Doctor Who Reviews: "The Reality War"

Just last week, I criticized the somewhat repetitive nature of “Wish World” to the previous series’s penultimate episode “The Legend of Ruby Sunday”, and from there thought I could guess the major points of the series finale. The joke is on me though. I did not expect at all what would ultimately happen.

I’ll go into it in more depth, but by far the biggest thing is that “The Reality War” turned out to be the stealth final episode for Ncuti Gatwa and the Fifteenth Doctor. This has never happened in the modern era of Doctor Who -every Doctor’s exit from the show has been presaged by some announcement in the press that the lead actor is leaving. As true of Jodie Whittaker as it was of Peter Capaldi as it was of Matt Smith as it certainly was of David Tennant as it even was of Christopher Eccleston. It’s just not something you surprise the audience with. But Russell T. Davies and Ncuti Gatwa did just that, and the fifteenth series finale winds up being our premature goodbye to this incarnation of the Time Lord.

It’s hard not to speculate a little bit about what brought this about -I thought I recalled Gatwa expressing interest a year or so ago in staying on as the Doctor for a while. I felt at least he would hang around for the typical span of three full series (plus an additional special or two) that every modern Doctor apart from Eccleston has stuck to. Then I see him performing in The Importance of Being Earnest to great acclaim, getting a prominent poster spot on that upcoming Jay Roach movie The Roses, and wondering if maybe his choice is motivated by new career paths opening up for him. That’s not a judgement, he certainly doesn’t have to be bound to this show if he doesn’t choose to be.

Still, it is a bit disappointing given it feels like we were just getting to know his Doctor -and with only eighteen episodes under his belt (barely more than Eccleston had in one series), his time on the show feels very brief, and additionally he leaves as the only Doctor other than Paul McGann never to face off against the Daleks -typically a rite of passage for any incarnation of the Time Lord.

Even beyond just this though, his final outing is full of surprises and for a while I was unsure what to make of “The Reality War”, not the cleanest of shows to go out on. It is an episode that takes on surprising new shapes and dimensions, often with some interesting threads to pull on, but is also fairly incongruent -the driving factor of this episode being vastly different to what it was set up as in its predecessor.

It does have to close a bunch of those loops though and it starts with the Doctor being rescued from that falling bit of the Bone Palace. He gets pulled to the safety of the Time Hotel from “Joy to the World”, and also from “Joy to the World” is reunited with Anita, the lovely hotel manager he befriended over a year who now works for the Time Hotel and has conveniently educated herself on the Doctor and his history. Anita and the storyline concerning her was the standout sequence of that special and though it is nice to see her here again, a little of that charm is lost by her being fully acquainted with the Doctor’s world now. She explains to him that May 24th never happens in spite of all the build-up towards it by the Rani, Conrad, and the people of Earth. Both Ruby and Belinda just awaken again, their short term memories lost, to live through May 23rd Groundhog Day-style again. What the Rani is doing is stretching the day in time over and over until it snaps, with the goal of breaking the skin of reality and bringing forth Omega. But now the Doctor is out of her sights and posing a threat to the stability of this plan.

Sure enough, they find a door back to his home, and bring Belinda and Poppy through to the hotel, their memories seemingly flooding back, but with the one curious caveat that both the Doctor and Belinda are still convinced that Poppy is their daughter -Belinda especially even with her restored memories finds herself incredibly attached to the little girl who she refuses to believe isn’t her own. And it starts to feel distinctly out of character for the Belinda we’ve been seeing -to some extent the Doctor as well. But it is worth noting a good moment before all this, lest one think after recent episodes that Russell T. Davies is completely bereft of subtlety, where the Doctor before confronting Belinda makes the very conscious choice to drop his coat on the floor and appear to her in a much more gender non-conforming version of that same pinstriped look. It is a great image of the tools of repression being cast aside in a reality that enforces them, and it matters that a figure like the Doctor is doing that on television.

The Time Hotel it turns out is the key to breaking the spell. The combination of its open door and the Doctor’s presence literally shattering every teacup at UNIT. Kate, Susan Triad, and Colonel Ibrahim come back to their senses, the Vlinx is revealed behind some architecture, and Rose Noble is made visible in the heartbreaking but potent confirmation that being a trans woman meant she was scrubbed entirely from Conrad’s perfect wish world altogether. Kate then broadcasts the signal from UNIT to its personnel in the field to wake them up -side-stepping the fact that apparently all UNIT personnel have a chip in them- and before long Shirley, Mel, and Ruby make their return, the latter finally reuniting with the Doctor for the first time in a year. He introduces them all to Belinda and Poppy and then gives everyone the rundown of what they are up against, with an assist from Mel who of course remembers the Rani with wrath. The feeling is mutual when the Rani appears before them and recognizes the woman she once impersonated in one of the most gloriously silly bits in all of Doctor Who history.

