Son of Mathonwy wrote: ↑Tue Jun 03, 2025 2:37 pm
And now, the finale,
Wish World and
The Reality War. This was effectively two stories: the series-ending conflict with the Rani(s) and the possibly show-ending section which finishes Gatwa's time as the Doctor.
The Rani story had a few promising elements and a whole lot of arbitrary, made-up-on-the-fly events. Altogether it made very little sense while it cheerfully trampled over continuity and logic. Just a selection of the problems:
► Show Spoiler
How does the Rani know that the Wish Baby will be born at that exact time and place, and have those abilities?
Why does the Wish Baby appear as a child whereas all other members of the Pantheon have appeared fully grown with an agenda of their own?
Why does the Rani get Conrad to control the Wish Baby? Surely this is a huge risk (he is hardly the most trustworthy person) when one of the Ranis could have done the job?
Why does only Ruby realise something is wrong? And not the Doctor despite finding himself in a heterosexual relationship . . . which surely must ring some alarm bells?
Why does the 'doubt' of a Time Lord have such power? Wouldn't that have caused reality to be shredded when there were billions of Time Lords?
Why didn't the Rani simply cause one of her selves to have big doubts and break Omega out all by herself?
Why mess with the Earth when surely the Wish Baby could have just wished up a fake one?
Why not just wish for Omega to be released?
Why not just wish for the Time Lords to exist again?
How did Anita know when and where to open the door to save the Doctor?
Why was the Doctor talking about the Time Lords' sterility as an established fact when it's totally new this episode?
How do Ruby and the Doctor know that kissing the baby grants them wishes?
Why does the Doctor have the only working Tardis in the universe when we know there should be many others (and that's just what we know of) - Clara's, the 14th Doctor's, the Rani's - and what difference does this make to the plot anyway?
How does Ruby's teleporter take her exactly where she needs to go?
How is the vindicator now a super-powerful gun? Don't know but it sure helped the plot.
Etc etc etc
More general issues:
Although the fake life the Doctor is living is a nice set-up (probably the best thing in the story) it was done a lot better in WandaVision.
What is the point of bringing Omega back if he is nothing whatsoever like he used to be (and his history is rewritten)? It means nothing to new viewers and it will piss off most fans.
We know the Wish World is a fake, so there's no jeopardy. So what if the doctor had hit the ground? He would have just woken up in his bed.
The Rani is just an exposition machine - she spends all her time explaining.
The Unit building's fight with the bone beasts was laughable.
So, broadly speaking, it was a return to the low quality of the previous season. RTD badly needed someone to tell him no, not good enough, write it better.
The last bit was a bit better (most things would be) but ends with a frivolous and truly retrograde casting choice which makes no sense and tries to tie the hands of whoever makes decisions about the future of Who. Issues:
► Show Spoiler
Why is it Ruby who remembers Poppy? Everyone else remembers all the fake Wish World stuff but not Poppy. Surely, if anyone would remember Poppy it would be the Doctor or Belinda who actually seemed to love her?
The Doctor, once convinced that the daughter he can't remember (and was part of a fake reality) really is missing, decides to meddle with reality to bring her back, despite knowing that this will make other small changes, eg ending the existence of other humans, including who knows how many other babies, and no doubt altering the future. But no matter, this is his baby and screw everyone else. Hubris.
Jody Whittaker magically shows up. She just appears and then disappears again by magic. This is how low the standards of the show have fallen. If she has to show up (which she doesn't - she adds little), why not have her Tardis cross paths with Gatwa's?
The Doctor's meddling doesn't have quite the desired effect but profoundly alters Belinda's life. And the Doctor thinks it's okay to leave her like that.
And finally, the regeneration into what looks like Billie Piper. This just makes no sense (even less than Tennant's return). It's totally retrograde. Can we not look forward, to new possibilities? The regeneration should have been left unfinished, or the new Doctor completely unseen by us. As it is, if this is the end for Doctor Who, it is ending on a really bizarre note.
I can answer some of those questions:
► Show Spoiler
Why does the Rani get Conrad to control the Wish Baby? Surely this is a huge risk (he is hardly the most trustworthy person) when one of the Ranis could have done the job?
