Before we begin, please be warned that there are major spoilers ahead.
Major.
Honestly, if you are a Whovian who hasn’t watched the finale yet, this message is likely futile. You’ve almost certainly been spoiled at this point. If you have, somehow, against all odds, avoided spoilers for this long, just hop into your TARDIS, pop back to May 31st, and watch the episode as it airs.
Last week, we predicted a timey wimey finale, and ‘The Reality War’ delivers on that expectation. While the twists and turns and converging storylines never stop coming, the episode spends even more time caring about its characters, and that is the sweet spot for Doctor Who. This show would lose its identity if it never got a little bit silly or bombastic, but Whovians are happy to wade into those waters when the humanity of the characters remains paramount. Sometimes the show loses sight of that balance, but this finale centers hearts and minds so effectively that it’s easy to turn a blind eye to some campy UNIT tech and another goofy, kaiju-sized, CGI god-villain.
Things get off to a strong start when a door opens in the fabric of reality; a hotel concierge pulls The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa, Sex Education) from certain doom and into the welcoming halls of The Time Hotel. Of course, this isn’t just any concierge, it’s Anita Benn (Steph de Whalley, Midnight Taxi), the woman who spent a year falling for The Doctor while he put the brakes on adventuring during the events of the ‘Joy to the World’ Christmas special. This segment is one of the greatest moments from Ncuti Gatawa’s run as The Doctor, and Anita’s return sends a strong message at the top of the finale that characters and relationships matter more than all of the time travel gimmicks in the universe. After all, Anita helped Fifteen understand how desperately the TARDIS needs a chair – a place for our favorite Time Lord to relax, unwind, and connect with the people he loves.
The Doctor finds an Anita who is much more sure of herself, and is even expecting a child. It turns out that she peeked through a time door and saw The Doctor falling for Rogue back in Season 1. This helped her drop the torch she was carrying, find new love, and embrace her exciting new duties in The Time Hotel. Her evolution prompts the following exchange:
DOCTOR: When I left you, you were just…
ANITA: Ordinary?
DOCTOR: I didn’t say that!
While it’s true that Fifteen never calls Anita “ordinary,” it’s also true that she caught him underestimating her capacity for change and growth. This is a cute payoff for an earlier moment in the series, but more importantly, it prompts viewers to turn their attention toward the companions, the folks who make The Doctor’s time-hopping existence worth living.
Anita is also here for an exposition dump. It turns out that this mysterious wish world has replayed on loop hundreds of times; every night, the world resets itself. It’s a twisted Groundhog Day: instead of reforming a selfish weatherman, each reset of this world chips away at the veil between reality and the Underverse. When this barrier finally snaps, it will unleash Omega, the mad god of The Time Lords.
It turns out that our wish world architect, The Rani (Archie Panjabi, The Good Wife), doesn’t really care if Omega is alive or dead in the Underverse. She simply wants to unleash this OG Time Lord so that she can use him as a “gene bank” to rebuild a devastated Time Lord race. While the surviving Time Lords may be masters of time and space, it turns out they’ve been rendered barren and infertile. Rebuilding a lost race doesn’t sound so bad on its own, but the devil is in the details. Later, we discover that her plan is reckless, short-sighted, and bigoted. It’s a solid motivation for Doctor Who’s most notorious Time Lord mad scientist.
Luckily, The Doctor and a whole host of companions are ready to stop her, but first, they have to wake up. The Doctor steps back into the wish world and sheds his perfectly-fitted jacket. As the jacket falls, he manifests his own wardrobe – a sharp vest and skirt combo that mimics the pattern on the more traditional suit. It’s a killer fit, and it could have been a perfect signature look if the series had committed to the traditional one-outfit-Doctor approach. Not only does Fifteen look great, but the wardrobe change lets us know that he is done messing around. He is ready to wake his children. First, The Doctor pulls Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu, Andor) into The Time Hotel to restore her grip on reality. Not only does she remember her travels with The Doctor, but she remembers her love for her wish world child, Poppy, just as well. It turns out that Poppy is very real, a manifestation of the mingling memories of Belinda and The Doctor: “It just makes it more amazing, Bel. Little scraps of memories, yours and mine, have come to life in a child of our own.” After reclaiming his latest companion and child, The Doctor enlists the staff of The Time Hotel to open doors into UNIT headquarters and flood the wish world with reality. This swiftly wakes up the UNIT staff, including Season 1 companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson, Coronation Street).
