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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.

Doctor Who is a very, very special franchise to me. Anyone who knows me can tell you this about me, it owns a piece of my heart and always has done since it first made me dream of my own adventures when I started watching in 2007 at a puny 5 years old. Since then the greatest story ever told has captured me, from Ian and Barbara stumbling into a junkyard in 1963 to grand speeches from the 12th Doctor that permanently alter my brain chemistry to endless audio adventures to accompany my daily commute to work. However now, I've needed a period of time to step slightly away from everything Doctor Who after this one. Not quite a period of grieving, because thank the lord there is more to Doctor Who than what's currently on our TV screens. But just, time to process what on earth just happened when this catastrophe was put in front of us at the cinema no less. I'm sure there's absolutely no original thought I could add after such a universally criticised episode, but I'm here to reconcile with it, to accept it for what it is so that my love for this franchise can go on despite what has been done to it's image here, just before a likely 2 year break at least where this will be the latest TV episode on the audience's mind. I think there's something cathartic about joining in on the choir of people crying for a change of direction after this episode. For Russel T Davies to be sacked as a great man once said.

The obvious problems all come in during the final 20 minutes of this episode. After the main story which was attempting to deal with a myriad of characters was wrapped up haphazardly in just 40 minutes before the rest of what we get which is just a contrived, poorly thought through excuse for Ncuti to leave after his issues behind the scenes. It could be easy to blame Disney for this, and while I do indirectly, the nostalgia baiting and the sidelining of Belinda perfectly exemplify the problems with the RTD2 era by showing these issues at their worse.

To start: I have never known a creative decision as awful, as desperate, as the casting of Billie Piper. Everything that made her run as Rose brilliant was that she was an embodiment of the human spirit of a completely ordinary working class woman. She was the ying to the Doctor’s yang, his opposite in a way that perfectly highlighted what’s so special about ordinary humanity. Wherever the pair went, Rose was always connecting to the people that are forgotten about, the oppressed, especially other working class women. To make the show feel so grounded, so real, so that us watching at home always had a way in to the story. To bring her back as a time lord, one way or another whether she is fully the Doctor or not, I feel is the antithesis to everything her character is and I fear her whole run as Rose will be trodden on underfoot in retrospect. Because there are so many things the Doctor is, but grounded is not one of them. It’s one of many issues but it’s the one that shows us what the future of this show will be. What makes this in my eyes so much more than just a terrible episode.

Besides that, the nostalgia bait of it is so glaringly obvious. It's been happening for a while now since DT was brought back for the 60th, but personally I could excuse that at the time. Now, that it's reached this peak, I can't help but see the decision then as part of the same pattern of the show regurtitating it's past. For the 60th, it was at least a Doctor that was brought back as The Doctor. It was a special anniversary event, when Doctor Who always has done some more out there crossovers and multi-doctor stories. And I personally could get behind the "this face came back to bring you home to rest" reasoning even though a lot of other people cannot. This decision now has none of those excuses. Even watching it for the first time before I knew it to be true, it was so obvious that everything about the ending was reshot hastily, especially this excuse for a regeneration, where Billie isn't even there in Ncuti's clothes, she's just superimposed on top of him after Ncuti's face faded into the regeneration glow. They had little time so all they could think to do was to reheat something old. And to think this show is one that fundamentally should be about change, about progress. Especially regeneration, which is supposed to embody that truth of the show in it's purest. It shows us even when things end, when times change, there is always a new future ahead to keep moving towards, even through all the pain and uncertainty. This is not a new future. Far from it, it is a betrayal of the foundational principles of the show.

The other overriding problem is the complete character assasination of Belinda, for the sake of a baby that we are given no reason to care about. I'll put it bluntly, it's just plainly misogynistic for Belinda, who we first saw as a fiercely independent, career focused woman to be shoehorned solely into the role of a mother without that even being her choice. A role that was literally created for her by design by a bigot who believed that the only path in life for women is "good little girl, then good little wife, then good little mother", as was literally spelled out to us in the first half of the finale. But then come to the end of that same finale, and we're supposed to go along with the previous Belinda we knew being wiped from existence so that she can seemingly fulfill her 'purpose' of being a mother???? In the scene in UNIT, Belinda has one (1) single line where she realises that Poppy is apparently 'real', then doesn't get to say anything else before the Doctor rushes off to make this her whole reality. Not a word about whether this is what Belinda wants. It just feels like Conrad's sexist ideal of what a woman should be not only survived the ending of the wish, but is then upheld by the show itself and it is disgusting.