Rather than go on the offensive, the Rani seems mostly just content to explain herself. We learn that she saw the destruction of Gallifrey coming and hid away using a time ring that she also has been using to track the Doctor and put her scheme into motion. It’s what led her to entrenching herself as the neighbour of Ruby Sunday, identifying her as the Doctor’s eventual companion (the fact that Belinda lived on the other side of her it seems was more of a coincidence).  And her true goal in resurrecting Omega from the under-verse, not particularly buying the legends around him being mad or dead, is to harvest his genome to recreate the Time Lords and remake Gallifrey itself. It is explained in this context too for the first time that Time Lords are infertile -”a biological dead end” as the Rani puts it, a result of genetic experimentations, and it is for this reason that the Doctor so compelled by Poppy -a miracle conjured by the Wish presumably out of a mix of his and Belinda’s memories -an accident of the Rani’s machinations, but one she doesn’t think counts because Poppy is half-human -a reminder of her xenophobic notions of ‘purity’ and Time Lord superiority to all other life-forms, a trait carried over from her classic appearances. But invoking this attitude and the Doctor’s own “fetish” for humans so beneath him doesn’t get anyone on side and her assertion that Poppy is not real offends both the Doctor and Belinda -who strangely seems to remember being Poppy’s mother. A brief sonic battle that ends the Rani’s way sees her vanish back to the Bone Palace officially at war with the Doctor.

It would be a very short war. But the fact Poppy suddenly becomes so important to it is a shocking new development. Clearly she is representative of some hope for the Doctor and his race, but also for him personally -given these hints that have been dropped around his desire for family (obviously the Susan allusions factor into this). There is seemingly no conceivable way though that Poppy can really stick around as the Doctor’s child, and especially with the notion of her being a shared child with one of his companions. Even without the sexual component, it feels wholly inappropriate. At the same time so much sudden invested interest is put into this child from Belinda, where it had seemingly never existed before. And when the Doctor puts Poppy in that safeguarding chamber with Belinda on her insistence -risking her own existence for this child-, it’s very unclear which direction things might go in. Either way it is a jarring focal point, not in the least set up, and almost designed to be disorienting.

As this happens, UNIT takes on the giant skeleton monsters while the Doctor and Ruby infiltrate the Bone Palace, the Doctor via a scooter and perhaps the most expensive visual effects of the series, and Ruby with a portable transmat. Her assignment is to go after Conrad. But the way this transpires actually makes for a surprise I was modestly impressed with. Finding him with a gun on her, she disarms him psychologically through empathy -something very hard to do for a guy like Conrad. And while it is an easy cliché to hint at some issues around his father making him the way he was, that might come close to absolving him of his actions; the fact the show allows a little humanity to creep in there  is a hell of a lot more grace than the Doctor considered, and it is important that it come from Ruby a human with a preexisting connection to Conrad, much as he betrayed it. She takes the baby Desiderium, kisses his forehead and wishes for Conrad …to be happy.

The Rani tries one more time to provoke an inner despot in the Doctor, and when it doesn’t work she reveals the Seal of Rassilon to be the tomb of Omega and finally manages to bring him forth. I was very curious what Davies might imagine Omega as and it turns out it is a giant skeletal-looking monster who has effectively become exactly what his legend was, a mad god. Also he’s huge. And in the most anticlimactic pair of beats of the episode, the Rani attempts to subdue Omega for her plan, but it doesn’t work and he promptly snatches and devours her -a shame if this undignified fate is the end for Archie Panjabi’s fantastically maniacal Time Lady. The Mrs. Flood- Rani simply takes the time ring and escapes, so one version of this character is still out there. Right after this happens the Doctor defeats Omega by harnessing the energy collected by the Vindicator, placed on the Rani’s giant clock, repelling Omega right back into his tomb. At the same time that Ruby’s wish begins to take effect, he finds his way through the collapsing Bone Palace to his TARDIS. Already it had materialized around Ruby and Desiderium, so the Doctor makes one last wish knowing he risks the vanishing of Poppy, but has to do it. He wishes for no more wishes and the baby’s power is apparently neutralized.

