The Doctor Who spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea will not have its own panel at San Diego Comic Con this month.

This could be due to a recent industry trend with fewer studios opting to host large panels in Hall H, the 6,500-seat San Diego Convention Center venue that has traditionally served as a launchpad for major franchise announcements at SDCC.

The five-part spin-off series, written by Russell T Davies and Pete McTighe and directed by Dylan Holmes Williams, was officially announced at the Doctor Who panel at SDCC last year.

The premise of the spin-off covers how UNIT (Unified Intelligence Taskforce) copes when the Doctor isn’t around. The Sea Devils, a fearsome ancient race that have been slumbering beneath the oceans, wake up to see the polluted state of the oceans. Emerging from the sea, they dramatically reveal themselves and commence war on humankind. An international crisis is triggered. With the entire population at risk, UNIT step into action as the land and sea wage war on an epic scale.

The War Between the Land and the Sea “easter eggs” are promised as part of the Doctor Who UNIT Black Archive exhibit in conjunction with SDCC. There will likely be some props from the spin-off in the exhibit, which is inside The Harbor Club in the Gaslamp District of San Diego.

The War Between the Land and the Sea will transmit on BBC iPlayer and BBC One in the UK, and exclusively on Disney+ outside of the UK (where available). While the trailer for the spin-off says “coming soon”, several official sources have said the five-part series will begin transmission later this year.