Doctor Who The Reality War
May. 31st, 2025 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethBack at the beginning of the season I think I predicted the ending would be an RTD special made of Big Feelings, and I certainly have Big Feelings about that episode.
But the ones I have at the minute are Angry Sad, which is not my favourite set, honestly.
So.
I woke up and discovered it was ten minutes after the episode started, because my sleep schedule is Not, so I got up to watch without spoilers and realised that watching it ten minutes behind on the iplayer meant No Subtitles, which isn't terribly helpful. So I rewatched last week's and waited for Live to be done.
The thing is, watching them in a row like that, it's extra noticeable he did the thing Again.
Spoilers go under the cut:
All that big setup, all the bit with actual disabled people on screen making a plan, all of it?
Boom, bye, new plot now.
Logic and consequences are for elsewhen, today we get the reset button.
All those people noticing and doubting and setting out to save the world, no longer relevant, have a time door and a set of weapons to fire instead. I realise it's difficult to keep scientific advisers relevant when the Doctor is in the room, but, it's frustrating.
Also, as payoff for literally any of the things we saw last week, the entire 'let's shoot bone beasts' section was rubbish? The bone beasts are up until then slightly not there and shooting them fixes a problem they didn't have before.
But I did like the using elements from earlier episodes to sort things out. The Time Hotel and all the doors was neat. I did slightly start start wondering how the future contains the hologram from too weeks ago and also a Time Hotel. Obviously the answer to that is it is a Time Hotel. It's just an annoying answer. As is the thing where now the door can open anywhere, so the bit about wondering what the spare doors in hotels is for goes right out. It wouldn't have been that hard to keep the door thing. Honestly.
Anita going looking for the Doctor and finding so many of him and then only helping that one Doctor that one time is... a choice that seems to wear less well the more I think about it? And stopping looking when she sees him dance with a man is... really? Really really?
I liked everyone arriving at UNIT, but I think it is a teensy tiny bit worrying to be able to 'wake them up' with a microchip? In their neck? From where they apparently all agreed to be tracked by their employer?
Sometimes I hope we're meant to worry about UNIT. It seems to be reading up hill, but I do think they're very worrying.
Ruby was generous with Conrad. I mean wishing enlightenment on him is always correct and helpful, may all beings be happy, but it takes a lot of compassion to look at Wish World and focus on the fact it could be worse.
I did very much like that the Doctor was Back by getting control of his clothes again. The symbolism is allowed to trump the semblance of logic just this once. It's a very good outfit.
I thought the Rani's plan was sufficiently Rani shaped, even if the exposition to event ratio got a bit explainy. I liked the whole room going ugh at once at the racism.
It feels a bit real world weird which characters got, like, tidied up and sent away by the story. I mean if we're going to end up with one Rani then why...? I guess both choices are uncomfortable in different ways. So maybe don't do that?
Omega was interesting. The mismatch in existing lore was explained by this being like the story of Omega, the myth and legend. And he never got all the way into the time locked place, let alone the regular world, so the rules didn't have to get worked out. It's a season with a lot about stories coming to life so that does click.
Using the Vindicator twice was neat.
And using a wish to say no more wishes means the rules can get back to normal if they want.
As usual trying to think of all the good bits is helping with the Big Feelings part, as there are several good bits
The bit I am most Angry Sad about though is ... actually something I have been angry about in the Arrowverse and with the Flash before. A child with an utterly different timeline is not the same person so no they're not the first child with their life saved, though the Wish World was only one day so that's a complicated argument in this case. But a child with different chromosomes is not the same child. And a child with only one bio parent the same is not the same child. So the Doctor *didn't save* Poppy, and we got a very distressing story about forgetting the baby so she stops existing. I mean they're talking about having adventures and handing the coat back and forth as it gets smaller and I knew as soon as they take the coat off what the story was going to do with it and yes disappearing coat. Disappearing baby. It was like them choosing the adventure life over the baby life so no baby happened. Upsetting!
