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Title: 12 thoughts about that Doctor Who finale

Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2025 15:00:32 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-mov...

Spoilers for ΓÇ£The Reality War.ΓÇ¥

The BBC and Disney chose not to share screeners ahead of ΓÇ£The Reality
WarΓÇ¥ to preserve its numerous twists. There isnΓÇÖt time to review it in
the usual style, but I felt IΓÇÖd be remiss not to cap off this run of
reviews by talking about the finale. And it's not as if I've nothing to say
about what the hell happened on Saturday.

“It’s the end… but the moment has been ‘prepared for.’”

I refuse to believe that ΓÇ£The Reality WarΓÇ¥ was planned and written as the
execution of this run of Doctor Who. IΓÇÖm well aware the BBC, Bad Wolf and
Ncuti Gatwa claimed the intention from the start was for him to bow out after
two short seasons. IΓÇÖm not buying it.

On one hand, the rumors of disharmony behind the scenes, last minute reshoots
and DisneyΓÇÖs reported displeasure are hard to ignore. But thereΓÇÖs far
better evidence, which is to just watch the damn episode and try to think
about what happened for more than a heartbeat.

Everything after the DoctorΓÇÖs triumphant return to UNIT HQ feels like it
was hastily assembled and tacked on. In fact, there are times in which it
feels like all of the main actors are reading from different scripts, and not
interacting with one another.

Spot the join

Lara Cornell/BBC Studios/Bad Wolf

IΓÇÖve seen some people grousing about the simple way the Omega storyline was
resolved, but I think it was always planned that way. Russell T. DaviesΓÇÖ
has always ended the big dramatic plots of his finales early to make more
room to show the aftermath for the characters.

Take last yearΓÇÖs ΓÇ£Empire of Death,ΓÇ¥ which dumps off Sutekh two thirds
of the way in to spend the rest of the episode showing Ruby meeting her birth
mother. For Davies, the big CGI space monsters are always the means through
which he can spend moments with his characters.

And yet the character moments here are weird if not totally incoherent ΓÇö
the one highlight being the moment that Poppy disappears. The shot of the
Doctor and Belinda absentmindedly handing her coat back and forth as it turns
into an ever-smaller piece of cloth is sublime.

But when RubyΓÇÖs protestations are finally taken seriously, the DoctorΓÇÖs
decision to just hand Belinda a child comes totally out of left field. Not
only does it not agree with anything that weΓÇÖve come to know about her over
the last eight weeks, itΓÇÖs also totally pretty outrageous.

Which is why itΓÇÖs far more plausible that Davies, faced with no commission
for a third season and with a lead actor looking to quit, just wrote a few
pages of nonsense to justify the change.

ΓÇ£One day, I shall come back.ΓÇ¥

Naturally, the rumors suggest the original ending would have seen Susan
appear as a lead-in to the next season. Again, this isnΓÇÖt so much a hint as
something the last two years have been very clearly laying the foundations
for. The Doctor openly discussed that he has a child living in London (in
ΓÇ£The DevilΓÇÖs ChordΓÇ¥) and the Susan Twist saga was designed to play up
to that. Going to the trouble of hiring the 84-year-old Carole Ann Ford and
putting her in brief cameos in the last two episodes ΓÇö plus dropping
references to that in ΓÇ£LuxΓÇ¥ ΓÇö was clearly part of the plan. Now, after
the extensive, patient buildup of that storyline, it appears that weΓÇÖll not
get the chance to see what Davies had intended.

Going back to the point about the BBC and GatwaΓÇÖs claim that this was
always meant to be a two-season deal, itΓÇÖs likely the showΓÇÖs original
ending will be swept under the rug. And given FordΓÇÖs age, itΓÇÖs likely
that weΓÇÖll never get the chance to give the actress the sendoff she really
deserved in 1964.

ΓÇ£Davies has never been that sort of writer.ΓÇ¥

A large amount of fan speculation this year was focused on the various
structural and thematic coincidences. Each episode of this run could more or
less map onto the previous one and went over similar ground. But, as far back
as ΓÇ£Lux,ΓÇ¥ I said that Russell T. Davies wasnΓÇÖt that sort of writer,
building a mystery box that would resolve perfectly by its conclusion. His
writing is a little more like a kid pulling toys out of a toybox and smashing
them together at speed.

