I'm still giving this a 3.5*, as I have done for the rest of the series so far, but holy hell am I conflicted. Everything about Apex here is red flags, and as flawed a person as Cleo is I find it hard to believe that she'd suddenly go from calling Apex a trafficker to falling for him, especially as her best friends are warning her. I know they've fallen out somewhat but this just makes Cleo pretty unlikeable to me. It's a shame cause I do think Craggs is a great actress in the role and I love having a trans main character where transness is key to her story. But it's just hard for me to understand, relate or like her when she's choosing a man she literally didn't trust 5 minutes ago over her besties, just cause he showed her space. (Even if that's 100% the point, and she's definitely intended to be flawed)

But on the other hand, the idea of an interdimensional brokers to avoid real estate prices is awesome, and I am really really invested in the Shawna and Abby storyline.

In the end, the 3* that comes from my issues with Apex and Cleo, and the 4* that comes from my love of the Shawna and Abby storyline average out to a 3.5*.

In my heart this is a 4 star because it's actively fun to watch, but in execution it's an absolute mess of multiple ideas that don't really coalesce into anything particularly coherent. Plus the performances aren't amazing. But it's such a fun time I can't resist giving it at least a 3.5*! Even though I do wish it was better and felt less like two completely disparate ideas glued together

The date is the 27th of April. My bestie and I are talking about how fun Doctor Who is at the cinema and they wanted to watch it. We pray that it will get announced.

The date is the 29th of April. It gets announced. I joke that if I lived closer we'd watch together. A few hours later I pitch to them maybe me travelling the 4.5 hours to do it anyway. I am now going cross country to see my mate, and to watch the finale of a series I quite enjoyed.

By end of the week everything's booked, I'm £160 out of pocket, and it is scheduled.

The date is the 24th of May. I wake up at 7:30am. I get ready for my morning. I go for a jog at 8am. I eat a Baynes breakfast roll while I watch Wish World at 9am. I enjoy the episode somewhat but have tonnes of issues with The Rani's characterisation and the amount of set up. I am tentatively excited for Omega.

The date is the 30th of May. I decide to relisten to Omega at the gym in prep. I like it but find it messy and overly long.

The date is the 31st of May. On the train, I watch The Three Doctors (Tales of the TARDIS) in prep. I love it. Omega is such a dominating presence and continues to be one of my favourite villains ever. I then read some Heavenly Tyrant and reach some great twists and reveals before getting off the train to meet my friend.

They walk me to my hotel where I accidentally get two keycards cause they walked in with me. They are not staying with me. Amusing.

We then walk down the canal and go to various manga shops. I buy Show-Ha Shoten volume 1, Frieren volume 6, and One Piece volumes 46-49 in an omnibus as they have a three for two deal. The teller is lovely and gives my friend loyalty card points from my purchase.

We went to a Japanese restaurant literally next door afterwards. My friend orders the best looking Udon I've ever seen. I get takoyaki and ramen. Both are great. They have an Utada Hikaru playlist going. I'm in such a good mood.

We then go to Waterstones and window shop before heading to the cinema.

I enjoy Wish World more this time and then go for a pee. Turns out the intermission this time is only about 5 mins and barely make it back in time.

I watch the worst episode RTD has ever written and leave annoyed. My friend has fun but doesn't really love it either. They are very patient with my complaining.

We went to an arcade bar after and played Switch for 2 hours while having cocktails during happy hour. I win at Smash and we draw at Mario Kart. Neither of us know how to play Mario Super Strikers.

I go back to the hotel and say good night. Tomorrow we will go wander around town again before my train at 2pm.

Day out: 7/7

This episode?: 2/7

This one is a hard one to rate and review. It's very much a first part, but I don't think it really takes advantage of the format. It adds more mysteries on top of more mysteries, without really answering too many questions until the end. And the answers at the end just set up more questions, leading to me fearing that The Reality War will be overstuffed.

Something that annoys me is that The Doctor has little to no agency. He doesn't solve what's going on or work it out by himself at all; he gets it explained to him just as he was on the cusp of things. He was so close to cracking it! And then just didn't get to at all.

