Dot and Bubble

On first watch possibly my favourite episode of this series.

On a planet there is the enclosed city if Finetime, a place for the rich and young to work two hours a day and party the rest. A Dot (phone/computer) and Bubble that surrounds your head, links you up to social media and tells you everything you need to know, where to walk, what to do, and even when you need the toilet. But there is also something sinster...

Another Doctorlite episode, although less apparent. Its more in the vein of Blink, where we se the Doctor and Ruby on screen and we follow the exploits of the main character Lindy Pepper Bean. Its quite a saccharine world, everything pastely, and bland, and the people we meet seem shallow. At first Lindy ignores the Doctor in much the same way we do with spam email, and cold callers. Its interesting how Lindy can't walk without being told where to go by the Dot. It seems obvious but it is one of those things that if you'e never actually done it then it isn't. I remember watching about people who have been blind all their life, and if they were given sight their back wouldn't be able to tell by looking, which was a cube and which was a ball. You do get to feel for Lindy her world has changed from this safe, secure place, to one filled with horrors.

The episode gripped the whole way through, there are monster killing the residents, but there is the mystery of why some seem ignored by them. One thing I tend to enjoy is when characters don't always get along and we do experience the reality of how humans are, we don't always agree or are reasonable, and we have flaws. Lindy isn't the innocent we believe her to be.

Its hard to review this episode without spoilers, towards the end Lindy sacrifices a 'celebrity' who helps her in order to save herself, it's unexpected, and its why I enjoyed this more. Humans are conflicted, as much as we think we are good or would do the right thing, we often don't. The whole attitude changes at the end, are you are left wondering whether it was worth the Doctor's and Rubys time and trouble. The Doctors reaction (and Ncuti acting) is terrific.

One of the best.

 

So a bit more spoilers,

We discover that the people of Finetime are racist, even saying that that don't want to be 'contaminated'. It comes somewhat out of the blue, there are some subtle clues along the way, but I never picked up on them. In all fairness its a limited cast.

As Lindy escapes the city she meets with other escapees and the Doctor and Ruby, but it does beg the question of why the Doctor and Ruby didn't pick up on any racism having spent time with the other colonists.

An issue for me is Russell T Davis' comments in unleashed, saying about when did you notice all the characters are white - I didn't. Am I being accused of racism? I live in a small village in the middle of the UK, the only black person I'd see in the village was my wife. But if all the characters were non white actors would I have noticed?

Give Ncuti an oscar NOW. Absolutely fantastic.

the stakes just didnt feel real at all, great foreshadowing though!

POWERFUL ENDING

 

Going into this episode, I really didn't know what to expect. The spoiler-free reviews had not been kind to Dot And Bubble, and made it sound like Love & Monsters 2.0. Whilst the first 20-30 minutes of the episode still left me unsure whether this was a classic or a disaster, the ending is so mindblowing that it makes it one of the most remarkable and emotionally powerful episodes in recent years. It's an extremely weird episode to watch until you reach the climax, though, due to just how unlikeable Lindy Pepper-Bean is. She's so vain and self-absorbed that it's nigh-on impossible to root for her when the Mantraps are lurking menacingly nearby.

 

For much of the story, it makes no sense as to why she blocks the Doctor and is strangely dismissive to him, but not Ruby. However, this turns out to be such clever writing, that when you go back and view the lines in the new context of who Lindy and the Finetime colony are, it makes perfect sense. The final twist really saves the episode. The fact that Finetime is comprised entirely of racists, with Lindy being one of the worst, is utterly mind-blowing. It pushes the Doctor to his limits, and places him in a new situation, where he's suddenly being discriminated again for his race for the first time. His speech expressing his desire to save the colonists, and his subsequent reaction when they refuse his help because his skin colour means he could be 'contaminated' according to the racist group, is such a tragic watch. Ncuti Gatwa gives an absolute powerhouse performance, in what feels like a Doctor defining moment for him.

Dot And Bubble does have some obvious similarities to The Macra Terror, but its more Black Mirror-esque edge does make it feel different enough to not feel too much like a copy. It has some very interesting social commentary on social media, and how being so consumed by it can result in a person being literally stuck inside their own bubble. It compliments Lindy very well to make her seem even more narcissistic, as she seems a bit too preoccupied with her own sense of self.

