Doctor Who - The Reality War

Paying The Piper

Doctor Who
The Reality War
UK/USA 2025
Airdate: 31st May 2025

Warning: All the spoilers.

I’m not so much as angry with The Reality War, the latest and possibly last episode of Doctor Who as I am...  disappointed with it. Primarily because what Russell T. Davies cooked up for both last season and this season, regarding the season finales, smacks of the one thing a previous showrunner (Steven Moffat) was really bad at... that is to say, setting up all these threads, teasing great things and then, well, kind of dropping the ball at the last minute. 

This one ran way over the scheduled episode length according to the Radio Times so... I’m guessing people who were relying on it to run to time, since there was no pre-iplayer version... were possibly angry they were all half an hour out on their schedules. But before I talk about the things which went wrong... and the, kinda, nice things about the episode, lets do a quick story summary. 

The Rani’s bring back Omega from the underverse of the wish world version of Earth but, yeah, it’s a quick mythical version of Omega who promptly eats the latest regeneration of the Rani... although Anita Dobson’s Mrs. Flood version of the character manages to escape to somewhere else. Perhaps it was a case of having a Rani knows moment. It’s up to The Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, Varada Sethu’s Belinda Chandra and Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday (who still seems to be a major dangling plot thread in terms of identity, if you ask me), along with several members of UNIT and Anita from the Joy To The World Christmas special (reviewed here), played by Steph de Whalley and now working at the Time Hotel... to put a stop to things and restore the world back to reality... including saving the Doctor’s daughter (who’s not his actual daughter, it turns out) and bringing on the expected regeneration at the end. Yup... and I’ll get to who he regenerates into in a little while, because it is revealed, in what I suspect is a last ditch attempt to bring back old viewers and avoid cancellation.

Okay... so the new thing about the timelords being sterile... if this is a new thing since the latest few iterations then that’s fine but if it is supposed to be going back to the original shows then, it completely contradicts The Doctor having a granddaughter at all. 

And talking about Susan Foreman... everyone was pleased to see Carole Ann Ford coming back as a cameo in the last two episodes. People were excited to see how it would unfold in this final episode to see her finally reunited with The Doctor. Well guess what folks? It didn’t happen. She’s not in the episode and doesn’t really get much reference either. That, I think, was a bit of a mistake which I’m sure fans of the show will be grumbling about. I’m glad the teased Rogue return didn’t happen though. Also, that will probably annoy some fans, I suspect.

Meanwhile... the big bad reveal of Omega turned out to be... some kind of mythical ‘wished into existence’ version who lasts about five minutes before The Doctor vanquishes him back to the same dimension. Bit quick for a villain who once had to have three incarnations of The Doctor present to defeat him. Um... a bit rubbish too. 

I didn’t really like the Back To The Future tyre tracks that UNIT lady left with her wheelchair as a joke either. Kinda felt almost a little too throw away if you ask me.

So, as far as all that goes... an optimistic but also bitter sweet finale which, honestly, just got bogged down in a lot of exposition and really felt quite a bit draggingly dull at some points. Not to mention the terrible, retrofitting ‘flashbacks’ to conversations which Belinda had which, yeah, just reminded me of the whole ‘who is Ruby’s mother fiasco?’ at the end of the last season. It was just cheap and not terribly clever. Some might say awful (yeah, okay, that’s what I said too). 

Okay, so wouldn’t put many thumbs up or recommend this episode to anyone at all, really. The teased out promises turned out to actually be much more than the finale could bear... even with the unscheduled extra half an hour. 

Now then. There were a few nice things. Firstly, Anita Dobson’s joke about The Two Rani’s followed up with “And it’s good night from me!”... well. I loved that even as I was wondering just who, apart from the 50 plus British audience in the world, would even understand that joke. For all those people wondering, look up an old British TV comedy show called The Two Ronnies, with Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker. 

Secondly, it was really nice to see Jody Whittaker back as The Doctor. I always loved her portrayal, even though I lamented she hardly ever had any good scripts to work with. It was good to see she’s willing to return to the show if needed. Although, where the Earth bound(ish), retired David Tennant incarnation was during all this with, you know, his extra much needed TARDIS, is anybody’s guess. To quote Ellen Ripley in Aliens... did IQs suddenly drop?

