Russell Two Davies

[Nick R]

Apparently, today there was some news about a change to Doctor Who’s production staff, in some obscure behind-the-scenes role. I don’t know if anyone else heard about it?

Topic

[Ben Saunders]

[Technopeasant]

I’d rather not go for the obvious when citing a worst episode ever, but the way the Doctor is written and characterised is absolutely abhorrent. 

[Technopeasant]

On that note, does anyone else agree it is bizarre that Androzani isn’t on Bluray yet?
Tactical release schedule when releasing a complete set of something with so many instalments.

I still find it odd we ended up with a complete Sylvester before a complete Colin, even if having the regeneration not end the season was always an odd move.

Of course I could argue The Movie Bluray doesn’t count as it is an upscale as Fox lost the film reel…

[cwickham]

I still find it odd we ended up with a complete Sylvester before a complete Colin, even if having the regeneration not end the season was always an odd move.

One of the cited reasons for giving Colin a complete story at the tail-end of Season 21 was because strike action had cancelled the final story of Season 20 (the original version of what became Resurrection of the Daleks), so if the same thing happened again The Twin Dilemma could just be held over to the beginning of the following season in a revised format. (And in the event strike action meant one of the studio sessions assigned to TTD had to be given over to Androzani, although JNT was able to negotiate a fresh studio session so they could complete TTD.)

[Ben Saunders]

You get the impression from behind the scenes stuff that JNT was busting his balls and bending over backwards to make sure we got our weekly slop, it may have been shit but at least it was on. 

[cwickham]

Is anyone still in contact with Darrell, formerly of this parish? Having been made aware of what he’s been tweeting about the show in the last few days I’m a wee bit concerned.

[Dave]

Thoughts on tonight’s episode?

[Dave]

Is anyone still in contact with Darrell, formerly of this parish? Having been made aware of what he’s been tweeting about the show in the last few days I’m a wee bit concerned.

What’s he been tweeting?

[Rushy]

This entire era has been dumber than series 8 of Red Dwarf could ever hope to be. 

[cwickham]

Stuff about how tonight’s episode had been reshot to be the definitive last episode ever, with no intention to make any more, and the BBC are “liquidating the format rights” (whatever that means), and doubling down when it was pointed out to him he claimed the TARDIS set had been destroyed and there was visual evidence it was still standing. Just… generally concerned that the algorithm can do strange things to anyone who’s still there.

[sleepey]

You know what… that was alright 🙂

First bit felt like a bit of a cop out but once the episode settled in I enjoyed it.

Lovely cameo, even if it didn’t seem to have much of a point! And yes I did call that final shot but now time has shifted by a degree so we’ve landed one actor to the side.

[Warbodog]

Good jumping-on points for getting a new fan into New Who – updated 2025!

– Rose (2005)

– The Eleventh Hour (2010)

– … Is it still just those?

[Dave]

Stuff about how tonight’s episode had been reshot to be the definitive last episode ever, with no intention to make any more, and the BBC are “liquidating the format rights” (whatever that means), and doubling down when it was pointed out to him he claimed the TARDIS set had been destroyed and there was visual evidence it was still standing. Just… generally concerned that the algorithm can do strange things to anyone who’s still there.

Hmmm, that’s a shame. Some people are too online for their own good, and I say that sympathetically. Twitter is such a nasty place now that anyone still plugged into it in a meaningful way is probably leaving themselves open to this kind of warped take.

[Dave]

Good jumping-on points for getting a new fan into New Who – updated 2025!
– Rose (2005)
– The Eleventh Hour (2010)
– … Is it still just those?

Maybe best to delete Rose from that list after tonight.

[Renegade Rob]

As I was watching the finale, I thought to myself, I’ll do a cute smegadrive post that connects the Susan Triad zero room crate stuff to the Todhunter stasis explanation, but then the rest of the finale happened, and it’s like, I think we’re a bit past that now. 

[Jonathan Capps]

To be fair, some people on Twitter have been talking self important shite for decades already, without the help of any recent algorithm. 

[Flap Jack]

credit where it’s due – I said “stop teasing and just bring Susan back already” and they delivered on it.

OK, credit retracted. Fuck off, RTD.

It was my fault though honestly. I genuinely thought “yes, he spent a whole series teasing Susan only to pull the rug out from under us, but surely he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of actually bringing Carole Ann Ford back to film a scene in the TARDIS where she implores The Doctor to find her, if that was literally all there was, and she wasn’t going to appear in let alone be important in the finale. It was delayed gratification but it’s definitely happening this time. He wouldn’t do the exact same rug pull twice” like a goddamn naive fool.