This all happens very immediately, and indeed this whole section of the episode, resolving the plot points of the prior one, feels fairly rushed -the climax especially so. Omega, the Rani, Conrad -all dealt with very swiftly, and not with much satisfaction. It is a shock to note upon the TARDIS coming back to UNIT and the reveal to the Doctor’s relief and the audience’s perplexity that both Belinda and Poppy have survived, the episode is just a little over halfway in. What follows could be perceived as a very extended epilogue or a story in its own right.

Everything seems to be back to normal as the world finally enters May 24th 2025. Desiderium is handed over casually to Carla and Cherry, and we find that Conrad is living a more humble life (though he’s still maybe a bit of a dick) as a chef. In the TARDIS and with Ruby present, the Doctor and Belinda start to make permanent plans about parenting Poppy and taking her around the galaxy. And new skepticism fairly quickly begin to emerge with the Doctor brushing off Ruby’s query about why she was the only person not wholly affected by the wish. And then we see Belinda scoff at once caring about going home -it certainly looks like a suspiciously ideal scenario for the Doctor and Ruby catches onto this. But just as you think maybe the Doctor wished his own perfect situation into existence, Poppy vanishes, and next thing Ruby knows neither the Doctor nor Belinda know anything about Poppy -she has been erased from reality in front of Ruby’s own eyes. The Doctor vaguely remembers the baby Poppy from “Space Babies”, but he and Belinda dismiss the idea of having a child together in any way. It bothers Ruby immensely, and only more-so when everyone at UNIT seems to confirm that Poppy never existed, though they admit there are a few slight differences to this reality. Eventually, Ruby manages to get through to the Doctor -asserting that someone is missing from the world and reminding the Doctor of what he is willing to do for just one missing person -both she and Belinda are examples. He doesn’t leave anyone behind. It’s sweet and it does trigger something in him. He races off with a plan to shift reality just enough to bring Poppy back.

What he doesn’t explicitly tell anyone is that the power he has to do this is apparently regenerative power, siphoned into the TARDIS vortex, which will kill him -nobly sacrificing his life for another. And as he gets ready to do this, the TARDIS flashing him images of all his past faces, one of them actually shows up in the TARDIS with him -yanked from her own time via his dangerous reality-altering shenanigans. 

I’d thought it was incredibly unfair that Jodie Whittaker didn’t get the chance to properly pass the torch on to Ncuti Gatwa when her time came to an end (and as it turns out she’s not only Doctor deprived of this). Maybe I wasn’t the only voice on that, because the reappearance of the Thirteenth Doctor here feels like recompense for that -and of course a bit of fan service. Her showing up has really no other point, yet I was delighted to see her, reminded that of the various issues that there were with her era of the show, she was still a very welcome Doctor, and missed. Always a charm to see two Doctors together with the classic staples of the younger one not liking the older one’s TARDIS or making a timey-wimey reference that is purely for the fans. She basically just gives him a tip and some words of encouragement, but there’s a great sweetness in her telling him to go out with a smile, him acknowledging he wishes they both could have gone on longer, and then telling her he loves her. “I never say thing like that,” notes the always guarded Thirteen. “That’s why you got me” says the emotionally open  Fifteen. And she muses she should say as much to Yaz.

Of course it’s not entirely clear how it works but with considerable flare it works, the Doctor depleting himself to save this child, and he begs for just a little more time, finding himself then in the yard of Belinda’s family home, where she has Poppy. And here the apparent inconsistencies in Belinda’s character are finally addressed. Turns out that through all of this series, the Doctor has been missing that Belinda’s primary motivation for getting back to Earth so intensely was her daughter Poppy, who she’s been wanting to introduce the Doctor to. Uncle Doctor learns to a slight disappointment that Poppy is fully human with a father who was a former boyfriend of Belinda’s. Alone with the baby for a moment the Doctor confesses openly his desire to have a child like her, and there’s a bittersweet earnestness in Gatwa’s face -a rare and needed moment of real pause for this Doctor. Belinda rules out travelling with him anytime soon on account of Poppy, leaving the door open though for sometime when her daughter has grown up. And they have a very sweet goodbye as the Doctor muses that “beautiful things can be forgotten and gone, but they still happened somewhere”, and suggests when Belinda sees him again he will have a different face. And of course he tells her he loves her.