I loved the potential there was in Belinda when she was set up in the first episode as having real conflict with the Doctor. Ruby and the Doctor got on too well, she was just star struck by him and there was little depth to her character. Belinda looked like she could be someone who wasn't just going to be happy to go along with everything the Doctor does. But now, at the end of the series, she has become the opposite of what she was set up to be in that she is completely subservient to the Doctor and allows all his behaviour to go unchecked, even when the Doctor has gone off the rails. She wasn't there in lucky day, sidelined in the story and the engine and in the interstellar song contest, and now in reality war she is literally put hidden away into a box for most of the story. TISC had the perfect opportunity where any reasonable person would call the Doctor out for his torture of Kid, yet alone a companion set up with that conflict as well as her compassion being a defining and interesting trait, and who knows more about the genocide of the Hegelians than the Doctor does. But no, Belinda forgives the Doctor straight away just as the plot does and even goes on to give him starry eyed looks and say how wonderful he is for it. To really exemplify the change, Belinda is angry at the Doctor for scanning her DNA in episode 1 without her permission, yet he does the very same thing to her baby in the finale without a word said about it. All of it is character assasination on multiple levels in the most brutal way

But it's not only Belinda who's character is brutalised, oh no. Omega was once a time lord credited with creating the eye of harmony to allow Gallifreyans to travel in time and hence earn their title as time lords. Even though he was revered as a hero back on Gallifrey, he was trapped in the anti-matter universe where he created this miracle, and so he felt betrayed by the time lords, which drove him to insanity. Now... he is... a giant skeleton... who wants to... eat everyone. Grow. Up. Oh. My. GOD.

I was following this episode and I can pinpoint the very moment it lost me as when those giant claws reached around the portal. I can understand the in universe reasoning for a change of design because he was held together in his original serial by pure willpower, he had no physical form beneath his mask as the antimatter had destroyed him. So maybe it makes sense that his willpower can create a form however he pleases given enough time. But a giant CGI skeleton too cumbersome to even leave the portal he came through, who's only motivation is to EAT PEOPLE.. it's pure spectacle with zero substance. The most shallow, childish characterisation of a villain possible. And then he is literally dealt with in about 2 minutes by.. shooting him with a laser beam. What a clown show.

Those are the biggest problems, the unholy trinity if you will. But before I rattle through some of the other smaller problems I do want to say that this finale isn't entirely negatives. Because even though it wasn't fulfilled, there was genuinely real potential here. Hell, as an episode on it's own two feet I actually enjoyed the first part, wish world. I love the concept of Conrad’s worldview fleshed out and turned literal to expand on the conspiracy thinking we got in lucky day and showcase his bigotry. And that’s exactly what we got. Because conspiracty theorists never do just make conspiracy theories about one thing and leave it at that, to them everything is connected in a huge web of conspiricies, which so often includes twisted ideas of marginalised people because the idea of their liberation feels like oppression compared to the privilege so many men like Conrad are used to. And it was done beautifully, the way the erasure of these disabled and marginalised people’s lives through Conrad's perception bias was made literal so they could work in the shadows, good stuff.

Around that as well the whole wish world felt very beliveable and fleshed out. It felt on the money with Doctor Who transported back to a twisted fascistic ideal of the 1950s. I loved seeing the battle going on within our characters for them to realise what’s going on and remember who they are. You know, it could have been a wonderful finale if it focused solely on Conrad's wish world, brought to life by Desiderium, with the Doctor and Belinda fighting to realise who they are then simply escaping that world fighting against Conrad who has the power to twist the world around them and make any of his wishes come true. That could have been an epic on it's own, and could have told a hopeful story that could be a parallel to deradicalisation of right wing figures in real life. This would have made for a story very similar to Big Finish's natural history of fear, with it's thought police and all, which would have been a wonderful thing.

Instead the finale feels like 2 grand finale level plots bashed together into 1 haphazardly so that none of the elements have the space to breathe that they need. One about Conrad and Desiderium's wish world, and one about the Rani using Omega to bring back the time lords. These could have been 2 seperate finales to different seasons each. This problem is the one that was on the front of my mind after the first part, when I was none the wiser to all the other myriad problems that would pop off in the final episode. There was never going to be time to wrap up all of the plot elements that were there at the end of wish world in 1 hour, but then they decided they were only going to use 40 minutes for it anyway ahaha!!!

