WHO REVIEW: 14-5 - "Dot and Bubble"

 

From the outset, this episode was destined to be compared to Black Mirror. What's surprising is that it compares so favourably. It's not as if Charlie Brooker came up with science fiction as a method of social commentary, or on the focus on technology in general, and social media in particular, as subjects to explore and satirise. Davies reportedly came up with the idea for “Dot and Bubble” in 2010, as a potential guest script for Matt Smith's first season, while Black Mirror didn't air until 2011. Still, the similarity is undeniable, and it's highly unlikely Davies hasn't been influenced by Black Mirror in the intervening years. (He speaks very highly of Brooker's writing – quick, sign him up to do an episode.)

Some of the few people who have outright trashed this episode have called it “Black Mirror for kids,” as if that is in some way a bad thing. Once again we have a sudden shift in genre and Doctor Who pulls it off perfectly. There's a lot here that Black Mirror couldn't, or wouldn't, do: giant slugs are not likely to show up on that show. In some ways, this has the feel of an episode of The Outer Limits, with the juxtaposition of thoughtful, if melodramatic, science fiction with big squidgy monsters. While similarities to the Black Mirror episode “Nosedive” are clear, it has far more in common with “The Machine Stops,” which was made into an episode of Out of the Unknown in 1966 (which thankfully survives and is well worth seeing) but was written by E.M. Forster in 1909, and is frighteningly prescient.

There's a risk that Russell T. Davies, now aged 61, would fall into the trap of simply railing against modern technology. Fortunately, this is no “old man yells at the Cloud,” with RTD skillfully lampooning our dependence on technology and social media while making it clear that the technology itself isn't the problem. The Bubble, of course, isn't simply the glowing sphere that surrounds Lindy's head all day, but the social, mental and moral bubble in which we all risk hiding ourselves. There are clear warnings about elitism; the superficiality of fame and shallow relationships; and the slide into selfishness. One of the most powerful moments to me was the casual way Lindy and others in Finetime walked past a fellow citizen being dragged off to their death by one of the monsters, and oblivious to another in pain and danger on the streets that clearly parallels our blind eye to those suffering homelessness.

All this, however, if overshadowed by the electrifying final scene. For the first time, we see the Doctor faced with hatred directed at him because of the colour of his skin, something that we were bound to see eventually but which was so unexpected in a future-set episode. There's a case to be had that it isn't the place for this, that we should have seen the Doctor come up against the very real racism of the 1960s in “The Devil's Chord,” yet having it occur in a future society acts as a stark warning to us.

Ncuti Gatwa is, in his short time on screen, remarkable, no more so than in that final scene. As the Doctor careers from confusion, to incredulity, to frustrated rage, Gatwa is electrifying. This was, remarkably, the first material he shot following his time opposite David Tennant in “The Giggle,” and RTD has said he was very wary of throwing him into this. My god, though, what a way to come in and show how absolutely right he was for the role.

I, to my shame, failed to notice until the critical moment that the rest of the episode's cast is white, displaying exactly the lazy, if unintentional, prejudices that it's still so easy for a white person to fall into. It will, of course, be a very different experience for a viewer of colour, who will have come up against the barriers and micro-aggressions that Lindy throws at the Doctor. In context, it's all so clear, from the “I thought you just looked the same,” to the shock at Ruby and the Doctor actually being in the same room. For me, it simply looked like more evidence of how people in this community were isolated and how unused they were to outsiders. In retrospect, it's stark, and a real eye-opener for me, not noticing these things simply because I was not looking for them, and I have the luxury of not dealing with them day-to-day.

Certainly, I'm interested in how others feel about this episode. Most people I know, like me, think it's the best of the year so far, and the best for some considerable time. However, this is coming from a group of people in their late twenties to early sixties, who are also predominantly white. I've seen some comments from people of colour who thought the race aspect was tacked on and performative, and some from younger viewers who found the episode ineffective and condescending. Still, I've also seen comments from this audience that were extremely positive. One thing that is clear though is that we need more diverse writers for this show, especially if we're going to be tackling race-related issues. The Chibnall era, for all its flaws, made some real headway here, and it's a problem if we're sliding backwards.

