Review: Doctor Who: Wish World

As I start this review of the Doctor Who episode 'Wish World' I note that this is the 500th post on this blog!  So yay to me!!!  I hope you, constant reader, have been enjoying the ride!

Anyway, back to the plot, and we're here to look at the 'Wish World' episode of Doctor Who ahead of the finale to the season (which is available tomorrow, 31 May 2025!).

I have learned over the years to be very wary of these two parters, as inevitably the ball is dropped and the second part never/rarely fulfils the promise of the first. I think the writers tend to set themselves too high a bar, working towards an amazing cliffhanger which then doesn't pay off. And in a way this is what we have here. The previous episode ending with the Doctor and Belinda in the TARDIS and the TARDIS doors explode inwards ... and this episode, in classic Steven Moffat style, starts with something totally different, ignoring all that has gone before.

I'm not going to relay the 'plot' as the whole episode is just a concept and trailer for the Rani's plan, which she reveals in some detail towards the end. And it's a plan worthy of the Cybermen in it's complete complexity for something which you would think should be quite simple.

So.

The Rani apparently survived the Time Wars and the destruction of Gallifrey and all the Time Lords along with it. As did the Doctor, of course. Oh, and the Master too. Oh, and probably some other Time Lords somewhere also ... it's the thing you see with time travel, you can never be quite sure of what 'reality' actually is. And this is what this episode is all about.

The Rani is a Time Lord, and presumably she has a working TARDIS and this is how she, in her Mrs Flood guise, popped up all over the place in each of the episodes this season. So if she has a working TARDIS, and she wanted to go find the progenitor of the Time Lords, Omega, isn't the obvious course of action to go back to a time when Omega was alive and stop him from detonating the star which created the Time Lords' power and banished Omega to an anti-matter universe in the first place ... or let him do all that or she would never have been in the first place, but then rescue him at some point before he was banished?

Instead, the Rani has this crazed plan to kidnap a baby, who happens to be the God of Wishes (and who creepily chuckles the 'Giggle' cadence) and who can literally make anything happen. All you do is kiss the baby and your wishes come true, whatever they are. She grabs the child back in 1865 and so could have changed the world then if she so wanted.

Enter Conrad from the earlier episode. Now he is a conspiracy theorist, believing all the irrational theories and ideas which populate the internet. 'Reality' is not good enough for him, there must be some higher reason for everything to happen - coincidence and 'just because' is not a reason, there is always someone pulling strings, some fiendish plot to remove all the currency, to create a pandemic, to want people to be vaccinated, to kill Kings and Presidents and popular actresses, and to start wars. The simple answers are not enough, and you're obviously not 'doing the research' to find out the truth if you're happy to accept what millions of scientists have researched for decades over what some chap in his basement on YouTube says.

With this as our character, I have a problem believing that his 'wish world' would be a perfect one where everyone works 9-5, is happy, lives in cookie cutter houses, is married with a child (well, not everyone as obviously Mel, Ibrahim and Kate are not married) and who listens to Conrad on the TV telling 24x7 'fairy stories' about 'Doctor Who'. In this world there are no conspiracies, everything is as you see it, and you're not permitted to doubt anything - actually the opposite of how Conrad was set up in the first place. He was nothing but doubt - he even refused to believe when a Shreek was about to kill him. I have a problem rationalising his character here, and also the world he created.

But doubt is the key to the Rani's plan. She has got Conrad to create this world precisely so that the Doctor will doubt it, as the doubt of a Time Lord has more power than the billions of humans. Even so she has some very cool looking beings called Seekers who seem to be monitoring and measuring the levels of doubt in the world. With the Doctor's doubt, she can crack through Conrad's 'reality' and open the gates to somewhere called the Underverse, which is where Omega is trapped.

But if this is the case, and the Rani wants there to be doubt - as much doubt as can be generated - to ensure that the Underverse is accessed, then why have everyone shutting doubt down at every turn. People report their friends and family for having doubt, and the police come and take them away. Having doubt is forbidden. You are not allowed to question. Again, completely the opposite of Conrad's whole worldview, and completely against what the Rani's plan is.

Anyway.

The Rani gets the Doctor back to her bone palace towering above London and, as in Conrad's world he cannot remember anything, she has to explain everything to him. And so he starts to remember.