Thirdly... it was also really nice seeing Anita back from the Christmas special. A lot of fans wanted that to happen. She seemed really wasted here though and didn’t have anything to do in terms of the emotional impact she had when we first met her so... yeah, good and bad at the same time.

Fourthly... and this is a kind of double edged sword... I called it when I had a conversation with some friends a few weeks back when I said that, when The Doctor inevitably regenerates at the end of the last episode... they would either end the show mid-regeneration or, if they were smart, get back a really big superstar which would pull in financial backers to bring the show back and ward off cancellation. Alas, although I loved seeing The Doctor regenerate into... Billie Piper at the end of the show (who has now played three different characters in the modern era of Doctor Who, with this iteration)... I’m not sure if she’s a big enough pull to get people back on board with another show resurrection. At least not with American audiences (which is where the big money is)... which is a shame because I’m all for it. It’s almost like the writers and producers said, we’ll bring Billie Piper back... Because We Want To. And, it has to be said... just to remind you all... this is not the first time The Doctor has regenerated into a person he’s already met and accidentally changed into their face. I might mention Colin Baker and Peter Capaldi here. Not ot mention the reappearance of David Tennant a couple of years ago. And don’t get me started on Lalla Ward’s regeneration of Romana.

I guess we’ll know soon enough whether the show gets cancelled or not. Meanwhile, next year’s apparently Doctorless UNIT VS Sea Devils spin off, The War Between The Land And The Sea, was trailered after the show and all I can say is... it looks pretty awful, to be honest. I mean... yeah... I hope the trailer truly isn’t reflective of the content but... again, time will tell I guess.

And that’s me done for a while, with The Reality War and the modern era of Doctor Who at least. There are still reviews coming, soon and less sooner, for stories starring various past Doctors from the classic series so, yeah, blog posts on these will be forthcoming, at some point soon. And with that I’ll finish this review by saying... and it’s good night from me. 

PS.  One last thing... thanks so much to the anonymous individual who has been leaving comments on my recent Doctor Who posts. Firefox won't let me reply and I just haven't got enough time right now to go through the whole rigmarol with Safari each time to have to re-log in and respond. But please know, whoever you are, that your comments are very welome and, like I said, thank you.

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.

Doctor Who - The Story And The Engine

 

ScheWhoRazade

Doctor Who -
The Story And The Engine
UK/USA 2025
Airdate: 10th May 2025

Warning: Story and cameo spoilers.

Yeah, go on then. Some films or TV shows have absolutely terrible trailers which practically warn you away from the idea of watching them but, if you do end up seeing the final product, they actually turn out pretty great... the Terry Gilliam movie The Adventures Of Baron Munchhausen would be a typical example for me (and, of course, the opposite effect can, more often be true). And this latest episode of Doctor Who, The Story And The Engine, is a good example of just this phenomenon. I watched the preview trailer last week and my heart sank. It looked absolutely dire and I finally gave up on the thing. But, since I’m guessing that this will be the show’s final season before cancellation (I sincerely hope not but the ratings are the lowest the show has ever had in its 62 year history), I soldiered on and just wanted to get through this experience as quickly as possible because... well, I’ll miss it when it’s gone.

So I’m thankful that this particular episode was actually a nice change of pace and a breath of fresh air for the continuing adventures of The Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa and Belinda, played by Varada Sethu. And it’s all set in a barber shop in Lagos. Well, not just in Lagos.... because once you enter through the door and become one of the customers in the small shop where 99% of the show takes place, you are held there indefinitely because the shop is also part of a giant mechanical spider travelling through space and powered by the stories that the customers tell, to keep it going on its journey and keep themselves alive (so, yeah, a spin on the story of Scheherazade for sure).

An it’s a talkie one which doesn’t rely at all on any action (although the special effects team powered by the Disney money certainly couldn’t resist an explosive conclusion to the tale) and instead it’s all about why the new owner of the shop is involved in all this in the first place and how he is, with the help of the daughter of a God, on a special agenda of his own making. And, okay, maybe it dragged just a little towards the end and couldn’t, perhaps, bring in a denouement quite worthy of the prolonged build up but... I have to say I was mostly intrigued by it and also pleasantly surprised that the appearance of Mrs. Flood this week (played by Anita Dobson) seemed almost coincidental to the story and less sinister (saying that, I don’t think the idea of delving into stories, is quite done with for this year’s series).