But where wish world failed ultimately was in not doing enough to allow the finale to pull everything together. Only giving the Doctor agency as himself in the final few seconds of the first half of the finale when there is so much to fix is a wild choice. And Belinda seemed to recognise the absurdity and falseness of her reality and gain some agency when she runs into the woods and screams, which was a beautiful scene, only for that to be completely forgotten when she uncritically reports the Doctor to the thought police later that day?? Let your characters develop without being forced to by the plot please Russell. Ironically this scream scene also seems to show that even Belinda does not care for Poppy as much as we the audience are supposed to care about her by the end. What we are shown here is that it very much does matter to Belinda that Poppy isn't really her daughter outside of this false reality. She was screaming at the very reality of being a mother to a daughter that wasn't real yesterday that the Doctor sacrificed himself to place her back into at the end.

Time to reel off some smaller problems because I've talked enough about the catastrophic ones, I'll go in chronological order: the magic doors of the time hotel ruin the one thing that was fun about joy to the world, about mysterious doors that seem to lead to nowhere. Besides there was literally a REAL DOOR right next to the magical one that opened on the balcony that could have been used to stay consistent with JTTW. The reset that followed felt cheap, what was even the point of trapping the Doctor on the balcony, or of any of the tension at the end of the first part, if everyone just resets to where they were the morning of the 23rd?

Rose Noble came back just for the episode to announce that she's trans and not give her anything else to do. I hate so much that she's just The Trans Character and doesn't have any other dimensions to her, it's bad representation. And a little bit ironic to erase her from the story after that one moment given that that's just what Conrad did.

The bone beasts attack on UNIT tower is the peak of the MCU-ification of the current era of Doctor who, and it has to stop. Just action for the sake of action, pure spectacle. And it goes on for so long, lingering on shots of laser cannons firing on them. As if this military action is what Doctor Who is about. I will say though that the Doctor flying across the london skyline under tower bridge is one bit of spectacle I can get behind because it's iconic.

Even if his story could have done with more attention (there's a long queue), I appreciate Ruby being the better person to Conrad and wishing him to have a happy life. Because she knows that a truly happy life is incompatible with his bigoted, hateful views, which is a powerful truth

The Doctor's treatment of Ruby throughout the whole ending is painful, from the moment they step back onto the tardis with Poppy the Doctor and Belinda are like two best friends with a third wheel who is made to feel awkwardly left out and belittled. And then of course he does not listen to a word Ruby says about Poppy, ignores her, patronises her, laughs at her, gaslights her. That should not be how the Doctor treats his companions, especially 15 who is supposed to be an emotionally intelligent Doctor, he is far from that here.

The "I think we're all your children" makes me laugh at it every time. It's so stupidly melodramatic with the overbearing music and it doesn't realise it at all.

Okay now for a couple positives. The appearance of 13!!!!!!! Easily the best part of the episode, she brings so much joy into this otherwise sorrowful moment, bringing the energy that 15 is missing in this moment perfectly. I have been too harsh on 13 throughout the years, there's no doubt she's a wonderful actress as the Doctor, it's a classic case of not realising what you had until they're gone. I love all her little wonderful motivational quotes that she brings here too in "dont go in fear, go with that lovely smile". But here it's like she never left. And the moment about loving Yaz gaaah my heart!!

Keeping on the postitive note, the Rani throughout this whole episode was fantastically played by Archie Panjabi. I doubted her a bit in the first part, but given a bit of time she actually nailed the immoral scientist role in my opinion. The loftiness while remaining logical and not too maniacal. The ever so subtle sass she adds to the character is so welcome. And her outfit, shoutout to the costume department because I don't think I've ever wanted to steal someone's outfit through the TV so much. She sold the role so well when she went on the eugenicist speech about Poppy's DNA, it's just such a shame that she was denied any satisfying conclusion and was instead eaten by Omega like something out of a toddler's story book.