 

The Susan Twist appearance is a little more forced this week. She's not as natural a part of the story as in Boom or 73 Yards, appearing as Lindy's Mum. It did leave me a little confused as to how she could be there if everyone on the homeworld had died. Is Susan Twist really her Mum, or is she just pretending to be? And if the latter, how come Lindy still recognises her? These questions may be answered by the finale, to be fair, but it does make the Susan Twist cameo feel a bit more shoe-horned in than usual.

 

Overall, I'd rate Dot And Bubble a 9/10. For an episode with such poor critic reviews, it was a surprisingly strong episode, with some biting social commentary, and a brilliantly shocking twist that turns everything on its head. It's just a shame that Susan Twist's role jarred this week, rather than coming naturally in the story.

Season 1 (Series 14); Episode 5 --- "Dot and Bubble" by Russell T. Davies

Well, this was a weird one. Leading up to its release, its already obvious commentary on social media by a man in his 60s had me worried that it would be an episode entirely made up of "phone bad" messaging and, whilst it was still that, it was also quite a few other things. A weird, surreal twisting story with inspired design and atrocious dialogue where the message is that social media and racism is bad, but the racism is a surprise.

Everybody is happy in Finetime. A city for the young and rich, every citizen is connected to their closest friends via their bubble - a holographic social media system that encapsulates their heads with constantly streaming video calls. Only, people are going missing, and monsters roam the streets.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Even if I have my issues with this episode's script, I have to give props to every actor in it. Even with the lines they're given, all the sidecast is on top form, especially Callie Cooke, who manages to sell the deeply irritating Lindy enough to tolerate her. Another thing Dot and Bubble impresses me with is the visuals, which are stunning throughout and have easily my favourite set design so far this season, with a slightly retro, fifties/sixties inspired alien colony. Plus, the effects for the slug creatures (or Man-traps as they seem to be called) are incredible and the design generally is incredibly disturbing. In fact, most of this episode is surprisingly disturbing. Juxtaposed with the fun, pop-colour scheme and lively characters is genuinely horrific imagery - the visuals of Finetimers being eaten alive by the creatures is viscerally unsettling and the droning, masterful soundtrack from Murray Gold (which is probably my favourite so far in this season) lends itself geniusly to the events of the story. Also, oddly, I found myself genuinely invested in Ricky September, although, knowing the twist, it's wishful thinking to assume he wasn't also racist, so that's a shame. Honestly, I'm just impressed the BBC had the balls to make the episode, considering it pulls so few punches. From the twist revealing our main protagonist was really unabashedly an awful person to Lindy fully murdering Ricky in the third act, the sudden inclusion of themes destined to divide opinion is impressive more than anything and I certainly admire the courage.

Unfortunately, this is all built on a really poor script that fails in more ways than one. Firstly, I've already mentioned how atrocious the dialogue is. It is very clear that it was written by a 61-year-old-man and most of the time, it causes me to be unable to get invested in many of the characters and outright dislike a few. Also, this episode is just riddled with plot holes. RTD clearly did the same thing he did with 73 Yards, where he thought of cool ideas but no reason for why they happened and left Dot and Bubble with a litany of unanswered questions: What exactly are the dots? How exactly could they be "sentient"? How did they create the Man-Traps and to that extent, what even are the Man-Traps? Why are they killing people in alphabetical order for no reason? There's just too many to ignore. Beyond that, the main draw of this episode - the messaging - is just really clumsily implemented. The social media commentary is not only ineffective and unoriginal, but also practically non-existent past the premise. Any good ideas surrounding it - like Lindy not being able to walk without the aid of the bubble - is very quickly dropped (she learns to walk perfectly very quickly) but it's also completely abandoned by the end of the episode in place of a different commentary, the episode suddenly becoming a lesson about systemic racism when it turns out that Finetime is an ethnostate. The message is good and what Russell is going for is great, but this feels like a subject that is too important to relegate to a last minute twist. I enjoy the final scene, I do think it's good but I like it more for what it does with the Doctor's character than what it's trying to say. However, I will say that the twist didn't come out of nowhere, which it very much could've. I actually theorised that this was where the episode was going earlier when Lindy commented that she thought the Doctor was two different people that just looked the same. I also like the detail that when the Doctor makes an unsolicited call to Lindy, there's an option to block him but when Ruby does it, she's just allowed on through - it's little moments like this that, at least from a story perspective, justify the twist.