The Doctor’s efforts don’t simply wake up Donna Noble’s daughter, Rose (Yasmin Finney, Heartstopper), they restore her back to existence. Last week, we learned that this wish world, fueled by the wishes of incel disruptor Conrad Clark (Jonah Hauer-King, The Little Mermaid), doesn’t have space for folks outside of Conrad’s realm of understanding: “Conrad couldn’t imagine you for even a second,” explains The Doctor. As a result, Rose, a transgender woman, had been fully erased from reality. Paired with the experience of people with disabilities in the wish world last week, this revelation lands some efficient commentary on real world efforts across the globe to erase the humanity of transgender people, a theme that the latest Russell T Davies era consistently aims to explore.
Meanwhile, The Rani proves that she embodies this sort of blindness to the humanity of others. She mocks foster child Ruby Sunday for having “57 mothers,” and even steps into Nazi/Deatheater/MAGA mode when she suggests that Poppy is “contaminated” by Belinda’s human DNA. All of this confirms that there is nothing redeemable about The Rani, but Archie Panjabi also gets to cook with some more fun villainy as well. Yes, The Rani is awful, but it’s great to hear her mock Conrad for being such a disappointing vessel for the powers of The God of Wishes. It’s also fun to watch her serve Conrad his own brand of dehumanization when she objectifies him, saying, “I could tilt you on your side and serve olives in those dimples.” Panjabi nails the delivery, and it’s one of the most delicious lines of villain dialogue in recent Doctor Who memory.
Unfortunately for The Rani, she takes things a step too far when she questions the reality and humanity of Poppy. Fortunately for us, this prompts The Doctor to fire back a response that embodies our experience with Fifteen as The Doctor who isn’t afraid to love, The Doctor who saved an infant Ruby Sunday from the clutches of mythological goblins, and the The Doctor who created a child through the strength of his dreams:
THE RANI: Doctor, she’s not real! She’s made of hopes and dreams and wishes!
DOCTOR: That is every child.
Leave it to The Doctor to validate our hopes, dreams, and wishes as foundational elements of our early lives. We know he is ready to fight for Poppy against all odds, and he delivers.
At this point, the episode rushes through some plot so we can return to the emotional depths of the finale. UNIT mans their battle stations and some CGI glass shatters to let us know that explosions are happening. UNIT pew-pews some CGI cannons at some CGI Bone Beasts, and The Doctor rides The Rani’s little Green Goblin hovercraft up to the Bone Palace. Inside, The Rani unleashes Omega, who has lost all humanity and transformed into a Power-Rangers-sized skeleton god devoid of human motivations. He bellows out something about eating Time Lords for their energy and gulps up The Rani with all the grace of a 1930s King Kong. From there, The Doctor Ghost-Busters Omega back to “hell” with the energy beam from Season 2’s Vindicator (plot) device. Speaking of plot devices, Season 1 plot device Susan Triad (Susan Twist, Coronation Street) builds a zero room that is intended to shield Poppy from the effects of a collapsing wish world. The theory is that Poppy will be able to step out of the chamber and back into reality when the dust settles.
This is the weakest portion of the episode, but even here, we get a thoughtful reminder that the finale wants to end on a human note. Amidst the CGI soup, we get one artful cut to Belinda and Poppy inside of the zero room. All of the sound cuts out, and Belinda’s look of hesitant hope reminds us that there are some stakes worth fighting for.
Ruby Sunday also tags in to tether us back to emotion and character. One of the greatest triumphs of this episode is its ability to land a successful arc for Ruby. She started out as a bright-eyed companion who was eager to take her first steps into a larger universe. She honed her skills alongside The Doctor, but despite her humble origins, she endured a lot over the course of two seasons, from being briefly erased from existence in her debut episode to facing off with the God of Death in the Season 1 finale.
But that’s not all.
Even though she doesn’t remember it, back in “73 Yards,” she was doomed to live out an entire lifetime of isolation after being cursed by fairy magic. More recently, in “Lucky Day,” Conrad Clark manipulated her emotions and belittled her as some sort of tedious and immature chore. This gal has been through the ringer, but the finale allows her to step up as possibly its biggest hero. Unlike The Doctor, she is able to fight her battle with love. After The Doctor makes room for her to teleport into The Bone Palace, she literally disarms Conrad by appealing to his emotions at gunpoint. She seeks out the humanity underneath his cruelty and insists that she saw moments of pure joy break out during their time together. When she rescues the God of Wishes, she uses Desiderium’s power to wish Conrad into a happy existence. It’s more than he deserves, but a beautiful way for Ruby to assert herself into the finale….and she doesn’t stop there.