Maybe it was because she was played so well, but at a point or two in the finale I did actually find myself on team Rani when it came to bringing back Gallifrey and the time lords. Getting rid of it again so cheaply in spyfall was always a terrible mistake and I think it's past the time to move on from the mopey last of the time lords schtick. 15 was supposed to be a Doctor that had recovered, healed and I was so looking forward to that but in the end it was made impossible by the fact that he is still triggered at multiple points by being reminded that he is the last of his kind. So yes, join the Rani and bring them back!!! She said she would leave this world unharmed once she did and I think she could be trusted on that,,

This brings me to a point of reflection about 15s run as a whole. Because in this run it's clear he has an incomplete arc, a painfully incomplete arc. Because where it is cut off what we are left with is an 'arc' where the Doctor goes from carefree, youthful party lover to being much more bitter, spiteful and unforgiving. Some of the recent characterisation of the Doctor is simply not who the Doctor should be at all, and worse still it is during his final few episodes, among the notes he is leaving on. Here his dismissive treatment of Ruby is an awful taste to leave on and I also wonder if he would've been pushed so far in the interstellar song contest if it was known at the time that it would be 15s penultimate story. Although I'm not sure because that story can barely even acknowledge the brutality of his actions. It is an arc that almost feels like 12s arc in reverse, which is not something that should have been done at all, I sure hope it wasn't the plan but either way it leaves a sour taste in the mouth regarding how this Doctor will be seen in retrospect.

With that being said, there really is a bittersweet aspect to the end of this story. Because Ncuti was a fantastic actor as the Doctor. The energy, range and emotion he brought to the role throughout his time will be remembered, even if a lot of the writing of the scripts is best left forgotten. That seems like a cliche in the Doctor Who world at this point. "Great Doctor let down by the writing". But I wish so hard that we could have more of him, its such a shame and such a waste of amazing talent. When he started out I had hoped that he would break the 3 season unspoken rule, but by doing more because of his shortened season length not less. His final moments weren't even very touching and did not honour the best of 15. Joy didn't get even get enough time of day in the episode she was a titular character of, so calling back to her in 15s final moments doesn't feel fitting at all and leaves not much to remember fondly from his final moments. It's all such a shame.

So that's what's been bubbling away in my head for 3 weeks now. Turns out when a show that is a big part of my life betrays it's very foundational principles I have quite a lot to say about it. If anybody has read through the whole thing, thank you, you didn't have to do that. It's been so hard to get around to this review and so hard to conclude it because besides the fact of all it's problems, the result is that it's just extremely hard to actually compute that 15 has really left the show and we need to move on. It was all so abrupt. Other regeneration stories all have build up so that they feel earned and emotionally satisfying, so that we can say goodbye knowing that the time was right. Here, effectively killing himself for a baby that just popped up and we are given no reason to care about was so clearly contrived and left us feeling hollow. And left us with a show in a sorry state, it's own tail fully down it's throat in a position that betrays the values of change and progress that the show should embody. All of which tails an episode which was entirely spectacle without any substance to it at all. It is with little doubt, the worst episode of Doctor Who ever put out to me. All of us as fans deserve so so so much better. As the chorus of fans have been saying for the past few weeks I must say the words: Sack Russel T Davies.

The worst part of all is that I am left actively not wanting whatever is being set up here to be made. For it to be cancelled or cleansed of this direction it's going before I am forced to watch Billie Piper as the Doctor. And to say that about a show I adore so so much is genuinely so painful.

But believe it or not I consider myself to be an optimist. Whenever hope seems lost it's in my nature to at least end by glancing up at the light I can see at the end of the tunnel: now is the perfect time, with the future of the show so uncertain, for all the fans to truly consider the Doctor Who franchise our own. The titans of old have proved themselves incapable, so now is the time for a generation of new talent to rise up through the cracks. Whether that is by some mad fortune on TV or, much more likely, through a wealth or expanded universe content all the way to fan fiction. Because at the end of all this I can still say without a doubt that I love Doctor Who and I always will do, because it is so much bigger than what's on TV. It does not have to stagnate in this way if we don't let it. We can hold true the values of hope and renewal that are at the heart of Doctor Who. Believe in better stories than the one that was put in front of us here.

Well, that was a mess.

The episode (and the story) is over-stuffed. It introduces so many plot threads that go nowhere, and it wraps up Omega by... Going nowhere.

The wrong Rani was eaten. Mrs Flood is now a dead end, based on what The Giggle's novelisation said about bigeneration. You know, it's so fun when a classic character is brought back and then written out. Thankfully, she's a Time Lord, so we can have earlier Rani's return.

