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“THE REALITY WAR – WISHFUL THINKING RUNS OUT IN THIS MESSY, MISGUIDED FINALE”

The Reality War, the 2025 season finale of Doctor Who, should have been a triumph. Instead, it collapses under the weight of retooling, overstuffed plotting, and what feels like a scramble behind the scenes. While it opens with intrigue and emotional promise, it ultimately becomes the most frustrating RTD finale to date, an episode pulled in too many directions to ever settle into something satisfying. Retrofitted to include a regeneration after Ncuti Gatwa stepped down earlier than expected, the 68-minute runtime offers enough material for three different episodes, but doesn’t commit properly to any of them.

THE WISH WORLD FALLOUT: HIGH STAKES, LOW PAYOFF

Following directly from the events of Wish World, the episode wisely builds on one of the season’s most potent ideas—the unraveling of reality itself. The world resets each night at midnight, fraying the timeline until the barrier with the Underverse cracks. This eerie, Groundhog Day-with-cosmic-horror concept is ripe with potential, and the idea of the world’s fabric becoming thin enough to bring Omega back is a suitably grand finale hook.

But almost immediately, the episode gets lost in itself. The return of Anita and the Time Hotel is a welcome nod to Joy to the World, but while Steph de Whalley is clearly game, Anita spends most of the episode holding a literal door open, reduced to quipping about being a “simple hotel manager.” That her sidelining seems to accommodate the actress’s real-life pregnancy doesn’t make it any less disappointing narratively.

Still, her journey through multiple timelines—including a poignant glimpse of the Doctor dancing with Rogue, which prompts her to stop her search—is one of the more elegant and moving touches in an otherwise overblown episode.

THE POPPY PROBLEM: A DAUGHTER NOBODY ASKED FOR

Much of the episode’s emotional core hinges on Poppy, the supposed daughter of the Doctor and Belinda, a creation of the Wish World who may or may not be “real.” This could have been compelling, had the character been seeded meaningfully throughout the season. Instead, she feels like an 11th-hour plot device, used to justify Belinda’s baffling re-characterisation.

After a season as a proudly single and independent woman, Belinda is suddenly retconned as a mother all along—one who is willing to sacrifice everything for a child she didn't even know existed two episodes ago. While her choice to remain in the Zero Room to keep Poppy from vanishing is in-character in terms of heroism, the emotional underpinning feels forced and underdeveloped. Belinda deserved better.

UNIT MADNESS, RANI EX MACHINA, AND THE MISUSED CAST

Once the Doctor breaks through to UNIT, we get one of the few sequences that lives up to the promise of a Disney-backed Doctor Who: a chaotic, visually spectacular restoration of reality in UNIT Tower, complete with bone beasts, laser cannons, and the Doctor flying through the fray in the Rani’s aircraft. It’s gloriously dumb in the best way.

Mel arriving on a Vespa is delightful, and there’s something fun in the UNIT staff realising they’re all dressed like clowns. But these highlights are buried beneath clumsy exposition dumps, including a frustrating info-dump by the Rani that exists solely to clarify the increasingly convoluted backstory. At least Archie Panjabi commands the screen in her confrontation with Mel and Ruby—too bad she’s ultimately swallowed whole by Omega (a CGI skeleton-baby, of all things) in one of the episode’s most baffling and laughable creative decisions.

Meanwhile, Ruby’s growing awareness of false realities is brushed aside by the Doctor himself—odd, considering her entire arc has been built around her perceptiveness and emotional intelligence. And Rose Noble, returning for exactly one line and zero development, might as well not have been in it at all.

OMEGA RETURNS—SORT OF

The long-awaited return of Omega, teased throughout the season, is ultimately a dud. The slow reveal of the villain’s vault is genuinely suspenseful, but all tension evaporates when he’s revealed to be a massive, grey CGI baby skeleton. He eats the Rani. He says a few things. He gets zapped back into the Underverse by the Vindicator. That’s it. Omega, one of the founding fathers of Time Lord society, reduced to a ghoulish footnote. It’s a disastrous reimagining that squanders an iconic villain.

A DRAGGING FAREWELL AND A DIVISIVE ENDING

With the plot essentially wrapped up at the halfway mark, the episode slows to a crawl in its final 40 minutes, as RTD attempts to wring emotion from a character we’ve only just met. The Doctor sacrifices himself to make Poppy real and retroactively rewrites Belinda’s history to make her Poppy’s mother from the beginning—an overly complicated way to achieve what could have been a simpler and more poignant ending.

Thematically, the Doctor’s willingness to die to save even one life rings true. But when that life is an artificially created baby no one knows, remembers, or has spent time with, the sentiment falls flat. The cringeworthy suggestion that everyone the Doctor’s ever saved is technically “his child” doesn’t help either.

And what of all the loose ends? The mysterious Boss is mentioned again without clarification. The Susan arc, so intriguingly teased in previous episodes, is simply dropped—apparently scuppered by rewrites, but still leaving a major narrative hole.

A CAMEO, A REGENERATION, A STUNT CASTING

Then comes the highlight: a beautifully played scene between Ncuti Gatwa and Jodie Whittaker, as Thirteen gives her future self a final pep talk. Their chemistry is electric, and it’s a rare moment of genuine joy and emotional truth in an otherwise confused story.

The regeneration itself is visually spectacular, beginning with the Doctor channelling energy through the TARDIS and ending with a quiet, moving goodbye to Belinda. And then—the twist. Ncuti regenerates into Billie Piper. Cue shock, confusion, and a million thinkpieces.

It’s a jaw-dropping moment, but it also feels worryingly like a gimmick. With the Tennant return barely behind us, casting another former companion as the next Doctor reeks of desperation to “make headlines.” It’s not yet confirmed if Piper is the permanent replacement or a stopgap, but if it’s the latter, Doctor Who risks becoming a carousel of legacy casting at the expense of narrative integrity.

📝VERDICT: 💙💙💙💙💙🩶🩶🩶🩶🩶

THE REALITY WAR is an ambitious, sprawling, and ultimately disappointing season finale. It offers fleeting brilliance—a few standout performances, emotional beats, and visual flair—but collapses under the weight of too many ideas, last-minute rewrites, and an emotional core that never quite lands. Omega is wasted, Poppy is unearned, and Belinda is betrayed by a hasty character retcon. Ncuti Gatwa’s final turn is dignified and compelling, but even that can’t save a finale that feels more like a patchwork than a plan. The shock regeneration into Billie Piper may grab attention, but it also risks derailing the show’s momentum. If this is to be the start of a new era, it begins on unsteady ground.