We know the climax to season 2 of Doctor Who was big when no early access was sent to the press… but I am not sure any of us thought that would happen. Of all the theories fans and critics had, I am not sure how many landed on that ending.

‘The Reality War’ follows on from ‘The Wish World’ which sees the Rani (s) (Archie Panjabi and Anita Dobson) controlling The Doctor and his friends in a fake wish world. The Doctor looks sure to fall to his death so The Rani can keep repeating May 23rd until the world breaks. Suddenly, Anita (Steph de Whalley) from the time hotel, who last appeared in the Christmas special, opens a door to rescue him.

Anita and her hotel are in the 4200s, so knowing that Earth is currently stuck in a 2025 version isn’t right. There are some flashes to Anita using the hotel that can visit any door in space to watch different versions of The Doctor over the years. The callback to the many lives of The Doctor is something showrunner Russell T. Davies excels in.

And then it all goes a bit wrong…

An Unsatisfying End To A Two Season Arc

The Doctor uses the power of The Time Hotel to help UNIT and their employees remember who they really are. It’s thin writing that quickly gets everyone from A to B. Then UNIT, back in their SHIELD glory, jump into action to take down Conrad, The Ranis and the threat of the Omega.

The return of Omega was teased in last week’s episode, with the Rani revealing her plan to repeat May 3rd in order to crack reality and enter a realm called the Underverse, where the “most terrifying Time Lord of all” lived. Omega first appeared in 1983 and has mostly been lost in Doctor Who lore. He was touted as the creator of all Time Lords, but when his tomb is opened, he’s less than terrifying. In fact, he looks like a poorer CGI version of Tennant-era villains. In less than five minutes, the Rani and Omega are defeated, ending a two-series arc in a beyond unsatisfying way.

The Doctor, UNIT and Ruby seemed to quickly and easily take down Rani and Conrad. In fact, Conrad is so easily defeated after he spent the entire last episode reading bedtime stories that it hardly seemed worth bringing him back. Conrad was a fantastic bad guy in ‘Lucky Day’, a jealous little boy who turned his disappointment into toxicity. His ending threatens to undo how genius that episode was.

All the pieces were in place for a brilliant ending, so the first 30 minutes of this episode feel beyond anticlimactic. The Rani and Archie Panjabi were wasted, and the mythology of all the Gods that the Doctor meets over the last two seasons feels meaningless. Season 2 rarely set a foot wrong, which makes this chaotic ending even more hurtful. Of course, Mrs Flood zapped herself out of the room using the time ring, so she’s likely to come back again, but it felt like the story got what it needed from Dobson’s mysterious neighbour. Honestly, the bi-generation plotline felt like it existed solely for Mrs Flood to make The Two Ranis joke, something that will make no sense to non-Brits or people under 50 (The Two Ronnies were a comedy act in the 1970s).

On the surface everything is resolved, but actually barely any of the loose threads have been neatly tied. In fact, the series finale adds more questions than answer, all topped off when Anita mentions ‘The Boss’ sends her regards. Any of the themes explored over this series, and there have been many and loudly, are forgotten in this rushed, weird season finale. Davies set up the ending of all endings and then offered an almost GOT level of failure.

A Chaotic Finale and Messy Ending

The story of Rani and the Wish World gets nearly wrapped up with just under 30 minutes to spare. This leaves 25 minutes of one of the most bizarre endings to a Doctor Who finale to unfold. There are some real spoilers below for those who don’t want to know exactly how season 2 of the new soft rebooted show ended.

The last act of the show sees The Doctor try to bring back a world where Poppy is real. There are some convoluted explanations as to why it’s important that this little girl is brought back to reality. So, how is the little girl from ‘Space Babies’ connected to the rest of the story, because we know she’s not really Belinda (Varada Sethu) and The Doctor’s child? Well, that’s still left unknown.

