A Doctor Who season finale is normally a pretty predictable beast. At least in the NuWho era, we could expect the eventual defeat of a major villain, some revelation about the Doctor’s past, and humanity being saved by our Time Lord hero. Yet I clicked play on “The Reality War” with questions hanging in the air that far transcended the show’s plot.
No, the real query on the lips of fans—or at least fans who have been paying attention to tabloid reports and online speculation—is whether Ncuti Gatwa would still be in the TARDIS by the time the end credits rolled. Such an option felt unprecedented. Gatwa has only appeared in two seasons of the show (most modern Doctors have done three), but more significantly, never before has a Doctor’s regeneration not been officially announced in advance.
There’s little point speculating on the reasons and logistics behind Gatwa’s exit—not here, at least. But I will say this: This is very clearly an episode of two halves. There is the continued story from last week and there is the regeneration. Even with the episode stretched to 67 minutes instead of the normal 45, the former feels incredibly rushed and makes all the same mistakes as last season’s finale, “Empire Of Death”. We’re told the Doctor is about to face his greatest ever enemy, only for them to be destroyed almost instantly. At that, you can only laugh.
Initially, the episode’s start is well-paced. Rather than May 24, 2025 finally arriving in the Wish World, May 23 keeps repeating, which the Doctor warns is part of the Rani’s plan to weaken reality and eventually allow the most fearsome Time Lord in existence, Omega, to return. The Doctor, however, is struggling to get his head around the fact that now he and Belinda (Varada Sethu) have a daughter in former space baby Poppy. Initially, Belinda doesn’t even remember the Doctor, but once he’s thrown off his John Smith getup and takes out the kilt, it all comes flooding back.
One by one, the Doctor rescues his former companions and colleagues from the Wish World’s spell, snapping them out of this false reality and reminding them who he is. The UNIT team reunion, however, is rudely interrupted by the Rani (Archie Panjabi). This steely villain requires little range from Panjabi, but the actor is clearly having so much fun in the role that it’s hard to care.
The Rani reveals her plan to the Doctor: to rebuild Gallifrey, their destroyed home planet. A brief explanation for what the hell bigeneration is ensues, and the Doctor explains that Time Lords are infertile and unable to continue their race. “Sometimes I think that’s what bigeneration is,” he says. It also could explain Poppy’s existence. Perhaps she is the Doctor’s own longing for a child brought to life.
But his love for this extremely cute kid raises one big problem. In order to defeat the Rani, they must destroy the Wish World, which would lead to Poppy no longer existing. Belinda, whose maternal instinct is so strong that it appears to have overridden any other character development, is willing to do it all for her daughter. Against the Doctor’s wishes, she goes with Poppy into a specially built cell that exists outside of their reality. In theory, anything inside this heavily enclosed room should survive this destruction of the Wish World. But if it doesn’t work, they would be stuck in there forever—and not existing.
The first emotional goodbye between the Doctor and Belinda follows, before the Doctor and Ruby (Millie Gibson) launch a two-pronged attack on the Rani’s lair. Ruby goes for Conrad (Jonah Hauer-King), the creator of the Wish World who has been surprisingly absent from this episode. She confronts her former boyfriend/current foe (who among us doesn’t have one of those?) and learns that he’s had some kind of unexplained change of heart where he really does want to help people, thanks to the Doctor.
The Doctor, meanwhile, finds the Rani and Mrs. Flood and for reasons unclear takes them up on their offer to see Omega. The door to the underworld opens, and a terrifying claw the same size emerges. Out crawls a real feat of design: a huge skeletal monster with a hollow chest, sunken eyes and a cavernous mouth. Near instantly, he picks up the Rani and swallows her whole, marking a particularly unfitting ending for Panjabi’s long-teased villain. Mrs. Flood makes a dash for it, surviving yet again.
Yet Omega doesn’t even last as long as the Rani. The Doctor grabs hold of his very own Chekhov’s gun—the vindicator hanging on the wall behind him—and blasts this creature back into the underworld. After all that buildup, this monster gets less than three and a half minutes of airtime. And there we were saying that Sutekh was a wasted opportunity…
Around the Doctor, the bone palace begins to disintegrate. The Doctor races to find the TARDIS and Ruby inside, and back with their friends, they learn with relief that Belinda and baby Poppy have somehow both survived the end of the Wish World. They celebrate, while the Doctor and Belinda excitedly babble to Ruby about their plans to travel the universe together with their daughter.