While Gatwa steals the entire episode, making you forget that this is the second Doctor-lite episode in a fortnight (something that could potentially have been a huge misstep), there's some beautiful work from Millie Gibson, particularly in that final scene where Ruby silently supports the Doctor. It's Callie Cooke who carries the episode as Lindy, giving an absolutely brilliant performance as a character who is surely to become one of the most hated in fandom. While she is vapid and at times bafflingly idiotic, for the most part she seems to be simply sheltered and at least trying to help. We're primed to expect Lindy to overcome her limitations, to become a hero and then stand as an almost-companion we wish could have joined the TARDIS.

Instead, Lindy reveals herself to be a hateful and truly selfish person. There's a hint of it when she tells Ricky September (a nice performance by Tom Rhys Harries, who's actually older than Gatwa) that this is the best day of her life, in spite of all the death surrounding her, before she reveals her true colours, condemning him to death to save herself and then lying to save face. Until, finally, that reveal, when it becomes clear just how rotten Lindy and her whole society are. It actually goes even further than the immediate implications in her (and those other two idiots') behaviour towards the Doctor. Talk of taming and then owning the wilderness smacks of manifest destiny, while the “river runs to the sea” can surely not be accidental. (Yes, this was written way before 7^th October 2023. That is irrelevant.)

There are some frustrations. Ricky's sudden appearance is a bit too timely, and I was convinced initially that he was actually a hologram or some other avatar of the Doctor, in a guise Lindy would trust. It's not clear if the Homeworld really has been wiped out, which somewhat improves the target of the story from Gen Z to the entire population, or if it's a fakeout by the Dot. It takes the Doctor an agonisingly long time to realise that the killings are happening in alphabetical order. The slugs, or man-traps as they are apparently to be known, are a bit of a mystery themselves. The Doctor thinks the Dot made them, but how, and why? They might just as likely be animals from “the Wild Woods” or aliens its employed. They also seem a bit unnecessary if Dot can just kill people by smashing through their heads directly, but I suppose the sadism is the point.

A few logistical quibbles have never stopped Doctor Who before, though, and “Dot and Bubble” is, for me, the absolute high point of the series so far. It's certainly been a long time since an episode left me thinking more about how I watched than what I watched.

Setting: Finetime, a colony of what seems to be the moon of a planet known only as Homeworld. As for the time, anyone's guess.

(OK, let's try. First there's the question of whether the colonists are human. They certainly have human, indeed western first names, and their surnames are similarly western or are unusual combinations of English words. They use the Latin alphabet and have a society that appears to be an extension of how our own is developing. However, there's no mention of Earth - which might be the Homeworld but this seems unlikely - and when one of the colonists is dragged off by a slug, they appear to leave a trail of blue blood. It might be slug slime, but it isn't really presented that way.

(So, if they're not human, they have developed in a way that parallels humanity remarkably closely, to the point where they've duplicated "Itsy-Bitsy Teeny-Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini." More likely, they are human, and the blue blood can be explained away by their having mixed with an alien race at some point, something we know is common in the future. This would make their desire for "racial purity" particularly ironic.

(While the social media technology has a near future feel, the overall atmosphere of the story is more like the New Earth era, which might mesh with the mention of a year as Five-Dash-Five. However, both the mingling with other species and the resurgance in racism fit with the 51st to 52nd centuries, the latter being the origin of Krasko in "Rosa.")

Story links: Big Finish released a social media-themed story called Like in 2020 featuring the Sixth Doctor and Peri. Eilidh Loan, who plays Cooper Mercy here, appeared in that release as well.

The Twist (in the middle): Susan Twist played Lindy's mother in this one, and now the Doctor and Ruby have both noticed that they've seen her face before. This is actually quite intrusive in this episode and it would have been better to leave it out for another instalment. As it is, whatever the truth behind Twist's appearances, they surely can't all be the same character - perhaps someone projecting her image through space and time so that it overlays what's really there for the Doctor and Ruby?

Maketh the Man: the Doctor finally spends an episode in the outfit he was originally publicised to wear, with the brown checked coat and trousers and neon orange jumper. The only other time we've seen him in that get-up is very briefly in "The Church on Ruby Road" when he went to see Ruby's band - Susan Twist was there as well...

Like and Subscribe: It's really hard not to think of Gatwa telling us all to subscribe to the official Doctor Who YouTube channel when he's up on the screen.