WHO REVIEW: 15-7 & 15-8 - "Wish World"/"The Reality War"

 

SPOILERS, I guess. But I'd be surprised if you don't know by now.

Well, where do we start? The two-part finale to Series 15 - or Season Two, if you insist - and, it turns out, the Fifteenth Doctor era. A staggeringly messy affair, with just as many wonderful moments as painfully frustrating ones. It's very much Series 15 in microcosm: half brilliant, half crap, although which bits are which will depend on your personal taste. It's annoyingly less than the sum of its many parts, and, like episode six, the bulk of it has been overshadowed by the shock reveal at the very end.

At the heart of this, though, is an effective story about wish fulfilment vs. real life, and hiding away vs. embracing your true self. Without the grandstanding, OTT Time Lord bollocks, this could have been a decent, low key finale, yet still with high stakes and a real emotional punch. There's just too much going on here, and too little of it is properly explored, yet takes attention away from the core of the story.

Unfortunately, so much of RTD's approach these days seems to be to generate clickbait, and this basically corresponds to listening to tedious fan rumours and writing them into the show. The mysterious woman is obviously the Rani! Susan is coming back! Billie Piper is playing the Doctor! It all smacks of a desperate need to generate headlines rather than stories.

It's all extremely backward-looking. Bringing back the Rani, Omega, or Susan are all ideas that can work, if the characters are dealt with well and their importance is explained to the 99.9% of the audience who don't know who they are. On this basis, the Rani pretty much works. Archie Panjabi is perfect in the role, embodying just the right balance of cold-hearted superiority and outrageous camp. The dancing with the Doctor is a bit too Master-like, and why the hell she's flying around like a witch and how/why she's using magic in 17th century Germany, but she's fundamentally done well here. Anita Dobson is great now she's not playing Mrs Flood per se but the true character of the earlier (third?) Rani. I'm glad that bigeneration seems to be done for now (the only character I think it really works for is the Master, who's actually at war with themselves) but the idea of the earlier incarnation being subservient to the new one is intriguing. It's a shame the new Rani got such a crap ending.

Omega is one of the few major villains was still to be brought back on screen, and is both important to fans and obscure to everyone else. In a way, he's rather like the Rani: both were great characters who appeared in a couple of rubbish stories back in the day. Kate O'Mara was always fantastic as the Rani, even though neither The Mark of the Rani or Time and the Rani were much cop. (Can you imagine a Tales of the TARDIS for either of those?) Stephen Thorne gave his all as Omega in The Three Doctors, a serial I adore but that is fundamentally very silly, while Ian Collier gave a strong performance, in spite of some awful costuming and make-up, in Arc of Infinity, one of the worst serials in the entire classic series. However, while the Rani is saved as a character here by Panjabi's performance and, well, actually being part of the plot, Omega's appearance is appalling.

I'm all for old monsters and aliens being reimagined and reinvented, but it has to be interesting, inventive and, ideally, better than what came before. Aside from the oddity of planning to use Omega's body to recreate the Time Lords - when his lack of a body is a rather major part of his character - here Omega is rewritten into an entirely different being with a different history, before manifesting as a huge, crawling CGI zombie with Nick Briggs doing yet another monster voice. It simply doesn't work on any level.

As for Susan... look, it was nice to see her, for all the difference she made to the plot. There's no hint of an explanation for why she suddenly appeared in visions to the Doctor, and she was absent entirely from the final episode. Presumably this is still building up to something (a popular theory already being that she's the Boss, running the Time Hotel... she's the Foreman, you see), but will we ever see that come to fruition? Carole Ann Ford still fares better than Jonathan Groff, making a random cameo filmed (apparently in a broom cupboard) in a spare five minutes during "Rogue." Why and how does Rogue know what's happening to the Doctor, let alone have a way to send him a message?

It all serves to draw attention from what's actually happening in this story, and there's some good stuff there. Conrad's wish world being a right wing prick's utopia is a potent commentary on today's world, and it's a great touch that he's been specifically chosen by the Rani because his worldview is so incoherent. Doubts fill people's minds, and trying to silence them only makes the people doubt harder. Having the purpose of the wish world be to create this doubt rather than to fool or enslave people is a clever idea, even if the way this leads to the universe breaking is extremely vague. You could even take it as a polemic against our current government, if it hadn't been written a little too long ago. The Rani doesn't care about rightwingers' views any more than she cares about any other aspect of humanity; it's just her tool for holding power. Not a million miles from Kier Starmer's approach.