There has still been great stuff in this RTD2 era for sure, but if Doctor Who returns and Davies is still the head writer when it does, then my capacity to look forward to anything specific about the show is completely spent. It held out longer than it should have, really.

[Dave]

There has still been great stuff in this RTD2 era for sure, but if Doctor Who returns and Davies is still the head writer when it does, then my capacity to look forward to anything specific about the show is completely spent. It held out longer than it should have, really.

I feel similarly unfortunately. I was convinced he’d be able to rescue the show but I actually think he’s made things worse and pushed audiences away from it even further.

Either way, it feels quite likely that we’re in for a long wait before we see more.

[Renegade Rob]

When the Rani explains that the Master’s gene explosion genocide thing was the cause of the bigenerations and the sterility and the finale’s events and that it basically did kill all the Time Lords eventually, with extinction being a little slower, I took that to maybe be meta-commentary that the show itself was mortally wounded from the Chibnall-era and succumbed to its wounds eventually. I don’t necessarily subscribe to that take myself but I’m wondering if that was meant to be a deliberate meta-shot from RTD or if I’m reading into it a bit. He kept all the Chibnall stuff canon which I really really respected, but then to be like, yep, this is all the Chibnall Master’s fault felt like a 180 on that. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Good jumping-on points for getting a new fan into New Who – updated 2025!
– Rose (2005)
– The Eleventh Hour (2010)
– … Is it still just those?

Ya know what. It’s a shows that’s been running for 20 years and a show that’s been running for 60 years

RTD made a concerted effort to completely start over (more or less) in 2005, not to silent anyone 

I think now, he’s made a show that’s very 2025 and doesn’t hide from its past 

an audience can jump in and watch Ncuti and not know who these past characters are, and that’s fine. You have to expect that watching a show that’s 60 years old

[Rushy]

My mum thinks that Piper’s 16th Doctor is going to track down Tennant’s 14th

[sleepey]

When the Rani explains that the Master’s gene explosion genocide thing was the cause of the bigenerations and the sterility and the finale’s events and that it basically did kill all the Time Lords eventually, with extinction being a little slower, I took that to maybe be meta-commentary that the show itself was mortally wounded from the Chibnall-era and succumbed to its wounds eventually. I don’t necessarily subscribe to that take myself but I’m wondering if that was meant to be a deliberate meta-shot from RTD or if I’m reading into it a bit. He kept all the Chibnall stuff canon which I really really respected, but then to be like, yep, this is all the Chibnall Master’s fault felt like a 180 on that. 

I really don’t think that’s the case at all. RTD may be off his game recently but I don’t think he’s dumb enough to both a) buy into all that internet-brained stuff about the Chibnall era being an unprecedented turbo-disaster, and b) take something he thinks has hurt the show & weave it even tighter into the ongoing narrative.

[Flap Jack]

I really don’t think that’s the case at all. RTD may be off his game recently but I don’t think he’s dumb enough to both a) buy into all that internet-brained stuff about the Chibnall era being an unprecedented turbo-disaster, and b) take something he thinks has hurt the show & weave it even tighter into the ongoing narrative.

Yeah, I agree with this, in general. If Davies disliked what Chibnall did, he had the perfect opportunity to ignore it all and start with a clean slate, but he didn’t.

But that “I should tell Yaz I love her”/”You won’t” interaction felt pretty pointed. I don’t know how to interpret that other than as a jab at Chibnall – unless that was there because Chibnall personally felt regret and asked for it to be put in.

[Rushy]

My personal belief is that Russell, Steven and Chris are all extremely clinical about each other’s work, for the lack of a better word. They all support each other as writers while also acknowledging each other’s differences. 

So I don’t think Russell was taking a jab at Chris so much as he was simply playing off of what Chris established earlier. The Timeless Child and the Yaz romance are things that happened, so Russell is developing his story based on those events in a way that makes them as meaningful and interesting as possible.

It’s the same as Steven reinventing the John Simm Master, and poking all kinds of fun at the Tenth Doctor’s characterisation in Day of the Doctor. He’s not mocking Russell with that, just making use of what’s been given to him in a way that he judges best. 

[Stephen Abootman]

Front page of BBC News:

Article:

[Ridley]

Thoughts on tonight’s episode?

