The Cutprice Guignol

Well. I don’t know what to make of all that.

But we’re going to hold hands and get through it together. Because if there is one thing I want you to remember, my friends, it’s that just because this episode featured that insane reveal, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t absolute dogshit too.

Obviously, there are some giant things to contend with in this particular episode – namely, the end of Ncuti Gatwa’s run and the beginning of Billie Piper’s one – but I’m going to dedicate a couple of shorter articles to those in the next couple of days, because I truly cannot take it all on in one go. And I don’t want those somewhat interesting aspects of this finale get in the way of how much I truly, truly despise it.

We start things off with the Anita (Steph de Walley), fresh from the Christmas special, turning up in the time hotel to divert last week’s cliffhanger, and we’re back off into Wish World to try and take down the Rani(s) before she manages to awaken Omega, the creator of the Time Lords. And this first half-hour or so features pretty much the only parts of the episode I can stand – Archie Panjabi is just so much fun as the Rani, venomous and brutal and sharp, and her back-and-forth with the Doctor about his status as a powerful being against a backdrop of humans the highlight of the episode for me. Bish bash bosh, UNIT taps a chip it has implanted in everyone’s neck and knocks the wish world off its axis, with Ruby contending with Conrad, the Doctor facing off against the Rani(s) and Omega, and, uh, Belinda standing in a lift holding a child?

This fumbling of Belinda’s plot is honestly borderline historical for me, and I’m not just talking about the full act she spends stuck in a box utterly outside the reach of time, space, and the plot. I’ve enjoyed Sethu’s presence as Belinda on the show, and I think this sending-off is kind of an insult to how much she poured into the character. After the last episode, which rarely saw Belinda on-screen without her child to underline the demands placed on women by the harmful society she was trapped in, Belinda…was rarely seen on-screen without her child and ended up shipped off to a parallel dimension (ish) with her in what appears to be her send-off as main companion for the show. Not only that, but they retconned this version of her into always having been focused on the primary goal of getting to her child, but we, uh, just didn’t see it. Am I going insane? Why are they presenting the same fate that was framed as a negative as a warm, fuzzy send-off in this one? Should I reach out to someone, do you think?

Instead of Belinda, it’s Ruby (Millie Gibson, bumped up to opening credit status once again here) who gets the far more active role in this plot, and it could not be more obvious at this point that this season was initially intended for her. This episode ties up so many plot threads and parallels that started in Space Babies, their first episode together (and somehow, now a relatively significant part of canon), and it’s a real shame we didn’t get to see this season as it was clearly intended. I actually really like her in this episode, but I spent so much of her screentime wondering where the hell Belinda was, to be quite honest. She gets scooted off after pointing the Doctor in the direction of Poppy, and, I presume, has been politely asked to stay at least 73 Yards away from the rest of production from here on out.

And let’s get to the Rani of it all – not that there’s all that much Rani to get to, but hey. After all that build-up, she manages to coax Omega out from inside his sulking pit, only to get…eaten nearly immediately? Oh, okay. And Omega gets defeated with a big gun the Doctor was hiding in a clock? Right, yeah, of course. And Anita Dobson’s Rani makes a Two Ronnies reference and leaves? I guess so, yeah. Of course. Now you say it like that, it makes sense.

Actually, no, it doesn’t. This was such a bizarre way to wrap up the Rani plot that I thought it must all have been taking place in some other unlikely alternate reality, and we’d jump back to the real conflict soon enough (not helped by the inexplicably atrocious production, with the soundtrack occasionally swelling so loudly it sounds like it’s trying to climb in your bathroom window). But no, that’s it. With twenty-five minutes of the episode left, she’s gone, and that’s that. To bring back such an iconic villain and then toss her aside like this is almost funny in how cynical it is – draw ’em in with a classic villain, hit ’em with the Piper reveal, and you’ve got it in the bag, right?

But anyway, she’s not the only Time Bourgeoisie saying goodbye this episode. I’m going to talk a bit about Ncuti Gatwa’s run as a whole and how this ending fits it in more detail, but with regards to this episode specifically, I think this send-off is pretty shite. And it’s no fault of Gatwa, who is truly muscling his way through some dreadful, painful, hackneyed writing here – I’m so disappointed for him that these two seasons were the ones he got, with just a small handful of genuinely well-written and well-executed episodes. It sucks, man. He was and is a great pick for the role, but nobody could have elevated this dogshit. Watch him in this scene from his brilliant revival of The Importance of Being Earnest, and let’s move on.

We get a little glimpse of Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor here, in what is probably the highlight of this episode for me – Ncuti Gatwa has been consistently brilliant with the other Doctors he’s shared the screen with, and Whittaker is no exception. They instantly click into place with each other here, and they both feel completely correct in their different interpretations of the character – I love Jodie Whittaker’s era with a passion, and it’s nice to see it get a bit of recognition here, if only for a moment.

Which brings us to Billie Piper, who seems to take over from Gatwa as the Doctor regenerates at the end of this episode. I’m honestly quite glad I heard some of the rumours about this beforehand, because coming into it cold, I think I might have entered some sort of fugue state in pure shock. I need to formulate my thoughts on this further, but my immediate reaction to Piper’s casting here is a long, deep sigh. Not because I don’t like Piper as an actor, because I do – if you haven’t seen I Hate Suzie, I don’t know what you’re doing with your life – but because this is such an obvious, cynical bit of nostalgia-bait as to turn the whole thing into fanfiction. I love Billie Piper, and I love Billie Piper as Rose, and I love her in the other returns she’s made to the show, but this feels like such an obviously backward-facing bit of self-indulgence from Davies and company that it’s hard not to see it as a cynical choice.

I have the sneaking suspicion that the choice to go ahead with her as an official “Doctor” or otherwise will depend on the fan reaction in the coming days, given that she wasn’t introduced as the Doctor in this episode and that gives them room to fudge it if people despise the notion, but I imagine we’re looking at some form of an era with Piper as the lead of the show.

This episode, both as a piece in and of itself and as a part of the show’s wider run, is one of my least favourites in a long time. A weak send-off to three terribly underserved characters in Belinda, Ruby, and Gatwa’s Doctor, an uninspired handwave towards the Rani and Omega, and the start of a new era which already boasts some of the problems of this one, in the form of an overly indulgent and self-referential showrunner. That said, I would love to hear what you thought of it in the comments below – I know this is going to be a controversial one in many ways, and I’m keen to find out what you have to say about it. I’m going to be sharing another couple of articles in the next few days about Gatwa’s run now that it’s over and what I want (and don’t want) from Piper’s apparent tenure on the show, so tune in for those if, like me, you have more opinions than you know what to do with!

As ever, thank you to everyone who joined me for the reviews of this season – if you’d like to go through them again, you can start right here. I would love to hear what you made of this season as a whole in the comments below, because I’m sure this episode is going to leave people with some mixed feelings. 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 joining me on Patreon!

(header image via CultBox)