But there's another trap. As the Doctor remembers (and is remembering who you are and that all this is fake actual 'doubt'? Not really. If you KNOW the truth, you do not doubt at all. So again this getting the Doctor to remember is actually working against the Rani's plan.) she gets him onto an outside balcony which she has rigged to explode off the main building, and so the episode ends with him shouting that Poppy, his daughter, is real as he plummets to the ground, which is itself collapsing and disintegrating as the Underverse is breached.

So ... killing the Doctor. That would 100% stop him doubting I would think. And thus the Rani's power source would be abruptly cut off. Not really something she wants if she wants to rescue Omega.

And 'Poppy is real'. Is the Doctor saying that Poppy is a real baby as he met her on the spaceship in 'Space Babies', or that she is his real daughter? So Susan's mother? And a Time Lord herself? At this point I've no idea what this meant. Maybe we'll find out next week.

It's always hard to review the first part of a two part story as you don't know what is significant and what is not. You don't know where the story is going or, of course, how it's going to play out, so all you can do is discuss and ruminate on what you have seen.

There are some cracking visuals here. I love the idea of incorporeal giant bone dinosaur things roaming London, although quite why Conrad wants them there I have no idea. Surely they don't fit in his vision of a perfect world? The bone palace is neat and as mentioned I loved the design and look of the 'seeker' creatures. Very much shades of the 1980 Flash Gordon film I felt. All the 'perfect world' stuff sadly left me a little cold and just wanting it to get on with things, but I understand why it's all there: to establish what's going on before we get all the backstory explanations.

One element which did work was the idea that anyone who didn't fit Conrad's idea of being 'right' is basically invisible, and thus unaffected by his worldview. So all the disabled and the dispossessed are living around those with jobs and happy families, but they are ignored and invisible to them. It's the sort of thing Conrad would probably like to see happen.

I felt the brief appearance from Rogue (from 'Rogue') was silly. Sending a message from a Hell Dimension ... how did he do that? And how did the Doctor receive it if he's in a world of Conrad's creation? Was it a fake from the Rani to get the Doctor to doubt more? In which case how did she know about Rogue in the first place? Susan is also seen on the screen, with the same questions.

A final comment harking back to my last review. Are there any non-ardent fan viewers who would have a clue who Omega was? He first appeared in the 1973 story 'The Three Doctors', and then again in 1983's 'Arc of Infinity'. Some great powerful Time Lord is perhaps the essence/assumption of what we were told ... I hope they're not forgetting that Omega was NOT a Time Lord, and was NEVER a Time Lord. Before he detonated the star, Time Lords did not exist ... and this became the basis for his anger and seething rage at the Time Lords. That he missed out and his brothers abandoned him. He actually has no power himself, just the power of his mind to create worlds and imaginary servants ... Sounds familiar.

The two faces of Omega ...

Anyway. We'll all find out tomorrow! I'm off to watch some yellow mugs fall through the table. Great fun!

Review: Doctor Who: The Interstellar Song Contest

I suppose it was only a matter of time before Doctor Who did a riff on the Eurovision Song Contest ... but at least they didn't go the whole hog and have the Doctor actually appearing in it! Juno Dawson's tale takes a different tack as the TARDIS arrives on a Space Station, the Harmony Arena, where the 803rd Song Contest is taking place. He gets his final reading on the vindicator and Belinda and he settle down in a VIP booth to watch the show. It's puzzlingly hosted by real life presenter Rylan Clark, revived from cryogenic sleep each year it seems to present the show, but would anyone in the year 2925 actually know who he is? Same with erstwhile actor and chat show host Graham Norton, who has been preserved as a hologram to inform visitors to the Song Contest museum on the station. Why not use good old Terry Wogan, who hosted the UK presentation of the contest for many years before Norton took over. And also remember that this is an International contest, so each country has their own presenters and commentators, and as the UK rarely wins, why should the UK's presenters be those in favour or remembered in 2925?

Equally of course this is now the Interstellar song contest, so I guess each planet has its own presenters and commentators? No idea. Nice to see that one of Doctor Who's old monsters from the sixties, named Malpha (and also from that planet according to 'The Daleks' Master Plan') is kin to Liz Lizardo from Lizoko (or some such) ... Or not at all. What do you think?

Malpha?

Liz Lizardo?

Anyway, this is all just the backdrop to a story of the rape and pillage of the planet Hellion by the evil Corporation, who wanted the poppy seeds to allow them to make Poppy Honey (and who sponsor the Song Contest). Once they had the seeds, they destroyed the planet so no-one else could get them as well. Thus survivors from the planet, the Hellions, are out for revenge and one such, Kid, decides to kill everyone on the Harmony Station (100,000 life forms) and everyone watching across the universe (many trillions of life forms) using something called a delta wave to sonically blast them and kill them.