And, when the various tales were being told, we got a nice mixture of live action coupled with unfolding animations which were rendering the words of the story as each person spoke. This was nicely done and added rich texture to the episode, for sure.

Now there were some slight down beats, since the main character once again lived up for my new name for this incarnation, The Crying Doctor. But, there was also a nice surprise in the brief cameo return of Jo Martin as the incarnation known as The Fugitive Doctor. I’m thinking we may not be quite done with her yet... or at least that might have been the long term plan. It’s nice to see her in a story outside of the Jodie Whitaker era of the show and perhaps we will see her at the end of this season. It was also nice to hear and see clips from the lives of past incarnations of the Doctors once again... good stuff.

But that’s me done with The Story And The Engine and I thought that was one of the best, if not the best, of this new series by far. And once again I’m in the position where the trailer for next weeks show, which takes place in and around a kind of Intergalactic version of the Eurovision Song Contest, looks absolutely dire and unwatchable. So who knows, perhaps it will be a good one after all.

Doctor Who - Lucky Day

Suit Pursuit

Doctor Who - Lucky Day
UK/USA 2025
Airdate: 3rd May 2025

Warning: Very light spoilers.

Well, like I said in my review of the first episode of the current series of Doctor Who... these are probably going to be no more than very short capsule reviews for this new iteration of the show from hereon out. Mostly because the miss part of the hit and miss element of any bunch of episodes of a TV show has been somewhat elevated for this show for a few years now and, certainly with this latest story, Lucky Day, while better than last week’s shenanigans (reviewed here), it kind of winds up in the miss camp once again.

This one starts off with a boy, played by the excellent Benjamin Chivers (from The Devil’s Hour, reviewed here and here), although the IMDB is not listing him as being in this episode as yet, it seems*. Anyway, he stumbles upon The Doctor and then, because of his obsession with the encounter, grows up into someone who, it turns out, is just a wrong ‘un. Unfortunately, Chivers only plays the part for a couple of minutes before being replaced by an actor playing a grown up version of him for the remainder of the episode.

Now, this one is a Doctor lite episode and so I was kinda looking forward to this one because, two of my all time favourite episodes of the modern era of Doctor Who were similarly Doctor lite. Those being the wonderful fan favourite Blink and the equally wonderful, fan reviled Love And Monsters. So I was expecting more from this one, which is yet another story of the aftermath of an old companion getting left behind... and this time it’s the turn of this Doctor’s previous companion from last year’s series, Ruby Sunday (played once again by Millie Gibson).

And I don’t think I want to give any spoilers away on this one. It’s a clever story idea up to a point, with a central twist that you’re probably going to see coming a mile off and some questionable ways in which the story is pushed forward (in terms of future continuity of the show, I reckon). One of the bits of business in this episode shows two men in suits pretending to be aliens. Alas, when I first saw the real aliens, before this minor twist, I also thought they looked like men in suits so... yeah, where did all that Disney money go in this episode? The monsters look kind of pathetic, it has to be said.

Gibson was good in her role though and had good support from Jemma Redgrave as regular UNIT chief Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and a few of the other regular UNIT members. It was almost a good episode but... yeah, it just didn’t cut it and, if you care about what happens to the Ruby Sunday character, then you’re probably not going to be happy with the direction of her story arc in this one. I can only assume that we will be seeing her again in this year’s series finale (show finale?) because there are a few elements to this one that look like writers just positioning building blocks to set up for later use... including, of course, the now regular appearance of Anita Dobson as Mrs. Flood, once again turning up in places she shouldn’t be.

And that ‘s me done. Like I said, the best I can say about Lucky Day is... it’s not as bad as last week’s episode. I just wish Doctor Who could find a credible way to recover from what the show has now become. I guess I’ll keep watching ‘til the bitter end now.

*Okay, they’ve put it up this morning? Why was it not on there months ago? It’s not a spoiler.

Doctor Who - The Well

Tennant To Midnight

Doctor Who - The Well
UK/USA 2025
Airdate: 26th April 2025

Warning. Yup... spoilers from the outset.

Oh rats! What a shame. 

The first two episodes of this latest series of Doctor Who were actually better than anything we got last year but, just when I thought it was safe to go back in the Whoniverse, we get an episode, The Well, which is... while still better than pretty much all of last year’s episodes... just a bit of a mess, to be honest.  And that’s made more irritating by the twist reveal, halfway through the episode.