And that doesn't get fixed. That child of the both of them ceased to exist. The end.
So Ruby remembering things and the list of ways that the Doctor saves timelines and helps babies was plenty good, so what he did, that was in character, even if the rule that led to him doing it was new for the situation. Bounce the timeline one degree, swap a life for a life, poetry logic.
But, also, it was... there's a layer of meta badness when a woman's life gets rewritten to be about the baby. I mean last week the baby was the cause of running outside screaming. Or, if you want to be *very* generous, realising she couldn't remember important things about the baby. But now everything we saw of Belinda is rewritten to include baby?
I can see the argument she wanted him to but there is an angle where he didn't save Belinda neither.
She's more rewritten than *Donna* was.
So I know there was some sad that was meant to be sad. We're meant to be sad the Doctor doesn't get to be part of her life.
But the Doctor didn't save Poppy.
They made a new baby and called her Poppy but she's no more the same as the Doctor's daughter Poppy than she is the same as space baby Poppy. That's three children, he didn't save his.
Angry sad.
I also didn't like the very very end. More angry sad, yes, but also, I feel Lied To. I feel the story is messing us around and I am not having fun anticipation times of wondering what happens next, I am a grumpy grumpy person who feels Lied To.
I did not want Ncuti to go, he's a great Doctor, and it's always sad when one Doctor leaves. The odd little hand off bit with the previous Doctor seemed like it was closing the door on 'couldn't another Doctor be the one that does this bit', as well as being quite nice because they get to say hello and goodbye.
But I am not left with the feeling of hello to the next story, not yet.
Speaking as someone who has a whole lot of Big Finish audios I am exactly the person who tries to stay in the middle forever, so, this is exactly the reaction I would have.
But still.
Big Feelings time wasn't fun this week.
I do however know I shall eventually have different feelings about a lot of it.
But the ones I have at the minute are Angry Sad, which is not my favourite set, honestly.
So.
I woke up and discovered it was ten minutes after the episode started, because my sleep schedule is Not, so I got up to watch without spoilers and realised that watching it ten minutes behind on the iplayer meant No Subtitles, which isn't terribly helpful. So I rewatched last week's and waited for Live to be done.
The thing is, watching them in a row like that, it's extra noticeable he did the thing Again.
Spoilers go under the cut:
All that big setup, all the bit with actual disabled people on screen making a plan, all of it?
Boom, bye, new plot now.
Logic and consequences are for elsewhen, today we get the reset button.
All those people noticing and doubting and setting out to save the world, no longer relevant, have a time door and a set of weapons to fire instead. I realise it's difficult to keep scientific advisers relevant when the Doctor is in the room, but, it's frustrating.
Also, as payoff for literally any of the things we saw last week, the entire 'let's shoot bone beasts' section was rubbish? The bone beasts are up until then slightly not there and shooting them fixes a problem they didn't have before.
But I did like the using elements from earlier episodes to sort things out. The Time Hotel and all the doors was neat. I did slightly start start wondering how the future contains the hologram from too weeks ago and also a Time Hotel. Obviously the answer to that is it is a Time Hotel. It's just an annoying answer. As is the thing where now the door can open anywhere, so the bit about wondering what the spare doors in hotels is for goes right out. It wouldn't have been that hard to keep the door thing. Honestly.
Anita going looking for the Doctor and finding so many of him and then only helping that one Doctor that one time is... a choice that seems to wear less well the more I think about it? And stopping looking when she sees him dance with a man is... really? Really really?
I liked everyone arriving at UNIT, but I think it is a teensy tiny bit worrying to be able to 'wake them up' with a microchip? In their neck? From where they apparently all agreed to be tracked by their employer?
Sometimes I hope we're meant to worry about UNIT. It seems to be reading up hill, but I do think they're very worrying.
