Spoilers Wish World grade and discussion thread

[The Wormhole]

Dinosaur skeletons, WTF? No, seriously, WTF is with the giant walking dinosaur skeletons?

Anyway, it's certainly not the worse episode ever, it certainly held my attention, and the cast are all a delight to watch here. But I am going to call this the season's low point and I am still of the opinion the "finale curse" I've spoken of previously, in that the finales are typically the weakest of a season is still active. Yes, I know this isn't technically the finale, but it is part 1 of a two part finale storyline, so po-tay-to, po-tah-to. And while the episode does deliver on lots of Doctor Who lore, fanwank and memberberries, I find the stuff in this storyline that's not connected to the franchise's history, like Ruby and Shirley at the camp of disabled people, or Conrad and the wish baby just seem to be there and feel like they're kind of in the way.

And really, this is like a Doctor Who fan fic gone wild, like something you'd get if Terry Matalas wrote for Doctor Who, though RTD can write mindless fanwank a lot better than Matalas. Matalas really is an awful writer. But anyway, you got the Rani back, Susan apparently back. Omega probably coming back. And with the apparent return of Rogue, a part of me is half expecting him to be revealed to be Romana in male form having gone through a chameleon arch. This is basically everything fans have been talking about for at least a decade now, if not longer. And it's all happening now. RTD figures we wouldn't be expecting this stuff at this stage or the show really is ending and it's going out all balls to the walls?

Oh, and the world is ending. Of course, and again.

 

[Mr Awe]

Part of the problem is that all of this is happening now. And the other part is that it's happening with only a single episode to wrap it up. Sure, it's a 66 minute episode, but really?!

 

[VDCNI]

I thought it was decent. Pure set up for next episode but always interesting.

Not in the same class as the penultimate episode of last season but hopefully we won't have the same horrible drop off in quality.

I need a Mel/Rani face off though!

I suggested to my husband, who loves modern Who but refuses to watch old Who, that we watch a Rani episode after and he agreed. Probably shouldn't have picked Mark though. At least Time is fun camp nonsense.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Found it pretty middling for the most part and quite annoying by the end. They drag out the Doctor remembering who he is until the very end because they need it to end on yet another "character from 45 years ago who 95% of viewers don't know is BACK!" cliffhanger. Having the Rani say "this isn't just exposition!" doesn't really make up for the fact that it really is just a lot of exposition she's delivering.

I liked Belinda a lot in the first couple of episodes, and Varda Sethu is really good, but they seem to have forgotten to give her anything to do in the later part of the series. This one was the absolute worst for her as she's reduced to just saying "no, stop!" in the background. Ruby's ended up being more important to the overall story than her despite only being in 2 episodes.

I'm going to predict that the Doctor will save the day next week with a big speech where he says "this was all caused by my doubt. Well, the only thing more powerful than doubt is HOPE! And if everyone hopes for it, we can put the world back to normal!" Then there will be a montage of everyone hoping really hard and all the smashed mugs will reform and everything will be fixed by the power of hope. I'm predicting this in the hope(!) that it DOESN'T happen and the actual solution is really clever and not my cynical guesswork.

 

[jaime]

That would be a deep dive homage to "Arc of Infinity", certainly.

Clever or eye rolling, I'll let others decide that.

That would depend if they have the Patience.

 

[jaime]

A lot of exposition but that is often the way with the first part of a double episode, especially a finale. And I’m always a sucker for a parallel universe type scenario. But it did feel like I’d missed something as to how the Doctor and Belinda got to this position. Did I miss a post-credits scene last week?

Also, I thought that the double part finale was going out together this week, but clearly not.

Nah. They did En Media Res — saves budget maybe, and means there can be a ‘clever plan’ reveal next week. Which is naff.

 

[jaime]

Found it pretty middling for the most part and quite annoying by the end. They drag out the Doctor remembering who he is until the very end because they need it to end on yet another "character from 45 years ago who 95% of viewers don't know is BACK!" cliffhanger. Having the Rani say "this isn't just exposition!" doesn't really make up for the fact that it really is just a lot of exposition she's delivering.

I liked Belinda a lot in the first couple of episodes, and Varda Sethu is really good, but they seem to have forgotten to give her anything to do in the later part of the series. This one was the absolute worst for her as she's reduced to just saying "no, stop!" in the background. Ruby's ended up being more important to the overall story than her despite only being in 2 episodes.

I'm going to predict that the Doctor will save the day next week with a big speech where he says "this was all caused by my doubt. Well, the only thing more powerful than doubt is HOPE! And if everyone hopes for it, we can put the world back to normal!" Then there will be a montage of everyone hoping really hard and all the smashed mugs will reform and everything will be fixed by the power of hope. I'm predicting this in the hope(!) that it DOESN'T happen and the actual solution is really clever and not my cynical guesswork.

