For its upcoming season finale, Doctor Who is, for the second year in a row, pulling out a very deep-cut villain from the show’s rich past. But this time, the baddie who threatens the Doctor is a foundational character for the entirety of Who canon. It’s been a very long time since this character has appeared on the show, but hardcore fans think about them all the time.
Here’s why the final moments of “Wish World” reboot one very old Who character, and why the return of this character represents a bigger reset for the show than you might think.
Spoilers ahead!
Doctor Who “Wish World” Ending Explained
The final revelation of “Wish World” is ultimately that the strange, regressive, sexist, ableist, and conformist world created by the Rani (Anita Dobson and Archie Panjabi) with the help of Conrad (Jonah Hauer-King) is just a means to an end. The Rani doesn’t want to inhabit this world at all, but rather, plans to use it to “rip open the structure of reality itself,” to access something called “the Under-verse,” which was first mentioned by the 14th Doctor ( David Tennant) in the 2023 episode “The Giggle.”
But within that Under-verse, the Rani and Conrad have released somebody else: “Omega, the first Time Lord. The creator of the Time Lords. The greatest and most terrifying Time Lord of all.”
But who is Omega?
Omega, the Time Lord, Explained
Omega first appeared in the serial “The Three Doctors,” a multi-Doctor crossover story from 1972. There we learned that Omega was the Time Lord who created time travel itself, but was stranded in an anti-matter universe where he stayed for eons and sought revenge against the Time Lords.
While the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Doctors teamed up to defeat Omega in “The Three Doctors,” he returned many years later in the 1983 serial “The Arc of Infinity,” in which he attempted to steal the biodata of the 5th Doctor (Peter Davison) to once again return to the normal universe and exact revenge. Only the combined efforts of the Doctor, Tegan (Janet Fielding), and Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) were able to drive back Omega, and apparently, destroy him on Earth. (Fun fact: The “Arc of Infinity” featured future 6th Doctor actor Colin Baker as the Gallifreyan guard Maxil, beginning the tradition of future Doctors showing up in the series earlier as different characters.)
After “The Arc of Infinity,” the only other onscreen appearance of Omega was in the flashbacks in the 2020 episode “The Timeless Children,” in which we see three founding Time Lords of Gallifrey, who were later identified by the official Doctor Who social media accounts as Omega, Tecteun, and Rassilon.
These three together are the first Time Lords, though, in the revised continuity from the 13th Doctor era, the Time Lords got their regeneration powers from a very early version of the Doctor, who was a child from another universe, and a species of unknown origin. However, time travel, even in the revised canon, was still invented by Omega.
While Omega appeared with a massive helmet in previous appearances on screen, there’s every reason to believe that the Season 2 finale will put a new face to this Time Lord. Or will it be an old face? Because Omega tried to steal the Doctor’s biodata way back in 1983, could Omega regenerate as a previous Doctor? Omega’s first appearance was a multi-Doctor story. Could the upcoming finale, “The Reality War,” be another?
In any case, Doctor Who has now created a new status quo with various Time Lords fully alive. The Rani is back. Omega is back. Susan, the Doctor’s granddaughter, is seemingly alive. And if baby Poppy really is the Doctor’s daughter, does that mean she’s a Time Lord, too?
For years, the Doctor has been the Last of the Time Lords. But maybe, after the finale episode “The Reality War”, that status quo will finally be reversed.