“For this,” she said, “I’d recommend a Rose.”

It’s a shame this era hasn’t quite been RTD storming in and revitalising the show as one hoped.

Still went “Aw, brilliant. :D” when Piper appeared though.

[Warbodog]

an audience can jump in and watch Ncuti and not know who these past characters are, and that’s fine.

Sounds like it isn’t good enough to recommend though, which is the main thing, unless (crucially) the kids loved it.

[Ben Saunders]

There was good stuff in that finale but it was spread very thin, there were aspects of nuggets of hints of greatness there, but overall… fuck me this show stinks.

Jodie turning up to remind us that it could be worse.

Billie turning up to show us that it can and will be worse.

[Ben Saunders]

Good jumping-on points for getting a new fan into New Who – updated 2025!
– Rose (2005)
– The Eleventh Hour (2010)
– … Is it still just those?

Maybe best to delete Rose from that list after tonight.

The Pilot is an excellent pilot. Yes the series arc is bringing back TWO Masters, and you’d only have one series before diving headfirst into Chibnall shite… nevermind actually.

Stuff about how tonight’s episode had been reshot to be the definitive last episode ever, with no intention to make any more, and the BBC are “liquidating the format rights” (whatever that means), and doubling down when it was pointed out to him he claimed the TARDIS set had been destroyed and there was visual evidence it was still standing. Just… generally concerned that the algorithm can do strange things to anyone who’s still there.

Of all the rumours that were flying around before the finale, I believed “the show is fucking dead” more readily than “they’re bringing Billie Piper back.” The former felt infinitely more believable than the latter. They wouldn’t be that desperate, surely?

[Ben Saunders]

2024: They wasted the return of Sutekh and turned him into a big CGI dog

2025: They wasted the return of Omega and turned him into a big CGI dog

Who’s next?

[sleepey]

But that “I should tell Yaz I love her”/”You won’t” interaction felt pretty pointed. I don’t know how to interpret that other than as a jab at Chibnall – unless that was there because Chibnall personally felt regret and asked for it to be put in.

“You won’t… but she knows”

Basically reiterating to 13 & the audience that their relationship was valid & mutual even if they couldn’t make anything more of it.

[Ridley]

There’s no bigger supporter of Chibnall on Doctor Who than RTD.

[Dave]

2024: They wasted the return of Sutekh and turned him into a big CGI dog
2025: They wasted the return of Omega and turned him into a big CGI dog
Who’s next?

K-9 must be shitting himself. 

[Ridley]

Susan Pawwoman.

[Dave]

[Asclepius]

credit where it’s due – I said “stop teasing and just bring Susan back already” and they delivered on it.
OK, credit retracted. Fuck off, RTD.
It was my fault though honestly. I genuinely thought “yes, he spent a whole series teasing Susan only to pull the rug out from under us, but surely he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of actually bringing Carole Ann Ford back to film a scene in the TARDIS where she implores The Doctor to find her, if that was literally all there was, and she wasn’t going to appear in let alone be important in the finale. It was delayed gratification but it’s definitely happening this time. He wouldn’t do the exact same rug pull twice” like a goddamn naive fool.
There has still been great stuff in this RTD2 era for sure, but if Doctor Who returns and Davies is still the head writer when it does, then my capacity to look forward to anything specific about the show is completely spent. It held out longer than it should have, really.

Apparently there’s a photo of a deleted scene circulating. Shows the Doc and Belinda dancing at a party. Susan is also there apparently. The suggestion is that it’s from the pre-reshoot end of the series finale, before the reshoots were needed to lead up to the regeneration.

Looking forward to reading the full details in 20 years time or so.

[Flap Jack]

Apparently there’s a photo of a deleted scene circulating. Shows the Doc
and Belinda dancing at a party. Susan is also there apparently. The
suggestion is that it’s from the pre-reshoot end of the series finale,
before the reshoots were needed to lead up to the regeneration.

I’ve heard about this too, but it seems like the deleted scene was just an alternate ending, and Susan’s appearance was just another tease for the future (one she maybe wasn’t even physically present for) and not her playing any kind of actual role in the story. So we can file this under trivia and not something that earns RTD back any good will from me. (Unless it turns out they actually rewrote and reshot the entire story.)

