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TARDIS Guide

Review of Wish World by timeywimeythespian

24 May 2025

This review contains spoilers!

Although I was nervous for "Wish World" after the catastrophe (imo) of last year's finale two-parter, I really enjoyed this episode (so did my father, but this isn't his review). I love how the "perfect" world has misogyny, ableism, homophobia, etc that function as cracks to shatter any illusion that it isn't a dystopia. The first twenty minutes were pretty much perfect. I say "pretty much" because RTD needs to give Shirley a personality trait besides "being disabled." The Rani is immensely camp and I love her. I know her characterization differs significantly from her previous episodes, but I haven't seen any Classic Who, so I can't comment on that. Also, I hope that Mrs. Flood's fourth wall breaking is explained at some point. I did not like how she just infodumped for ten minutes; RTD, if you're reading this, you can't wave away exposition-dumping just by mentioning it. The score for this episode was perfect, and I am begging Murray Gold to release a Doctor Who score album for the first time in a decade. The set of the bone palace was gorgeous, and I loved all of the other visuals. I was super excited for Belinda in the first few episodes, but it seems like her trait of not blindly following the Doctor just sort of disappeared pretty quickly, and I was disappointed because I loved having a companion that stood up to him and was reluctant to travel. I did not know that Rogue would be returning, and I full-blown squealed when I saw him on screen! I hope he's actually brought back, and he wasn't just used as a plot device to have the Doctor examine the table and mugs (also, if he could communicate, why couldn't he just tell the Doctor where he is?). As I ask in every post-"The Giggle" story set on Earth; where is the Fourteenth Doctor? It's a bit silly to keep one version of the Doctor on present-day Earth when so many episodes take place on present-day Earth. I really hope that "The Reality War" isn't half as bad as "Empire of Death" and that all of the interesting setup in "Wish World" has a good conclusion.


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