There's some enjoyably Philip K. Dick style uncertainty about the wish world, laced with some lovely commentary. Yet RTD fails to stick to his guns here. Having the queerest Doctor ever forced to hide his identity in a 50s-style nuclear family utopia is powerful, but the script still comes across like it's suggesting this is the most important sort of life anyone can have (or want). I can't imagine that was RTD's intention, but it's the result of not spending enough time on the storyline, rushing it in order to resolve it an fit so many other elements in. Belinda has gone from being a reluctant companion who stands up to the Doctor and speaks out against male arrogance, to being a happy little housewife. She's gone from someone who verbally decks the Doctor for scanning her DNA without her permission to someone who's whole life is rewritten without her consent, making her into a mother who doesn't care if he scans her baby's DNA without permission. Varada Sethu has so little to do in the second episode, it's truly unfair.

There are some potentially clever elements to the wish world that fail because they're not adequately explored. Shirley and other disabled people are left at the outskirts of society, literally unseen by Conrad, with their outsider status seemingly a plot point until it's utterly forgotten. Shirley gets her memory back and that thread is cut off. Having Rose simply fade back into existence when the wish breaks because Conrad couldn't even imagine a trans person's life is wonderful, but she then all but disappears from the episode anyway, as if RTD couldn't imagine anything for her to do. It's intensely frustrating.

Still, the good stuff. The weirder bits largely work. The Bone Beasts look amazing and are suitably incongruous, a baffling inclusion in the otherwise painfully mundane world. The Doctor's story reframed as a sanitised fairytale in a Harry Potter cover by a homophobic bigot is a fabulous touch. Anita dropping in from the Time Hotel is a bit deus ex machina but makes sense and provides a satisfying follow-up to "Joy to the World." Ruby's slightly weird relationship to the timeline being a key factor in the resolution works nicely too.

The inclusion of Poppy from "Space Babies" (or rather, an imagined copy of her) as a central icon of the episode actually works thanks to the actress being suitably adorable, and the dilemma of resetting the world but risking her simply vanishing it powerful. Maybe it wouldn't have hit me the same way a few years ago, but now, with a daughter of my own, it kicks me in the gut. (I don't like Belinda being rewritten to be a mother without her consent, but I do fully accept that once there her daughter would be the most important thing to her.) The scene where Belinda and the Doctor absently pass Poppy's blanket back and forth, as it slowly disappears until they've forgotten her completely is heartbreaking. RTD can still give us really powerful, moving imagery.

Poppy's story allows the Doctor a different kind of regeneration story, one with a calculated and selfless act of sacrifice that, while it's technobabble nonsense, makes sense on an emotional level. You can see the join here, where the script's been overwritten, as if it's another glitch in reality. Belinda gets a lengthy goodbye scene from the Doctor, but Ruby, in spite of usurping her as the heroine of this story, does not. The pace of the episode shifts tangibly. The entire coda is a clumsily inserted addition, but it still largely works.

I've complained about the self-serving fanwank in this episode, but Jodie Whittaker making a surprise appearance as the Thirteenth Doctor genuinely works. It rankles that Gatwa had to share his arrival with Tennant and his farewell with Whittaker, but it feels right that they finally have the symbolic handover (Whittaker being his real predecessor in the role and all). It's a really lovely scene, and gives us a glimpse of how Thirteen might have been written with RTD doing the dialogue, for good or for ill.

And yes, it's a shame Gatwa is going so soon, because he has been solidly delightful as the Doctor, but you can't blame him. He's barely had time to film the nineteen episodes he's been in (indeed, three of them he almost wasn't), and holding on for a potential third season at an unknown time isn't going to fly when he's breaking out into the big time. His final moments are genuinely lovely, and I'm stoked that they were finally able to do a surprise regeneration. Yes, there were rumours, but there are always rumours. 

Unfortunately, one of the most tedious of those rumours that crops up every few years is that Billie will be back to play the Doctor, and here she is, in another example of tedious, backward-looking stunt casting. RTD managed to pull this off with Tennant's return, but he was an established favourite Doctor and it was the anniversary, which was extenuating circumstances. It's only around eighteen months later and here we are again, with his 2006 co-star taking over. I'm not entirely against the Doctor being played by a former companion, but Billie Piper seems so clearly miscast that the rumours were always easily to dismiss. I hope to be proven wrong; she's a great actor, after all, and maybe she can pull it off.