ΓÇ£The Reality WarΓÇ¥ is a great example of this approach, since while there
were plenty of elements that came back, none of them were as vital to the
plotΓÇÖs conclusion as they could have been. Anita was a convenient way of
getting the Doctor out of the cliffhanger, but did nothing else for the rest
of the episode. Hell, itΓÇÖs hard to take the suggestion seriously that
sheΓÇÖd fallen in love with the Doctor but not realized he was, at least in
this incarnation, more interested in men. Joy, too, from ΓÇ£Joy to the
WorldΓÇ¥ gets a mention but with little emotional attachment given the events
of that episode. And on the subject of its treatment of women…

ΓÇ£I was this really brilliant womanΓÇ¥

James Pardon/BBC Studios/Bad Wolf

Doctor Who has spent much of its recent years trying to address its own blind
spots around representation. This era has continued this tradition,
broadening out the seriesΓÇÖ supporting cast, especially the team known by
fans as the ΓÇ£UNIT Family.ΓÇ¥ In ΓÇ£The Reality War,ΓÇ¥ every one of the
DoctorΓÇÖs allies, barring Colonel Ibrahim, is either a woman or non-binary.
And yet, the sheer number of cast members means each one is almost
aggressively underserved.

ΓÇ£The Reality War,ΓÇ¥ after all, is focused on unpacking a false reality
called into existence by an ultra-conservative YouTuber who ignores and
erases disabled and queer people. But the showΓÇÖs treatment of these
characters both during the action-packed finale, and afterward, is rough.
When the team starts working together, the legion of people around the Doctor
get little to nothing of note to actually do.

Anita is quite literally reduced to the role of a human doorstop (she holds
the door to the Time Hotel open to counteract ConradΓÇÖs wish). Kate orders
Shirley to fire the lasers. Susan (Triad) builds the zero room. Mel does
quite literally nothing once sheΓÇÖs sneered at the Rani. And then thereΓÇÖs
Rose.

RoseΓÇÖs brief inclusion would have been extraordinarily poignant if sheΓÇÖd
helped defeat Conrad once sheΓÇÖs been pulled out of oblivion. Instead,
sheΓÇÖs just there so the Doctor can point out she was erased because Conrad
hates (and/or ignores) nonbinary transfem people. And after that moment,
Yasmin Finney essentially disappears from the episode once again, making her
less a character and more a prop.

It gets worse with the treatment of Ruby and Belinda ΓÇö the former
marginalized and almost aggressively ignored by the characters to the point
that I assumed their rejection of her claims was a sign the reality hadnΓÇÖt
actually been fixed. But the latter goes from not having a child, to having a
fictional child in ConradΓÇÖs world, to forgetting she exists when ConradΓÇÖs
wish is undone. When the timeline resets and she no longer has any memory of
a child, the Doctor then opts to sacrifice his life in order to bring that
child back into existence. I mean, what? Given DaviesΓÇÖ politics, and the
(ostensibly) pro-abortion subtext of ΓÇ£Space Babies,ΓÇ¥ the Doctor suddenly
re-writes the universe to force his companion ΓÇö without her consent ΓÇö
into motherhood.

ΓÇ£ItΓÇÖs funny, but is it going to get them off their tractors?ΓÇ¥

IΓÇÖm a Brit, reviewing a uniquely British show for a predominantly American
audience, and so try to view the series through that lens. Doctor Who has
been a fixture in the US since the ΓÇÿ70s and was a mainstay on PBS through
the ΓÇÿ80s and so itΓÇÖs not an unknown property. The revival series may not
have been an instant hit, but quickly built a respectable audience on BBC
America. But while in the UK the series is a mainstream hit, its US
demographic can be roughly broken down into genre nerds and anglophiles.

Consequently, there was a degree of nervousness about how the revitalized
series would be received by the far broader audience on Disney+. DaviesΓÇÖ
had spoken about the need for the series to recruit new fans, downplaying the
seriesΓÇÖ six-decades-long backstory. But despite that aim, it never felt
that the series was making many concessions to its potential audience.
DonΓÇÖt forget, the Ncuti Gatwa series is playing out in the shadow of
specific events from its 2021 series and the second and third of its three
2023 specials. And yet, rather than starting from a clean(-ish) slate, the
series threw itself headlong into a multi-year story about its broken
reality.