After the CGI-fest wraps up, we learn that the zero room worked! Poppy is safe! Ruby joins Belinda and The Doctor in the TARDIS as they prepare to take their daughter on adventures through the stars. In a stroke of visual genius, Belinda removes Poppy’s jacket. As she and The Doctor plan the future of their family, they begin folding the jacket and passing it back and forth. In a simple visual illusion, the jacket reduces down to the size of a handkerchief, and then to nothing, as their memories of Poppy fade away. Watching this symbol of a treasured piece of clothing meant to protect their child from the elements slowly slipping away is a perfect visual metaphor for the weight of the memories escaping our protagonists. It’s in the running for the greatest moment of the last two seasons of Doctor Who.
But Ruby remembers. She was abandoned and found as a child. She was loved. She paid that love forward to dozens of foster children under the loving care of her mother and grandmother. She has been erased from existence and lived out an entire, thankless, alternate reality. Her journey seemed to shield her from the full force of Conrad’s wish, and now, she is the only one who remembers Poppy. She is like a Marvel nexus being who possesses power even The Doctor can’t understand. It’s a powerful role for a companion that lands with much more subtlety than something like Clara Oswald’s “Impossible Girl” arc back during the Matt Smith run. Ruby comes to understand her special ability, and she makes it count. She fights against all of the patronizing doubt in the room to make everyone believe that Poppy is real. She reminds The Doctor that he would do anything to protect a single human life, and the full cast of supporting characters also thank him for his sacrifice. It’s the moment that we, the audience, begin to understand that regeneration is imminent. Luckily, the episode gives us lots of time to mourn the loving, charming, beautiful Fifteenth doctor who once sprang to life and hugged his predecessor without hesitation.
Before The Doctor sacrifices his regeneration energy to nudge time by one degree and restore Poppy to reality, he gets to say some farewells. His final farewell is to Poppy and Belinda. Poppy has emerged from this reality war as a fully human child who was raised from infancy by her mother, Belinda Chandra. In fact, the entire timeline has shifted. All of the moments in Season 2 that felt like missed opportunities to better understand the life Belinda was so eager to return to on Earth are backfilled with new memories of a mother desperate to return to her daughter. While it’s a bit bittersweet to see this charming and fashionable companion pushed out of the TARDIS and into a domestic lifestyle, the decision allows us to see and understand The Doctor as a parent for the first time. His farewell to Poppy, in which he wishes he could have a daughter exactly like her, is genuinely touching and distinct from the long, solitary last walks that often define a Doctor’s end.
Speaking of former Doctors, Fifteen gets one other surprise visitor before his touching farewell to Poppy. Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor pops out of her timeline and into the TARDIS as this shifting reality fractures time itself. It’s lovely to see her share a screen with Ncuti Gatwa and bring her signature excitement to the screen. She hits him with an earnest, “Blimey, your face is beautiful!” and she hugs him almost as hard as he hugged David Tennant during his debut.
Speaking of Tennant, Whovians know that he gets a lot of well-earned respect for his time as The Doctor, but his stranglehold on the discourse sometimes detracts from the love and respect for other periods in Doctor Who’s history. Nobody feels this more acutely than fans of the Chibnall/Whittaker era, which is often casually dismissed and belittled by certain corners of the fandom. Whittaker’s appearance is a love letter to her fans, and Russell T. Davies’ decision to feature her at a critical moment in the Disney+ run is a clear offer of validation. Gatwa’s Doctor even takes a friendly shot at Tennant when he says, “I’m surprised it’s not the other guy, he’s always turning up!”
