Doctor Who: The Reality War

 "So much for the two Ranis. It's goodnight from me."

Obviously, the above line is so brilliant that this episode is a triumph for that reason alone. And yet... against all the odds, although I'm sure subsequent viewings will reveal the odd dangling thread, after last episode seemed to promise a finale full of too many elements and loads of fanwank, we ended up with nothing of the sort. Instead... we get an ending that satisfies emotionally as well as narratively. Plus a cameo by Jodie Whittaker that I never saw coming. 

 So...

We resolve the cliffhanger by bringing back Anita and the Time Hotel, another returning character. Yet, with this being Ncuti Gatwa's swansong, it's good to see her again. And we use the hotel's timey-wimeyness to bring the UNIT gang back together, merging Conrad's awful wishes with reality. The plot threads- May 24th never arriving, the future in which the hotel exists existing only barely-just about work. And so we have... UNIT versus the bone dinosaur thingies which, let's face it, is the coolest thing ever.

And, of course, the Rani confronts everyone. It's a reunion with Mel, the sort of sequel to Time and the Rani that we were all definitely waiting for. And... the Rani wants to bring back Omega, and thus the Time Lords. Oh, and Time Lords have been sterile since the Time Lords were destroyed... that is, the most recent extinction, not the time before that. So Poppy is real... but she's an impossibility. And, to the Rani's Gallifreyan supremacist disgust, half human, like the Doctor is. Or isn't. Let's not dwell on this one.

The dilemma here is a nice one: bring back the real world, and Poppy vanishes. Yes, the story promptly cheats by building a zero room to magic away the paradox but, given what happens later, this doesn't really feel like a cheat. The Doctor confronts the Rani while Ruby (successfully, and psychologically) confronts Conrad. And... there's Omega. A terrifying beast, for sure, but as little like the Omega we remember as, well, Sutekh was last season. And, after gobbling up the newest Rani, he's quickly vanquished. Because, as we'll see, this is an episode where the Big Bad isn't really the point.

At first, Poppy exists. Ruby watches, alongside the audience, as the Doctor and Belinda plan to travel through time and space with her, making sure the TARDIS is toddler proof. Because that's totally what matters, right? In no way will the places they travel to be the real threats to child safety...!

And then... suddenly she never existed. Only Ruby remembers her. Only after much debate does the Doctor realise... and that's when we realise: he's going to regenerate. Sacrificing his life for a child. And... yeah, Ncuti Gatwa was good, but the other side of that is that he was in demand. Doctor Who, especially with this hiatus, was never going to keep him for longer. Which is a shame. We never got Daleks, Cybermen, so much, And two such short seasons...

It's a good send off, though. Nicely done, visually, and surely the most expensive regeneration ever. Nice cameo from Jodie Whittaker, too, doing some nice little characterisation for her in one short scene which knocks everything Chris Chibnall ever wrote into a cocked hat.

The coda with Belinda makes total sense: she always had to get home for Poppy, who is, after all, completely human, with a human father. It all feels as though it fits together, at least on just one viewing, and it satisfies.

But then... what? What? What?

Doctor Who: Wish World

 "This isn't exposition, Doctor."

The opening scene to this episode is decidedly odd, in ways which, I think, are oddly clever. It's Bavaria, 1865. A time and place which is somewhat redolent of fairy tales. And, sure enough, a seventh son is born to the seventh son of a seventh son, which must surely be rather unlikely. And so in swoops Archie  Panjabi's rather wonderful new Rani to steal the baby... and magically turn the rest of the family into violets (evoking Luke being turned into a tree in Mark of the Rani?), ducks and an own respectively.

This is pretty much as fairytale as it gets. Magic, not science, although I suppose there's that famous quote from Arthur C. Clarke. But hasn't there been a lot more of this sort of thing in doctor Who lately, along with the fourth wall breaking? Almost as though reality is not the same as it was. Perhaps since the Doctor and Donna did that thing with the salt in Wild Blue Yonder...?

