Doctor Who 2025

I’m not sure if it was the BBC, or Disney, or RTD, but someone has really messed up the numbering of the series of “Doctor Who” – there are now three bearing the name “season one”. I can’t say I’m a fan of that approach. And so, this post is titled by the year.

The truth is, had I written this post on Friday, after watching “Wish World” but before “The Reality War”, it would have been very different in tone. I hadn’t really enjoyed most of this series, which just about aspired to the level of “okay”, but I found “Wish World” to be a big load of incoherent nonsense.

In particular, the handling of The Rani had been poor – immediately following her first appearance, the biggest rumour was that Mrs Flood was the Rani, so that big reveal just didn’t work. Then Anita Dobson, having put in all the work, was promptly sidelined in favour of Archie Panjabi (who, it must be said, did a great job in the role), and with another instance of the bigeneration nonsense.

But also, at least as far as “Wish World”, it was never actually explained who The Rani was, or why we should care. And where at least I, as a long-term viewer of the show, understood that, new viewers would have had no way of knowing. Plus, while the classic Rani was not just The Master rehashed, this new one was indistinguishable.

So by the end of “Wish World” I was all set to call for RTD’s departure, to drop the show, and to walk away. It was not good.

However, “The Reality War” really surprised me – RTD has a pattern of having a really strong setup to his finales and then having them collapse in a heap, but this time he somehow managed to turn it on its head.

First up, there was the fixing of the problems: this time, The Rani actually had time to explain not only her plan and also the why of it. And, as twisted as it was, it at least made sense – and was not something The Master would have done. So that’s good.

Then there was the resolution of the various strands. Of course, the Doctor defeating Omega was a hugely underwhelming ass-pull, but that was pretty much inevitable. That’s just what RTD does. But having The Rani defeated by her own hubris, and having Conrad undone in the manner that was achieved was very poetic. So that was fine.

But then there was positively an age of wrapping up the plotlines, and in particular the disappearance of Poppy.

I can’t say I was a huge fan of this bit, as it seemed to drag. And, once again, it was all about the slog of getting towards the regeneration that was suddenly inevitable (although why that was wasn’t at all clear to me). But fair enough.

The highlight of this one was actually Thirteen showing up unexpectedly. As I’ve noted before, she’s my least favourite incarnation of the Doctor, so I was surprised at how happy I was to see her again. The only thing that is a shame is that RTD handled that scene so well that I rather wish he’d been running the show for those years. I suspect they’d have gone rather better. A missed opportunity.

And then there’s the whole thing about moving the timeline by “one degree”. Which of course now gives license to change anything they want, depending on how far back they want to claim the original change went. (It clearly covered the whole of this series, but given that Ruby met Poppy in the abysmal “Space Babies”, that suggests it goes back further.) Hopefully, it at least goes back far enough for them to now ditch the ever-so-tedious mavity “joke”.

And then, finally, the regeneration and the appearance of the next Doctor. Maybe. Or maybe not – fir the first time, we were introduced to a new actor but not “as the Doctor”. So maybe she’s someone else. Or something. I’m not sure I care.

At this point, the future of the show is up in the air. Presumably it has a future guaranteed, in at least some form – had the show ended a few seconds before that could be doubted, but that ending demands at least something of a continuation. But there’s a big part of me that hopes what’s next is a passing of the torch to a new team – RTD1 had two Doctors (Nine and Ten), Moffat had two (Eleven and Twelve, with an interlude with War), and now RTD has had two (Fourteen and Fifteen). So an interlude and then handing over may be no bad thing.

Or not. Maybe there’s a grand plan that we just haven’t been told about.