I realize I was supposed to review this when it released almost a month ago, but I didn’t. There are a number of reasons behind that which I won’t get into, but my review is here now.
There is a lot about this season finale that is good, and a lot that is disappointing. In general as an episode of Doctor Who, the end of a 2 part story, not bad. How the episode is billed, the massive stakes, a season finale, the title and concept of a “Reality War”, it’s a bit lackluster. Warning, there will be spoilers.
Omega has returned!… Just long enough to eat one of The Rani’s, and then be defeated by the Doctor. Turns out the Vindicator doubles as a sort of laser beam gun and has the power of a billion supernovas within it as a result of the season long charging process the Doctor conducted. The way it was used felt like a lazy deus ex machina, and the fix would’ve been extremely easy. All the Doctor had to do is utilize the laser beam function ONCE during the season, show that it has that ability but isn’t fully powered up yet and it’d be fine, instead it is only revealed that it’s also a super powerful gun at the last minute to defeat Omega without any real interaction or screen time from him.
When resetting reality after Omega is defeated, the Doctor has a special null zone box created for Belinda and Poppy to go into to ensure Poppy’s survival since she is thought to be a child of the Doctor born from this wish world that’s about to be reset. I like the fact that the box the Doctor had built doesn’t end up working, reminding us the Doctor doesn’t and can’t always win, even though he burns up a regeneration to shift reality and bring back Poppy. Can we still call it burning a regeneration when we know (as far as we can tell) there’s no limit anymore?
Turns out Poppy was not a child of the Doctors, and was real prior to the wish world. Remember how insistent Belinda was about getting home EXACTLY when she left? Well you would be too if you were a single parent with an infant and baby sitter at your house waiting for you to return home from work.
As I mentioned previously with a regeneration being used up, yes unfortunately Ncuti Gatwa has regenerated and will no longer be the Doctor, for that we can thank the money hungry Disney who doesn’t care about legacy and search exclusively for what can make them the most money. After shooting seasons 1 and 2 back to back Disney pulled funding pending the ratings of seasons 1 and 2. Ncuti Gatwa couldn’t just sit around and pass up other acting opportunities in hopes of Disney deciding to do a third season, so he decided to depart. He was supposed to have a third season, since he decided to leave they did some rewrites to regenerate him. Thankfully the BBC has since come out and said Disney funding or not, Doctor Who will continue, the break may just be a little longer before the next season. I am excited for our next doctor, which everyone has responded with different levels of “What the fuck?” upon seeing her face. We have a returning face, Billie Piper, Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf. A lot of people are complaining that she cant be the Doctor because she was a companion, or that she isn’t the Doctor because the credits said “introducing Billie Piper” instead of “introducing Billie Piper as the Doctor”, but it was fairly clear Ncuti Gatwa regenerated into Billie Piper. If you have issue with a non Doctor actor from Doctor Who returning as the Doctor, remember that the Doctor has stated before he doesn’t know where the faces come from, and after Capaldi became the doctor despite being in the show in the episode “The Fires of Pompeii” the show directly covered the fact that the Doctor had seen his face before, and flashed to him in that previous episode. I look forward to seeing what Billie brings to the next season.
Overall it wasn’t a bad episode, it just wasn’t particularly good. It was a very average OK episode, which is part of why it was so disappointing. How are you going to deliver something mediocre for a season finale? Especially with it being a regeneration episode…ESPECIALLY with it containing the Rani (x2) AND Omega. I am landing middle of the road on this episode at 5/10 stars, again it wasn’t bad, just disappointing.
Cthulhuville 
2 responses to “Doctor Who: The Reality War”
Been contemplating what to say here. I just now (finally) was able to watch the finale. I loved it. Now I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who for over 40 years and seen good and bad episodes many times over. Addressing some of the points Ian made in his review…
The Vortex Indicator at the time the Doctor first started building it felt like a juiced up version of the Sonic Screwdriver. And I wasn’t a fan of it. It felt like a weird thing. Not fully explained. And then the Rani took it to use it as part of the device to make Conrad’s Wish baby function and to pierce the veil and release Omega and then the Doctor used it as a weapon to push Omega back in. I agree, this is sloppy writing the likes of how modern Who writers utilize the Sonic to do anything they need it to. The Sonic is such a Deus ex Machina, with time travel involved, that it is entirely possible the Sonic is actually the origin of the Deus ex Machina concept!