Omega, on the other hand... Introduced just for a cliffhanger that only works if you know who Omega is. And then they wrote a completely different character, with a completely different backstory. Omega isn't a god trapped in hell who wants to eat Time Lords. Omega is a scientist trapped in an antimatter universe. This wasn't for new fans, and it wasn't for old fans. Who was it for?

Then there's the ending. What a mess. Belinda's story wraps up with her being replaced by an alternative Belinda who was a mother all along. The character we spent time getting to know no longer exists. The regeneration feels tacked on, and I know that's because it was tacked on, but compare this to Twice Upon a Time, which was a tacked on extension to a regeneration. TUAT's regeneration feels drawn out, and you can tell when Twelve was meant to die in The Doctor Falls, but it still feels thematically tied in. TRW just feels like a left turn out of nowhere.

And then there's Billie Piper as... Well, we don't know. Ugh. Nostalgia bait. I'm not looking forward to series 16, when and if it happens.

At least Jodie's cameo appearance wasn't too bad, aside from continuing RTD's obsession with Time Lords having human binary genders (and based on The Star Beast, fitting into stereotypes about them, though I will be fair that this is not mentioned in TRW). Can we go back to Moffat's 'we're billions of years beyond your petty human obsession with gender and its associated stereotypes' please? As someone outside the binary, it does not feel good.

Well at least it generated content.

This is a late and long one. I took a trip to Prague the day after seeing the finale in cinema and I've just been left to seethe for a bit too long. It was nice to be in a city where no one really knew that Billie Piper was the Doctor, it felt validating.

I usually like to do a slight era review when covering the final episode of a doctor, but it just feels so premature to do it now. This, obviously, isn't the shortest tenure we've had but it for some reason it all just feels so un-finished and abrupt. But I'll get to that.

The episode starts out pretty strong, leading directly on from last week's journey into Ncuti's screaming mouth. The reintroduction of the time hotel and Anita was a pleasant surprise, although the initial visuals had me horrified of a possible TVA cameo somehow shoving itself into the canon of the show. RTD also managed to avoid his usually contrived solutions to impossible odds by actually using something that had some kind of establishment (so what if he's a professional writer, it's the little victories that count). I am also glad there was a pretty quick resolution to the brainwashing of the wish, even if it did leave Anita as a human doorstop for most of the episode, but we already have enough trouble with turning the ensemble into a hivemind of puppets so I'm not sure another speaking role would've done any favours for the script.

Ok right, so everyone is back and no longer homophobic, Mel's perm helmet has done its thing and Rose Noble is back so that Russel can trick himself into being an ally. Rose Noble (and by extension Yasmin Finney) has been done so unbelievably dirty in this period of the show. Her identity is utilised as a sci-fi plot point in her first outing, and then she's incorporated into the UNIT hivemind, only to exist as a form of expositing or demonstrating incredibly clumsy commentary. Not once is she ever treated as a character in her own right, she's a glorified literary device. I would've hoped that a show that is known for it's social commentary written by a man famous for his scripts that deal with LGBTQ+ issues and stories - but perhaps that's too much to ask for, after all we've got flashbacks to fit in! A part of me would hope for Rose (Noble, not Tyler) to come back to the show in some capacity in the hope that she gets some much needed characterisation. But then again, I don't really care because I haven't been given a reason to.

So after that, the Rani shows up for a bit - excellently performed by Archie Panjabi (would be a shame if anything happened to her). Then the big battle begins. The bone beasts (hilarious) storm the UNIT tower to keep everyone busy for a little while or - if you're Belinda - very un-busy. You know, it's quite an interesting choice to have your secondary lead of this season being rendered ineffective for the climax of the finale but I'm sure she'll have her big moment at some point.

Now, on first watch - I actually had a lot of anticipation going into the climax. The Doctor and Ruby were gearing up to head into battle and the Ranis seemed moments away from succeeding - classic stuff. Now, I actually quite like the moment between Ruby and Conrad, Lucky Day was my favourite of the season so to see the dynamic return and wrap up was a treat. I like that Ruby was the one to deal with him and she wasn't cruel about it, she used the upper hand that she'd gotten from spending that time with him in a sort of reversal of their roles. Great stuff. It's the Time Lord stuff that gets quite messy.