After being set up amazingly in TRR and being fun for the rest of the year, Belinda has felt somewhat wasted and I'm sad to say that she really felt it here today. She didn't get much to do other than just help contribute to the doubt mystery and uh.... Get captured and uh... That's it! Ruby got more to do and it's frustrating honestly.

And final thing to be negative about: The Rani here felt to me very Mastery. Campy, loving doing her schemes, flirting with 15.... It just felt off. There were glimmers (I love that she says she isn't an enemy due to death, this rules and feels like her) but so many times it feels less like she's a scientist with no ethics, and more just like a NuWho Master wanting to conquer and destroy with only a few good moments. Pity.

Enough negativity though! I did love a lot of things!

The dystopian setting was done and paced beautifully. The world here felt well realised and fleshed out, and the mystery box was super fun to watch unravel.

I really liked Ruby's moments (even if the camp was too similar to Curse of Clyde Langer....) and the performances were all great (Panjabi is fantastic even if I think she's barely The Rani), and I love the idea of Conrad not even acknowledging or noticing the oppressed so they can rebel without issue.

Also wow this was gorgeous !!!

I liked this episode and had a fun time watching it, just unfortunately there's more negatives to talk about than positives sadly.

I liked this a lot! But I didn't love it by any means, I'm sad to say. I'd place it above Lucky Day and Robot Revolution in my rankings, but below Lux.

I was cautiously optimistic going into this. Eurovision has become fairly famously propaganda for a certain.... country that helps sponsor it. Banning flags, banning "political messaging" (but always happens to be messaging in a specific direction... curious, eh?), refusing to ban said country despite banning Russia, etc. And thus, despite having complete confidence in Juno Dawson, I feared that the BBC, Disney, and higher ups on the show would make this propaganda.

I am pleased to say that this did an attempt at being critical of Eurovision, and succeeded in many ways but failed in others. The Hellians are very obviously a stand-in for Palestinians, and the Corporation for Israel. Initially I thought this was just going pure anti-capitalism because of, well we'll get to that, but once the ball dropped for me I was so happy. And that ending with Cora! Beautiful stuff! I do hope though this isn't seen as "wow now all prejudice is fixed!" and more just as "people are reminded that these demonised victims of a conflict they did not cause are people too with their own cultures and lives, and deserve love and respect.

Now unfortunately, as I alluded to, I think it failed too. I think by having the villains be Hellian terrorists who want revenge, there's an angle of almost "both siding" this, especially as they don't just revenge solely on the Corporation, but on everyone at large. Is that really fair? Does that not give a lot of the right and the lobby that this episode is trying to criticise some ground to stand on? You can't give it to them, if you concede on even small points, you are opening the gateway for them to push more and more and deny your arguments entirely. I won't say this ruined the episode for me - again, it was more critical of Eurovision happily accepting said sponsor and banishing Palestine entirely than I was expecting - but it did leave a somewhat sour taste in my mouth.

Enough about the politics for now though (WOW DOCTOR WHO MORE LIKE DOCTOR WOKE AM I RIGHT FELLAS????), let's talk about the episode itself.

I had heard going in it was Die Hard meets Eurovision and I am SO glad it was more Die Hard than Eurovision. The plot was fairly light despite a lot going on, but it was fun! Maybe a tad too camp for my liking at points, but still fun! I love the idea of 15 and Belinda getting separated, though I don't think Bel got enough to do (other than continue to be a very good beating heart as all companions should be). I just wish she got some action or got to use her nurse skillset in some way.

Fab performances from the main cast as always, and I'm so glad that darker 15 has been pushed more and more to the forefront! I always love seeing companions scared of The Doctor's rage.

Side performances were fine this time. After the delight that was The Barber and the absolutely realness that was Aliss; the side cast were kinda just... There. Also how convenient is it that The Doctor ran into a nurse and a hologram engineer when he needed to? I wish these skillsets - especially Gary's engineering - were established beforehand because it felt almost like a copout to me.

Overall, the story itself was fine for me. I had a good enough time to give a 4 star, but nothing elevated it for me.

