Written by Russell T. Davies
Directed by Alex Sanjiv Pillai
The Rani (to Mrs Flood): "It's a shame these little people have to die. I was getting rather fond of them."
Into the penultimate episode of the series (or maybe in general) and after last week's ending, this one had a lot to live up to. We saw Anita Dobson bigenerate into Archie Panjabi. We've got Mrs Flood and The Rani. On top of that, we've got May 24th looming like a bad omen.
In case you were wondering about the Doctor and Belinda. They're okay. In fact, he's now John Smith and is married to Belinda. They also have a lovely daughter named Poppy (yes, from Space Babies) and John has a nice job working at an insurance company whose initials happen to be UNIT. Oh and his co-workers are Kate Stewart and Cristofer Ibrahim. Oh and there's a nice tea lady named Susan Triad (Susan Twist) in the mix.
Is there any doubt that this isn't the real world? