Archie Panjabi the Rani you will always always be famous to me <3

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EDIT: Okay I calmed down a bit and I have more to add. There were bits I enjoyed. The first half hour was fun. Thirteen was a fun surprise. Panjabi's Rani is amazing. Gatwa gave it his all. I love Melanie Jane Bush.

Everything else though... Why did the Rani get eaten by Omega? Why was Omega a massive dessicated skull who got defeated way too easily? What was that whole motherhood plot?? After a whole episode saying 'why must women always be mothers and housewives' we... make Belinda into a mother? We give her a baby that isn't hers and alter her entire life and don't play that like it's scary? What was the point of UNIT? Why did we spend so much time talking about a baby that I had no reason to care about? Why did Gatwa's start and end have to get overshadowed by RTD's nostalgia bait?

Why why why why?

Why did the Rani have to get eaten by the skull... I need her back so much it isn't even funny. But I don't suppose we ever will, because if there's one thing RTD loves to do, it's disappoint.

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EDIT 2: Because I'm a masochist or because I couldn't believe that DW could make me feel this bad or something, I did watch this episode again with a somewhat clearer head. And it is still a dreadful mess. I made a lot of bullet point notes as I watched and did enjoy some parts, but overall... well, I'll let myself explain. Here are some slightly edited highlights from my bullet point list:

• They’re clearly setting up a ‘our daughter is real so let’s save her at all costs’ plot here and I’m not sure how convinced I am because Poppy is such a nothing character
• ‘I’m in a suit’ ‘I’m wearing tweed’ ‘I’m wearing nylon’ ok that’s funny
• ‘Conrad couldn’t even imagine you’ I get what he’s trying to say here, that the reality where we all Live is better but like Rose does nothing after this so how can she look anything but performative here?
• Archie Panjabi. I love you.
• Is it just me or is Murray Gold’s soundtracking just seeming a bit... tired. It’s like BOOM FEEL THIS in every scene but it’s lacking the kind of zest of This is Gallifrey or All the Strange Strange Creatures etc
• This scene in UNIT Tower is like... who directed this (edit: it was Alex Sanjiv Pillai. This is his only DW directing credit). Who wrote this. It’s standing still and expositing. It’s boring to watch like objectively on a technical level. There’s a million characters standing still. It is SO static
• ‘You thought of me every night’ how… I just… best scene in the episode. How am I meant to interpret that for REAL
• ‘If I remember it then it’s true’ like... This is Amy but done worse really isn’t it. I get what they’re trying to do, I really do: they’re saying yeah, ok, Poppy is real because we believe in her. But it just feels like it’s come out of nowhere for Belinda to suddenly have this One Huge Trait. I feel like this could have even worked better if they’d seeded Belinda as fighty for more than an episode and a half but she’s been so passive since Lux. We should have had her protecting and biting people all along, then I might have believed her defense of Poppy better
• ‘I can’t help you with the fight. My battle is in there with my daughter.’ They put her in the box… ugh like she’s done nothing really all episode and now she’s in the box. Hm. Again seeing The Pandorica Opens parallels here but again I think that worked better because we saw all through Series 5 how much Amy cared about Rory and the Doctor and also Amy came OUT OF THE BOX like straightaway to do stuff
• btw I’m still enjoying myself. I’m standing by what I said about the first 30mins being fine. It’s silly but it’s DW silly. I can live with silly DW nonsense if I’m having fun, and despite some of the issues and some of the intrigue dampened by knowing what’s coming, I am having fun
• also LOL ANITA IS STILL JUST STANDING THERE get the woman a doorstop???
• ‘I want to say thank you.’ Ruby babe, just smack him! Come on! You don’t have to coddle him! ‘Your world is nice.’ Oh ok, that’s why we erased all trans people and put disabled people on the street??
• Not the Skull… ‘Omega has become his own legend.’ Correct me if i’m wrong but Omega was like basically a pathetic guy before who wanted to go and do shenanigans. Not an eff-off MASSIVE SKULL???
• The Rani got ate by the Skull… so quickly… it’s just over so fast and pointlessly and like. Why. I wouldn’t even be so mad if it made any sense but it doesn’t. The Skull shows up and they all look a bit scared then he picks her up and eats her but again it’s all so STIFF AND STATIC AND SLOW. And then like that the Skull is just. Gone. The Rani and the Skull just. Gone. No fanfare, no pomp, no weight on the plot, just. Gone.
• Murray you’re killing me here. This whole thing of Poppy coming out of the box (lol) is so emotionally overwrought that it makes me not care
• Ok yea let’s give the baby to Carla? makes… uh… sense?
• I’m just so... The idea of the Doctor being in a platonic relationship with Belinda as they raise Poppy? Love that. But his sudden desire for kids is?? huh??
• Folding this coat is haunting though and Ruby being the only one to remember is excellent. I might not care about Poppy but this? This is the best emotional beat in the whole episode. See director you can do a good job!
• Imagine the Fifteen & Belinda & Ruby team we could have had
• See if we stopped here this is haunting. Solid 7/10 to this point. There are issues but Ruby forever being the only one to remember Poppy? Love that as a kind of tragic finale
• Why are we happy to have found Conrad? Can’t he just piss off? How come he gets to have a lovely ending and Belinda just got put in a box??
• Again, world’s staticest direction here, we’re all standing around watching Ruby losing it. Again, I really see how we’re trying to do a ‘save everyone’ plot but forcing a baby they neither want nor remember upon them? hmm… Again, reminiscing. A recap of the season. <urray is overdoing it to hell. ‘Sometimes I think we’re all your children’.
• ‘Best male’ like… come on Russ. Shush. But yay Jodie!! The audible gasp i gasped the first time But also like. What is the point of her being here? Yay because she’s fun but like, make it make sense
• ‘We never change. All these faces and we never really change’ yeah I like that
• ‘That was the point. All this time i had to be here [for Poppy]’ yeah don’t love this rewriting of Belinda’s WHOLE timeline for this. Like this is a fine character. It’s just not the character we had. Remember in Bernice Summerfield: Asking for a Friend when Dr Who changed his therapists whole timeline without asking to give her a family and she was mad about it because that’s not HER life lol
• ‘Poppy the human’ I think we’re meant to be sad ? idk. idc. Where’s susan? Why have we suddenly got the Doctor wanting a kid so much? I guess my main issue with this is like, nothing seems to have any impact. It’s all SHOUTY AND FLASHY AND BEGGING FOR ATTENTION but all these plot points happen. And stop. And have no impact. idk they’re asking me to be sad but I’m not feeling it
• Also like Poppy never says or does anything. Why do I care about her?
• ohhh don’t go I actually feel sad now i’m not in shock
• I still think the Billie Piper thing is stupid as hell, soz

And then I wrote this too, immediately after my rewatch:

Ok, so closing remarks. Three eyerolls later I think the best I can give this one is 5/10. I hated it a lot less without the shocks. I am still upset and angry about the Rani. I still think Belinda deserved better than the Box. If it had stopped at 40 mins we’d be looking at a 7/10 tbh. Stupid but passable.

However it did not end after 40 mins. There was a whole other 30 mins of just… nothingness. Yay 13. Yay Poppy. Yay universe saved, I guess. But none of that really had any impact on me because there didn’t seem much point. I think that’s how I feel about it all. There is so much going on, so many elements and moving parts and yet the whole hour and seven mins feels sluggish. As I said a few times, not helped by the abysmal direction because so much of it is just standing around giving history lessons to each other. Which is boring on audio, let alone TV.

There is so much going on and yet it’s all fleeting and pointless. Rose is there, now she’s gone. Kate and UNIT are there and they blow stuff up and now they’re gone. Thirteen is here and now she’s gone. The epic the Rani and Omega showdown is so lame it’s barely worth talking about. None of it makes sense either - and as I say I’m a Doctor Qho fan who likes Time-Flight and Battlefield and Fear Her. I can take stupid nonsense.

But this? I can’t quite articulate it but it feels like I’ve been starved and strapped to a chair and RTD is wheeling me along one of those buffets where the food is on plates with metal lids, and he’s opening the lids and going ‘mmm yum yum right?’ and moving on before I can eat and it’s like woah slow down Russ. I want to eat, I’m starving here. And he’s like ‘hehe what a hoot right?’ and I’m like ‘Russ i’m starving here!!’

Maybe that metaphor got away from me. Anyway.

My point is, there were so many things dangling in all of Ncuti’s seasons. Ruby and the snow. The song in her heart. Poppy. Susan Twist. Sutekh. The One Who Waits. Omega. The Rani. Susan Foreman. The Time Lords. The exploding TARDIS. 73 yards. So on, so on, so on. And some of those got kind of tied up (by being ate by the Skull…) but there are still so many things that I now feel will never be resolved which does not bring me joy. I feel like I’ve been giving it the benefit of the doubt for two years waiting for it all to add up and it’s just gone nowhere. And that’s frustrating.

I guess, perhaps, some of this was production issues. The last 30 mins feel so tacked on and forced and I have no doubt that’s because they were. If we’d had S3 as we were meant to, who knows? Maybe we would have some answers. But we’re not getting S3 as it would have been and realistically we’re looking at 2027 at the earliest for more Who. If we’re getting it at all. I think maybe being flashy and loud and not tying up each season well (or at all) has not worked in RTD’s favour. And the frustratingest thing of all is we know he can! Look at series 1! Beautiful television! And I suppose the difference there is they had one shot to make it right. One shot to tell the most beautiful story they could because there was no guarantee of more. And they did. By god, they did it.

I do believe RTD loves Doctor Who. I don't believe he would maliciously write badly, or try to make it bad on purpose. But I also believe that this season felt kind of stale, from Murray Gold’s music to the same but different (and worse) story beats from RTD1. I hesitate to call him lazy because that's a word that's been overly bandied about, but honestly? It does feel a little like they’re going through the motions of making Doctorr Who and marketing it to a Tiktok audience rather than actually doing what Doctor Who has always done best and focussing on making good stories. It doesn’t always succeed. It never has. But it tries. I think looking back to the past has truly hampered RTD2 and it hasn’t been crafted with the same care because it was assumed the audience would be there. And we are. But after that…

The best episode of RTD2 (The Story and The Engine) was written by someone who’s never done Who before. And I don’t think that’s a coincidence.