Everything seems so…happy. But Ruby knows something is wrong. When she turns around, Poppy’s cot is empty, her questioning met with two terrifying words: “Who’s Poppy?” Outside, no one from UNIT remembers her either. It’s suggested that Ruby’s memory could be one of the minor glitches that occurred when they recreated this reality, but Ruby won’t let it go. Poppy was real; the Doctor was once willing to do anything to make sure that she wasn’t written out of history, so he should do it again for his own daughter.
“We’re missing one person,” the Doctor agrees, as the orchestral arrangement swells. UNIT offers to help, but the Doctor insists only the last of the Time Lords can do this. What that actually means becomes clear when the Doctor is alone in the TARDIS, repeating Poppy’s name to himself—and then: “Oh, man. I like this face.” Yep, it’s regeneration time, baby!
Before then, we get a truly unexpected surprise. The Doctor’s past faces play on the TARDIS’s screen, but then the Thirteenth Doctor, Jodie Whittaker herself, is there in the space ship with him. There’s something truly tender about their interactions, as they say the words “timey-wimey” in unison and cackle. “All these faces and we never really change,” Whittaker’s Doctor says.
In the lead-up to his regeneration, Gatwa’s performance is infused with disappointment but a real sense that it’s his time to go. Fans, who never got to see Gatwa battle a Dalek or Cyberman, will likely feel differently. And you can sense the show, and Gatwa himself, addressing them directly in the episode’s most moving moment. “I wish we had longer,” he tells Whittaker, to which she replies: “We always wish that.” It’s a smart way of acknowledging the fans without patronizing them.
Solitary once more, the Doctor’s palms glow with their tell-tale sign of regeneration. He aims them towards the TARDIS, then wakes up with his face on the lawn of a house we’ve never seen before. There’s a reason for that. This is the colorful home Belinda has been begging to get back to all season. Although this time, she’s there with Poppy, who has clearly survived thanks to the Doctor. And in this timeline, the Doctor isn’t Poppy’s father. No, a quick sonic screwdriver scan confirms that this little girl is 100-percent human, the product of Belinda and an ex named Richie she is still on good terms with.
His work having succeeded, it’s time for the Doctor to say goodbye to both mother and daughter. I do find it disappointing seeing Belinda simply reduced to a parental role, yet her decision to leave the Doctor and not put her daughter at risk is understandable. “I hope you’ll see me again…but not like this,” he tells her and closes the TARDIS door. The Doctor is on his own, and we all know what that means. For once, he acknowledges it. “I don’t want to do this alone,” he says and runs across the TARDIS, the lights going out behind him one row at a time. The Doctor flings open the doors and looks out at the universe that has always been here for him. “Joy to the world,” he shouts, “and this has been an absolute joy.”
So it’s here: the big regeneration moment. The Doctor throws his head back, and beams of light erupt from his body and spread across the galaxies. To start with, I really thought the scene would cut to black before the next Doctor could be revealed. After all, casting rumors are usually swirling for months before a regeneration. But this one is unexpected in every way. In those final moments, Gatwa’s face is replaced with one fans know well: a twitching, then giddily grinning Rose Tyler, the former companion played by Billie Piper.
Stray observations
- • How did you react when you saw Rose and heard her say “oh, hello”? Shriek in excitement? Groan in despair? Personally, I went for that most British of responses: an audible “bloody hell.” Frankly, I think it’s too early to offer a response to Piper’s return. Whether she’s the full-on next Doctor, or simply sticking around for a little while, remains to be seen. We likely won’t get answers for a while anyway. Spin-off The War Between The Land And See is on its way, but new Doctor Who episodes will be a long time coming.
- • For now, I’ll try not to let these questions about the show’s future overshadow Gatwa’s exit (even though his regeneration arguably overshadowed any semblance of a storyline in this episode). He has been a wonderful Doctor in the face of ridiculous criticism, and brought a freshness to the character I hope will be taken forward. Like many fans I wish he’d stayed longer, but I also totally understand why it may have been his choice to just do two seasons rather than hold out years for the next batch of episodes.