Omega is a character that is probably most famous for his design in the 3 Doctors - its creepy because of how hollow and rustic it is, a different type of feeling to the body horror of The Silence of the Khaled mutants. This new design completely abandons any of that. It turns Omega into a giant undead foetus thing with absolutely no reference to his original design. You can say what you like about Sutekh's CGI-ification but at least he was somewhat recognisable. Here Omega looks like a leaked boss from a new Resident Evil, which wouldn't be a problem - if this was used for a different character. Also, for some reason he decides to eat the last good character in this episode? There's that old saying, you are what you eat - but I think he was blasted to death a bit too soon for him to digest becoming an interesting character. And just like that, he's gone - barely a minute of screen time and the promised "big threat" has been neutralised back into his vault.

After all this though, the episode did slightly bring me hope again. The moments surrounding Poppy and her slow erasure from reality is incredible. Millie Gibson really is an incredible actor and I love the direction they've taken her character. It's a more tragic version of what happened to Rose. A character that was incredibly 'normal' and human in the beginning can't experience the world in the same way again as a result of their travels with The Doctor. It's an interesting consequence that differs from the usual death or death adjacent ending. However, as potentially tragic as this is, Ruby is not the only companion in this episode. Remember Belinda? You might not as she's been sat in UNIT's basement for the last 20 minutes or so. Belinda's ending is horrific. It's miserable. It's so f**king bleak. The Doctor saves Poppy, by sacrificing himself, but also Belinda as we knew her. The final scene between The Doctor and Belinda is so wildly off-putting and sort of contradictory to the messaging of last week. Why did Russel think it was a good idea to take the companion who started with so much self agency and turn her entire motivation into being a mother? Her reality is warped and her mind brainwashed into thinking this was always the case but it wasn't!! It's just so weird and dark to me that who we see at the end is not the same person we met at the beginning and she can't possibly know that. So what we end up with is a sort of 'Weekend at Belinda's' where the body of a character we know is being puppeted around but it's very clearly just an imposter wearing her face. I adored Belinda as a companion, and I think Varada did such a stunning job in the role - so it kind of hurts to see her character being stripped down. The problem is I like the whole sequence before this, The Doctor willingly sacrificing himself to save a child (that may not have even been real) is peak Doctor Who - that's him, that's the character. And the moment with Jodie is great as well. I just wish there was a universe where this could exist, without lobotomising Belinda, (maybe this universe could also make the space babies link make more sense, but what do I know? I don't run the show).

Then we get to the regeneration. The build up is brilliant, the speech, the score, the performance, the effects are all stunning. I'm glad they didn't blow up that very expensive set, and I'm sure Russel is too. But I was sad to see Nucti go so soon. His era doesn't feel complete enough for me. There was barely an arc, even 'The Boss' didn't get a complete resolution. A lot of his episodes are lacking in his presence because of how popular of an actor he was and it just feels like by the end I didn't know him as The Doctor. That being said, he had some of the best episodes in years and I will always treasure his performance and version of the character. The messes of his era are clearly the fault of uninterested suits who would only acknowledge the show if it'll allow them to buy their 8th house on the coast of Italy. I think that puts the show in a very familiar place to where it was in the early days of 2005, only this time Russel doesn't have enough Petrol in him to keep the faith. He's watched a few too many TikTok edits and thinks that's the sign of a good show. There's a reason why a lot of the dialogue in these last 2 seasons have sounded like they're clip farming. It's because they are. Aura farming and sigma edits do not make a good show. And neither does obscene nostalgia bait. Yes, I remember how good Billie Piper was - because I can watch her entire tenure on Iplayer. I thought that was the point? The show will change and regenerate, but if you're ever missing it the whole of time and space is available for you to watch. I'm sure Billie will be good in the role, she's incredible and I do look forward to seeing what she does with the character. Just please let her be a proper incarnation. Another gimmick might just be the final nail in the coffin.

I will start by saying I’m in the minority in saying I didn’t care for RTD1. Specifically, his season arcs. As a viewer, I started watching in Matt Smith’s run, then started to watch Eccleston onwards while also watching Capaldi’s early stuff. I think the Moffat style arcs, especially Series 6, with how they were incorporated into the episodes, really clicked with me, and so watching RTD1’s arcs which just consisted of repeated words or phrases like “Bad Wolf”, “Torchwood”, etc was underwhelming, with the exception being Series 3, I enjoyed the mystery of who Harold Saxon was, and why he was interested in Martha.

So when RTD2 was announced, I was apprehensive but nonetheless interested. After all, he did write great episodes themselves. I went in with low expectations of the arcs, and Season 1 affirmed how I felt. So going into Season 2, I was barely invested in the Mrs Flood mystery, although I did enjoy the “Land of Fiction” theory.

