so it’s great that we have five episodes to tell their story.

How was the process writing the series alongside Russell T Davies?

Oh, it’s been a gift. Russell and I have known each other a long time now, we got to know each other far away from Doctor Who so to end up working with my favourite writer, on my dream show, for him to invite me in, to trust me with something like this, felt like such a privilege. His first episode really set the template for the series, the tone and the characters were so clear, and I just built on that. He had ideas about how the series would progress and for each episode we’d just sit down and chat for a few hours then off I went to write. He’s incredibly generous and trusting and I had so much fun building on the world he’d created. We had a lot of laughs, and found a lot of joy in the process. I hope we get to do it again sometime.

Where did you draw your inspiration from?

Doctor Who has a rich history, and Malcolm Hulke was the writer who first dreamt up the concept of the Sea Devils – a race of creatures who lived on our planet long before us. This show stands as a tribute to him and his idea, really. That initial adventure (1972’s The Sea Devils) inspired me, but the biggest inspiration of course was the state of the world around us. I mean, look at what we’ve done to the oceans and climate across the 20th century. This was a story crying out to be told, and to be told now.

The scale of the series is massive, what was it like to see your vision brought to life in the sets, special effects and costumes?

I have to admit, when I was writing the massive action sequence at the heart of episode 2, I was thinking ‘how the hell are we going to actually shoot this’? But I wrote it anyway. And that happened time and time again – there are BIG set pieces in this show, at least one in every episode, and we managed to achieve them because we had an incredible director, producer and crew who all believed in the show and were absolutely committed to making it work.

It still blows my mind that everything Russell and I wrote has ended up on screen, looking so good. The scale of the sets was incredible – I mean when you see the Empress Hall, it’s hard to believe that wasn’t a real location, let alone where we go in Episode 3. Our production designers Erica McEwan and Julian Luxton worked wonders. The special effects added in post-production just elevate the show to a whole new level, that team led by Seb Barker is incredible. And our fantastic costume designer Rachel Walsh made sure everyone looked amazing – no mean feat when you look at the amount of people in the Empress Hall scenes.