I went into this episode honestly full of hope. I liked wish world, it set up a fantastic premise. The Rani, Omega, I was expecting great things. And honestly, a lot of the time that makes me at fault for getting my expectations too high.

But even if I had tempered my expectations as low as possible, I'd still have been disappointed.

It's not all bad, but most of it was.

I loved seeing Anita back. RTD mentioned in Unleashed he'd been thinking of this scene playing out for a while and Moffat creating the time hotel gave him the idea of how to get out of it. It gave us a great character back for a moment. Really good thinking there. Unfortunately, the fact she was a quick way to save the Doctor showed, because her character effectively became a doorstop for the rest of the episode.

The Rani's encounter at UNIT was fantastic, one of the best scenes of the episode. I loved seeing her and Mel interact. It's a big part of what makes such a long running show great, characters meeting after decades. This was very satisfying. As was the Doctor's trickery to take control of her air scooter. The offence the humans took at the Rani's rejection of using Poppy to restore the Time Lords was a bit silly. Imagine if someone suggested restoring humanity but also we'd all be part eagle because a half human half eagle creature was going to be used to restore us. Of course you wouldn't want that.

The fight scene between the bone creatures and the UNIT HQ was cool. There's a bit of CGI that was actually just fun to watch.

And the Rani convincing the Doctor to just go along with letting Omega come back, I liked that. He is after all, only Gallifreyan, and he was curious too. That was good.

Unfortunately, they decided to give Omega the Sutekh treatment, and turn him into a giant CGI creature, presumably because they have this nice fancy budget now. I loved Omega's original design, why couldn't they just have that come back? The giant creature seemed so unnecessary.

And then having him eat the Rani? So that whole multi-season arc was over... just like that. Immediately followed by the Doctor blasting Omega back in a whole sequence that lasted about three minutes.

Finally, the whole sequence of Ruby remembering Poppy was interesting. Unleashed kind of hinted that Ruby remembers because her memory works a bit different after 73 yards. I didn't get this from the episode but it helped make sense out of that.

But I find the way she was treated by the Doctor and Belinda kind of odd. They were downright rude to her which was so strange because a moment later that was forgotten.

The line from Kate of them all being the Doctor's children felt really weird. Like a modified version of "The real children were the friends we made along the way."

Then came out final sequence. The Doctor choosing to regenerate to save the life of a baby that ceased existing. I'm okay with that. The Doctor's given his life for a single person before. I think it's an admirable reason to regenerate.

Thirteen arriving was a welcome surprise. It was like she never left and she was absolutely fantastic. But, I do wish this happened earlier in the episode. I feel a Doctor's final moments should be special, for them and their companions. Making part of it about another Doctor felt weird.

The Doctor heading back to Belinda where her entire character changed to be completely revolving around her child was really disappointing. They could have set this up nicely during the season, but instead we got this really jarring change.

Then, that very end reveal, which I have to admit I first thought was Joanna Lumley from Curse of the Fatal Death, but then realised it was Billie Piper, and I was just... baffled. It felt as comedic as Curse of the Fatal Death to be honest. The credits however, didn't credit her as The Doctor like regeneration scenes usually do, so I guess we'll find out what weird antics are going on there.

Finally I'll highlight the lack of Susan, who showed up for barely a few flash sequences very the last couple episodes, after having her be mentioned a couple times over the last two seasons. It really felt like this episode would see her return, yet we just got nothing in this episode which was an incredible disappointment.

Overall, going into this episode had the prospect of three significant characters returning. The Rani, Omega, and Susan. And on all counts I was disappointed.

It had a couple nice points in the episode that stops me marking this below 1 star, but I can't justify giving it more than 1 either.

I'd have loved it if he pointed out their favourite episode was one he was barely in. That's always been a funny quirk of Blink being so good.

I'm happy with the "fans watching" scene, I was worried it was basically going to be RTD having a go at the toxic fanbase. And sure there was a jab, but it was mainly a sweet moment. So I'm happy with it.

It also simultaneously proved the current leaks true, while also making a joke about that very thing. And then those fans realise they're actually the fake ones. This is quite possibly the most meta instance of "Characters in a show break out into the real world" take I've ever seen.

I loved the handling of segregation, it was just a part of the setting essentially, something they had to navigate. They didn't turn it into some social statement where they defied everything and the white people learned their lessons. They played it like a hazard of time travel for a minority in an oppressive time.

The bigeneration "pocket of energy" to heal his hand was a bit silly. I get they used it to get the "Extract Time Lord light" story element going, but it was kinda cheap, there were better ways to do this.

I very much liked the handling of "convincing" Belinda to help. She wants to get home, so she needed to be convinced to be distracted from that to explore a mystery. They handled this very well and it was believable.

The resolution of "He grew so much he's gone now" was pretty average. Hopefully that comes back later to bite.

Overall, this was a fantastic episode. It had a couple issues, but it was a nice story, I really liked Mr. Ring-a-ding, he seemed quite scary at points. They handled the time period and Doctor/Belinda's dynamic well. Very enjoyable.

Belinda was the highlight of the episode. I think the slight bit of conflict with the Doctor really sets her apart. The fact she heard the Doctor do his usual "Oh look at this interesting mystery that I know you won't be able to resist" and she just rejected that, was fantastic. I hope they don't lose this aspect of her character.

As for the actual story, not so great. I think the incel villain would have worked better if he was a bit more built up. What we got was a quick line at the start and then suddenly there he was at the end. This would have fit better in a season where Belinda gets to return to Earth semi-regularly and we see an increasingly hostile boyfriend that she breaks up with, and eventually returns as this character. That'd have hit harder. As for what we got, it just didn't hit because I didn't care about their relationship.

The robots were cool and well designed, especially the polish bot, very cute. The way their weapons worked looked visually scary and reminded me of how Dalek weapons work.

Overall I think this is a pretty stock standard RTD opener, in that it feels more like an episode that belongs mid-season than at the start.