The Cutprice Guignol

I have to admit, I had my reservations about this episode going in.

And not just because this season so far has been, to put it lightly, a let-down, but because genre fiction about social media is so hit and miss. Though there are cogent and interesting stories to be told about social media, and how the rise of online spaces shapes our identities and ability and willingness to communicate with other people, these stories so often boil down to “phone bad – young generation dumb!” in a way that’s staggeringly uninteresting and overdone.

So, when I saw the premise for Dot and Bubble, this week’s episode of Doctor Who, I had my doubts. The episode follows Lindy (Callie Cooke), a young woman living in a utopia of the future, who literally exists within a social media bubble that physically cuts her off from the outside world. When the Doctor and Ruby start appearing on her virtual screen, she realizes she and the other residents of her world are being hunted by enormous monsters who are scoffing her and her friends.

And, for me, the first forty minutes or so of this episode were…patchy, but with some stuff I genuinely enjoyed. The introduction of the slug creatures was really cool, nudging in at the corner of the frame, just out of sight – a genuinely unsettling presence, looming over the show’s innocent, sanitized world. I always really love when the show uses the Doctor and Ruby in this way, having them intrude on someone else’s life as opposed to following their story from the off; this is, fundamentally, Lindy’s story for the most part, and the show goes out of its way to establish that.

And Lindy, as a character, hits about every single trope you can imagine for the “phones bad!” storyline: she can’t even turn off the literal bubble of social media around her head long enough to check on her friends, she’s utterly reliant on her online obsessions for comfort in the face of oncoming horrors, she can’t so much as walk or piss without the guidance of technology. She’s infantilized and childish in soft pastels, contained in this existence that’s been paid for by her mother, insulated from real life to a ridiculous degree.

Initially, this really irritated me. We get it, Russel, the kids need to get off their damn phones! The sheer extent of Lindy’s inability to navigate the world without her screens was so heavy-handed as to be annoying in the first chunk of the episode, and I found myself rolling my eyes a few times at just how over-the-top her incompetence was.

But then…things get kind of interesting. Lindy meets up with Ricky September (Tom Rhys Harries), a Harry Styles analogue and social media superstar, who is intent on getting her out of danger (and look, this is apropos of nothing, but I will simply not be fooled into thinking that a Blond Man is attractive, no matter how much this episode tried to convince me that Ricky was a heartthrob. I am not Louis Point du Lac! You will never catch me simping for a blond man!). They make it through the slugs together, and, finally, the Doctor and Ruby figure out that the titular Dots that create the social media bubbles Lindy and her friends live in have turned on them; after months of listening to their shite patter on the group chat, they’ve had enough, and they’ve coming for blood.

At which point Lindy sacrifices Ricky to save herself – giving up his real name and moving him up the alphabetical list of to-be-killed-s so she can escape. It’s a genuinely great moment, a shock to see something so brutal and callous from a character who we’ve been following this episode, who we’ve been rooting to see survive – and what it leads in to might be my favourite part of this season so far.

The Doctor and Ruby meet with Lindy and the other residents of their social media bubble, who are intent on travelling out of their pristine city into the wilderness to establish a new civilization. The Doctor pleads with Lindy to allow him to take her somewhere safe, somewhere she can make a comfortable home and life for herself – and she refuses.

Because he’s black.

And all at once, the episode recontextualizes itself: the way Lindy blocked the Doctor as soon as he appeared on her screen, the shock and distress she displayed when she realized Ruby and the Doctor were sharing the same space, the overwhelming whiteness of everyone who shares Ruby’s lifestyle. It’s even in the costume design, Lindy’s soft pastels and the Doctor’s bright orange sweater – the Doctor doesn’t fit in this world, because it has been curated to avoid people like him. The bubble is not social media, though social media certainly allows for that bubble to survive as well as it does – the bubble is white privilege. Lindy’s childlike nature and infantilization are that oft-used defence against accusations of racism towards white people and white women especially; they don’t know better, they’re innocent, they mean well. Even heroic characters in this world, like Ricky September, benefit from and likely tacitly support this worldview. They’re willing to die in the wilderness rather than accept the Doctor’s help, so incapable of challenging their own ingrained prejudices that they’ll sacrifice themselves on the altar of it.

It’s such a brilliant moment for the episode and for this era of the show as a whole – there was always going to be an episode where the Doctor’s race had to be touched on, with Ncuti Gatwa in the role, but I expected it to come in a sort of abstract science-fiction format. You know, two different alien races, with some completely minor and unremarkable difference, and it’s all a metaphor for the absurdity of real-life racism. But for the show to come out like this, to say, no, we’re going to talk about blackness specifically, and we’re not even going to do it in a historical episode where you might expect it, we’re going to do it in the future, in a perfect, polished, utopian future, where white people still hate black people on the basis of nothing more than their race – it’s honestly the most impressive thing this season has done so far for me.

And what really sells it is Ncuti Gatwa’s performance. He’s mostly limited to a screen this episode, and when he makes his physical appearance in the show, it’s incredible. He pleads with Lindy and her companions to come with him – tells them that he doesn’t care what she thinks of him, he’s still willing to help her. But it doesn’t matter. They leave anyway. And the Doctor just laughs – Gatwa plays this moment so well, that disbelief and hurt and anger and sadness all piling on top of each other until all he can do is just laugh. It’s one of the first moments in his run where I’ve really felt him as the Doctor, and for it to be in a scene as powerful as this…yeah, it’s a brilliant episode for him.

There are still plenty of criticisms to be made about how much the message of this episode is being carried behind-the-scenes of the show – there are no writers of colour on this season, at the end of the day – but I really thought this handling worked on Dot and Bubble. While the episode edged into annoying territory early in its run, I felt like that twist really made it work, and I’m glad to see the show finally taking on these topics in a meaningful way after so many episodes of hand-waving nothingness.

What did you think of Dot and Bubble? Let me know in the comments below!

If you liked this article and want to see more stuff like it, please check out the rest of my Doctor Who reviews! I’d also love it if you would check out my horrible short story collection, and, if you’d like to support my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon!

(header image via Men’s Journal)