[Asclepius]

Apparently there’s a photo of a deleted scene circulating. Shows the Doc
and Belinda dancing at a party. Susan is also there apparently. The
suggestion is that it’s from the pre-reshoot end of the series finale,
before the reshoots were needed to lead up to the regeneration.
I’ve heard about this too, but it seems like the deleted scene was just an alternate ending, and Susan’s appearance was just another tease for the future (one she maybe wasn’t even physically present for) and not her playing any kind of actual role in the story. So we can file this under trivia and not something that earns RTD back any good will from me. (Unless it turns out they actually rewrote and reshot the entire story.)

I don’t know how much was reshot and rewritten, but it seems that so much was up in the air. Dialogue-wise, it really feels like it was meant to be Millie Gibson as the companion throughout both series, for a start.

As for Susan, certainly in the Unleashed footage, she’s wearing different clothes to the ones she was wearing in her scene inside the Doctor’s mind. Suggesting she was dressed for a different scene at some other point.

Weird, weird and frustrating. Over all I’ve really liked this series, but knowing it was meant to be something else leaves an odd feeling.

[Dave]

Knowing that there were fairly late reshoots to film all the regeneration stuff, I think it’s probably fair to assume that the back end of the episode was significantly reworked from the originally-shot version to turn it into what we saw last night. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are chunks of story that had to be jettisoned to make it all line up.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

I don’t know if the regen stuff was part of the reshoots

His last day on set is captured in the BTS stuff – and I doubt you’d bring that team back just for those couple of days – and he talks about only doing two series in the version on YouTube 

Jodie was also part of the original script and that has discussion of regeneration.

I do kinda feel it was always the plan for him to leave but their not knowing if there’d be a 3rd season has put them in a position of not knowing what to do about the next Doctor. So at the last minute have grabbed Billie who can bridge a gap in whatever mental gymnastic way RTD sees bringing her back makes sense. 

[Dave]

Ah, well if this was always the plan then it’s even more disappointing. I could at least cut them a bit of slack if this all had to be cobbled together at short notice. 

[Asclepius]

Wasn’t there a comment about “We’re about to start working on the thirs series” which was apparently edited put of his Graham Norton interview, though?

Re: the BTS stuff, I believe it’s been commented on that neither Mel nor Rose are present during it, suggesting a reshoot had taken place there.

I think Billie is The Face to be there as a) RTD knows she can keep a secret, b) it grabs headlines, c) it means the Doc isn’t just paused mid-regen, like Troughton. 

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Given series 3 apparently still isn’t confirmed he was obviously misspeaking on some part

Maybe he meant the production was getting ready, maybe he’d been told not to confirm his departure so just got muddled, maybe he was referring to the spin off.

[Ben Saunders]

God this is so shit. Every time I see a screengrab of Billie as the Doctor I take psychic damage. Every post I read reminds me of something else crap about the finale. 

RTD didn’t want Ncuti to look like he was carrying a gun so radically changed the Sonic design, then had Ncuti simply shoot Omega with a big gun at the half-way point of the episode before padding out the rest of the episode with confusing timey-wimey soap opera nonsense that felt like I was having a bad dream. People say he didn’t actually kill Omega but that doesn’t matter.

People also say “Doctor Who fans didn’t like Chibnall and now they don’t like RTD, so that’s proof they just don’t like anything!” which is one of your dumbest things I’ve ever heard. People said the same about anybody who dared not to like two Star Wars films in a row from different directors. We gave you two options and you didn’t like either? You must just hate everything.

Lots of people online are coping hard with “oh they must still be in the wrong universe or something because things just couldn’t be this crap otherwise.” But that’s wishful thinking. And if that is the case then all of this is nothing but empty spectacle and would feel even more hollow. Last year you said oh next series will explain everything for real, don’t worry. Now we’re saying the same about more shit. It will just keep piling on. 

Wasting Omega in exactly the same way you just wasted Sutekh, by turning him into an easily defeatable bit of massive CGI, almost feels like sabotage. That wasn’t Omega, it was just a big monster. 

The very good CGI of the battle against the big bone beasts was soured by the shitty camera movements and snap zooms and the fact that all I could think of was “this probably cost a fortune but it makes me feel nothing”. “A special effect without a story is a very boring thing”.

I felt nothing when Ncuti regenerated because we don’t know him at this point. He only had two series of a reduced episode count and couldn’t even turn up for all of them. All he did was cry and call people babes. 

Ncuti is too cool to be the Doctor. He’s supposed to be a little freak. Ncuti is just a guy. Nothing alien about him. Too hip, too modern. 

