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Doctor Who S02E08 "The Reality War" Was Russell T Davies' Bigeneration

Let's look at Doctor Who S02E08: "The Reality War" and how it serves as an allegory for Russell T Davies' own creative "bigeneration."

Is everything okay on the internet? Doctor Who fans seem so calm and reasonable right now about the finale of season two, "The Reality War". So here's our very quick, just like the episode, deep dive into the episode. Russell T Davies seems to be throwing a hand grenade into the laps of the fans as he heads out the door for this season with the last unexpected appearances from characters you didn't think you'd see. He's firing a lot of bullets out of his "Chekov's gun," including yet another totally unexpected one, the most unexpected one of them all. Let's get into it.

Goodbye, Doctor, We Hardly Knew Ye

It feels like Ncuti Gatwa left too soon. Season two was filmed a year ago. They filmed the behind-the-scenes of his final scenes, then for Doctor Who Unleashed, and made it all sound like it was planned all along. Maybe it was. Gatwa played a complete emotional arc for his 15th Doctor. Still, it feels like he only finally came to his own in the second season as he revealed more sides to the character, including the darker shades and the ancient entity that the Doctor always hides under his cheery surface. These final episodes felt as rushed as his whole run.

Anita's Back and She's The Herald of Callbacks

The Doctor is rescued by Anita (Steph de Whalley) from the Christmas special "Joy to the World" in one of those deus ex machinas that sort of make sense, since the lesson of Doctor Who is the friends you make along the way. And her doorway from the hotel becomes an anchor for keeping the Rani from destroying reality. Yay for people in the service industry! Questions arise, though. The Doctor recommended Anita for her current job. She tells him that the owner of the hotel, "The Boss", sends regards. Is this the same boss who ran Beep the Meep and expressed an interest in people with two hearts?

Oh, Hi Omega, Bye Omega

In the end, the whole sinister plot by the Rani(s) was pretty lame. Omega, supposedly the most fearsome of Time Lords, shows up, eats the Rani (Archie Punjabi) like she's the Wicked Witch of a fairytale who always gets eaten by her monster, then The Doctor blasts him with a gun and banishes him like Ghostbusters. It's a bit disappointing that Omega, like Sutekh last season, turned out to be another CGI monster (this time voiced by Nicholas "Voice of the Daleks" Briggs, no less) and not by a hammy British classical actor chewing up the scenery in a non-CGI way. The plot was never really Davies's strong point about Doctor Who. It was always the emotions, and this would have been an unmemorable story if it weren't for what came after, which is the sad story that drives The Doctor to regenerate. That's a callback to Davies' previous final 10th Doctor specials with David Tennant, but if nobody gets to play Davies' Greatest Hits, who will?

Belinda Got Done Dirty

Belinda rather got the short end of the stick here, didn't she? Throughout the season, she just wanted to get back to her life as a nurse and a devoted daughter. Suddenly, timey-wimey rewriting of reality retcons her whole life and reason for single motherhood! As if her life as a nurse saving people wasn't enough to give her purpose? And to have a baby foisted on her without her consent? She raised the issue of consent in her first episode and how she's been brainwashed – twice – first into a typically starry-eyed companion who suddenly wants to travel Space and Time with The Doctor and then as a devoted mother. Her whole agency has been taken away from her. It's like an enforced pregnancy, and she didn't even notice any of it. This part is outright dodgy.

And Poppy isn't Susan's grandmother after all, but a child of wishes? Then she's handwaved away by a wish that made her a normal human? That was quick, and she was a McGuffin for The Doctor to regenerate. This is a fairytale about a kindly wizard who's also Peter Pan, who will do anything to save a child.

Ruby Gets the Big Plot and Emotional Moment

Ruby's story gets the big payoff here, first by defeating Conrad Clark (Jason Hauer-King) with an act of kindness and mercy by wishing him away to a happier, less toxic life. Then she's the one who notices Poppy has been lost in a time anomaly when reality resets itself. Her empathy drives her to convince The Doctor that he has to save Poppy like he saved Ruby when she was a baby. It's a fairytale moment and a play on Peter Pan: Ruby, the once lost child, begs The Doctor, the ultimate lost child, to save another lost child like he once saved her. The Doctor sacrifices his own life to save one child. That final beat gives the finale its poignance, and echoes the 10th Doctor special "The End of Time" where The Doctor gives up his life to save one life: Wilf's (Bernard Cribbins). That leads to the big, unexpected appearance of the story.

The Thirteenth Doctor Gets One More Outing

Jodie Whittaker made an unexpected and welcome appearance as the 13th Doctor, who guides the 15th Doctor through his self-sacrificial regeneration. Funny how three minutes of the 13th Doctor were more exciting than three whole seasons of the same Doctor under Chris Chibnall, as her Doctor gets one more chance to show her goofy, bubbly self, giving him a pro-tip for regeneration while revealing her inability to express her love for companion Yaz.

So What's the Deal with That Photo of a Scene That Didn't Show Up?

The BBC and Disney+, almost certainly with a tip from Davies, released a still of a scene not in this episode of The Doctor and Belinda dancing in what happens to be a party for the world being saved on May 24th. We seldom address rumours, but this still is rumoured to be from the scene of the alternate ending that didn't feature a regeneration where our heroes partied the night away, unaware they're being watched in the shadows by… Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), the Doctor's granddaughter. The rumour was that the mystery of what happened to Susan and what she was now up to would be the main story arc for the as-yet-unannounced season three.

The Regeneration and The Twist at the End

Every regeneration is sad and joyous, and this one is no different. The Doctor's regeneration is the usual Christ-like imagery of sacrifice, death, and rebirth, though there's a beautiful image of energy flowing out of him like the arms of a Hindu god of wisdom. He shoots his waves out into space to spread joy. Earlier, the Doctor and Rani considered the idea of begeneration as their Time Lord bodies trying to stave off their extinction because they're infertile. Now Davies puts bigeneration away and it's back to single regenerations again – and what of that final twist?

Billie Piper?! This is the biggest stunt and troll Davies has pulled in his run. It's a geeky hand grenade set to drive fans insane. What does it mean? Is she really the 16th Doctor, or is this just a tease before Doctor Who goes on hiatus? Some people might argue it's too much geek meta navel-gazing, but do they know Doctor Who continuity and their fans? Is this an admission that he's out of ideas or a joke? You could say it's Davies coming full circle, ending on Piper the same way he launched the modern era of the series with her twenty years ago. There's a perfectly good in-lore reason for this regeneration, though – the Doctor remembers and loves her, the Heart of the TARDIS and the Vortex remember her image, and so on. The biggest subtext comes back to Davies himself.

The entire two seasons of the Disney era Doctor Who have been Davies' own bigeneration. Nobody expected he would return to run the Doctor Who more than ten years after he left, after he made stars of Tennant and Piper, and now this show is a bigeneration of the series and Davies' bigeneration into a familiar about odder and more uncompromising showrunner who's going to do what he wants, especially when he encounters pushback from fans or even the rumoured powers-that-be. Love it or hate it, no other show could pull off these kinds of insane in-joke surprises in rapid succession that mean the most to long-time fans while punters would scratch their heads in bafflement. Whether or not he's coming back, Davies has won the game he has been playing.

Doctor Who is streaming on Disney+ outside the UK.

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