Later Gatwa and Whittaker share a knowing reference to Tennant’s infamous description of the difficult- to-explain, “timey wimey” events that fuel plotlines across the series. If that’s not enough validation for Whittaker fans, Fifteen even takes a moment to shout out Thasmin, the beloved fan ship of Thirteen and Yasmin Khan. When Whittaker’s doctor expresses surprise at how freely Fifteen is able to say that he loves her, she thinks aloud about telling Yaz how she feels. In a bittersweet moment, Fifteen tells his female counterpart that she will never tell Yaz she loves her – but he also confirms that Yaz knows exactly how she feels. While it’s possible to make a case that this fan service is unnecessary, it felt right for the outgoing Doctor of mental health and recovery to offer this sort of reassurance to the fandom. Plus, it’s not all fan service. Thirteen has some wisdom for Fifteen as well: “Don’t go with fear. Go with that lovely smile.” He takes her advice.
In the end, Fifteen goes joyfully. He takes a look up at the burning star full of human consciousnesses that we met back in ‘Joy to the World’ and exclaims that he can never be alone as long as those minds are out there. Before his regeneration takes full effect, he affirms once again that, “this has been an absolute joy.”
Once the glow of the regeneration energy begins to fade away, fans of New Who are shocked and/or confused and/or annoyed and/or excited to see the face of Billie Piper, the performer who portrayed Rose Tyler at the start of the New Who era. She offers an excited and surprised, “Oh, hello!” before the end credits roll, and that’s that for Season 2.
Certainly, this finale poses a lot of questions. ‘The Reality War’ airs amidst rumors and speculation that BBC and Disney could end their Doctor Who partnership. Similarly, it’s unclear what the plan will be for the series if the partnership does not continue. It doesn’t seem likely that Doctor Who will come to an end, but it is likely that Whovians have a bit of a wait ahead of them as the chips fall into place. Davies’ choice to reveal Billie Piper is divisive, but also a pretty effective placeholder. Davies and Piper have been aloof in interviews, but they have very clearly avoided calling Billie the next Doctor.
It’s quite possible that they haven’t even fully decided where to go with this story. To the best of our knowledge, Rose is still out there living out her life alongside the aging Metacrisis Doctor. She also spent some time as the vessel for the Bad Wolf entity back in Season 1 of New Who. While she was freed of this burden, we have reason to believe it is forever tied to her existence. It’s possible that we will see some continuation of that story. Similarly, Piper returned for the 50th Anniversary special to embody a Gallifreyan super weapon called “The Moment.” This weapon took the form of the Bad Wolf to bargain with The War Doctor as he contemplated taking drastic measures to end The Time War. Of course, it’s still possible that Piper could be playing a new incarnation of The Doctor. It is well-established lore that The Doctor sometimes regenerates into familiar faces.
In addition to the Billie Piper speculation, we are also left with a lot of lore questions as we enter into a Doctor Who hiatus. While the ending of the episode seems pretty straightforward regarding the origins of Poppy and the subsequent rewrite that established her as Belinda’s child since birth, the last two seasons have trafficked in multiple resets, rewinds, and alternate existences. Stories and tropes have been echoing and repeating, and at the end of the finale, The Doctor notes that, “The gods play tricks, but I beat them. I always win.” Despite the certainty of his statement, the delivery of “the gods play tricks” is pensive, as if he is unsure whether or not his memory is reliable. He has to live with that uncertainty. This is equally true for the fandom. The Doctor invoked superstition at the edge of the universe, gravity is now mavity, and bigeneration shifted from myth to reality. Who’s to say which reality is most real? Perhaps this finale was merely one small battle in a much larger reality war. If nothing else, Doctor Who has certainly established enough reasonable doubt in reality to build effective plot armor for future big swings with the lore.
It’s incredibly sad to see Ncuti Gatwa step away from the TARDIS while there are still so many interesting open questions and his beloved Rogue remains locked away and tortured in a hell dimension (seriously though, can someone help that guy!?), but it’s comforting to know that he is leaving on his own terms. He even offers some parting words of wisdom. These words are meant for Belinda and Poppy as he walks out of their lives toward a regeneration, but they can just as easily apply to fans who are sad to see him go: “That’s our lives, Belinda. We travel in and out of the slipstreams of time. Beautiful things can be forgotten and gone, but they still happened somewhere. I think one thing remains. I love you…that will never change.”
Ncuti Gatwa, the feeling is mutual. We will always love you. That will never change.
While it may be a minute until The Pop Break has another opportunity to cover Doctor Who, Disney+ dropped a teaser for an upcoming UNIT spinoff experience coming soon to the streamer: The War Between The Land and The Sea. Perhaps we’ll see you again in that slipstream of time.
