Notes on - Doctor Who: The Reality War

 

The Reality War notes

Very brief recap. Cut straight to falling balcony. Good choice

I like the falling buildings imagery.

ANITA!!! Love her!

Did they know Anita was going to come back all along, or did they just recognize her awesomeness?

Rani: A magic door? He had an actual MAGIC DOOR?! The little…

Mrs. Flood: Too late.

Wait, the day just reset?  We’re back to the start of 5/23

But of course the Doctor was out of the reset area, so Belinda woke up alone

So the world isn’t destroyed on May 24^th, It just never gets there. That’s an interesting twist. I did not see that coming. Very clever resolution to the cliffhanger that furthers the plot with new information

This is such a good usage of the last Christmas episode

Anita is seeing Ricardo, head of HR

The hotel is in spasm, because their time shouldn’t exist.

Anita has taken a class on Doctor Who terms, apparently

On her days off she looks for the Doctor. Fun clips from new and classic Who. I wonder how they were selected?

Why would seeing The Doctor happy with Rogue make her sad? Their relationship wasn’t based on romance. She was perfectly clear he was into guys. That felt forced. Does RTD not really believe that platonic friendship can be a thing?

Running into Anita is a good excuse for the Doctor to recap what the Rani’s plan is

Why doesn’t someone tell Ncuti how to pronounce Omega?

And a techno justification for why Anita can’t magic door thgeir way into the Rani’s lair

I still love the look of the latex women

So Mrs. Flood has basically just been keeping an eye on the Doctor to make sure he doesn’t screw things up and missed Christmas?

Everybody’s just kind of rolling with the reality errors

It feels odd that the Doctor is being this emotional about the fact that Poppy isn’t real.

Belinda is still in the wish mindset

Changing into non-binary clothing is the Doctor’s huge rebellion, and I kind of like that

Should he be wearing the pants with the kilt?

Belinda in the time hotel restores her real memory. Ok, sure.  Shouldn’t Poppy cease to exist just being outside the wish?

The Doctor: This is Anita.

Anita: I just work in hospitality, really.

They don’t seem to really know what to do with Anita once she’s resolved the cliffhanger.

I like the Mad Men unit office

Kate: Mr. Smith, what on Earth do you think you’re wearing?

The Doctor: The future!

Ibrahim: I’m wearing a suit!

Kate: I’m wearing tweed!

Susan Triad: I’m wearing Nylon!

Anita opening a door on either side is ‘ventilating’ the wish away.

And Rose exists again! Conrad is anti trans on top of everything else

The bone beasts are the result of two realities scraping against each other. OK, I can go with that

The Doctor is really into having a child. That’s a bit uncharacteristic

*** Well now you’re going too far.

It’s jarring to see Shirley Ann still in the wish world

Kate can send a ‘wake up to reality’ signal to all unit employees’ chips

And Ruby’s kicks in just as Carla is turning on her YET AGAIN!

Mel’s scooter matches the garbage bins

The Rani needs to accelerate her schedule

Conrad feels like a good toadie for the Rani. Like a tetrap

The Rani: You really are ridiculously handsome.  I could tilt you on your side and serve olives in those dimples.

Conrad should be able to find the Doctor because it’s all his wish

Susan needs to build the Doctor a big cube

I love how loyal Susan is to the Doctor

From this point on, they don’t have anything for Anita to do except keep the doors open. That’s disappointing

That’s not what Omega’s story was at all.  Like, not even remotely

Was that Morris Gibbons walking by?

Did they all change clothes, or did the reality of their clothes reassert itself?

How did Mel get the scooter upstairs?

Reality made Mel’s hair curly again?

It’s nice that the Doctor was considerate enough to take a moment to tell Mel that it’s the Rani.  I’d totally forgotten their connection

So a lot of this universe is based on real memories

The Doctor: We half remembered ourselves, living Conrad’s version of an ordinary life. All crushed and stifled and appalling.

Archie Punjabi has such great presence

Is it weird that the Rani remembers Mel?