You mean:
‘I was wrong about Faith! That’s why you ended up in my Tardis Belinda!’ And then heads splode.

 

[FredH]

So, the baby is the new god of wishes. And we're also expecting Omega. So is the trinity actually Omega, Wish God, and Rani? No Conrad?

That doesn’t surprise me. Conrad is consistently presented as a pathetic little man who really wants to be awesome and constantly tries to fake it.

 

[FredH]

I need a Mel/Rani face off though!

I’ll be very surprised if that isn’t forthcoming.

 

[Turtletrekker]

One of the shots of Kate O'Mara that was used in this episode came from Dimensions in Time. This is the second time RTD has lifted imagery from DiT since his return (The first time was the image of the Third Doctor in Rogue).

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[FredH]

One of the shots of Kate O'Mara that was used in this episode came from Dimensions in Time. This is the second time RTD has lifted imagery from DiT since his return (The first time was the image of the Third Doctor in Rogue).

All together now: “Does that mean it’s canon?”

 

[Nerys Myk]

But it did feel like I’d missed something as to how the Doctor and Belinda got to this position. Did I miss a post-credits scene last week?

I thought the last kiss on the baby's head made it happen.

 

[Turtletrekker]

All together now: “Does that mean it’s canon?”

I give zero figs about canon, but this is the third time in the RTD2 era that DiT has been alluded to in one form or another.

 

[FredH]

I give zero figs about canon, but this is the third time in the RTD2 era that DiT has been alluded to in one form or another.

Interesting! What were the other two?

 

[Turtletrekker]

Interesting! What were the other two?

The image of the Third Doctor from Rogue also came from Dimensions in Time, and that story got a shout out in the Seventh Doctor and Ace story in Tales of the TARDIS when Seven mentions that day where "the Rani was up to her old tricks".

 

[Nerys Myk]

Hmmm. Watching "The Three Doctors" Omega seems to have the power to create an entire world, much like baby Desiderium

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Well, I guess now I know why everyone is blowing up the Classic Who Story thread.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...

It's hard to fully judge the first half of such a heady story, but I nonetheless loved the premise of a world created by the wishes of a lone weak-minded man. I particularly liked how the Wish World felt like a corrupted form of WandaVision, what with people forced to live a life that's forced upon them without any memory of their own actual reality, right down to the retro time setting. However, let's not forget that Wanda wasn't the hero of that story either. Conrad can only...wish he was interesting as her.

I also loved the aesthetics of the world, from the weird, enormous bone creatures that don't fully exist to the bone palace with the bizarre-looking Seekers counting all of the doubts of the world. I wish (no pun intended) we had gotten more of that but there was only so much time to cover all of the ideas jammed inside this episode.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Archie Panjabi and Anita Dobson chew up all of the scenery, thus demonstrating that both of them clearly understood the assignment. I'm thrilled The Ranis have a mad, hare-brained scheme that's beyond convoluted and yet somehow kind of makes sense when you squint really hard, one that somehow utilizes the effects of doubt on the existence of reality. That said, I do wish it was a bit more science-fiction based, even though I guess that shouldn't be a surprise considering the fantasy elements of the last two season, but it still feels a weird fit for The Rani. I'm less keen on the idea that it's all a ploy to release Omega back in the universe...

I was never a big fan of Omega but since I've been loving the ideas of manipulating the nature of reality in the past two seasons that I'm willing to keep an open mind to see how Davies follows through. I also keep going back and forth on the idea of associating Omega with the pantheon of gods but I guess he was somewhat of a god for the Time Lords and he certainly has the ego of one believing he is a god. I just kind of wish the reveal would've been Fenric considering his ties with gods (albeit more so in audio plays than in the show) but he's an even deeper cut than Omega and at least Omega has the benefit of being tied with the Time Lords.

And I have my homework assignment for this week. Hopefully my opinion of Omega improves with my rewatching of those two stories. If nothing else, I'll get to watch some fun multi-Doctor antics and Tegan going full Tegan. Hm...speaking of whom, as much as I'm glad Mel is in a Rani story, I would love to see Tegan pop up, too, but I guess that would be too much.

Oh! How could I forget? The long-awaited return of Rogue! This is probably all we'll get from him considering Jonathoan Groff was clearly filming a quick scene in front of a green screen, but it's good to see him again and as a trigger to help The Doctor again. I really had hoped we get a proper follow-up to his story, but considering it's looking like this is possibly Gatwa's final scene (which would be a terrible shame but I'm bracing myself for it now), it seems unlikely we'll ever get it with Gatwa as The Doctor.

 

[26138]

The only way they can redeem this is if Omega comes back in a reproduction of the original The Three Doctors mask, takes it off, and rips off part of the wall and chews it vigorously in-between delivering his lines. Come on RTD, you can do it!