So let’s start with Mrs Flood. I have no issues with her being the Rani. I’m perhaps slightly underwhelmed but I have no issues with it, except maybe the assumption that the average fan will instantly know who she is. The Rani isn’t really explained in the episode except for “she’s a Time Lady”. Ok and? That doesn’t inherently mean anything, you need to explain who she is, not just name drop her.

But I think the worse criticism of the Rani here is that she was barely used! Like, you’ve had Mrs Flood since Season 1, maybe even the specials. She appears in half of Season 1 and every episode of Season 2, but then as soon as it’s the finale, she’s barely around. Mrs Flood is demoted to sidekick, then the new Rani dies halfway through the episode. I had to check the timestamp when that happened to see another half hour left. Why are you building up a character for TWO years just to do throw her aside? It’s especially infuriating when both actresses are so great in their role whenever they do get to do anything.

This doubles for Omega, as well. We are not told anything about Omega short of “the first Time Lord” which for starters isn’t even true in established lore? Like I know Doctor Who lore is pretty inconsistent but at least try. But again, we just don’t know what the stakes here actually are. Why is he locked away in the underworld? Who were the people chanting about him? Most importantly, what is his relationship to the Doctor? The Doctor asks Omega “remember me?” but we don’t. The average viewer has potentially but probably not seen that one episode from 1973 that ACTUALLY introduces Omega as a character, and again, as a threat he is dealt with in about two minutes.

Don’t even get me started on the design, like Omega has one of the COOLEST designs in 1973, but like last season’s Sutekh, they’re just a CGI beast now. Why are you taking away their uniqueness? Their originality? I literally thought it was Sutekh at first when Omega had a weird ass CLAW coming out from the portal. They’re literally just the same, but namedropped as pre-established antagonists in the hope that this will be enough to make people enjoy the CGI mess. It’s embarrassing.

For the finale, I was also expecting something with the Pantheon. Since that’s kind of the Fifteenth Doctor’s whole thing. We’ve faced three maybe four Gods by now? I was surprised, maybe pleasantly, by the lack of any Pantheon member. We do of course have some dialogue about Omega becoming a God anyway, I’m not sure if this means he was meant to be part of the Pantheon itself, or if they’re just hyping him up? I don’t see anything happening this episode to really “wrap up” the Pantheon arc. More Gods can theoretically appear in future episodes, no? If so I hope we have a better showrunner by then.

Next, I need NEED to talk about Ruby and Belinda. It’s so clear from this episode that RTD does not care about Belinda. Like, the villain is RUBYs neighbour and RUBYs ex-boyfriend. Belinda is just there. Sometimes I’ll joke and say characters are just standing around, but in this case Belinda is LITERALLY inside a box to separate her from the rest of the world while RUBY goes and confronts Conrad.

The episode then ends with Belinda’s timeline being reconstructed to retroactively include Poppy as a baby, a baby in which Belinda never met nor interacted with. A baby that RUBY had previously met and interacted with, and most importantly shared the theme of being a foundling and having abandonment issues. The episode was literally written for Ruby. Belinda deserved better.

Finally, the regeneration. Man. We just did this. The last couple regenerations have been controversial spectacles. People Didn’t like Tennant coming back as 14, then people didn’t like him staying around through a bigeneration. These issues, I’m mixed about. Like, it’s a 60th anniversary one-off, you want to get some viewers, I GUESS I can excuse it. But now it’s not a one-off. You’ve gone and done the exact same thing again. Like Tennant, I’m sure Billie Piper will be phenomenal in terms of acting. But the desperate attempt to get viewers through this nostalgia-baiting is at this point so embarrassing. It makes me wonder whether Piper will be a permanent, or “numbered” Doctor. We’ve had mini “half-Doctors” before such as Fugitive or War, and I love these characters, but I do think a bit more thought needs to be put into the mainline Doctors. Either way, I know I’m not going to be able to be invested in Piper, because it’s either too much of a gimmick, like 14, or she’s not going to be around long enough to establish any cohesive arc, like 15.

Overall, the finale is fine is the culmination of many issues that have plagued the show for the last two years. I will miss Ncuti, and I’m sad that there are like going to be so many dropped plotlines due to his surprise regeneration.

See my full Season 2 review over on serializd:
https://www.serializd.com/review/34868764