We then move to a bit of a mini-Doctor Who trope: reality has changed. The Doctor (or "John Smith") and Belinda are a married couple, and Poppy from Space Babies (and as glimpsed in The Story and the Engine) is their Daughter. The likes of Ruby, Mel, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, Colonel Ibrahim and Shirley all exist within this world, which is disturbingly trad and socially conservative, especially with regards to gender roles and sexuality. Given this existence's reactionary bent, it shouldn't be a surprise for us to see Conrad, that cad, on the telly. It'll be May the 24th tomorrow. And there's this constant, Orwellian pressure not to doubt this reality, or one may be disappeared.

Oh, and there are skeletal dinosaurs walking all over the place, because of course there are.

There are some nice touches. Ruby remembers a little more because, with the events of 73 Yards, she has previous. Conrad's storybook, about the story of "Doctor Who" (was that the sound of the fourth wall collapsing again?) is by "I.M. Foreman". And even Susan Triad works at "John's" office... from tech billionaire to tea lady.

And yet there are, in another nice little assault on the fourth wall, little plot holes in this reality which make it really rather hard not to doubt. Things cannot hold. Conrad is exhausted from maintaining his ideal reality. The older Rani is beginning to resent her "mistress". The Rani is at the centre of London, with a plan that does not bode well for the continued existence of the populace. And Shirley, with the other marginalised, disabled, lets Ruby in on their plot against Conrad and... well, as in other episodes, I approve of what's been said in the socio-political commentary here, but would it not be more effective if it were a little more subtle? Subtext over didacticism? Never mind.

Inevitably, the Doctor and Belinda find themselves doubting this implausibly reality and captured... via appearances by both Rogue and Susan: with all that's going on, with there be much time to devote next season to the latter? Or is she for Season Forty-Two?

And so we have them both introduced to the Rani, as memories stir and we get some answers. The Doctor "stirred the gods"... during Wild Blue Yonder? The baby is Desiderium, god of wishes, boosted by the Vindicator and a sprinkling of technobabble. It's May the 24th, the stroke of midnight, and the outside world dissolves (the "Bone Palace", conveniently, is a fixed point). And the revelations come quick as the cliffhanger approaches. The Rani is doing this to find the "One Who Was Lost"... Omega! and one last thing... Poppy actually, genuinely is the Doctor's daughter! And... Susan's mum...?

Hmm. I enjoyed this episode, it entertained me, but will they stick the landing? That's the question. It's all contingent.

(Incidentally, I love how, in a world where we Brits have been pronouncing the word "omega" the American way for decades now, Doctor Who has accidentally preserved the older British pronunciation that's archaic in 2025... fandom aside!)

Doctor Who: The Interstellar Star Contest

 "You came back from the dead!"

"Sums up my career."

SPOILERS, obviously.

I'm not much of a one for light entertainment, so I wasn't sure I'd like this episode as much. I don't mean that as a criticism, mind: there hasn't been a dud this season so far, and Doctor Who bloody well should try and appeal well beyond middle aged geeky blokes like myself. Yet I thought it was brilliant, and not only because of that ending. But that we shall come to.

Despite this being an episode based on Eurovision (complete with not only Rylan Clark and Graham Norton, at last appearing in Doctor Who by actual design) and set in a space station, which is the most RTD thing ever, we have another new writer this week, which is brilliant.

Anyway, the opening is fun, with Belinda rather amusingly insisting that, yes, this time she actually wants to stay for a bit. Of course, given what we later learn, it's unclear how an Earth cultural institution could have become a spiral arm-wide phenomenon nine centuries later, but such things are easily handwaved. After all, there are nice little nuggets for the fans, such as star singer Cora ostensibly being from Trion, home planet of one Vizlor Turlough.

The threat, with the Hellions, is allowed to cleverly unfold, with a brilliant central performance from Freddie Fox as Kid. It's should make us uncomfortable that there will undoubtedly be parallels in our own world to the atrocities perpetrated by the Corporation upon the poor people of Hellia. Yet, while kid turns to mass murder, Cora instead turns to something both more positive and more effective- and there's a message for us all there in our oh so imperfect world. Blind, angry revenge is not the answer.