Oh wait. I forgot to talk about the reveals.

I jumped out of my chair when I saw Susan. I famously on the forums am super critical of her not appearing in season 40, so having her appear her - still portrayed by 84 year old Carol Ann Ford, who looks gorgeous for her age btw - made me SO excited and happy! Russell. Do not let the side down. We need her to have a sweet moment with 15. And preferably keep it vague so it doesn't retcon her adventures in the 8DAs <3

The Rani reveal was fine. I think the performances are fun, but I hate bigeneration! Why can't it be gone!! And why did Anita Dobson's Rani suddenly do a 180 personality wise and become subservient? It felt weird. The new Rani has amazing screen presence though and I'm hyped to see what Panjabi can do in the role. Also the reveal felt so weird in that it was just? Very casual? It left me with little impact. Though by having it here I'm hoping it means the two part finale will get plenty of room to breathe.

The everyone is The Rani meme is dead. Long live the everyone is The Rani meme.

4* - a very fun time that I have quite a few issues with, but the strengths of it carry me through those issues

I wanna give this a 4.5 but there's just enough detractors. But before that: this is one of the funniest stories ever, with amazing dialogue from Adams, fantastic wit, a very fun villain performance from The Captain, and great nuanced performances from both Tamm and Baker. And the premise!!! It's such a cool sci-fi concept executed decently.

But the Mentiads are just sooooo boring. And the Queen Xanxia twist comes kinda out of nowhere and hijacks the entire story, making the final part a bit of a letdown and a drag. More than enough for me to dock half a star.

Oh and on a neutral note: the bad special effects this time made me laugh hard, but I can't really be too critical of ambition

I can never trust Brax ever again.

In one ear. Out of the other. Though I am happy to hear Narvin being Narvin :) The ending has some good 8 stuff too

I love Macqueen!Master and I love Molly but I just genuinely could not care less about the Eminence

I absolutely adore stories about stories, and stories about creation. Look Back, Akane-Banashi, Blue Period, Eizouken are all favourites of mine. Uh whoops, all of these are all anime/manga, but like, you get the gist right? Art about art gets me to my soul.

Now combine that with a story structure, setting and voice we have never had before. Inua Ellems' voice shown throughout this. This didn't feel like anything we've had before in Doctor Who (other than the resolution, slightly. Which we'll get to shortly). The dialogue flowed in a way that felt wholly unique. The concept was fresh. The conflict itself even! This is why I've been begging for new voices since the start of the era! And while it's great when we get episodes like Rogue, which are done by new writers but feel like standard Who fair with new penmanship, this is a whole other level. This was brand new!

It looked gorgeous too. I love mixed media and the mixed media storytelling on the windows was beautiful. The direction? Fantastic. And oooh it was a bottle episode <3 Love those!

Performances were incredible. Abby and The Barber both felt liked nuanced characters not just due to their dialogue, but primarily due to their performances. There were layers to each and honestly, both of them are some of the best guest stars we've ever had (other than Ayling-Ellis in The Well, who I still think is maybe the best side character performance ever). Fab stuff.

And 15! I feel like I'm learning more and more of who he actually is this series, and Ncuti Gatwa plays a quiet wrathful Doctor who is also open to give second chances to those who deserve it, and to those who aren't necessarily evil so well. While I've had issues in the past with how undefined this Doctor has felt to me, Gatwa himself has never once let me down with his performance, and this week he elevated it to a whole new standard. He's such a stellar actor, and I really hope we get him for a few more years, rumours and fears be damned!

Resolution wise, while yes "I am The Doctor and I am old and cool!" is a very NuWho standard resolution at this point, here it felt like it was better set up and earned after Ol' Doccy Who got access to the engine. "I'm born. I die. I'm born." Beautiful stuff. I genuinely thought this landed because it was old hat done in a way that felt new and unique.

Oh and yes, I did lose my mind at the Jo Martin cameo. I gamer leaned and physically gasped. Amazing having you here, Fugitive darling <3

Fantastic episode and on immediate gut feeling, my favourite of the series so far.

We're so back.