The Bone Dinosaurs were visually awesome, but ultimately rather blah. Honestly I thought they should have returned the Vortisaur creatures. Would have taken some tweaking to the story, but it would have helped define these creatures that were introduced years ago and then ignored.
When UNIT turned the headquarters into a tower defense game, it was a bit silly. It reminded me of the Monty Python skit where the accountants turn their office building into a pirate ship. I HATED seeing the nautical steering wheel in UNIT. It was obvious what was about to happen. It was silly at best. And the Dinosaurs attacking the tower seemed odd with their sonic (?) screams that caused random damage but they had lasers to shoot them with.
This fight led to a silly escape by the Doctor on a flying moped (?) thing that I hated and loved. Because it was stupid the way he flew through the Bone Dinosaurs. But I loved it because it reminded me of this….
https://youtu.be/UVcAFtQ-bAQ?si=xn5CoJVRSKUOYcHx
But why did I love it? First of all Anita and the Time Hotel coming to the aid of the Doctor was amazing. I hated the idea that we might never see Anita again. She was great. Getting her back made me happy. The way the Time Hotel stabilized UNIT was interesting. I somehow doubt when Doctor Who lands again with new episodes we will ever see the Time Hotel again, but I would be thrilled if we did.
I did feel that the Doctor was acting more like a carnival barker for Rani and the evil trio than an adversary. He didn’t seem very concerned about them. Which is common with the Doctor, it just seemed a bit too much in this.
The special null zone box that the Doctor had built for Poppy. I really wish they had referenced the Pandorica. Because it looked like it and felt like it was the same sort of workings to that. Introducing a “new” thing that was so similar just felt silly.
Something that could be really cool that they did. When Omega shows up he winds up eating the “new” Rani. “Old” Rani manages to escape though. This brings up such a cool question about a thing I hate that they recently did. Bigeneration. With “new” Rani gone, and “old” Rani still out there, what happens next for her? I hope we see “old” Rani again and I hope at some point she regenerates again. And it should in theory be into the “new” Rani that got eaten. Right? And for the future of the show, I hope we don’t see anything bigeneration again anytime soon.
Speaking of bigeneration, there are a couple of major mistakes in this. I have said all along it was a mistake to do it. Because what the hell is Tennant doing during this? Ncuti makes a couple of statements about things. Saying the Rani showing up is good because he isn’t the last Time Lord. But we know Tennant is out there. And the Master (or Missy.) Or both. There were other Rogue Time Lords that haven’t been discussed in new Who. And he also questions how Rani travels as he has the only TARDIS still in existence. But we know Tennant has one. And the Master as well. A couple of glaring mistakes because some of it was from the Disney era! And that was only 2 years of stories.
Seeing Jodie Whitaker return was a fantastic surprise. I felt she got short changed in her shows. So a moment of her for a bit of redemption was nice.
The Poppy storyline was interesting, but also had felt like a weirdness with the relationship between the Doctor and Belinda. And then rewriting the references to add Poppy’s name felt like cheating. Although the idea that things may be slightly off does explain that. Maybe. Ernest Borgnine being alive is just funny. But hopefully they stop with the silly “Mavity” thing.
And having Ruby come back… just felt right. Her helping to right things was nice. Companions traditionally help as the Doctor makes things better. But here she was the active catalyst to things getting better.
And finally, the Billie Piper moment. It could be an interesting thing. I hope they pick it up whenever new episodes are made and don’t do what new Who did with Eccleston replacing McGann. Ncuti turning into Billie isn’t unprecedented. Back with the 4th Doctor, his Companion, the Time Lord Romana, chose not only to regenerate but to pick her face. And as Ian mentioned, Peter Capaldi had been seen by the Doctor before that face became his. The same goes for Colin Baker, the 6th Doctor, as he had been an actor in an earlier episode.
For me, this was a great episode. I really didn’t want to be the one doing the site reviews for Doctor Who because I would be dropping gold stars like a rabbit dropping pellets. I’ve always loved the show and doubt they could ever do anything to ruin it for me. Even the Sonic Screwdriver hasn’t turned me away from it. I won’t give it a golden rabbit pellet star rating, because I’m just commenting here! Did I miss anything?
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I like the mavity thing personally, and do agree that its silly but I like it.
I do feel like the Doctor should’ve stopped saying hes the last of the time lords a long time ago.
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