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: Lucky Day

 "How committed are you to the lies you've told?"

Like, I trust, most of us, I was somewhat displeased by the dismaying tendency of so many people to vote Reform UK on Thursday. The disease of far right populism is a very present danger. So it's highly gratifying to see good old RTD write an episode addressing this, with the real monster not being an alien creature but a cynical, far right grifter, a thinly veiled version of Tommy Robinson. Good. On this occasion I don't even care about the total lack of subtlety towards the end, as the Doctor turns up to give Conrad a proper good bollocking. 

To paraphrase what a wise man once said... there are parts of the Internet that have bred some terrible things, things that oppose all that we believe in. They must be fought.

One may question, of course, the need for Doctor-lite episodes where seasons are only eight episodes long, but heigh-ho. After that brief scene at the start, in 2007, we don't see Belinda again at all (then again, if she appeared, we wouldn't be able to have a story set in 2025...) and the Doctor appears only for the later scene with Ruby from just after The Devil's Chord and, of course, for the aforementioned bollocking. Instead, it's down to Ruby Sunday, her family, and the UNIT gang, to hold the fort in the Doctor's absence. And, actually, this is an interesting long term writing choice to use Ruby in this way. Are we going to keep checking in on her, focusing on the after-effects of being the Doctor's companion and adjusting to "real" life? Having had this experience- betrayal, doxxing, worse- is going to have a deep effect on her character.

The episode is very clever: until the twist arrives, the relationship between Ruby and Conrad develops in ways that are rather sweet, only for the rug to be pulled from underneath us as Conrad turns out to be the cynical leader of some vile conspiracy theorists profiting from insinuating that UNIT are just faking all these alien invasions, which will ultimately result in Earth being vulnerable. They remind me in many ways of anti-vaxxers (Conrad, I note, doesn't take the antidote), and remind us that conspiracy theories- all of them- are dangerous.

The final showdown (it's a shame Mel was missing) is fascinating- yes, it's satisfying to see Kate release the Shreek on Conrad, and the result seems to discredit him, but I suspect the harm has not gone away entirely. And Kate, it very much seems, will have to face the consequences.

There's a satisfying resolution, of sorts- well, until bloody Mrs Flood turns up- but these people will never go away, never stop endlessly flooding the zone with their bullshit and their dead cats and their hate. But the future doesn't belong to the incels, the MAGA morons, Nigel Farage, or Elon Musk. It belongs to us.

So that's four bloody good episodes out of four so far. Good going. Here's hoping they can keep this up.