This has been an absolute joy.

A Lengthy Preamble

I found a Pokémon card on the walk back from the cinema. Team Rocket’s Mareep. It’s part of that new Destined Rivals range. It’s got a massive fold down the middle, but hey, free Pokémon card. Who’d throw away a perfectly good Mareep?

I left that cinema at 8 o’clock with so many questions. So many mixed thoughts and feelings. But one burnt brighter than any other; how did I feel about it. See, for years now I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection. About who I am, where I stand on things, what defines me, etc. And for Doctor Who specifically, how I feel about everything. I am, unfortunately, the type of person who can base their opinions on other people’s opinions. For years I was conditioned to think that Hell Bent was an abhorrent abomination. It’s taken a long time to shake that off. And for a lot of Doctor Who, I want to try and make sure my opinions are truly my own. So, as I left that cinema, I made a conscious decision. Not to look up anything. I had a long walk home (found that Mareep), had a shower, went to bed, woke up, had a cup of tea and I rewatched ‘The Reality War’ a second time. As I write this review, I still have no idea what everyone thought about it. I don’t want to know the score on TARDIS Guide. I don’t want to know how Mr TARDIS felt about it. I want my thoughts to be my own. So here it is. Unfiltered, unbiased and uncut; how I felt about ‘The Reality War’.

The Past

• Alright, let’s get tall dark and shouty out of the way. Why is Omega here? Why did we need Omega back? Why, if we did need to bring him back, do we just have him squeeze through a hole in the wall and then get pushed back into said hole? You could’ve replaced Omega with any vague monster or power in the Underverse and achieved the same outcome, why did it have to specifically be Omega? I’ll admit, I do think his design is sick. Could’ve been a bit more Omega-ery but it’s still a sick design. I do really like the general idea of Omega being consumed by his own myth and becoming a mad God, but he’s ejected out of the story no sooner than he appears. It doesn’t make-or-break the story for me; it’s just a rather baffling decision. Plus, it does raise an interesting quandary. Who got it better, Sutekh or Omega?
• RTD2 seems to have an ongoing problem that not a lot of people seem to talk about. Things get explained, but they don’t get explained adequately. Yes, we do technically get answers to questions, but we don’t spend long enough or go into enough detail on those answers. Case and point; the Time Lords themselves. First of all, the Rani’s method of survival is a single line. That’s weird. Secondly, did the Time Lords survive or not? I assumed after ‘The Day of the Doctor’ that Gallifrey did survive but within a pocket dimension. Then in ‘Hell Bent’ we see at some point before the end of the universe; Gallifrey does come back. Then in ‘Spyfall’ the Master kills everyone after learning about the Timeless Child. But Rani specifically mentions the genetic explosion (I assume she means the Death Particle) from ‘The Timeless Children’. So, did everyone run into the Matrix? Did some Time Lords get slaughtered and others (like the Rani) escape? I don’t know and you’d think RTD would be a tiny bit more clear on that considering how much he loves showing us Doctor Who clips on BBC iPlayer.
• When we save the day from Omega, I am happy. When we get to the final regeneration itself, I am also happy. But in between that we have a very stop-and-start structure that feels really weird. The stuff in it feels good, but we keep flipping and flopping between calm moments, emotional moments, long speeches, all-systems-go moments and it makes that chunk feel very disorientating. Again, not bad. It is during all this we get that great bit where Poppy fades away and Thirteen coming back (we’ll get to that) But it does feel like the story is sort of stalling during that chunk.
• “Kicking the can down the road” is an informal saying that generally means “to put off confronting a difficult issue or making an important decision, typically on a continuing basis.” And I’m getting REAL tired of RTD throwing down a bunch of cans, kicking them and saying “look everyone! Look at all these cans! Aren’t they marvellous! Don’t you want to know where these cans are going!?” At the minute, we have three big cans we still don’t have answers to; who is The Boss, are we going to save Rogue, and Susan. And so help me if the Boss is just the Master, I’m going to lose it. We are running out of iconic series villains RTD, either make someone new or pick someone no one would expect.
• Murray Gold, stop taunting us with the Series 10 soundtrack. I KNOW that’s the slow piano from The Doctor Falls/Twice Upon a Time. That’s one of my favourite motifs from that story. And I can’t listen to it legally or officially. Just give it to us already. Now. Right now. I have a GUN. I KNOW YOU HAVE IT ON YOUR HARDDRIVE, MURRAY. HAND IT OVER AND NO ONE GETS HURT.

