The reign of the fifteenth doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, came to an end on Saturday as the final episode, The Reality War, aired on BBC One. [Clarification note: Disney+ renumbered the series of the show, so series fifteen became season two. I’ll be referring to the most recent series as season two for consistency in this article.]
The false reality and Conrad Clark
In the penultimate episode, Wish World, the Doctor and Belinda [Varada Sethu] find themselves trapped in an artificial world, wished into existence by Conrad Clark through the aid of Desiderium, a newborn incarnation of a god with the power to actualise wishes. The world they find themselves in is reminiscent of 1950s style “utopia”, where most people are happy everyday unless they begin to “doubt” their lives. These doubts are referred to as “slips” and result in mugs smashing. In this version of reality, the Doctor and Belinda are married and live together with their daughter Poppy, who you may remember from the season one premier, Space Babies.
As we learned in Lucky Day, the fourth episode of the series, Clark was imprisoned by UNIT for spreading misinformation and endangering people. For him, his ideal world was regressive and lacking in inclusivity; those with disabilities were disregarded and some characters, like Rose Noble, weren’t imagined into existence at all. Clark also removed each character’s personality and identity.
Mrs. Flood and the two Ranis
Nosey neighbour Mrs. Flood, played by Anita Dobson, pestered both Ruby and Belinda with her interferences, but her role is stepped up a gear in season two, when she announces her machination to bring absolute terror in episode one. Since then, we saw her following the Doctor, Belinda, and the Vindicator, around the universe until the end of episode six, The Interstellar Song Contest, when Mrs. Flood bi-generates into two women who call themselves the Rani.
Now there are two Ranis – and yes, this did lead to Two Ronnies jokes that would have been better left off the script. Mrs. Flood-Rani is subservient to the Rani played by Archie Panjabi who seems to be a lot more in control and generally more villainous in a cartoony type of way. For simplicity, I will refer to the Rani as Rani 1 and Mrs. Flood as Rani 2 from this point on. So, Rani 1 engineered for Conrad to fabricate this world as part of her evil plan. The first Rani first appeared in The Mark of the Rani, in 1985, alongside the sixth Doctor. She was a Time Lord from Gallifrey, like the Doctor, but unfortunately she was banished went onto become a renegade criminal who performed unethical research studies and then became the tyrannical ruler of Miasimia Goria.
The evil scheme and Omega
Gallifrey has of course been destroyed twice whilst also existing in some sort of missing time continuum bubble, and Rani 1 wants to resurrect Gallifrey because she thinks Time Lords are the best and everyone else is dumb. The evil plan is this:
- Get Desiderium from 1865 Bavaria
- Use Desiderium to wish a false reality into existence imagined by Conrad Clark
- Manipulate the Doctor into doubting reality
- Harvest the doubt in order to destabilise reality
- Release Omega from the underworld prison
- Recreate Gallifrey with Omega
Omega was one of the first Time Lords and Rani 1 plans to use him to create a new race of Time Lords. This was not very well thought out because, as the Doctor explained, Omega had become the legend known as The Mad God. Upon his release, he swiftly gobbled up Rani 1 whilst Rani 2 disappeared by using a Time Ring.
Omega was short work for the Doctor, who quickly shoved him back into his prison with use of the Vindicator.
Restoring reality and rescuing Poppy
Whilst the Doctor was sorting all of that unpleasant business out, Ruby Sunday [Millie Gibson] was trying to pinch Desiderium away from Conrad in order to undo his wish. She also wishes for him to have a happy, new life which he seemingly does at the end of the episode. We then find out that the TARDIS was disguised as Conrad’s room and everything apparently returns to normal except Poppy has disappeared from existence.
To save Poppy, the Doctor leaves in the TARDIS with the plan to channel a regeneration into the time vortex in order to shift the timeline. Whilst doing this, he bumps into the thirteenth Doctor [Jodie Whittaker] who helps him succeed.
When the Doctor returns to Belinda in the TARDIS, he learns that Poppy was not his daughter after all and actually Belinda’s. There is a montage of Belinda talking about needing to get home to Poppy which is different to the rest of the series. This is where things get a little bit confusing. The Doctor’s misremembering would infer that either season two took place in a slightly different reality, or that the shifted reality is slightly different to the one we had been in for the previous episodes. I think it’s supposed to be that Belinda mentioning Poppy earlier in the season is the true reality and what she said in the earlier episodes were influenced by the false reality, however it is all a little bit timey-wimey.
The regeneration and Rose Tyler
After the Doctor leaves Belinda he undergoes his next regeneration and turns into companion Rose Tyler [Billie Piper]. By the very loose logic of the show, I don’t think that this regeneration can be the character Rose Tyler, but rather that the new form just resembles her at this point. Of course, Donna Noble did become Part-Time Lord so who knows what’s going on there. At this stage, it’s very unclear whether Doctor Who will even be renewed for another season by the powers that be, but we do know that the miniseries spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea will be out soon and it could potentially answer some of the questions we’re left with.
Screen Waffle 