Ruby was generous with Conrad. I mean wishing enlightenment on him is always correct and helpful, may all beings be happy, but it takes a lot of compassion to look at Wish World and focus on the fact it could be worse.
I did very much like that the Doctor was Back by getting control of his clothes again. The symbolism is allowed to trump the semblance of logic just this once. It's a very good outfit.
I thought the Rani's plan was sufficiently Rani shaped, even if the exposition to event ratio got a bit explainy. I liked the whole room going ugh at once at the racism.
It feels a bit real world weird which characters got, like, tidied up and sent away by the story. I mean if we're going to end up with one Rani then why...? I guess both choices are uncomfortable in different ways. So maybe don't do that?
Omega was interesting. The mismatch in existing lore was explained by this being like the story of Omega, the myth and legend. And he never got all the way into the time locked place, let alone the regular world, so the rules didn't have to get worked out. It's a season with a lot about stories coming to life so that does click.
Using the Vindicator twice was neat.
And using a wish to say no more wishes means the rules can get back to normal if they want.
As usual trying to think of all the good bits is helping with the Big Feelings part, as there are several good bits
The bit I am most Angry Sad about though is ... actually something I have been angry about in the Arrowverse and with the Flash before. A child with an utterly different timeline is not the same person so no they're not the first child with their life saved, though the Wish World was only one day so that's a complicated argument in this case. But a child with different chromosomes is not the same child. And a child with only one bio parent the same is not the same child. So the Doctor *didn't save* Poppy, and we got a very distressing story about forgetting the baby so she stops existing. I mean they're talking about having adventures and handing the coat back and forth as it gets smaller and I knew as soon as they take the coat off what the story was going to do with it and yes disappearing coat. Disappearing baby. It was like them choosing the adventure life over the baby life so no baby happened. Upsetting!
And that doesn't get fixed. That child of the both of them ceased to exist. The end.
So Ruby remembering things and the list of ways that the Doctor saves timelines and helps babies was plenty good, so what he did, that was in character, even if the rule that led to him doing it was new for the situation. Bounce the timeline one degree, swap a life for a life, poetry logic.
But, also, it was... there's a layer of meta badness when a woman's life gets rewritten to be about the baby. I mean last week the baby was the cause of running outside screaming. Or, if you want to be *very* generous, realising she couldn't remember important things about the baby. But now everything we saw of Belinda is rewritten to include baby?
I can see the argument she wanted him to but there is an angle where he didn't save Belinda neither.
She's more rewritten than *Donna* was.
So I know there was some sad that was meant to be sad. We're meant to be sad the Doctor doesn't get to be part of her life.
But the Doctor didn't save Poppy.
They made a new baby and called her Poppy but she's no more the same as the Doctor's daughter Poppy than she is the same as space baby Poppy. That's three children, he didn't save his.
Angry sad.
I also didn't like the very very end. More angry sad, yes, but also, I feel Lied To. I feel the story is messing us around and I am not having fun anticipation times of wondering what happens next, I am a grumpy grumpy person who feels Lied To.
I did not want Ncuti to go, he's a great Doctor, and it's always sad when one Doctor leaves. The odd little hand off bit with the previous Doctor seemed like it was closing the door on 'couldn't another Doctor be the one that does this bit', as well as being quite nice because they get to say hello and goodbye.
But I am not left with the feeling of hello to the next story, not yet.
Speaking as someone who has a whole lot of Big Finish audios I am exactly the person who tries to stay in the middle forever, so, this is exactly the reaction I would have.
But still.
Big Feelings time wasn't fun this week.
I do however know I shall eventually have different feelings about a lot of it.
no subject
Date: 2025-05-31 09:44 pm (UTC)Ncuti, as much as I LOVE HIS ENERGY, has not felt much like Doctor Who, and I blame that on the partnership with an American MegaCorp to make it happen. The episodes feel like spectacles without substance in many ways.
You hit a lot of good points in this.