Thus the Doctor has to stop him. And that's basically the episode. There are some nice cameos from Mike and Gary, a gay couple, who just happen to have all the skills the Doctor needs. There's also Cora, one of the singers, and a closet Hellion. And some Corporation service Droids with golden heads, looking a little like the Slabs from 'Smith and Jones'. There's a touch of 'Four to Doomsday' as the Doctor uses a confetti cannon to blast himself back towards Harmony, and in a moment of extreme coincidence, straight into an airlock that Mike and Gary open for him. How did he know where that precise airlock would be? Or that there would be people there to open it for him? No idea.

While all this is going on, and it's a good plot ... exciting and rolling along nicely ... the Doctor suddenly, while floating, freezing in space, gets a vision of an older lady in the current TARDIS control room. She tells him to 'Go Back!'  But who is she? It's not explained in the episode. The Doctor's mother perhaps? A memory? And go back where? To the TARDIS? To Gallifrey? To the Space Station?

Of course we fans will recognise the lady as the current incarnation of Carole Ann Ford, and that she is presumably playing a much older version of Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, a part she played way back in 1963/4. But would a general audience know this or even have a clue? I doubt it. We were told about Susan last season of course, so they would perhaps know the name ... but it's not used in the show, only in the end credits.

Anyway, the revived and rescued Doctor gets back on Harmony, and manages to get into the control room and destroy the delta wave device. He also starts beating up Kid ... his hearts full of ice from Kid's callous disregard for life, no matter what triggered it. Susan reappears in his mind and tries to get the Doctor to stop, but it's only his reunion with Belinda which makes him stop. Kid is then dragged off somewhere for his crimes.

The Doctor then arranges for all 100,000 life forms to be brought back to the Station and, one by one at first, revived by the very handy Gary and Mike. Then he somehow converts the VIP pods into revival rooms and they can do more lives at once. All this is somewhat hand-wavy and 'it just happens' but in actuality, would be impossible to do. To pick on just one element: all the life forms were propelled out of Harmony by the gravity (sorry, mavity, they're still doing that!) bubble bursting, but the laws of outer space mean that they would all just keep on going, farther and farther away, at the same speed. So by the time they come to try and retrieve them, they would be miles and miles away and spreading out!

It then goes all Eurovision: The Legend of Fire Saga, a simply superb Will Farrell film which riffs on the whole Eurovision thing. Cora takes to the stage and sings a song of her people (which is strangely not translated by the TARDIS). At the end there is silence, but then Mike and Gary start clapping and soon the whole audience is cheering and applauding. This echoes the end of the film where a similar thing happens when Amy Adams sings her Icelandic song.

As we draw to a close, the Doctor tries again to get to Earth on, or I suppose before, May 24, but this time the TARDIS' internal lights go red and the Cloister Bell rings, warning of disaster. And then the TARDIS doors explode inwards!

The titles start, but then stop again as we've not quite finished. By another extreme coincidence, in 100,000 life forms saved, the very last one is Mrs Flood. But she has a trick up her sleeve and bi-generates into another, younger woman. They are both the Rani, the new one being the definite article so to speak, words which echo the Doctor after regenerating into the form of the fourth Doctor in 1974. But, again, who is the Rani? She last appeared on the show in the debut outing for the Seventh Doctor in 1987 ... and never mentioned thereafter, so why should the audience have a clue who she is? She was played by Kate O'Mara back in the eighties, but Archie Panjabi does a good job as the younger Rani, but at this point, all we really know is that she's another Time Lord (so the Doctor is not the last of the Time Lords as he keeps saying ... even though that's not true anyway as isn't the Master still out there somewhere? Last seen trapped in the Toymaker's gold tooth, which was retrieved by a mystery person at the end of 'The Giggle'.)

It's all a little puzzling to be honest. So Mrs Flood was the Rani all along, a Time Lord. Presumably therefore she has her own TARDIS and can travel in time and space - hence her cropping up in the past ('Lux') and the future ('The Well') and on alien planets and so on, ending up in 2925 on Harmony Station. All to ensure the Doctor has powered up the vindicator. But what is her plan?

We shall find out ...

Review: Doctor Who: The Story and the Engine

So we start to edge closer perhaps to what has been underpinning the most recent years of Doctor Who. Many people had pointed out that there seemed to me some 'meta' element to the stories, with characters breaking the fourth wall and generally events taking a more fantastical approach.