There’s probably some shit going on because Billie wasn’t introduced as “The Doctor”, but I really couldn’t care less.

[Dave]

Ncuti is too cool to be the Doctor. He’s supposed to be a little freak. Ncuti is just a guy. Nothing alien about him. Too hip, too modern. 

My teenage daughter, who grew up loving Tennant and Smith’s Doctors, has said exactly this about Gatwa (who she hasn’t been bothered about watching) – that he seems like a regular guy and not like the Doctor. By humanising him in the ways that they chose to, they’ve somehow lost something of the weird alien timelord and replaced it with an attractive, likeable (but not very Doctor-y) bloke.

[Flap Jack]

There were so many bizarre choices made with this finale, that now I’ve had a little time to think about them, I really have to do a multi point breakdown.

– Seeing this in the cinema really elevated the experience. There were a few moments that I would have found mildly amusing otherwise, but they actually got big laughs from the crowd and it had a good impact on the vibes. Seeing Jodie’s reappearance and the surprise regeneration is a lot better in a room full of audible gasps. It was far off from recapturing Tom Baker’s cameo in Day of the Doctor, but it was the same kind of feeling.

– “The Doctor regenerates, and the first time we officially hear about it happening is when we see the episode” has been on my Doctor Who wish list for a long time, so on the surface it’s cool that it happened, but it sucks that it happened under these circumstances. It’s like my wish was granted by a genie, so it had to have a cruel twist. Actually it was a similar deal with Gatwa’s debut, because I had also thought it would be cool for a regeneration to occur midway through a story. I forgot to tell the genie that it was of critical importance that it was a normal regeneration where the old Doctor doesn’t stick around.

– People have been rife with speculation about whether Piper is the genuine 16th Doctor or there’s something else going on, but as every overarching mystery of this era has been so unsatisfying, I’m finding it extremely difficult to give a shit. I would be stunned if RTD even knows the answer himself. “Introducing Billie Piper” absolutely screams “I have no idea what this means yet, but it’s an intriguing concept so I put it in and will work it out later”.

– So there was just no explanation whatsoever for all of Mrs. Flood’s fourth wall breaking, and I guess the choice of name “Mrs. Flood” was completely arbitrary too. Cool. Again, I would be stunned to learn that RTD had planned Mrs. Flood to be the Rani before this current series, because “I wanted to find the Doctor, so I moved next door to a young blonde Londoner” makes for a funny line but not an actual explanation. (Side note: I only just twigged that “The Anita Rani” would be a legitimate way to refer to this incarnation.)

– I had naively hoped that the Rani bi-generating would have some kind of purpose, and maybe even justify the idea of bi-generation in general, but it turned out to be completely pointless. (At least with the Doctor there was “the game against the Toymaker is now 2 v. 1” and “Donna gets her own David Tennant to take home”.) Mrs. Flood was just a lackey to the ‘main’ Archie Panjabi Rani, so really her role could have been filled by any generic henchperson – and honestly most of the stuff she does seems like it was there just so Mrs. Flood had something to do, like making Conrad a sandwich. She showed some resentment towards her future incarnation in Wish World, which seemed like it was setting her up to betray her and help the Doctor in The Reality War (similar to the 2 Masters in The Doctor Falls), but then… nothing. Was it just done this way so they could do that “The Two Ranis” gag? Because it sure feels like it. If this is all it was going to be, either Anita Dobson should have been the only Rani, or she should have just regenerated normally into Archie Panjabi.

– The Rani claims not be a true enemy of The Doctor and that she doesn’t want him dead… and then she causes him to plunge to his presumed death by blowing up the balcony he was on. Characterisation! (Also, police-cosplay Anita Rani taking sadistic pleasure in doing fascism and 19th century Germany Archie Rani murdering/transfiguring an innocent family don’t massively give off “amoral, not evil” vibes, do they?)

– I don’t understand why they needed to reset time back to 7am on May 23rd at the beginning of The Reality War. If the condition for getting Omega free is that reality collapses, that already happened. But then when Omega does come through, reality isn’t collapsing, so I guess it wasn’t needed after all? I’ll be charitable and say the Ranis didn’t actually want to destroy the universe, so they had their cake and ate it too.

– Actually, beyond doing it just once to fix reality, I didn’t see any reason for the Ranis to keep resetting time at all. Why not keep the wish world going “normally” until you have the doubt levels you need? There was no explanation for why it all had to converge on May 24th either, other than “we already know that’s when Earth gets destroyed”.