“In the ‘70s or ‘80s depending on the dating protocol…”

The Two Ranis / Two Ronnies gag was great, but did anyone over the age of 30
get it?BBC Studios/Bad Wolf

And on that subject, I donΓÇÖt think we really needed to see the Rani or
Omega again, especially as Conrad was a compelling enough villain on his own.
IΓÇÖm the sort of Doctor Who fan who bleeds TARDIS Blue if you were to cut me
(but donΓÇÖt do that). But IΓÇÖm also sufficiently interested in new
experiences that IΓÇÖd rather the show avoid relitigating and revisiting the
same coterie of classic series villains.

Omega wasnΓÇÖt a mainstay anyway, and his second appearance (in ΓÇ£Arc of
InfinityΓÇ¥) was tedious enough that his absence wasnΓÇÖt missed. Similarly,
while the Rani offers a different spin on the homegrown foe trope, itΓÇÖs
hard not to just write her as a female Master. And, letΓÇÖs be honest, as
much as IΓÇÖm trying not to invoke Steven Moffat here, Missy was so well done
we didnΓÇÖt need to go back to that well ever again.

Similarly, I canΓÇÖt help but wonder how many folks who persisted with the
series until this point bailed out. The late Craig Hinton coined the term
ΓÇ£FanwankΓÇ¥ as a catch-all term for the sort of self-indulgent storytelling
that exists to satisfy the authorΓÇÖs own obsessions. You know, fan fiction
that makes Captain Kirk the father of Jean-Luc Picard or that Han Solo and
Luke Skywalker were secretly friends in childhood. Having the Rani bi-
generate to rebuild a new Gallifrey with Omega as its progenitor is the sort
of self-indulgence most people grow out of.

Doctor Who isnΓÇÖt Star Trek

James Pardon/BBC Studios/Bad Wolf

Several times this season, weΓÇÖve seen Doctor Who smash its face into the
limits of its own storytelling. Its premise is far more elastic than many
others, but there are themes it simply cannot meaningfully engage with.
ΓÇ£Lux,ΓÇ¥ ΓÇ£Lucky DayΓÇ¥ and ΓÇ£The Interstellar Song ContestΓÇ¥ all
gestured toward big real-world topics (structural racism, abuse and
radicalization, genocide and reputation laundering) that are simply beyond
the capacity of a science fantasy show about a quasi-immortal clown solving
problems. And here weΓÇÖre learning another big fact about Doctor Who: ItΓÇÖs
not Star Trek.

The battle between UNIT and the big dinosaur skeletons was shot and edited as
if we were watching the crew of the Enterprise. Now, IΓÇÖm not watching
Doctor Who for the gritty realism but thereΓÇÖs a moment when you can go
through silly fun and into ridiculousness. And when the UNIT tower,
consciously modeled on the AvengersΓÇÖ Stark Tower, starts spinning around to
shoot its lasers, you have to wonder how many people had to sign off on that
image thinking it was okay.

Eating its own tail

Doctor WhoΓÇÖs critical and popular success has always waxed and waned, and
thatΓÇÖs nothing to be worried about. There was, however, a sense during Chis
ChibnallΓÇÖs era that he wanted to recapture the glories of DaviesΓÇÖ era.
After all, David TennantΓÇÖs initial tenure saw the show become the biggest
thing on British TV with ratings often passing the 10 million mark. I suppose
it comes as no surprise, then, that Davies would repay the compliment by
giving Jodie WhittakerΓÇÖs 13th Doctor a cameo. ItΓÇÖs a shame that itΓÇÖs as
equally incoherent as the rest of the episodeΓÇÖs finale, but it does a far
better job of addressing the #Thasmin plot ΓÇö the implied romance between
the Doctor and her companion Yaz ΓÇô than ChibnallΓÇÖs own era does.