With 'The Story and the Engine' we have, more or less, a remake of the sixties story 'The Mind Robber', wherein a writer had been trapped in a Land of Fiction, and this self-styled Master of the Land of Fiction wanted the Doctor to take over his role and position there so he could escape, on the basis that the Doctor had a lot of stories to tell. The twist being that the Doctor had to be careful not to 'write' himself into any of the Master's own stories or he would become fictionalised and could then never escape.

Well, I was totally expecting the Barber to want the Doctor to replace him here, but that didn't happen. Instead we get a rather nice little story within stories, where the Barber is an ancient of some sort, the power behind the gods we have heard of as he refined their stories so that they could be retold and thus keep the gods alive (very much shades of Neil Gaiman's American Gods), and he uses the barber shop as a method of capturing people with good stories so they can tell them while he cuts their hair (which instantly regrows allowing it to then be cut again). Why he is doing this is to feed 'the Story Engine', a metaphysical creation of a heart within a brain in the back of the barber shop which is itself being carried on the back of a giant spider. It also somehow powers the spider.

There was so much story thrown at us here that I couldn't jot it all down or get it all, so I'm not sure where the spider was trying to get to, but the Barber's endgame is to destroy the Story Engine and thus the gods with it! But this would cause much disruption and so the Doctor needs to find a solution.

The whole thing though is completely tied up with the Doctor's own adventures. There's a woman there, Abby, the daughter of Anansi (the spider god) who the Doctor once won in a bet and then rejected (this was when he was the Renegade Doctor, and we see a nice cameo from Jo Martin as that Doctor). Also, the Barber has tales of rocket ships ('The Robot Rebellion') and a cinema ('Lux') which suggests that these were stories rather than 'real' adventures. Mrs Flood cleverly appears in a story the Doctor tells about Belinda ... so is she something in this fictional realm also? Belinda meets Poppy from 'Space Babies' in the market outside, further suggesting that the Doctor has been walking in 'fiction' for some time now.

Rather than the stories and characters doing battle as in 'The Mind Robber', here the Doctor is for some reason linked to the Story Engine (as the Doctor was linked to the Master Brain in 'The Mind Robber'), and we see clips from many of his past adventures, past Doctors and so on ... and the sheer number of them causes the Engine to overload and explode ... meanwhile the Barber sees sense and opens the door so his captives can escape, similar again to 'The Mind Robber' where the destruction of the Master Brain causes all the 'captured' fictional characters to go their own way.

I found this episode well made and interesting, far more cerebral than perhaps the previous episodes in the season. It has a lot to say about the nature of story, and the nature of gods and how to survive they need the people to sing their songs and tell their stories ... and should we be drawing a parallel with the Doctor here that he needs the fans to sing his stories and his adventures for him to survive? I don't know. The performances were all first rate, but I struggled to capture who anyone actually was - what their character names were. I probably need another watch through to see if I can get them a second time.

The plot too was muddled and hard to follow. I'm not sure why the TARDIS convulsed every time the barber shop door opened and closed and the Story Engine's power supply dwindled. I'm not sure why Abby had to intricately create the map for the labyrinth behind the barber shop into the Doctor's hair (another call back to 'The Mind Robber' where the Doctor has to navigate a labyrinth). It was a nice touch though. Also, while the Doctor claimed to have visited the barber shop before to see his friend Omo, I assume it wasn't at that time a collection point for stories for the Engine? So when did it become that? When did the Barber take over ... and what was the Barber using as a collection point up to then, given that this spider machine thing, the gods and the stories had to have been around for centuries!

Despite this, the episode is visually rich, and fascinating in its blending of stories and whatever 'reality' is at this point. Elements may or may not become more important or return later in the season, so it's hard to try and figure out what the endgame might be for all this ... but there's certainly elements of messing with the Doctor's timeline and his 'story'. The ongoing mysteries of Mrs Flood and Belinda. Hints of greater powers being at work. And of course perhaps more of the pantheon of Gods. It's all building quite nicely.

Review: Doctor Who: Lucky Day

'Lucky Day' is another Doctor-lite episode, and, like last year's '73 Yards' this focusses on Ruby Sunday, with brief appearances from the Doctor at the start and the end.

It's New Year's Eve 2007 (it's not clear if this is 2006 into 2007, or 2007 into 2008) and the Doctor and Belinda arrive in London as the New Year fireworks are going off). The Doctor takes a reading with his device, and they meet a lad called Conrad who sees the TARDIS appear. Conrad is eight years old at this point, but this event triggers a life of trying to find out more about the TARDIS (in a similar way to Clive in 'Rose', except that Clive was essentially harmless).