I liked Dot and Bubble, but I feel not for the reason I was meant to. I loved the design and world and sci-fi antics but the actual message, the foundation of the episode itself, was really badly worked into the story. It's going to be dividing opinions for a long, long time but I still like it quite a bit, even if it is admittedly quite flawed.

8/10

---

Pros:

+ Incredible set design that was incredibly unique and well realised

+ Great creature design brought to life with incredible visual effects

+ Good acting all around that does its best with the lines given

+ Incredibly disturbing atmosphere throughout

+ Fantastic score from Murray Gold

+ Shockingly ballsy episode that subverts a good amount of expectations

+ On a rewatch, the foreshadowing is very cleverly implemented

 

???

~ Ricky September was surprisingly endearing, though whether or not he was a white-supremacist is up for interpretation

 

Cons:

- The dialogue throughout is unequivocally awful

- The social commentary is clumsily implemented throughout

- Abandons it attempt to comment on social media

- The final twist feels weird and too small for it to be about such a big topic

- Too many plot holes to ignore

I think RTD has finally learnt what racism is

 

Dot and Bubble left a few unanswered questions: what happened to Homeworld? What's the deal with the slugs? What's the deal with the Dot?, but I'm almost prepared to argue that was the point. Lindy Pepper-Bean is an almost Sally Sparrow like character, she's under attack from creatures she can't begin to understand, and she has to learn to trust the Doctor and Ruby through the screen as they help her survive and figure out what's going on.

Except, it doesn't go like that. Lindy doesn't trust the Doctor, because he's Black. She lets another character die because she believes she deserves to live more than him. She and the rest of her young, rich, white-supremacist society go to  try colonise the planet they're on in a move that will almost certainly lead to death.

It's almost a deconstruction of how we expect this kind of Doctor Who episode to go, and fascinating because of it. I just really wish there were any Black people on the writing team

I seem to be in the minority opinion yet again, but I really didn't like this episode. I have yet to see "Teens always on their phones" commentary done well, both from a commentary standpoint (actually having a point) and a story standpoint (actually having a plot. My god does it get boring.)

It felt like such a nothing story. Whereas most Who stories with little plot at least have fun characters and interesting themes to carry them, this had an unlikable protagonist (and not even in a "love to hate them" way) and barely any of the Doctor and Ruby. Even the tone was inconsistent, and I've seen camp horror done incredibly well, so this is a failure of the writer/director rather than the genre.

This is the third episode in a row to be Doctor/Companion Light, in a short first season for both of them, and I'm really starting to feel like I don't even know who these people are. Other than the final scene, all their moments were shot in a seperate room which did their acting a great disservice.

Then there are all the things that don't make sense. Where 73 Yards had unanswered questions, it at least made up for it with pure vibes. This didn't have any of that. Why did Lindy struggle to walk without the arrow? And then, only a few minutes later she was running and going down stairs with no issue. If the dots could kill everyone, why make the slugs? Why do it alphabetically?

I suspended my disbelief well enough while watching to appreciate the murder of Ricky September. That was a fantastically written and shot scene. You can absolutely believe that Lindy would push him under the bus to save her own skin, but it still comes as a shock. The angle of the shot makes the red light from the dot look like blood splattering the camera lense, an extremely visceral bit of cinematography. This is the only thing saving this episode from 0.5 stars for me.

Then there's the racism. I can't say I noticed all the side actors being white, but when looking over the past 60 years of this show, I don't think I can be blamed for that. This show, and RTD specifically, has had a terrible track record with black characters - in this season alone we've had two instances of the Mammy trope. Seeing that there were no Black writers involved with this episode doesn't help. This isn't a story about racism, and it feels like something tacked on last minute for extra "woke points". It muddles the other commentaries and the other commentaries muddle it. I hope we'll eventually get a proper story about racism written by a person of colour where it gets to take centre stage.

Gatwa was fantastic in the final scene, but it was ruined for me by him trying so hard to save them. Yes, the Doctor has compassion and that's very important, and we see him trying to save other villains in previous episodes, but the same problem people have with throwing the Master to the Nazis in Spyfall II arises here: this is real world racism, and Black people should not have to fight to "save" white people. The Doctor choosing the word "allow" really gets to me.