The Rani: I thought you’d be dead. I thought, there’s no way that painted doll of a princess could ever survive.

Mel: I never thought about you once.

So the timelords were killed by the master by a genetic explosion? Did we already know that?

Time Ring. My there are a lot of old school callbacks in this one

57 mothers.  There’s 57 again

He keeps mispronouncing Omega!

The Underverse is Narnia? Nice stranger thing reference

Good that they remembered that the Brig fought Omega.

No, that’s not remotely what any of the legend of Omega was. Not even a little bit. And they just drew attention to the fact by reminding us of the Three Doctors, which is where the totally not like that story happened.

They’re both relying on the show’s history and totally getting it wrong.

That said, the Rani’s plan to use Omega’s DNA to recreate the time lords is just the sort of thing that she’d do.

Just like Omega’s back story, they’re simultaneously claiming two contradictory things, that she wants to harvest his DNA, and that the project depends on time lords mating. Those aren’t remotely the same thing.

It’s just trying to tie in to the Rani’s plan how magical Poppy’s existence is and make it seem like an organic furthering of the plot, by it’s not at all.

Do the Doctor and the Rani not have DNA to harvest?

And when did the Doctor have time to muse on the metaphysics of bigeneration

And now the Rani’s saying that the sterilization is a result of the genetic explosion, but it literally killed everybody but these two, it didn’t ‘sterilize’ the race, it fucking killed them all.

And then literally in the next sentence it’s back to being about Poppy’s DNA not being time lord enough. This literally only makes sense if the rani’s plan was to fuck Omega’s corpse in the hopes of getting knocked up.

There’s a lot of script fixing going on here

The Rani: She’s not real. She’s made of hopes and dreams and wishes.

The Doctor: That is every child.

SO the dilemma they were originally aiming for is that they can’t end the wish without killing Poppy and they can’t keep Poppy alive without letting the wish continue

I like that the Rani’s sonic looks like a syringe

Technobabble to get the bone beasts to attack UNIT tower

And now we have the Indigo device from The Stolen Earth for Ruby. Which the Doctor apparently no longer thinks is dangerous and is super casual about

Inserted line to remind us that Anita is alive and serves no purpose in the plot any more

I like Susan Triad

And now a zero room. God they are wringing out the history

Belinda’s willing to risk being alone with Poppy for eternity without end just to make sure Poppy isn’t alone. That’s sweet

Parallax cannons. Big Finish reference

Double Galvanic beams

What does Mel think that the yellow button does if she’s warning Ruby about it? Obviosuly she’s just setting it up for us to know what it does when she uses it against Conrad later, but it’s clumsy

Another line pointing out that Anita has no further plot function

They need to find a way to get the Doctor and Ruby into the Rani’s bone palace

AND that’s why they set up her sky scooter last episode. OK, that’s nicely done.

Not sure how I feel about the top of the tower spinning

The Doctor: If we die here today, I love you lot.

Man there is a lot of money on the screen

I wish they’d made the zero room a pinkish grey

Conrad is still a prick

The Rani: I know you haven’t arrived with a weapon. Only a speech, some dazzling words, maybe a pun, and then some lachrymose little tug-the-heartstrings mimosa-scented platitudes about the power of love.

That time he pronounces it right.

It’s that same thing – they’re drawing attention to the fact that he’s pronouncing it wrong in the same scenes where everybody else is pronouncing it right

That’s still not remotely Omega’s story

Ruby: Conrad’s World, it could have been so much worse. A fantasy world, I’d expect guns and whiskey and girls. But yours is nice. It’s actually nice.

Ruby is being enormously generous to Conrad here

The Time Lord’s did Not imprison Omega in a prison.

The Latex women all chanting are pronouncing his name correctly.

I admit I’m eager to see what they make Omega look like.

Huge claw hand!

OK, that’s a change from Stephen Thorne

And he mispronounces it again. Why? Was there reshoots of this

And now Omega is going to become the god of time and eats the Rani.