Okay, so we have Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu on form as The Doctor and Belinda, at least. Although Gatwa’s performance as The Doctor is once more tempered by the bad writing, which means he is tearing up at the drop of a hat again (this has to stop at some point... surely?). And we have a good supporting cast around them when they accidentally find themselves as part of a group of marines dropping onto a planet which they don’t name right away for fear that viewers will see the twist coming a mile off. With good reason because, the twist only works as a kind of call back to the name of a former, David Tennant episode called Midnight (there’s brief footage flashing back to the 2008 episode, just in case people don’t ‘get’ the joke). I didn’t see it coming and that’s probably because...

Okay, so I was having misgivings s about the episode being shoddily written right from the start but the reveal that it’s the unnamed ‘mimic antagonist’ of Midnight actually makes things worse. For one thing, the antagonist of the original story did not have the same modus operandi as the version of it in Midnight at all. So it really is a sequel in terms of labelling only, it seems to me. Secondly, Midnight was one of the best stories of the original Russell T. Davies era of Doctor Who... so turning this into a ‘by name only’ sequel invites comparisons to that original and, honestly, this thing isn’t a patch on that one in any way, shape or form. Invoking the name almost denigrates the original episode.

The other thing about this one which was really bad was the damned costumes that The Doctor and Belinda choose to wear. When they find out the TARDIS has landed far in the future, without knowing anything about what or who they are gong to run into... they decide to dress up in future garb. And they choose these very specific matching jumpsuits which immediately had me thinking... “wait, what?” Are they going on a space expedition or something. To which the answer was immediately, yes because... well the suits they are wearing are an exact match to the uniforms being worn by the troops they go down with to the surface of the planet Midnight. Which... um... what? That’s pretty crazy. They accidentally dress in some uniforms belonging to the group of random strangers they then go on to meet? What happened to the writing on this thing? Explain this, please because, this makes no sense.

The only decent part of the episode was the surprise appearance of Anita Dobson as Mrs. Flood at the end of the story, as a character turning up in situ with other characters. So that was a novelty but, honestly, makes me start thinking of the inclusion of Susan Twist in every episode of the last story. And we all know how completely terrible and stupid that reveal turned out to be. But, it does look like she’s gathering intel on The Doctor here.

And I think that’s me done on The Well. This has got to be one of my shortest Doctor Who reviews ever but, I just don’t have much of anything positive to say about it, truth be told. This was definitely something and, I think that somethings was... just another unremarkable episode of modern Doctor Who. I won’t be revisiting this episode again any time soon.

Doctor Who - Lux

The Doctor Lux Out

Doctor Who - Lux
UK/USA 2025
Airdate: 19th April 2025

Warning. Some possible spoilers on overall arcs here.

Well colour me surprised. Yes, the latest Doctor Who story Lux is the clichéd old concept of a character, in this case a cartoon character called Mr. Ring-A-Dong and voiced by Alan Cumming, walking out of a cinema screen and coming to life to wreak havoc... but it’s also well done and, despite having a scene where the Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, is tearing up yet again... it’s a pretty great episode. So that’s two in a row good ones now, since the debacle of last year’s series. I’m so pleased this was this well put together.

And it’s a somewhat engaging story as The Doctor rigs up a Vortex Indicator, which he shortens to ‘the Vindicator’ to act as a slingshot from wherever he and his cool new companion called (for now) Belinda (played brilliantly by Varada Sethu) next land, to get her home to the date from whence she came in 2025, since the TARDIS keeps bouncing off from the spot.

And then they stumble upon a mystery of an officially locked up cinema in Miami in1952. There they encounter the latest in the long play story arc of The Harbinger in Lux, who is one of the Gods of The Pantheon, as indicated to the audience by vocalising the notes of The Giggle from the episode of the same name from 2023 (and reviewed by me here).

There was a lot of great stuff about this episode with the cartoon manifestation of Mr. Ring-A-Ding being just one of the more epic effects being squeezed into, what was actually a fairly intimate episode, I thought. I could have perhaps done without the joke where, being accused of being Scooby Doo by Belinda, The Doctor identified more with Velma but, it was certainly a fun way of referring to any sexual politics encompassed by the show in its current form, rather than shoving it down everyone’s throat like last year.