On the other hand, she's very pointedly not credited as "The Doctor," unlike Gatwa and Whittaker, and is, along with RTD, being deliberately vague about who she's actually playing. So she could be Rose, or the Moment, or the Bad Wolf, somehow, although "and introducing..." suggests she's not playing a character she's played before. A fake-out would be even more annoying than a miscast Doctor, frankly. I suspect the vagueness is just to maintain interest over the next however-long until we see some more episodes, just like with Tennant, and we'll get a few specials with her as a placeholder Doctor, just like Tennant. We'll see. In any case, it's a step backwards, the opposite of what regeneration is for.

Ah well. Sorry Ncuti, you deserved better for your last story, but at least you got a great regeneration scene before all the attention was taken away from you.

Setting: Mainly London, particularly UNIT HQ and the Bone Palace, May 23rd - 24th 2025.

Maketh the Man: As John Smith, the Doctor wears a blue pinstriped suit, shirt and tie, and a bowler hat. This is probably meant to be a dowdy, business-like thing to show his boring, ordinary life, but it's actually a pretty sharp suit and, naturally, Gatwa looks amazig in it. When he gets his identity back, he switches to his blue-striped kilt suit over a tight white T-shirt, which he's still wearing when he regenerates.

The Changing Face of Doctor Who: Plenty of appearances of previous Doctors in these episodes, with Anita peering in on the Eleventh Doctor in "The Wedding of River Song," The Third Doctor in Day of the Daleks, and the Fifteenth Doctor in "Rogue." We see every established Doctor in stills as Fifteen gets his memory back, although for some reason the First Doctor is represented by a picture of the Abbott of Amboise from The Massacre.

Links and references: 

Thanks to the clips of the Rani and the audio clip of Omega at the end of part one, Children in Need EastEnders crossover "Dimensions in Time" and Big Finish audio Gallifrey: Intervention Earth have been confirmed to be canon.

Loved the scene with Mel laying into the Rani and describing her harrowing encounter with her... which becomes very funny when you remember she's talking about Time and the Rani.

I am so pleased Mrs Flood got the iconic Two Ranis line. I'd have been very disappointed if it hadn't been said.

The TARDIS being turned inside out into a huge structure made of bone is straight from the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel The Ancestor Cell.

The More Ranis: Unless there are some secret Time War regenerations, there have been four Ranis: Kate O'Mara as the original, Siobhan Redmond as her successor at Big Finish, Anita Dobson as Mrs Flood and Archie Panjabi as the new, and apparently last, Rani.

Speculation: Mrs Flood is presumably still out there, and presumably unable to regenerate, having already done so. With the Doctor as the only other Time Lord known to be alive, that might give her a reason to hunt him down. Perhaps his DNA could be the key to allowing her to regenerate.

Things that don't make sense: Aside from the bits we've already mentioned...

How did the Doctor and Belinda go from the TARDIS as the doors were blown in to their suburban wish life?

How does the Rani have magical powers at the beginning? Is she already channeling the wish baby? If so, how?

I'm not sure if the Time Lords being killed by a "genetic wave" makes sense in the light of the Master's claims in Spyfall et al. since it's all so vague, but I don't buy that it sterilised any remaining Time Lords away from the planet. It looked for a second like RTD was going down the sterility as the cost of regeneration route from the New Adventures (Looms!) but that clashes with the vision of Gallifrey in "The Day of the Doctor."

How and why does the vindicator do the things it does? It's another "whatever the plot needs right now" machine.

What, as ever, is the point of the Vlinx?

Less a thing that doesn't make sense, but a question: what happens to the timeline that unfolded from the destruction of the Earth? Do the events of "The Well" and "The Interstellar Song Contest" still happen in some way or form?

Cut scenes: Promo images included a shot of Belinda and the Doctor dancing at a club, possibly the one where he met Ruby. This was obviously cut to make way for the reshot material, and was probably part of Belinda and the Doctor's false past together. It's a damned shame, though, Belinda looks gorgeous in the shot.

And finally... Ncuti Gatwa didn't get to face the Master, the Cybermen or the Daleks. That's unique among the main Doctors (not counting Fourteen as he's Tennant's victory lap). He should at least got to face the Daleks, who are the only really essential ones. But they needed a rest and that's what you get when you don't stick around.