Naturally, Davies was better able to capitalize upon this nostalgia,
recruiting the stars of his own era ΓÇö David Tennant and Catherine Tate ΓÇö
to come back for the 60th anniversary specials. That was a nice piece
throwback to help get the series back on track ahead of its rejuvenation with
Ncuti Gatwa at the helm. Obviously, while hiring one of the stars of the
seriesΓÇÖ most recent heyday for a short tenure for the anniversary was a
nice treat, the series now needs to strike out on its own. Or, at least, that
was the thinking until Ncuti Gatwa regenerated into Billie Piper.

Billie Piper

BBC

I was 20 when Doctor Who came back and was as sneery as the rest of the
country when Billie Piper was announced as the showΓÇÖs companion. Piper was
a teenage singer ΓÇö the youngest UK Number One act ΓÇö and while not a one-
hit wonder, her music career stalled. Aged 18, she married the 35-year-old
radio DJ and TV presenter Chris Evans and became tabloid fodder. Naturally,
the whole country had to eat crow when it turned out she wasnΓÇÖt just a
fantastic actor but a true powerhouse and star. Her return for ΓÇ£The Day of
the Doctor,ΓÇ¥ as the psychic interface of Gallifreyan superweapon The
Moment, was a joyous one. And while the leaks had revealed Piper would be
replacing Gatwa, it was still nice to see her appear on screen.

Given Piper was not credited as ΓÇ£And introducing Billie Piper as the
DoctorΓÇ¥ itΓÇÖs clear that her inclusion is another hedge. If nothing else,
she can take the role for the revival seriesΓÇÖ 20th anniversary and
hopefully pull in more eyes to whoever replaces her. But as desperate as the
move seems, IΓÇÖd be happy to see her remain in the role for an extended
period of time ΓÇö sheΓÇÖs brilliant, clearly has plenty of affection for the
show, and has enough star power to carry the series on her back. So, if Piper
is back, let her be back for a long time and let her bask in all of the
adoration she so rightly deserves.

“There are worlds out there…”

At the risk of armchair psychologizing, I suspect all Doctor Who fans of a
certain age carry the wound of 1989 very deeply. The show had entered a
creative renaissance thanks to the work of Andrew Cartmel that had
invigorated long-serving producer John Nathan-Turner. Just as it had found
its feet and started to produce era-defining work in a model that could have
sustained it through the 1990s, the plug was pulled. There have been many
(many!) post mortems as to the causes but James Cooray-SmithΓÇÖs recent essay
on the subject is probably the most concise. In short, a combination of
executive snobbery, personal enmity (John Nathan-Turner was not well-liked by
his bosses) and budgetary issues caused the showΓÇÖs demise.

1989 to 2005 was beset by false dawns, the BBCΓÇÖs self-sabotage and fans
essentially taking ownership of the property. Virgin Publishing had the
license to publish tie-in novels that evolved into the New Adventures line.
In the gap, the need for new Doctor Who was filled by writers: some
professional, some fans who would go on to become professionals with a
monthly book series. And then, in 1999, a production company called Big
Finish secured the rights to produce new audio adventures featuring classic
Doctors. But aside from the abortive (and mostly awful) 1996 TV movie that
served as a pilot for a US version of the show, Doctor Who was dead.

It wouldnΓÇÖt be until the second series of the reboot, when David Tennant
took the role and it became the biggest thing on TV, that the worry the show
would go away again started to fade even as ratings and public enthusiasm
declined with Steven Moffat at the helm. But those fears have returned in the
last decade, especially given the lukewarm critical and audience reception to
Jodie WhittakerΓÇÖs tenure. And with Disney pulling back and the BBCΓÇÖs own
budget crisis, the risk to Doctor WhoΓÇÖs future ΓÇö with no new series
confirmed to be in the works ΓÇö is grave.

On one hand, the BBC has said we may see the situation change in a year, but
then it said that in 1989 as well. IΓÇÖm going to hold off writing an
obituary, however, because if Doctor Who is to go back on the shelf, itΓÇÖs
going to be taken very good care of. After all, many of the fans who kept the
flame alive during the first wilderness years would go on to make the series
proper. And IΓÇÖm sure the next generation of fans are ready to cut their
teeth on their own projects thatΓÇÖll one day grow into whatever Doctor Who
becomes in a decade or more.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-mov...
doctor-who-finale-150032038.html?src=rss

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