Mike and Gary are great as down-to-Earth audience identification characters- and I recognised Charlie Condou as Jonathan Yeah? from excellent sitcom Nathan Barley, in a minor little actor spotting triumph. But there's lots of good character stuff for the Doctor and Belinda, each separated and thinking the other dead, Belinda panicking about her situation and and realising she never got to tell the Doctor he was wonderful. This is an absolute acting triumph from Verada Sethu.

And then we have the Doctor going way too far in his attack on Kid, not so much the Time Lord Victorious but the Time Lord Damaged by Trauma. Ncuti Gatwa, too, is incredible here.

But... yeah. Let's talk about the big reveals, shall we? Susan- actually Carole Ann Ford- was a huge shock. She's only in the Doctor's head, but, with the little seeds planted last season, I'm sure she's out there... a Season 42 thing?

And then the Vindicator is finished, the Doctor can finally take Belinda home, but we get some exposition (from Graham Norton, who else?) telling us that Earth ceased to exist on 24th May 2024... and, as the TARDIS heads towards that date, the door blows off.

And that's all. Mrs Flood is indeed the Rani, which was unfortunately spoiled for me by the thumbnails of videos from inconsiderate YouTubers. But... a bi-generation? Archie Penjabi's Rani and Mrs Flood? Yeah, still processing that.

I definitely enjoyed this a lot. It may be a first viewing thing- watching this a second time without the big reveals may possibly be a different experience. But the episode works on its own terms, I think, with a nice subtext.

Doctor Who: The Robot Revolution

 "Apparently I'm the Queen of Outer Space. If you could tell the police..."

Well, that was rather good, I thought. One of the better season openers of recent years, certainly head and shoulders over Space Babies. It's a solid concept, a satisfying plot, a good introduction to new companion Belinda Chandra... and it's actually about something. Even better, while social commentary in Doctor Who can sometimes err on the unsubtle side, this time the balance is nicely judged.

So... yeah, fairly long blog post coming up. I'm in the mood. And it's Doctor Who, always the core of this blog, however much it's grown. 

So we begin seventeen years ago, with teenage Belinda and her boyfriend, with Belinda being given a certificatre naming a star after her, a cheerfully blatant example of Chekhov's gun. It's a cute little scene, with Alan's adorable nervousness about kissing her, so much s that we ignore the fact that Belinda blatantly looks Varada Sethu's actual age. But it's a nice, innocent start... or so it seems.

And then we move to Belinda's life in the present day, as a nurse, with all the overwork and dedication and stress and being lovely that is implied by that. We briefly see that, as well as the fact that she lives in straintened circumstances with housemates. Little does she know that things are about to get worse, and she's going to be desperate to get back to this life.

This is Doctor Who, so naturally a spaceship lands and some mech type robots kidnap her to be "queen" of the planet named after her, which is a hilatriously brilliant Doctor Who idea... and feels very Moffat in an RTD script.

Interesting that she knows Mrs Flood, though: Ruby must be a neighbour too, and they may even know each other too. That's as much of a coincidence as the stuff the Doctor later pontificates about regarding her 51st century descendent. But she really is in a rather entertaining pickle. And it's very admirable indeed how RTD manages to make the exposition itself highly entertaining- at first it seems these people welcome their new robot overlords, but all this stuff about every ninth word is clever and highly entertaining. And yes, if you feel like questioning why words should matter to a machine instead of syllables and, indeed, you feel that this makes no sense... ah, actually that's a clue, and after the reveal at the end it makes perfect sense. Nicely done.

Also nicely done is a little subversion of the trope of aliens that look exactly like humans- with Belinda being a nurse we learn that these people's internal organs are very slightly different from ours. And then there's the timey-wimey stuff, with the two star certificates from different time zones and the Doctor lightly lampshading that the two objects must never, ever touch, or else. Yes, Chekhov has a fair few firearms in this story, but I'm fine with that.

I'm also fine with the Doctor's emotions- Ncuti Gatwa's tears show us just how much the loss of Sasha 55 (his partner?) meant to him. He's such a bloody good actor, best since Capaldi and possibly even Eccleston.