And I loved the whole, long sequence where The Doctor and Belinda were trapped in a film, initially as cartoon versions of themselves, before they realised how to get a mindset where they become more shaded and defined before they return to their normal 3D shape and way of thinking... albeit still trapped in the film for a fair time.

Another pleasure of the episode was a scene in the same sequence where three fans of Doctor Who watching at home were, quite respectfully I thought, shown to take an active part in the proceedings, even if it turned out that they (aka we watching at home) were a fiction too. But considering the way a lot of the fan base of the show has been turning against it in recent years (especially last year), I was impressed there weren’t too many blatantly sly digs at the viewers and I especially loved that the favourite episode of all three of them was one of the show’s classics, Blink, much to the current Doctor’s chagrin.

Now I thought the segregation of black and white people in places like diners and cinemas in 1950s America was either pushed too strongly or, I dunno, maybe not pushed strongly enough... I still can’t quite make up my mind. But it might be a matter of time that it was not pursued in a more damning way, when you’ve only got 45 minutes to present a story. That's okay though...  it didn’t feel all that loosely balanced against the rest of the episode and I thought they just about got away with it.

I also loved that Mrs. Flood, once again played by Anita Dobson, turned up at the end in 1952 America (unseen by The Doctor and Belinda) and I’m guessing the importance of her character on events may be coming to the fore here. It’s interesting that she noted that the Doctor’s run would be coming to an end on May 24 this year, which is presumably the day on which this last series is due to put out its final episode. Is this hinting at my long suspected cancellation of the show? Quite possibly but I guess we’ll see in six weeks or so.

And that’s me done with Lux. The ending with the release of 15 captured presumed dead people seemed a little like the writers wanting to have their cake and eat it (a braver conclusion might have been to have their existences as trapped in celluloid burned up in the fire which occurs near the end of the episode) but overall I have to say I really enjoyed this one and am somehow looking forward to the third episode with a new sense of optimism... or at least hope. Fingers crossed the series continues in this light from hereon.

Doctor Who - The Robot Revolution

The Catch
Chandra Crossing

Doctor Who -
The Robot Revolution
UK/USA 2025
Airdate: 12th April 2025

Warning: Slight spoilers.

Okay, full transparency... I might as well own up that I am expecting this year’s new-Who reviews to be more in the form of short capsule reviews. There’s not enough gone into the stories to really sustain them for much longer at the moment and I can’t see that changing anywhere before the end of the current series (which is only scheduled to run for eight episodes this time around anyway).

Also, before I get into it... I have to say that one member of my household was dead against going back for the new season of the show after the track record it’s had over the last six years or so and, while we persuaded him to watch... yeah, he really did not like this one and was very critical of it. Which I totally get. I thought the last season was particularly dreadful (asides from the strengths of the two main lead performers) and I can totally see why the show has become anathema to him.

That being said, I thought The Robot Revolution was a terrific Doctor Who season opener. We got an introduction to the new companion Miss Belinda Chandra, played by Varada Sethu and The Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, even gives a reason, of sorts, as to why she’s the exact duplicate of a character he met last season (played by the same actress) in her far future... although I expect that explanation will be altered significantly to take on a different significance by the time of the last episode.

The story was a time twisty adventure which was all about her and the current night/six months prior/ten years prior, depending on your entry point into the story, when she was kidnapped by robots and taken to the planet... Missbelindachandra, of which she is surprised to find out she is the queen.

There are cute, barely tolerable robots, big bruiser robots, a mad controlling manifestation of AI (not really AI) of her ex-boyfriend and laser battles and tricky reveals that propel the story forward at a quite fast pace - if this was a more episodic serial show as it was from the 1960s - 1980s there would have been more time to explore the concepts... things were a little bit rushed, it seemed to me.

I liked it a lot, though and, the lead actors Ncuti and Varada are both good here (as they were last season but if the scripts don’t work as well as this one did we may still be in trouble). Yeah, I thought this one was great but I’m not naive enough just yet to expect them to be able to keep this up... since the last season was made back to back with this one the makers would not have been able to do much about audience feedback from last year’s show, for sure. So we’ll see how it goes.