The Present

• I like the Rani in this. I’m not sure how other people feel, but for me personally, this does feel like a story made for her. I couldn’t see the Master or the Monk doing all this. It feels tailor made just for her. I like how the Rani wants to rebuild Gallifrey not just because she wants to avoid extinction, but because she wants Gallifrey to appreciate her. OK, its hella egotistical but it’s also a tad sympathetic. It does really feel like the Rani genuinely wants the Doctor to side with her and she doesn’t like having to oppose him for once. All of which is elevated by Archie Punjabi. Archie Punjabi is SO damn good as the Rani. The sass, the venom, the callousness. If Kate O’Mara was a space diva, Archie Punjabi really gives off the vibes of a sci-fi witch. And I love that. It’s still undeniably the Rani, but a new flavour. Anita Dobson doesn’t get quite as much to do unfortunately, but she does survive. Maybe we’ll see her again, who knows?
• Everyone is here! And while it does suffer from “Journey’s End” syndrome where not everyone gets a lot to do, it does add to the intensity of that UNIT Tower Siege. I also love that Anita’s here. She’s nice. And it does give me more of a reason to like ‘Joy to the World’.
• I love the momentum of the episodes first and last half. ‘Empire of Death’ really suffered from not having enough downtime and the vagueness of what the actual threat was. Where ‘The Reality War’ does feel like the better season finale. It does feel like the stakes are adequately laid out and the threat is clear. And when the episode moves into full bombastic action, it bloody delivers. Seeing it on the big screen really helped. The Doctor Who theme and Fifteen’s theme really do hit different in a cinema.
• The imagery in the episode f**ks. And it f**ks HARD. One of my biggest compliments for ‘Empire of Death’ was its imagery and direction, and holy hell that holds true for ‘The Reality War’. The UNIT Tower Siege, the Doctor riding the Rani’s evil moped (that’s what I call it, shut up) the reveal of Omega’s new form, the bit with Poppy’s coat and of course the regeneration itself.

The Future

• Everybody shut up, Jodie’s back. OH, you don’t realise how much you miss a Doctor until they come swanning back into another Doctor’s era. Initially on that long walk home I thought “OK but why was thirteen here? Was it just more RTD fanservice?” But again, the more I thought and simmered on it, the more I quite liked it. Technically, Thirteen was the last Doctor to regenerate. Fourteen technically didn’t leave, he’s still living his best life. So, I quite like Thirteen coming in to essentially comfort a Doctor before he leaves, considering she is technically that last one who left. And God, Jodie really hasn’t missed a beat, has she? It’s like she never left. And to be honest, seeing her perform along side another Doctor really does show how different she is to other Doctors. How wordy she can get, her little speeches about hope and I didn’t realise how much I missed the Jodie-Whittaker-patent-pended-speech-with-hand-movements-little-jump-combo. “Don’t go in fear. Go with that lovely smile.”
• The regeneration itself is amazing. I have issues with how we built up to it, but after the Doctor leaves Belinda and we cut back to the TARDIS; Oh my God it’s magical. From the swelling music, to Ncuti’s nervous but optimistic performance, the TARDIS slowly getting darker as he moves to the doors, the Joy cameo, this Doctor’s final lines, regenerating in front of a galaxy, and the regeneration itself being MASSIVE. Shout out to that one shot of the TARDIS console lit by the regeneration glow; that shot is beautiful. That whole sequence is amazing, and it caps the episode off on a high note. Also, tiny headcanon, the TARDIS shut everything down so when the Doctor does regenerate; he doesn’t accidently destroy the console room. Again.
  

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• But we also have a new Doctor on the way! Repeating myself, I didn’t know this was a regeneration story. I went in blind. That was fun. Friendly reminder that if you don’t like Doctor Who leaks; leave Twitter. It’s for the best. In fact, just leave Twitter in general. You’ll thank me for it. Anyway. HOLY HELL ITS BILLIE PIPER. Thoughts? I have none. Unsurprisingly, my only frame of reference is her performance as Rose, so I don’t know enough about Billie as an actor outside of DW to form an opinion. My initial gut reaction was “good grief we’ve really jumped the shark now”.  But the more I think about it, the more I’m warming up to the idea. Friendly reminder that this same thing happened with Colin Baker and Peter Capaldi. The main thing is that this isn’t a guest actor becoming the Doctor, it’s someone who’s played a companion before. Dare I say, one of the most iconic companions. Call me crazy, but I’m cautiously optimistic. Welcome to the TARDIS, Billie Piper as the Sixteenth Doctor. God that feels so strange to type out. (Though interestingly, she isn’t credited as ‘the Doctor’, unlike Ncuti and Jodie so ooh, maybe, maybe not.)

Conclusion

This is the last bit I type before I finally look up how this episode has gone over with people. And I will try my best to stick to my thoughts and my thoughts alone. Who knows, maybe I’m freaking out over nothing and everyone loved it. I don’t know. But here goes.

Initially, I had no idea how I felt on ‘The Reality War’. Finding that Mareep card on the walk back was the most cohesive thing that happened in the last hour. But I made the right call in not looking anything up, letting thinks simmer and watching it a second time.

I really did like ‘The Reality War’ and I think it’s a considerably step-up from ‘Empire of Death’. I do think this season has ended on a high note, resulting in one of the most consistently good seasons, in my opinion. More than that, it has ended a personally special era of Doctor Who on a high note for me. I think this was a fantastic episode to end the Fifteenth Doctor’s era on. Was it perfect? No, not really. I won’t pretend this regeneration story holds a candle to others. And those messy elements to distract me, but not enough to break the whole story, nor my enjoyment of it. This story is like…like a Pokémon card I found on a walk. Yes, there is a massive distracting fold in the middle, and someone else clearly didn’t want it or like it. But its mine now. It’s right in front of me as I type this all out. And I liked it. And that’s all that really matters.

So as a wise man once said, “Time will tell, it always does…”