He waits for it in the TARDIS out in space playing music off his signature jukebox -honestly the best piece Murray Gold has composed for this incarnation of Doctor Who. He never wants to do this alone, but as he declares to open space, “I’m never alone with you”. And as he faces Joy, the star from “Joy to the World”, he exclaims exactly that and regenerates in blazing display. As befitting any good regeneration it is powerful. And at it’s end he has new face, once more a familiar face. “Oh… hello” she says with a nervous yet exhilarated smile. It is Billie Piper.

Russell T. Davies did it again, and again I find myself battling the fan joy in seeing Billie Piper again, forever special as my first Doctor Who companion, with the fact that like Whittaker, Gatwa has been denied the chance to fully pass on the torch of the Doctor to a real successor, the moment instead being a stunt-casting gimmick. There is almost no chance that Piper is actually the next proper Doctor -just as it was the case with Tennant when he showed up in “The Power of the Doctor”, and though the idea of possibly seeing Rose Tyler again makes me happy there is something lost in the reveal of her here.

It’s maybe an appropriate capper for this episode though that vacillated in quality, that clearly had two big goals which felt disjointed from one another and the series as a whole. The Poppy fixation was awkwardly handled. There was nothing building to it, and though it worked out and made sense by the end, this was only through a retroactive plot device that felt a tad cheap. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was designed to give the Doctor some arc of personal fulfillment, possibly at the last minute given whenever Gatwa decided to leave. But it doesn’t really make the most of this either, while Belinda is made to intentionally feel out of sync with her established personality for much of the episode -and she being a character who has ultimately been a bit underwhelming overall. The episode is quite uneven in its pace and tenuous structure. There’s also no closure between this Doctor and Ruby (why wasn’t she effected?), and while you could argue they had theirs last series, her reappearances here negated that. On the flip-side, the final scene between the Doctor and Belinda is nothing but endearing, the otherwise innocuous reunion with the Thirteenth Doctor a delight, the initial mystery of the vanished baby curiously eerie, and the Fifteenth Doctor’s ending rightfully fitting. And there were plenty of little things I loved throughout the episode too, but I don’t think it quite manages to be the sum of its parts.

This series I do feel was weaker than the last and a little more tangibly hurt by its low episode count and some of the creative choices in how it tackled its stories. Belinda Chandra began it an exciting new companion with her own objective, challenging the Doctor on his earnestness and moral character -but her coming round to wholly trusting him came about fairly inorganically and mostly by necessity. Varada Sethu is great, and it is a shame that she’s even less likely than Ruby to return any time soon, because I think she still has it in her to really make an impact, but I don’t think the chance was afforded her. Unlike Ruby, she didn’t get her “73 Yards”. And weird as it is to say, this series probably could have benefited from a Steven Moffat episode. It wasn’t bad though -“The Story and the Engine”, “The Interstellar Song Contest”, most of “Lucky Day” and bits and pieces of every other episode are quite good. Still, I was hoping for more, particularly on the character end of things.

But that brings us to the title character, and the sudden end of Ncuti Gatwa’s time on Doctor Who. I was not expecting to have to do this assessment so soon, and I feel a bit at a loss. The Fifteenth Doctor deserved more time -in this regard he’s certainly not the first. There was an exuberance there that demanded more. I feel like there were layers that we never got to see, and Gatwa is more than capable enough an actor to have made great drama with them. And contrary to what a lot of fans would have wanted, I was keen to see more of what it meant to him to be a black Doctor -I really appreciated the moments this side of his character was developed, albeit mildly. It is a bummer he is gone from the show this soon. However gone, he is certainly not forgotten. For as much as I wanted more depth from this Doctor, his personality entered the show fully formed and it certainly made a splash. Yes, this was a Doctor who was flirty and stylish and brazenly emotional, and very unambiguously queer -which can’t be understated. He was so buoyant that he lent himself well to the experiments of his tenure such as in “The Devil’s Chord” and “Lux”. And even this small collection of episodes he demonstrated a solid grasp of core virtues for the Doctor -compassion and joy being the most pronounced. My occasional issues this series with where these lapsed in his outward behaviour is only because he did such a good job establishing them in the first place as a key part of his Doctor identity. And not since Tom Baker has a Doctor been so blessed with a grin. His place among that pantheon may feel a bit under-cooked but then, so have several. He deserves to be there as much as any of them. I am sorry to see him go.

Ncuti, Doctor. It’s been a joy.

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