Why mess with the Earth when surely the Wish Baby could have just wished up a fake one?
- I believe the point is that changing the whole world isn't a minor wish and needs to be done by someone who genuinely desires and wishes for it, but they also need a world riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies to create the doubt that's powering the plot macguffin, hence UKIPland.
Why not just wish for Omega to be released?
- They do say it requires a lot of power to do, so probably beyond the skills of a wish-granting baby.
Why not just wish for the Time Lords to exist again?
- As above
Why was the Doctor talking about the Time Lords' sterility as an established fact when it's totally new this episode?
- A nerd on the internet directed me to the fact that this is apparently canon from Old Who:
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Loom
How does Ruby's teleporter take her exactly where she needs to go?
- It's a previously established macguffin that taps into the user's thoughts to take them where they want to go - Martha used it back in one of the Tennant episodes.
We know the Wish World is a fake, so there's no jeopardy. So what if the doctor had hit the ground? He would have just woken up in his bed.
- We didn't know that at the time the Doctor was falling - the reveal that the day reset came after that.
The fact that the rest of the questions have the answer as either "Because plot" or "Uhhhh, a wizard did it?" isn't great though. Still, there have been far less internally consistent Dr Who episodes, even back in the glory days. Will agree that the thing with the Bone Beasts and UNIT was utterly risible.
► Show Spoiler
Agreed on the fact that, "completely rewriting Belinda's existence for the past few years" was considered an acceptable happy ending. Mind, it's on brand for RTD who has a history of shockingly retrograde treatment of female characters - Rose's happy ending was getting a man of her own, Martha and Donna were both given codas in Journey's End showing that they'd achieved their happy ending of being happily married to a man - I'm not surprised that he thought it was okay to just make Belinda a single mum.
I didn't mind Jodie Whittaker getting a brief run, nonsensical though it was. She got so badly screwed over by terrible scripts that most of her run was utterly unwatchable and she deserved having a brief go with a semi-competent writer. Felt more like a "Children In Need additional scene" than an actual part of an episode though.
The worst part of Doctor Who has been the ever increasing time that regeneration takes as each incarnation gets a longer and wankier and more self-indulgent send-off than the last. Ecclestone got a short speech, which was fine, but the rot set in when Tennant got to go on a mid-regeneration victory lap, visit every companion, tie up every loose end, and generally have more denouements than the extended edition of Return of the King. From there on out, it seems like every Doctor had the ability to delay a regeneration as long as they liked, use various bullshit magical powers that it endowed them with on an ad hoc basis, engage in a hundred bits of nostalgia bait, recite an epic poem, and generally allow the leaving actor to engage in a leisurely and lengthy hand job celebrating just how great they were and lean on the fourth wall about how much they were going to miss playing the Doctor.
From a Watsonian perspective, it's really weird watching a character who professes to hate himself suddenly start a solilique about how great he'd actually been, and from Doylist, it's really boring watching Matt Smith pretend he's hallucinating Amy Pond or Peter Capaldi list his requirements for what the Doctor should always be, and it's losing wonderful character opportunities from having a sudden shock change. Just about every regeneration episode could have had a solid 10-20 minutes cut from it and been much better for it.
This particular regeneration was made significantly worse for me by the BBC making the decision to put this front and centre on the BBC News website immediately after the show aired, and before I watched it on Sunday:
capture.jpg
In the age of the internet, it must've been really hard to completely hide that this episode was going to have a regeneration and that [Redacted] was going to be there, so why on earth would you go to all that effort to successfully pull that off and then decide that everyone who didn't watch it live could fuck right off?
To add insult to injury, if you click into the article, it actually has the gall to open with, "CAUTION: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS."
On the actual regeneration,
► Show Spoiler
I agree that it'd be retrograde and cheap if they were actually going with having her as the next Doctor, but I don't think they will. It's RTD poking fun at the bookies always putting her name into the odds when a new Doctor is being cast, plus a talking point and cliff-hanger to drive the internet wild and try and encourage Disney to renew. It'll turn out to be some Bad Wolf/The Moment thing that he'll pull a plot out of his backside for that will take up the first episode back and there'll be a proper Doctor by the end of that episode (assuming that a next episode will happen).
Puja
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