And then... Belinda betrays them all, shock horror. Except she does it in order to sacrifice herself in order to save all these people, whom she's only just met and who haven't, on the whole, been particulartly nice to her. This tells us a fair bit about her- she's brave, selfless, a good person, but not one for just blindly doing what she's told. 

And so we have the reveal... it's not AI, it's Alan, and the "planet of the incels". This is brilliantly done, with Alan's coercive control of Belinda given a much bigger canvas in the shape of an entire planet. It's clever. Mind you, I hate planet-wide robot tyranny as much as anyone, but could we still just send that imbecile Andrew Tate into space anyway? Please?

And then the really clever bit. I'll confess I'm a bit worried aboiut Belinda being "important"- why do companions always have to come complete with a pre-existing mystery these days?- but it's delightful how the Doctor isbeing his usual self with a new companion but Belinda calls him out on his behaviour, including scanning her DNA without permission, as crossing a line into being controlling. This is brilliant, reminding us that all pf us, even the "good guys", need to watch ourselves for this kind of behaviour.

So we have Earth of 2025 repelling the TARDIS, meaning that Belinda who, like Ian and Barbara all those decades ago, just wants to go home, is unable to do so. I like her. She has depth, and doesn't just defer to the Doctor.

So yes, not really sure we need that much mystery, but this episode is an excellent start to the season. Let's keep this level of quality, if we can...

Doctor Who: Empire of Death

 “Is this thing safe?”

“Absolute deathtrap, Melanie B.”

I was going to do a separate blog post for the Tales of the TARDIS thing for Pyramids of Mars but, well, there’s not much to it. We have some extra Egypt stock footage, some mildly redone effects, and a very short prologue and epilogue with the Doctor and Ruby wonder what the Dickens they’re going to do about Sutlekh. He’s unstoppable, he’s evolved into a “titan”… and that’s it. Presumably it takes place at some point during the episode in that remembered TARDIS while Mel is off doing something?

So on to the episode itself. I watched it at 7am this morning. Since then I’ve had a 200 mile drive and a day spent in full-on dad mode. I’m aware, as hours have passed, that opinion seems to be divided, much as I’ve tried to avoid others’ thought until I’ve blogged mine. Yet I can see how this episode could be fairly criticised: Sutekh destroys all life in the universe, is defeated by a clever trick, everyone is brought back to life with the press of a reset button, and Ruby’s mum was a massive red herring.

And yet… for me, the emotional and storytelling beats were fantastic. I bloody loved this finale. So let’s get into why. This may take a while.

We begin with what at first seems to be the destruction of UNIT with Sutekh’s Dust of Death- Kate Lethbridge-Stewart’s death is played like a big, stoic, dramatic moments and packs a punch. Yet it’s soon clear that the dust is spreading across London. The Doctor, Ruby and Mel escape in the TARDIS… and they can see, through the TARDIS doors, as the dust covers the whole planet. Earth is utterly sterilised. Other than them, there will soon be no one.

We get an interesting scene with Cherry and Mrs Flood, who seemed so creepy last episode but, if you recall, I suspected she may turn out to be an example of the creepy red herring trope- the apparently sinister character who turns out to be benevolent. I see nothing here to change my mind. Mrs Flood sees what’s coming, sighs, says she had “such plans” and hugs Cherry as both become dust. It’s a fascinating scene. And one which suggests to me that, whoever Mrs Flood is, and we may or may not like her agenda… but she’s no Big Bad.

We get some exposition from Sutekh, Gabriel Woolf still sounding spellbounding at ninety-one years of age. It seemed Sutekh hitched a ride on the TARDIS back in 1911 and has been there ever since, slowly setting a trap, the TARDIS now his forever. Yet somehow, very much light shaded by the Doctor, Sutekh seems to be sparing Ruby, Mel and himself.. why? It may all feel a little neat, but all of this is utterly compelling.

So they escape in the TARDIS from the reconstruction of that night on Ruby Road… a “remembered TARDIS”. Is this the explanation for what we see in Tales of the TARDIS? Because I still don’t understand how it all fits together, but no matter.