But Mrs. Flood grabs the time ring and survives, so they can always bring her back

I actually get the two ranis joke

That’s not what Omega ever wanted and doesn’t track at all with his earlier appearances. He only ever wanted to come home

And basically the Doctor shoots him with a supergun. That’s disappointing. Also it still makes no sense that taking navigational readings somehow makes this a power source.

Yellow button trick and Ruby has the baby

Ruby: Conrad, I wish you to be happy.

That’s so kind and forgiving of her. Love the maturity of it

And Ruby wraps it up by having the god of wishes end the wish.

The bone palace was the TARDIS all along

Well, that’s the plot wrapped up then, Right?

I wonder where the ending would have been originally?

The Doctor: No more wishes.

And that’s another God dealt with

UNIT tower floor minus ten

Anita literally has no reason to be there now

Nice filming to hide Poppy at first by the camera angle

Oh, right. The Doctor had no way of knowing that Desiderium is from back in Germany. I wonder if ending the wish means his family is no longer ducks and owls and lilacs.

Giving him to Carla makes a ton of sense

Cherry remains delightful

Joseph Sunday

The Doctor’s thinking about stopping travelling for Poppy? Or not, he seems to have changed his mind

And Belinda’s done a total 180 on travelling with the Doctor

Taking off Poppy’s jacket to accommodated the visual showing time changing

It’s weird that they don’t give a reason for Ruby remembering things no one else does

The folding coat visual metaphor is very powerful

Nice physical sight gag with the coat

Well staged that only Ruby realizes that the jacket disappearing means Poppy is gone

Nice that they remembered to chuck the missbelindachandra certificate into space to complete that time loop

It doesn’t really make sense that it would take Popp that long to fade, but it kind of does, doesn’t it.

It hurts seeing the Doctor just dismiss Ruby’s memories like this

They finally made it to May 24^th

We’d totally forgotten Anita was even there. I want more from Anita and the Doctor’s farewell

Cryptic mention of 'The Boss’. Is that the same Boss the Meep mentioned? And Rogue?

The tiny little changes are interesting.

Mel found this version of the universe’s Conrad and Ruby got her wish – he’s happy as a cook.

It hurts seeing no one believe her. This is the premise of entire episodes. Surely someone must know Ruby and the world they live in to know enough to trust her

Ruby is absolutely right to point out that truth is still truth. Although I bet originally they just left ‘teal is changed’ as a joke

This all reads as a script patch job.

A world with one person missing

The Doctor saved Belinda from being hit by a car when she was seven?

They’re all pointing out the many, many times the Doctor has changed the timeline to get him to save Poppy

It’s nice that they finally came around to trust that Ruby knows what she’s talking about

Time has ‘shifted by one degree’ setting up the Doctor sacrificing this life to shift it back.

God, this is dragging on

This is the moment I realized that the regeneration was coming

I did not expect Jodie Whitaker!

Thirteenth Doctor: Cause and effect is getting a little bit out of order.

The Doctor: I’m surprised it’s not the other guy. He is always turning up.

Why is Jodie here?

Jodie’s just here to point out how dangerous this is and then give in. Love her and Ncuti together.

This is the first time Russell has written for Jodie. That’s nice.

Lovely little coda to the Doctor/Yaz thing

The Doctor is basically acting out a metaphor rather than having the plot events work as a metaphor. Not sure I love that. It is at least new

Reality shattering is a nice effect

I fully expected him to be in that zone from Power of the Doctor

How did Belinda get to this house and what does she think just happened??

Poppy exists again. What about teal?

They’ve re-shot all these scenes inserting poppy references

I forgot that Belinda’s mum was a violinist

I’m going to miss both of these two

It’s nice that Poppy has a good father in this reality

I like that they found time for a proper companion goodbye stuffed into all of this. So sweet. And more than Ruby got by a long way

The Doctor: Beautiful things can be forgotten and gone. But they still happened. Somewhere.

I love the effect of the lights going out as he walks out

I still don’t care about Joy

The Doctor: This has been an absolute joy.

Not bad for a Doctor’s last words

Will they show a new face…?

Billie Piper?????