The one thing I can commend is the visibly queer people taking part in this white supremacy - being part of a minority does not make you immune to pushing down a different one, and that's a good message to have. Unfortunately, I find it difficult to believe this was done on purpose.

All of this together makes for a thoroughly unenjoyable episode for me. The more I think about it the less I like it.

This is a very, very good Black Mirror-esque story that tackles the issues of the selfishness of vapidity and hedonism, the perils of over-reliance on technology, the possible future colonization of Mars - as, likely the only ones who could afford to go are the wealthy - toxic positivity, xenophobia and the self-destructive nature of it.
I think the most insidious part of the story is, even as a modern consumer, I didn’t notice that all the members of Finetime were white, until the very end, because I am so used to seeing media populated only by white people, that it didn’t stand out until the episode pointed out that that, exactly that, is horrible, it genuinely made me feel like I was living in the past.
Now, this is something I feel is very much worth discussing, just on its own merits, but also because the show is Doctor Who. Yes, it is true that Doctor Who, in the sci-fi vein, has always been more progressive than its contemporaries, but even still, the show did quite famously make use of yellow-, brown- and blackface in the past, as well as hiring actual people of colour to play supporting parts without any speaking lines – as having lines of any kind demand more money – while having the white actors play the people of colour with speaking roles (See stories like Marco Polo for example).
So, the fact that it is Doctor Who making these comments on racism in society and how that is reflected in media and vice versa, is incredibly powerful, sold, beautifully by Ncuti’s most powerful scene yet.
Never has The Doctor been able to so personally tackle the issue of racism, and I am overjoyed that it is being done, now that it can, and done so well as this story.
Russel continues to prove that he has matured as a writer and that he can still dish out meaningful and thought-provoking social commentary like a person half his age.
And on the fangirl side of things, I am so happy that we have gotten a run of now four incredibly powerful and well-written stories in a row, they always make re-watches such a joy - like with the incredible run in series 3 from Human Nature, episode 8, to The Last of the Time Lords, episode 13.
9.3/10

On the whole, I enjoyed this one. The social commentary aspects are evident from the start and I think this commentary is done well. However, it doesn’t feel tacked on or an afterthought like commentary in some episodes does: it is woven into the plot very well. The plot itself feels pretty tight and well paced (although I felt there were a few minor plot issues and I would have liked it if a few more things were explained in a bit more detail). The atmosphere of the episode is excellent and the sets and special effects work very well. You can really tell that there is Disney money in this season. The main character is mostly likeable (if a bit annoying) right until she isn’t which works perfectly. I don’t know what Russell was doing with episodes 1 and 2, but he’s nailing it now and I hope that continues.

OK so bear with me here - there's an episode of Black Mirror that this is kind of ripping off, but it isn't the one you think it is.

In Shut Up And Dance, a young man is blackmailed into performing a series of dangerous things like robbing a bank with one of the good actors from Game of Thrones. Through very effective, claustrophobic storytelling, we are forced to rapidly empathize and sympathize with our young protagonist - as far as we know, he's being blackmailed with a video of him jerkin' it taken through his webcam. Bronn from Game of Thrones is being blackmailed about gambling debts? An affair? I don't remember, it's not important.

What is important is that the Jonathan Frakes twist in this particular Twilight Zone is our likeable if strange protagonist, thrust into a f**king awful situation that hey, any of us could reasonably be put into, right? Yeah, the twist is that he's been whacking it to HIGHLY illegal material and we've been sympathizing and empathizing with him the entire while. And then at the end, the videos are released anyway, he's been forced to beat another equally horrible person to death with his bare hands, and nobody has really gained anything. We never even find out what the hackers wanted in the first place.

That's the episode that this is ripping off, and it does it to ASTONISHING effect. This is the bleakest Doctor Who has been since Children of Earth. This is the Russell T Davies who wrote Damaged Goods. Combine that with Disney money production value, one of the best needle-drops (honestly, it totally justifies however much they spent on it), rug-pull after rug-pull. Is it "What if Black Mirror but Doctor Who?" ? Yes, but Doctor Who has been crashing into genre television for decades now, and if this is what it looks like in 2024, then I am entirely for it. I was and am continue to be gobsmacked. I'll be thinking about it for weeks.