As fans enjoy the deleted scenes on recent release of the Blu-ray and DVD for the Doctor Who spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea, there is another scene described by writer by Pete McTighe which never made it from script draft to filming.

I will exclusively chronicle what McTighe said about this terrifying scene in the feature interview panel, moderated by Big Finish and Doctor Who Magazine writer Rossa McPhillips, which I attended at the Gallifrey One convention in Los Angeles.

”There was only one big effects sequence that we ended up having to cut which was from the start of Episode 2 [Plastic Apocalypse] which was going to open in this beautiful restaurant on the Italian coast,” McTighe began. “This young, hot couple were arriving in a sports car and then went into this amazing restaurant that had glass view of the sea that was beautiful. They sit down and he was going to propose to her and say he loves her and then suddenly, a squid was going to slap onto the window. And they were like, ‘Sorry, what was that?’ And then another one would spat onto the other window and then another one, another one. And suddenly, there were all these squid attacking this restaurant and the windows exploded!”

Because Plastic Apocalypse featured the consequences of humans dumping waste into the sea in the form of Aquakind pummelling dry land with said waste, the restaurant scene was omitted in favour of the memorable effects of ecological revenge.

”It was going to be this massive effects sequence to open the episode but obviously, because it wasn’t an integral part of the story, it was important to put the money into things like the Plastic Apocalypse that was crucial to the show,” McTighe concluded.

The War Between the Land and the Sea DVD, Blu-ray and Steelbook is available for purchase from outlets in the UK for Region B and all-region players.