Very little of the last moments make sense as The Doctor frantically goes through space and time to return Poppy to Belinda. It feels like the ending was changed very last minute to accommodate casting changes, because a lot of the choices don’t make sense. Was ‘The Reality War’ written with the idea that there would be more Disney money and Gatwa, only to have to quickly rewrite and reshoot it? It appears so. The Ranis and Omega should have been kept around for another season if Davies couldn’t end their story satisfyingly in this finale.

The script zips through locations, timelines, and characters almost in the hopes that the audience will not realise how poor the writing is. The episode makes no sense alone; it doesn’t match up with ‘Wish World,’ nor does it feel like it belongs in this series.

Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor appears as a distraction technique that makes no sense in the plot or the show’s canon. In her short scene, she is better written than the entirety of her less-than-popular run. While Davies makes a lot of mistakes in this episode, he does manage to make Whittaker finally feel like The Doctor.

The Doctor then spends his last moments with Belinda and her daughter, Poppy. Belinda was a character with so much promise, yet she was so flat that I wondered if she was also a creation. She had no past and very little personality, and was played flatly by an actress who we know can do better. She started criticising The Doctor and lost characterisation mid-way through. Remember when she appeared in the last series in the future? Yeah, the writers also forgot they were supposed to explain that.

Despite her one-dimensional character, it feels quite insulting that she is left to be a mother to a random baby. Honestly, the whole Poppy storyline is weird and ultimately confusing. Why was so much time spent on this space baby? Upcoming episodes may resolve this, but will we care? Either way, the retconning of existing scenes to add Belinda’s motherhood is insulting to fans. Why not have Belinda be a mother the whole time and give her character another dimension?

And Ruby also gets tossed aside. She has far more chemistry with The Doctor than Belinda, yet she doesn’t even get her chance to say goodbye. In fact, Ruby is treated quite poorly when she starts to see the truth behind The Doctor and Belinda’s little family. A very odd choice for a beloved companion who had great chemistry with Gatwa.

Then there is all the talk of babies, family, and infertility. The time war left the Time Lords infertile, which is information not overly relevant to proceedings. We all knew Poppy was not his baby, right? Why his granddaughter Susan kept appearing (at her current age) to him and why she was mentioned so much throughout the season is also a mystery.

Ultimately, there are more questions than answers, but in the end, nothing really mattered.

And The New Doctor Is…

Billie Piper? Yes, after months of rumours and leaks, Ncuti Gatwa regenerated into Billie Piper. While the introducing credit at the end usually credits them as The Doctor, this did not. Is this just due to the uncertainty behind season 3 as Disney+ threatens to pull the plug, or is Billie Piper not playing the 15th Doctor?

She last appeared in 2006 as Rose Tyler and has continued to appear throughout the show. At one point Rose saw the heart of the TARDIS and became Bad Wolf so it’s not totally unlikely that she will not be a fully fledged reincarnation of the time lord. Either way this is a goodbye to Ncuti Gatwa.

Gatwa is a fantastic actor who never quite got the time or material he deserved as The Doctor. He never saw Daleks or Cybermen, and he was often bogged down with big concepts and 60 years of mythology. It felt like there was more time for the actor, who only appeared in 16 episodes and 2 Christmas specials.

Saying goodbye to Ncuti hurts even more after this uneven ending, which will be overshadowed by Piper’s involvement. If he was going to bow out, he deserved a much better finale scene. His introduction was overshadowed by Tennant, and now his exit by Piper. He leaves behind a lot of unanswered questions and loose ends, which will likely never get resolved, making his era feel wholly unsatisfying.

If season 3 is going to happen (if it does, it won’t be until the earliest 2026), then a lot needs to change. Davies is a good writer, but relies far too much on callbacks to older mythology and overarching stories. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging a character’s past, but you shouldn’t need a Wikipedia page open when enjoying a television show. Let’s take Doctor Who back to basics with silly episodes, fun arcs, and characters that don’t need to be brought back during the finale. The Doctor is a traveling hobo, a loner who happens to get himself into trouble. He shouldn’t be a superhero, sweeping in to save the day like he’s a Marvel character.

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