– Omega. What. He didn’t act like Omega, he didn’t look like Omega, and he was easily defeated in a manner of minutes. What was even the point??? Between him and Sutekh, I’m wondering if someone told Davies they thought that the Macra in Gridlock was the greatest returning classic monster in Doctor Who history. With just some tweaks, you could have replaced Omega with an outpouring of extra-dimensional energy that the Ranis were planning to harness to wish the Time Lords back, and structurally and thematically the story would be unchanged.

– I can forgive them revealing that the Vindicator works to boost Desidirium’s wish powers (despite that not really lining up with the Doctor using it as a navigational tool), but the reveal that it’s also a laser gun powerful enough to defeat Omega is taking the piss. They hammer the point that it was “hidden in plain sight”, but you can’t play that game if the device having this power wasn’t even hinted at.

– How exactly did Rogue know what was happening in London 2025, and send a message to The Doctor about it? The answer may surprise you! (There isn’t one.)

– I liked Anita returning, it was a neat way to get the Doctor out of that cliffhanger. But the bit about her stalking him through time felt like padding (and an excuse to show clips of older Doctors for nostalgia), and she just continues hanging around long after she has anything to do. Her repeatedly saying variants of “I’m a hotelier!” as a non sequitur response to everything got tiring fast.

– Kate Stewart and Colonel Ibrahim’s romance continues to be the perfect combination of boring and inappropriate.

– I don’t think Doctor Who’s financing issues fully crystalised until seeing this episode. Disney’s money wasn’t a boon, it was clearly just keeping them above water. Why else would we spent most of the time in this exact same UNIT command centre set, for the third finale in a row?! Along with similar supporting casts, it makes these stories feel way too samey.

– Mel and Rose both return, and both do basically nothing (other than Mel getting some pretty weak dialogue with the Rani). Rose returning as a member of UNIT feels especially odd because it draws closer attention to the absence of their other child employee, Morris Gibbons. Combined with Shirley’s return this series, it comes across as RTD vetoing the idea of UNIT having 2 disabled employees at the same time.

– Susan Triad sets up a custom Zero Room in a few hours, and the UNIT building turns into a tank. The technological capabilities of current day UNIT are well and truly out of control.

– Holy shit did Belinda get shafted in this finale. Ruby gets to be the proactive one who helps awaken the Doctor, infiltrates the Ranis’ palace, rescues Desidirium and takes out Conrad, while Bel starts out fully reactive and then for good measure gets shoved into a box for much of the episode. Worse, her character is rewritten and reduced down to being completely motivated by motherhood, which is messed up. It’s a disturbing and sexist trend that the stories of all of the companions in this era (including Donna) are about motherhood, either them being mothers or looking for mothers. Aside from that, Belinda was so badly characterised that Davies thought it was acceptable for her to go from “don’t want, just take me home please” to “yay, let’s go on tons of adventures!” without us actually getting to see that development. I was looking forward to a more frosty dynamic between Doctor and companion at the beginning of this series, but it was played so gingerly it basically didn’t happen (and there was a whole episode where Belinda was reduced to a cameo).

– Conrad Clark’s fate felt extremely unearned. He was an abusive monster in Lucky Day, and in that episode he was lucky to escape being mauled to death and just to end up rotting in prison, but here the writing burdens Ruby with the responsibility of being compassionate towards him despite her being the victim, and he gets an unambiguous happy ending. And it doesn’t feel like a cutting satirical point about bad people getting away with their deeds – it only happens because Ruby wastes her wish on him for no apparent reason. Plus, he gets whitewashed too; the Rani says that Conrad is a good person at heart who just wanted to make the world better, which as far as I can tell is based on nothing. Ugh.

– I’m not sure why it even needed to be Conrad who got cast as wishmaker

– Between “The Boss” (who inexplicably gets mentioned again), Rogue, Susan, Ruby having another superpower (to remember when reality or time has been changed) and the pantheon of gods still being active, that’s a lot of unresolved plot threads and mystery boxes deliberately left lingering. With special exception for Susan, I’m hoping we never hear anything more about any of them, because I’m sick of them. We know they’re not going to lead to anything good. (Also they never fixed the “mavity” thing, right. Pretty annoying.)

– So according to The Reality War, The Doctor can alter reality to his will (at least in a “small” way) just by spending a regeneration. Would have been helpful for Twelve to know that! Between this and the random gods wandering around using their magic willy nilly, Davies seems to have decided that the show should just not have tangible stakes any more. Seems bad.

