Doctor Who: The Reality War – season two finale and…

Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor in The Reality War. Photograph: PHOTOGRAPHER:/CREDIT LINE:BBC Studios/Bad Wolf/James Pardon

And just like that, he was gone, and the Ncuti Gatwa era is over. It was the shortest tenure in the role since Christopher Eccleston did just one series in 2005, and even within his brief run there was more than one episode where Gatwa barely featured.

But without doubt the first Black actor to lead the show left his mark on the role – an incarnation with a winning smile, the catchphrase “babes”, relentless enthusiasm, and without the emotional baggage that was increasingly weighing down his predecessors. He departed with joy.

With episodes like this, it is very much about enjoying the ride as it rushes from scene to scene, without worrying too much about whether the actual plot makes sense. That may not be the kind of Doctor Who everybody wants.

The scene between Gatwa and the returning Jodie Whittaker was beautifully played. The lines about the 13th Doctor never telling Yaz she loved her were perfectly pitched by Russell T Davies to give closure to the awkward non-committal scenes we saw between Whittaker and Mandip Gill in The Power of the Doctor from the pen of Chris Chibnall.

Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday again shone in scenes where she was the protagonist rather than the sidekick. Her decision, after everything he had done, to choose the kindness of wishing Conrad (Jonah Hauer-King) happiness, rather than vengeance, was one of the most Doctor Who things ever.

Archie Panjabi’s take on the Rani, unhinged by the destruction of Gallifrey and the sterility of the Time Lords and unrequited in her feelings for the Doctor was exquisite, and Anita Dobson as Mrs Flood was always a tremendous presence on screen.

But if we are talking about unrequited feelings, the surprise return of Steph de Whalley as Anita quickly turned from happiness to see her to experiencing her sadness as we saw her watch the Doctor and Rogue (Jonathan Groff) dancing in the past, and realise that Gatwa was never going to be her man.

And so, at the end, a season that gave us both Dugga Doo and Mr Ring-a-Ding finished with Billie Piper saying “Oh, hello!”. What a wild nonsensical ride it has been.

Sum it up in one sentence?

What if Doctor Who did the weirdest thing it could possibly do and appear to cast a former companion as the lead?

Life aboard the Tardis

Belinda (Varada Sethu) was thankfully back to the spikier version of her that we first met in The Robot Revolution and Lux, rather than the bland version that appeared in the mid-season episodes, but it appears she has departed the show along with Gatwa. It would have been nice to have more of her.

Fear factor

The battle scene which pitted the Avengers tower from Marvel against bone dinosaurs pretending to be At-Ats from Star Wars was hilarious, but in this episode it was really only the brief CGI appearance of Omega that was an alien big bad. If the fear last week was the fear of otherness in a dystopian world, the fear here was that of losing a child – or wanting one but never getting the chance. A very human fear that might hit very differently depending on your own personal circumstances.

Mysteries and questions

Probably the biggest mystery is that having introduced a cameo of Carole Ann Ford as the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan two episodes ago, and this episode revolving around whether Poppy was the Doctor’s daughter, that the two were not tied together.

It was also surely deliberate that the end credits very clearly said “Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor. Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor. And introducing Billie Piper” but did not specify who it was introducing her as.

And Anita mentioned “the boss”, a reference back to a set-up by the Meep way back in 2023’s 60th anniversary special The Star Beast, a story that now appears to be two Doctors ago.

Deeper into the vortex

Gatwa’s decision to pronounce Omega differently to everybody around him will surely go down in Doctor Who lore along with Matt Smith’s mispronounced Metebelis III during Hide.
Anita opening time doors left, right and centre looking for the Doctor in his past suggests that perhaps in every episode since 1974 some combination of her, Clara’s impossible girl, and Sutekh clinging to the Tardis have all been present. It is getting a bit crowded in the past.
I forgot to mention last week that the inclusion of a clip of Kate O’Mara playing the Rani in a flashback sequence lifted from 1993 Comic Relief EastEnders crossover episode Dimensions in Time finally makes it officially canon.
The War Between the Land and the Sea – featuring Russell Tovey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jemma Redgrave and Ruth Madeley among others – sees Unit face off against the sea devils, and is expected to be broadcast later this year.

Next time?

With no confirmed news on the future of Doctor Who, there was a chance this may be the last episode-by-episode recap for some time, or possibly ever? But Billie Piper’s appearance didn’t feel like the end of the series, did it?

Either way, I’d like to sign off by thanking all the production staff and comment moderation team that help the recaps happen, the people at the BBC who arrange early access to the episodes and invitations to screenings, you below the line for all your incisive and entertaining comments over the years, and of course, thanks to the much-loved and much-missed Dan Martin, who got the ball rolling 15 years ago with his recap blog of Matt Smith debut The Eleventh Hour. As Gatwa said as he departed the show, this has been an absolute joy. See you … soon?

Season 2

Episode 1: The Robot Revolution

Episode 2: Lux

Episode 3: The Well

Episode 4: Lucky Day

Episode 5: The Story and the Engine

Episode 6: The Interstellar Song Contest

Episode 7: Wish World

Episode 8: The Reality War

Season 1

Episodes 1 & 2: Space Babies / The Devil's Chord

Episode 3: Boom