What does matter is that it isn’t just Earth, it’s everywhere: dead, sterile, lifeless. The Doctor speaks of Venus; Telos; Karen: the Ood Sphere; Skaro. Everywhere and every when the Doctor has visited, dead because he visited. An unbearable weight on anyone’s conscience: “I thought it was fun.” Ncuti Gatwa plays the Doctor’s anguish with such exquisite force. 

Millie Gibson is quite wonderful in this sequence, but do is Bonnie Langford, who really gets material to make Mel shine as she never could way back when, and rises with aplomb to the opportunity.

It all comes back to Ruby’s mother, the all-powerful secret that Sutekh wants. It seems he’s won, but this is his downfall. This… and a spoon. The scene of the Doctor and the poor forgetful lady in the tent who has somehow survived longer … yes, there’s subtext here that I’m not getting, isn’t there?

Yet the Doctor has a spoon… and we get some more exposition and unexpected references to 73 Yards. I’m not sure any of that episode’s ambiguities are explained, beyond the significance of that distance, but nor did they need to be. The secret of Ruby’s birth mother is found, while Mel becomes a horrifying looking servant of Sutekh. All looks bleak.. until the Doctor’s plan unfolds. It’s deeply satisfying, earned, and hits all the emotional beats, including the Doctor’s regret at having no choice but to kill Sutekh. And yes, everyone is resurrected… but the emotional beats are exquisite. And it all happened. 

That Ruby’s mum is just normal is… perfect. Ordinary, good but flawed people are as important as powerful godlike beings. And the scenes where Ruby finds and gets to know her birth mother are… utterly wonderful.

And so, with this all going on, the Doctor leaves for a while. He promises Ruby he’ll be back. He tends not to do this… but this time we believe him.

Oh, and Ruby’s parting words to the Doctor are “I love you”. Oh RTD, you give us the feels in ways Chibnall never could.

And we end… with a narration from a rather different Mrs Flood- her true self, whoever she is? To be continued, clearly. All else for this season is wrapped up: Mrs Flood is for next year. And all is foreboding…

This is television with heart, scares, thrills, all the things we’ve missed for so long. I loved every second of this.

Doctor Who: The Church on Ruby Road

 "I've even been trampled by a moose..."

Well, that was enormous fun. I have to say, it's not a bad idea to debut a new Doctor on Christmas Day. Large casual audience, so no continuity to speak of other than "mavity" and the Doctor having recently realised he's an orphan, other than Mrs Flood's mid-credits line, whiuch we'll come to in due course. And, unlike The Christmas Invasion, the new Doctor is up and running in what looks like a great jumping on point. Despite the light continuity, this isn't a reboot as such, but it feels a lot like Rose.

Anyway... Ncuti Gatwa is outstanding. Charismatic, with charm, humour and gravitas. Interesring hints of queerness for this Doctor but, well, what's new? He is absolutely the Doctor. I say that without reservation. He's even overcome my prejudice against moustaches. That's saying a lot. Then there's the immediately relatable Ruby Sunday, whose mysterious past as a foundling, dumped by a mysterious hooded woman, is so a hook for future adventures.

She has a well-rounded family too, especially her adoptive mum, Carla. RTD uses timey-wimeyness to cleverly adddepth to her character by showing us, almost Pyramids of Mars-style, what her life would have been like without Ruby- bitter, unhappy, living without love.

The point of the episode is, of course, new beginnings, new characters. Not that I don't love the pirate goblins in the sky with their pirate ships and bizarre sciences of rope and coincifdence that are definitely not magic, nope, definitely not. The concepts on display here seem effortlessly brilliant. Loving the bad luck stuff… and the reveal of Davina. Then there's the songs. They're so wrong, yet so right. I love them. I am sooo using this episode to indoctrinate Little Miss Llamastrangler (happily in bed!) tomorrow.

But Mrs Flood... hmm. "Never seen a TARDIS before?" Not the Master, I assume. Let's not pretend the Rani is worth bringing back. The Meddling Monk? Not a bad idea, but probably too fannish a thought. Tecteun? Too Chibbers. Nope, someone else. But someone big enough to warrant casting Anita Dobson...

Anyway, that was fun, Which was precisely what it needed to be.