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Doctor Who Unleashed delves into the making of the Doctor Who second season finale, "The Reality War," and speaks with the major players.
Posted in: BBC, Disney+, Doctor Who, Review, TV | Tagged: doctor who
Doctor Who: "The Reality War" Waged War on Everyone's Expectations
Doctor Who Season 2 finale "The Reality War" had a little something for everyone to love, hate, and scratch their heads about. Here are our initial thoughts...
And now, the Ncuti Gatwa era of Doctor Who has come to a premature end, and possibly the Disney era. Did Russell T Davies lob a figurative grenade in the laps of fans and viewers? Well, you're going to have to watch it and decide for yourself. We're going to give you a spoiler-free review of it here first before we go into a deep dive of everything it is and seems to be later today.
A Strange Mess that Only Doctor Who Can Ever Be
Last week ended on a cliffhanger that was immediately resolved with another one of those "with one bound he was free!" deus ex machina resolutions that Doctor Who has been known to do from time to time. Steven Moffat did it first, and it's become a bit of a precedent. Then The Doctor goes off to fight The Two Ranis (Anita Dobson and Archie Punjabi) and, of course, sees them unleash the first and most evil Time Lord Omega, which is resolved surprisingly quickly. So that happened. The rest of the episode is a lot of "so that happened" all the way to the end, which is the biggest and most unexpected "so that happened" of them all. It's a wild and wacky ride that feels weirdly rushed and disjointed. It may be impossible, but if possible, you really need to go into watching this spoiler-free to react to it without being influenced by other people's opinions, and there are a lot of them that run the full gamut of emotions. Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) gets the big emotional moment that shows how far she's come. You may look askance at what happens to Belinda (Varada Sethu).
Beyond Good and Evil or Beyond Good and Bad to a Really Nutty "So That Happened"
I had fun watching it. It's a strange mess, a variant of "people standing around explaining the plot to each other" to "everyone standing around wondering what the hell the actual plot is", and it becomes a poignant variation on Peter Pan at heart in the end. It's still a fairytale with a bittersweet fairytale ending. Ruby, the lost child, beseeches The Doctor, the ultimate lost child, to save another "lost child" as he originally saved her. And that final moment that nobody could possibly have expected. Love it or hate it, if you're reading this, you're probably someone who watches Doctor Who with more than a casual investment, and this finale will get under your skin. I laughed at the sheer audacity of it all as Russell T Davies trolls everyone in the end. There's always a twist at the end.
Doctor Who Season 2 Episode 8: "The Reality War"
8/10
The final episode of this season of Doctor Who, which may or may not be the final episode of the Disney era of the show, is a hugely flawed and disjointed episode that rushes through its plot with one nutty twist and unexpected appearance after another. Is it good or bad or both or neither? Possibly. Either way, it will shock and get under your skin in good and bad ways, and you're certainly not going to have an indifferent reaction to it. In the end, it's still crazily entertaining with problems but still a poignant fairytale.
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