Flash forward 17 years - which is 'last' year - so in 2024 (taking the 2007 year as mentioned) and Conrad again sees the TARDIS and witnesses the Doctor and Ruby battling a creature called a Shreek. He gets green gunk on him and learns from overhearing the Doctor that this is how the Shreek marks it's prey for the following year (it only hunts on one day a year). Ruby (who seems to be having an adventure with the Doctor set between 'The Devil's Chord' and 'Boom') who was also marked, is given some antidote by the Doctor.

Thereafter Conrad spends a year searching for Ruby, eventually finding her and wooing her, making her think he's falling for her ... only for her to discover, after a terrifying night where it seems a whole pack of Shreek are hunting for Conrad (as he failed to take the antidote that she gave him), that these Shreek are fake, being played by Conrad's friends, and that Conrad is in fact denying that any of this ever happened and using his podcast to spread misinformation about the various alien incursions, with UNIT being at the forefront of his attack.

His lies gain traction and spiral outwards, gaining him news time and protests taking place around the world. People would prefer to believe the lies than the truth of the situation.

He infiltrates UNIT HQ and live-streams Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and others holding guns on him. He refuses to believe any of their talk is true, and demands that she reveal what UNIT is really up to, so Kate, in a last ditch attempt, releases the original Shreek which they had kept in storage, and it attacks Conrad. But he still refuses to believe!

We end with Conrad locked in a cell, when the Doctor visits and materialises the TARDIS around him. Sadly even the Doctor's little 'talk' cannot sway his mind that it's all tricks and the Doctor puts him back where he found him.

But the governor of the jail appears - it's Mrs Flood! - and she lets him out! I wonder how this then plays into the forthcoming events?

If you wanted a Doctor Who with a 'message' then this is it! But what staggers me is that this episode was written one or two years ago! And yet the whole theme: of there being 'bad actors' out on the internet who believe and spread conspiracy theories and lies with little or no actual evidence, and then refuse to believe the truth even when it is presented to them in black and white is more relevant now than ever before.

This is the current nature of the world in 2025. People believe their own versions of 'the truth' and violently and stringently refuse to acknowledge that there might be an alternate view, or that they might be wrong. Those doing the deliberate misleading hide behind their computers and pump this toxic rubbish out into the world ... maybe they're political opponents, maybe they're foreign disruptors, maybe they are contrarian bots ... maybe all of these and more ... I have no idea. But there are also those with no particular agenda who have been taken in and fooled by others ... believing everything they are told or read in the dingy corners of the internet, and dismissing facts and evidence from scientists, doctors and many others who have no reason to lie, and every reason to keep the facts in the public eye.

And it's dangerous. People do increasingly become misled by corrupt advisors or those with other self-aggrandising agendas at work. And they share and believe wholly the lies and the misinformation. And they spread. And they cause harm.

It's a brilliant, brilliant episode to hook into the narrative and to give voice to the concerns and the problems that this can cause. Absolute kudos to Pete McTighe for writing it, and to Russell T Davies for getting it on air. It truly is an episode for our time. It picks up themes from 'The Giggle' and runs with them! I guess there will be people out there who believe that Conrad is the hero here, and everyone else is wrong for trying to stop him ... but that's the whole point of the story!

Jonah Hauer-King as Conrad is superb. He plays the part to elicit our sympathy at first, and then when his motive is revealed, he is a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Not just misguided, but a true ignorant and dangerous monster of the first order. My sympathies were with the Shreek, an excellently realised creature, terrifying, but really just following its own urges. 

In fact all the cast are exceptional here, with no weak links at all. Even the Doctor manages not to cry - not that he's in it much - but his speech at the end to Conrad is very pertinent. 

'Cowards weaponise lies!'

Indeed.

I think we all know people who have gone off down the rabbit holes and usually we just delete and block them (well, I do!) ... but there are sadly those around with greater power and ability to influence others. So being able to sift through their lies and false assumptions becomes paramount in a world which is increasingly subject to the general public just believing what they see and read without checking.

I also like the idea that UNIT has a containment facility where they keep all the nasties they capture. I wonder just what they've got in there ... and what might happen if they escaped one day ...

Overall this is another very strong episode in a season which has already presented three excellent adventures in a row. I wonder if they can keep this level up to the end.