Doctor Who - Wish World

Oh Me Gawd

Doctor Who - Wish World
UK/USA 2025
Airdate: 24th May 2025

Warning: full disclosure, full spoilers.

Ncuti Gatwa’s The Doctor and Varada Sethu’s Belinda awake as husband and wife, living in a world where they have a daughter and the inhabitants of a much changed Earth are discouraged to doubt this version of reality. A version of reality created by Conrad from Lucky Day (reviewed here) and both the new versions of The Rani, played by Anita Dobson and Archie Panjabi. This episode also stars a fair few regulars such as Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday and Bonnie Langford as Mel Bush.

Now, Wish World isn’t a fantastic episode of Doctor Who by a long shot but it is quite a good one and some of the ideas, such as mugs slipping through tables and smashing to signify the emergence of doubt are really quite nicely done. So I find it very irritating and somewhat alarming that the writing on the show (this time by Russel T. Davies himself) is actually beginning to find its form again. Because, quite frankly, after the damage done by the over wokeness and lack of any real wow factor of last year’s series, they might even be producing some of the greatest televisual art the world has ever seen if they wanted to (they're not) but the damage has already been done and those low, low ratings aren’t likely to recover anytime soon.

We had another brief glimpse of Susan Foreman, The Doctor’s granddaughter once more, not to mention last season’s awful character Rogue but, the first of those appearances is something I hope the writing will take into account for the conclusion of this story arc next week. As far as Rogue goes... please don’t bring him back or maybe they could just kill him off. And if you do bring him back, well... since he has the same number of letters in his name, at least make him be one and the same as the promised ‘big bad’ of next week’s final episode... renegade time lord Omega, perhaps in an incarnation before he first encountered the first three Doctors in the 1973 serial The Three Doctors (reviewed by me here) and his later 1983 appearance in the fifth Doctor story Arc Of Infinity.

Either way, after such a good set up to the story I was, to say the least, very disappointed that this was all going to be about Omega... again. I could really have done without encountering him again, for sure. But, yeah, the episode was mostly a pretty good and intriguing one with a nice series of scenes where various characters are either just playing along or trying to break free of what they suspect is the real version of reality. It does, however, seem to be a bit of a stretch to find The Rani is just trying to locate Omega and that she’s using the supposedly all powerful pantheon of Gods to get him. Presumably to work with him for an even bigger project, one scientist to another (or two to another in this case, I suspect). It's possible Mrs. Flood may bring her down herself though, I reckon.

Hmm... as I write these words I’m actually beginning to talk myself out of whether I thought it was a good episode now, to be honest but... no, I was mostly entertained and I especially liked The Doctor and Belinda waking up in bed together (more of that please). And, hooray, the Doctor didn’t cry again for, I think, the second week running... which must be some kind of Gatwa era record, to be fair.

And there you go... a short review once again (as I said going into the reviews for this last series) but, other than to briefly make mention that The Rani has a much better and more traditional sonic screwdriver than the current incarnation of The Doctor, that’s really all I have to say about Wish World. I suspect next week’s season finale might well be the very last episode ever or, if we’re slightly luckier, just a long resting point for the show (until a company with larger purse strings wants to team up with the BBC when, I suspect, Disney will soon drop out of the equation... leaving behind some nasty worldwide rights issues, no doubt). I reckon Susan Foreman’s history might well be rewritten... or rather, retrofitted and expanded... at some point next week. We shall see what we shall see... again.

Doctor Who - The Interstellar Song Contest

Flood Damage

Doctor Who -
The Interstellar Song Contest
UK/USA 2025
Airdate: 17th May 2025

Warning: All the big, big spoilers

Hmm... dunno. As I mentioned at the end of last weeks review, the trailer made this episode look pretty unwatchable but, I’m glad to say it wasn’t and a couple of my friends thought this one was really good. As I am writing this I’m still processing some of the big story strokes this one had but, on the whole I thought that it was... an okay episode.

Okay, lets get to it... the last stopping point of The Doctor (played by Ncuti Gatwa) collecting readings from the Vindicator to get Belinda (played by Varada Sethu) home to Earth, sees them landing on a space station broadcasting a future installment of... The Interstellar Song Contest which is what the Eurovision Song Contest apparently evolved into over time, after the destruction of the Earth which, apparently, coincided with the day The Doctor and Belinda left it.  One of my least favourite TV presenters, Rylan Clarke, is released from suspended animation to compère the show and the station even has an interactive holographic version of another of my least favourite television presenters, Graham Norton.

And, of course, Mrs. Flood is also in the audience. I’ll get to her soon enough because, she comes back big time in a mid credits teaser which reveals her true identity. So stick with it.

This one appears to kill off the whole audience, including The Doctor, within the first ten minutes but Belinda and a few others are spared due to their situation and, its not long before The Doctor returns, improbably riding a confetti canon from out in deep space protected by a gravity field, which due to the whole Isaac Newton thing from the opening scene of Wild Blue Yonder (reviewed here), everyone is still referring to as mavity. 

However, the reason The Doctor revives is because of a vision he has in his head while frozen out in the void. That vision being of his grand-daughter Susan Foreman, played once again by the actress who played her in 1963, Carole Ann Ford. Now, this is kind of interesting because,The Doctor originally left Susan on Earth in the year 2164, in the 1964 story The Dalek Invasion Of Earth (reviewed here), which was also made into a movie set in a different year (reviewed here). So where and when these visions are set is... interesting. As is the fact that Susan hasn’t regenerated at all in the last 61 years.

Anyway, as usual it’s another short review for this series with, some nice sequences but with a lot of camp in it (well, it is a Eurovision themed episode so I’m trying to forgive it that) and some nice musical cues from Murray Gold (none of which are of much consequence since his stuff doesn’t seem to be getting any proper CD releases anymore). So let’s get to that mid-end credits scene then...

Mrs. Flood is a timelord, no surprises there. And her identity is not a particular surprise either since... well people have been guessing it right since her introduction a couple of years ago. But what I didn’t expect was that Anita Dobson, who plays the character, would bi-generate just as The Doctor did during his last regeneration. And she bi-generated into... dum dum dum... The Rani. Originally played by the late, great Kate O’Mara opposite the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) and the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), she is now played by both a bizarrely subservient Anita Dobson and newcomer Archie Panjabi. 

Oh... and note to the writers. If you’re going to have somebody new bringing back an iconic character, then maybe don’t have her quoting a Fourth Doctor speech which has echoed through the series as an indication that she’s the ‘definite article’. I’m already not liking the way she plays her. I remember seeing Kate O’Mara playing The Rani on stage in a musical Doctor Who show at Wimbledon, opposite Jon Pertwee returning as the Third Doctor many years later and, all I will say is... Kate O’Mara is to The Rani what Roger Delgado was to The Master. But we shall soon see, I guess.

Two more episodes to go now before, I suspect, Doctor Who will take a long rest or, quite possibly, be cancelled and slowly forgotten. I hope neither of those things happen but, yeah, I reckon it’s on the cards for sure. What with every episode in this season so far garnering the lowest ratings in the 63 year history of the show. Again... we shall soon see.