THE WAR BETWEEN THE LAND AND THE SEA Ep 3 and 4: THE DEEP and THE WITCH OF THE WATERFALL (spoilers for this POS)

 

THE WAR BETWEEN THE LAND AND THE SEA

Ep 3 and 4: THE DEEP and THE WITCH OF THE WATERFALL

 

Spoilers for this crappy POS show.

 

Wow. Okay, it was never going to last, was it? These two episodes are so absolutely awful, I can’t understand what went south so fast, so soon. Ep3 starts off as if it will be a retread of the SEA DEVILS and in a way, it’s a slower paced version that ends in disaster for the sea devils and five of the humans that risk their lives to go to the meeting under the sea in some organic submersible or something? An old guy, we later find out was dying of cancer, brought the sea devils a gift…

 

…it’s a Sersomething or other and not a globe gift at all. It destroys the sea devils and the man and the others but Salt, somehow manages to envelope Barclay and swim to the surface. What about the bends? How was that old stupid man able to smuggle such a weapon. Who was he anyway? We seem to have skipped a whole lot and we have more ambassadors than just Barclay going down. Why?

 

Also awful: we have a room full of business men, the Prime Minister and a military man who seems American but is in control of British military? And a Russian lady. All of them other than the Indian woman are intent on escalating the war and Kate is unable to do a thing to stop it. She’s not slept either so she’s not acting in top form.

 

Playing against all this shit is her unlikely romance with Christopher who in true TORCHWOOD CHILDREN OF EARTH fashion dies to save Kate’s life. Sad. Grim. Nasty.

 

Out of the blue the Institute has hired someone to kill Kate. It seems tied to the military man and the Prime Minister and the business man (who might be American?). The Business Man is shot dead at this door. Did we really need to see his pet cat, now left owner less roaming about? 

 

THEN, as instant as it appeared, the Institute is “shut down” by the Americans so Kate is left okay to roam around alone at night on the streets. She sees a memorial to the dead five AND secret UNIT man Christopher where he died? What? Why are they there too? Why is he?

 

As if that’s not bad enough, a deep fake of Salt declaring that she and her kind killed the “hostages” is believed by everyone. WHY? It’s later revealed a deep fake but the thing is…

 

…Barclay only needed to go on TV to tell his side of the story and what happened to clear Salt and implicate the stupid old man. Leave it to RTD to be illogical and dreadfully grim (shame all those five died, they were kind of nice characters). He does not go on TV. 

 

Worse. A driver of a truck that is taking Salt somewhere (by UNIT? Yes, it would seem so or by the military?) to be sliced and diced, not only talks about it as if he knows what will happen to her (would a driver know for sure?) and just hands the keys over to Barclay. What?

 

Salt claims she loves the sea but then loves not being there too? What? She claims sharks are soulless. RTD is a nutcase, so is his writing partner. Sharks probably aren’t soulless. Salt claims she will be, too.

 

To make matters worse (as if this can’t get any worse), Salt’s people will both punish her and have her alone, she forever will sail the seas alone if she returns. Her people want Kate to hand her over to them. So which is it? They want her to punish her and not kill her or they want her to be ostracized and ex-communicated? They want her so they can then exile her? What?

 

To make things even stupider and more boring, Barclay and Salt’s rapport is forced, the jokes unfunny, and her cries of joy embarrassing…like Xena on speed. Tovey and the actress playing Salt are terrible. Tovey went from great in the first two parts to being totally awful here. His speech is so fast, he’s often hard to understand, mumbling, speed talking, and more. The on the run shit is like the same stuff from the awful Master two parter with Martha and Captain Jack and even worse than those crappy RTD episodes.

 

Barclay and Salt, in another embarrassing POS scene, hold up a young man to get his phone, Salt threatening him. Barclay uses the man’s phone and insists his ex wife call him back from the bathroom as if that will not be tapped. Of course, somehow the military find out (we don’t find out how, did his ex betray him?).

 

Scene after bloody scene of garbage follows. Barclay and Salt fall in love in  some of the most nauseating things I’ve ever seen on TV ever. And includes Gwen’s cry baby antics in TORCHWOOD.

 

Salt escapes but has to go into the ocean to do so, jumping off the bridge after using her sonic scream (why did she wait so long to use that?). Her sonic scream stops UNIT from firing on British military and British military from firing on UNIT troops. Someone seems to betray Kate (a captain or something?). There’s also a Captain Gates and Carmello? And who is the lady that has men pointing guns at Barclay that Kate later tells that Barclay trusts her? No, he does not.

 

The whole thing is a written mess of garbage. This is shit. Almost as bad as the Disney three years.

 

When Salt jumps into the water, Barclay calls over the railing, “You won’t swim alone!”  It makes me want to vomit. What a POS this was, both episodes.

 

Based on this shit, RTD should be fired now and not be allowed to do the Christmas special. It was total shit. This is total shit. All of it.

 

The only thing that might have livened this up was the Myrka attacking that bridge rather than have the sonic scream stop the troops. Again, why didn’t Salt use that at once? It might have had them get away and stop the troops fighting each other.

 

Earlier than that, a male Sea Devil gives Kate ultimatums and tells her they can use water in the air to stop their cities using rust. He also gives her five years to clean up the Earth. This is war? What the hell is going on? He also wants her to give him Salt to punish her and/or let her go swim alone? Huh? Okay, the subtitles and some BITCH named Rebecca Hadley on FB pointed out in a nasty bitchy way that he meant that the name Earth was too dry a name, which makes more sense. Yet, it's badly written anyway. 

 

Really? This is as bad as it gets other than shit like SPACE BABIES, BOOM, LUCKY DAY, EMPIRE OF DEATH, REALITY WAR, DEVIL’S CHORD, STAR BEAST, and THE WELL.

 

Tovey was awful, the script was awful for both episodes, Kate was awful, Tovey gets to cry like a baby, too, like Doctor 15. The logic was awful, things happen for no reason, they come and go, stuff comes out of nowhere and through it all, big business, and our leaders and our military are made to look like evil, plotting, lying villains who use assassins and killing in secret, who defy all morality. It’s just not always that way.

 

This is one of the worst things on TV and thankfully we have SPARTACUS: HOUSE OF ASHUR, mostly PERCY JACKSON, a Disney show that’s just awesome, and HEATED RIVALRY, a gay show that’s just riveting. Add to that ELSBETH and GHOSTS (the US version) and the agony of this garbage DOCTOR WHO spinoff might go away.

Even the title of ep4 is wrong: she never gets to be the witch of the sea and btw, with the world in deep trouble, their idea is to run away and hide and live in North Wales in a lake and near and in waterfalls? WTF? Instead of say, telling the truth?