– With this, the 15th Doctor’s era is over. Ncuti Gatwa was the incumbent Doctor for less than 18 months, and he was the lead for just 18 episodes – 3 of which were Doctor-lite. He never encountered the Daleks, the Cybermen or the Master, and he never settled on a specific outfit as his primary one. There was a longer gap between his announcement for the role and his first appearance than between his first appearance and his last appearance. The hiatus between Seasons 22 and 23 was longer than the whole of this era. Not only is Gatwa the multi-series Doctor with the fewest number of episodes, but the gap between him and the next lowest is as big as the whole of Christopher Eccleston’s tenure. This all just feels viscerally wrong to me. I better not see anyone ever again say that Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy’s eras were the biggest fumbles.

– Regarding Ncuti Gatwa’s choice to exit, is the theory that he just wanted out after these 2 seasons, or that he didn’t want to stick around with all the uncertainty around Disney not re-upping their support in advance? We know last year he expected to be filming a Season 3 at some point, but he could have changed his mind for either reason. If it was the former, then including a regeneration makes sense, but if it was the latter, in my opinion it would have fit a lot better to just end it with him still as The Doctor. Then they could wait to find out what the show’s future is, and if by that point Gatwa can’t commit to a series they can just have him regenerate in Season 3 Episode 1. Slightly maddening if they closed off their options just for the sake of doing a shocking cliffhanger.

– I know I’ve already made this point clear, but I can’t emphasise enough how my whole perspective going into The Reality War was “it’ll probably be a huge mess, but as long as we get some good Susan scenes I’ll be happy”. Russell had an open goal with this, and he decided to deflate the ball and order the goal bricked up.

– Poppy is really cute, I can’t deny it. Not cute enough to justify ruining Belinda and ruining the series, but enough to buy into the idea of saving her being a high prioirity. For that brief moment where the Doctor and Belinda had lost their minds and were planning to travel across time and space with a small child in tow, a part of me was thinking “fuck it, why not. At least it would be different”, but alas. Pretty wild that the episode somehow ended up with the message “A mother can go on dangerous outer space adventures with her toddler, but only if the one they’re adventuring with is the father. If the one they’re adventuring with is just a friend, they should stay at home instead. Co-parents hell yeah; Single mothers no way”.

– Small detail given how much else is going on, but it was bizarre how The Doctor was screaming about Poppy being real and this having major implications in Wish World, only to pretty swiftly concede in The Reality War that no, she was just created by a wish and is no more real than any of the other inventions in Conrad’s World. I wonder, how many little kids in the wish world were banished into non-existence just because they lacked the privilege of having main characters as parents?

– Second finale in a row set in present day London; second finale in a row with no explanation for where Fourteen is or why he’s not involved with any of this.

– Does UNIT not have a car park? It was silly that Mel just rode her scooter directly into the main room, but maybe not silly enough to stand out in this episode. It also subtly contributes to that room just feeling like a set and not a room in a real building.

OK, let’s do a Season 2 episode ranking!

1 – The Well

2 – Lux

3 – The Interstellar Song Contest

4 – The Story & The Engine

5 – The Robot Revolution

6 – Lucky Day

7 – Wish World / The Reality War 

[Dave]

Second finale in a row set in present day London; second finale in a row with no explanation for where Fourteen is or why he’s not involved with any of this.

Not only that, but Gatwa’s Doctor makes a point of explicitly stating that he has the only Tardis in the universe. No he doesn’t, Tennant has one too, and Gatwa was there when he got it.

[Ben Saunders]

Gatwa’s Doctor makes a point of explicitly stating that he has the only Tardis in the universe. No he doesn’t, Tennant has one too, and Gatwa was there when he got it.

Doesn’t the Master have one? Didn’t Jodie abandon one at the end of the Flux arc? Being extra pedantic, what about the Meddling Monk? What’s that old geezer up to. He should come back next season as a gigantic skeleton.

EDIT: I forgot The Master is in The Toymaker’s tooth now, or some shit.

[Rushy]

I forgot The Master is in The Toymaker’s tooth now, or some shit.

I hope they do a reveal like this, and it’s John Simm shouting “you will obey me!” from his tooth mancave. With a helium voice. 

[Ridley]

Said tooth got picked up by a Mrs Saxon cover hand. So he’s a tiny skeleton.

[Author]

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