I mean, Anita Dobson was back as Mrs. Flood, talking to the audience again and popping up somewhere she shouldn’t be, so that was interesting (although after last season’s so called solution to the overall arc, I’m not trusting any of this just yet). However, it wasn’t long before The Doctor was crying his eyes out again and getting way too emotional about stuff... so, yeah, I’m not fully on board yet. And since we havent even had a soundtrack CD for the last season yet, then I’m not even going to mention the music. No CD, no comment.

And that’s really all I’ve got to say about The Robot Revolution. I thought it was brilliant but, so much has been wrong with the show recently that I’m just not trusting it. We shall see what we shall see. 

Doctor Who - Boom

Sunday Mundy

Doctor Who - Boom
Airdate: 18th May 2024
BBC 1

Warning: Some spoilers here sweeties.

Yay! Finally... the new series of Doctor Who has a pretty good episode... Boom... with a hidden surprise to it too, it has to be said. And, blimey! It’s written by Steven Moffat. He was a great Doctor Who writer during the Russel T. Davies era of Doctor Who but when he took over as show runner on Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi’s tenures, well it would be safe to say his writing went rapidly downhill. Now though, he provides a pretty good story  for the new show and, well, I guess Russel T must be the best editor for this writer, is what I’m thinking.

Okay so, The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his new companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) land slap bang in the middle of a war. I think the army, who are once again a religious army, with serving ministers and bishops etc instead of modern ranking, must mean it’s the same lot as in Moffat’s second Weeping Angels story for Matt Smith’s first season. Here there is no real twist as the fact that the army is fighting no enemy and are being kept fighting and dying because of capitalism of the war machinery merchants (and the soldiers’ own gullibility) is something that is telegraphed from very early on, I thought... or at least just very obvious.

So we have mechanical ambulances killing their own soldiers in the field because it’s not financially viable to give them a few weeks to recover from their injuries and, right from the get go, The Doctor steps on a ‘smart’ landmine and stays there for most of the episode while Ruby, who is pretty much shot dead under accidental circumstances about half way through the episode, tries to figure out, with the help of a few religiously impaired military types, a way to stop The Doctor from both blowing up and, because of his timelord anatomy, taking out pretty much half the planet if he shifts his weight or blood pressure one notch more.

But there’s lot’s of things going on here for what must have been a relatively cheap episode to shoot (it’s mostly set in that one location, which I suspect is one of the new backdrop screen thingies which Disney used on The Mandalorian and which seems to be rolling out through the entertainment industry). Including two surprise actors in this one.

Well, okay, actually the first one is no real surprise... I’ve been expecting Susan Twist to appear in every episode this year, as a different character per episode and, in this one she’s the personality of the ambulances. If the final twist of this year’s show isn’t to do with The Doctor’s granddaughter Susan, I’ll be surprised (although I was fully expecting her to make an appearance about six years ago and she didn’t show then).

As for the second guest appearance... well I would have been more worried about whether Ruby Sunday was going to come back from certain death or not had I realised that Mundy Flynn was being played by Varada Sethu. Who is back as Mundy next year, I believe (or maybe this Christmas?), as a new regular companion for The Doctor (alongside Ruby, I think... I suspect the marketing machine is being pretty deceptive with the facts at the moment). I’m somewhat relieved, though, because I really liked the character here and so I’m glad she’s back at some point.

Okay, so to be fair, the supposed ‘twists’ were all forseeable... although, did anyone catch Ruby’s age when the ambulance analysed her (is she really many thousands of years old or is that just because she’s maybe that far in the future?)... but it was all done with a certain panache and I even found myself warming to Ncuti in this one (thank goodness) so, I guess the darker ones fit him better, perhaps? Or maybe just me.

Once again we have the return of the ‘Ruby snow’ through one sequence. Which is another part of the ongoing mystery of Ruby Sunday and I’m all for that underlying arc (again, something to do with either Susan Foreman or Susan Twist, perhaps?). Time will tell and, not long to wait I guess, since it’s a ridiculously short season this year... well, unless they make us wait until Christmas or beyond, I suppose.

And I’ve not much more to say about Boom, to be honest except, next week’s ‘mostly Doctorless’ (if the publicity is to believed) episode is one I’ve been looking forward to for a bit and it looks to be giving us more intriguing flashbacks to the mysteries of Ruby’s past, for sure (the ambulance in this episode was completely unable to find her next of kin when it analysed her, of course). I just hope all the other episodes of this season carry on with this kind of quality going forward (if not even better). Liked this one a lot.