Last year I suffered through the first season of Doctor Who on Disney+. I liked Ncuti Gatwa but Millie Gibson as companion Ruby was “meh” and the Big Reveal of her mysteries exploded like a damp squib. The logic of the episodes is incredibly hand-wavy and the episodes rarely let the Doctor be his awesome self: he runs or does nothing, then by sheer luck things turn around. The second season, which just wrapped up, was better. I don’t think it was good enough. Spoilers ahead
The Robot Revolution introduces us to Belinda Chanda (Varada Sethu), a nurse abducted to an alien planet to become their cyborg queen, which turns out to be the unintended revenge of a rejected boyfriend. Good thing the Doctor’s around, though Bel’s initially unimpressed (“If you’re the Doctor, why not call me the Nurse?”). Unusually for New Who, she’s uninterested in traveling the universe — she wants to go home and she wants it now. She’s both a stronger actor and a better character than her predecessor, which I took as a good sign. “The way for Miss Belinda Chandra must be cleaned and polished!”
Wouldn’t you know, some mysterious force keeps them from returning to when she was abducted (lots of fans have pointed out ways to get around that); instead the TARDIS bounces off that date and lands them in segregated 1950s Miami. Here one of the Harbingers, Lux, has become incarnated as a cartoon character trapped in a movie theater — but he has a plan to break out and the Doctor and Bel are caught up in it … This was entertaining even though it doesn’t make a lot of sense (and Lux’s defeat has nothing to do with the Doctor). I particularly liked a fourth-wall break in which the Doctor and Bel wind up talking to some Doctor Who fans who inform him Blink is way better than any of the current episodes. “I’m all flat and this waistline is impossible.”
The Well is a sequel to a David Tennant episode, Midnight, which I don’t remember (but looking up my past reviews, I liked it). The Doctor and Bel arrive on an alien planet where a human expedition has just been slaughtered by something unseen. The only survivor is a deaf woman (well used) who’s convinced something behind her is responsible … despite some plot-holes, this was quite effective. At this point we have Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson) appearing mysteriously in every episode, clearly setting something up, but what? And why is it that everyone in the future insists Earth no longer exists? “Your Mum can whistle at my behind and I will sing.”
For some reason Lucky Day is a no-Doctor episode spotlighting Ruby. She’s working with UNIT, still unattached, then she has a promising date with Conrad (Jonah Hauer-King). When she slips him inside UNIT HQ (easy to do, apparently), it turns out he’s a UNIT truther, out to expose the sham that they’re fighting alien invasions and monsters, none of which really happened. I love that idea, even though Who Killed Kennedy did something similar better; however using Ruby adds nothing compared to using any of the other UNIT women. “If you scroll down, he’s got his shirt off — don’t pretend you haven’t looked.”
The Story and the Engine could have been great if they’d made it a two-parter (axing Lucky Day wouldn’t have hurt anything). The Doctor and Bel visit Lagos, Nigeria, where the Doctor has the rare pleasure of being around other black people so nobody’s judging him by race. There’s a barbershop he patronizes, but when he goes in, it turns out the new owner has made it an eternal prison and wants to hear all the Doctor’s amazing stories … the ideas are great but too much is squeezed in, like one character being Anansi’s daughter and having issues with the Doctor for not saving her from her creepy father — that’s a little too much to drop in as backstory. “I am the voice of the empty void.”
The Interstellar Song Contest was one lots of people loved and no question, the Doctor gets to take action and kick butt in a way he rarely does on Disney. I did not love it — the serious elements were overpowered by the whimsy and the Eurovision Song Contest references (I’ve never caught it so they didn’t do much for me). However it did reveal who the big bad for the ending would be: Mrs. Flood bi-generates into the Rani (Archie Punjabi)! “I will cast your body out into the void and I will stand and watch you freeze.”
Whatever good will this season earned, it lost it with the finish. In Wish World the Doctor and Bel are happily married model citizens with an adorable little girl, Poppy, and they live in the best of all possible worlds — Conrad, now some kind of Internet influencer, assures them of that and he’s never wrong (one of my complaints is that he’s not a compelling enough actor to justify his return and his character could have been anyone). The Rani has created a Wandavision type fantasy world supported by people believing in it. That belief, however, is starting to crack .. and when reality finally falls apart, this will somehow free Omega, the renegade Time Lord from The Three Doctors, for his part in the Rani’s plan.
This spends too much time dwelling on the fantasy world, plus the Doctor never figures out what’s going on — it’s Rogue from the previous season and the Rani who explain things. A number of fans I know liked it; I couldn’t get into it. “Tables don’t do that.”
In the big finish, The Reality War, the Doctor snaps his allies out of their delusions, rallies them against the Rani (having Mel and the Rani confront each other again was a lot of fun) and drive Omega back into the netherworld after he’s eaten the Rani (Mrs. Flood remains to take over the Rani franchise though). As Marvel’s Tom Brevoort points out, this is entirely due to her own poor judgment, not to the Doctor’s doing. And Omega, who could have been a great villain here, is just a generic Dark God, because that’s what showrunner Russell Davies seems into.
But then, after everything is over, comes the horrible shocker: despite the Doctor’s best efforts, Poppy got erased from reality when it reset. OMG no! The Doctor and Bel’s sweet little toddler — gone? He’ll move heaven and earth to fix that, and succeeds (of course) but at the cost of losing up his remaining life energy — enter Billie Piper (formerly the companion Rose) as the Sixteenth Doctor!
This sequence hinges on us caring about Poppy’s fate and no matter how much the Doctor and Bel wring their hands and vow to save her, she’s a character who only appeared the previous episode, we knew from the start she was an illusion and she’s not a particularly memorable toddler. Save her? Sure, a worthy goal. Make it the emotional heart of the episode? Nope.
On the plus side, we do get a time-rift encounter with Jodie Whittaker (“Hugging me? We don’t do that.” “I do.”) that I loved. On the downside, the brief flashes of Susan (Carol Anne Ford, the Doctor’s granddaughter) amount to nothing; presumably Poppy is her Mommy but that’s not a payoff. So ultimately, thumbs down.
Overall not a terrible season but not good enough to suit me. “And Ernest Borgnine is still alive.”
All rights to images remain with current holders.
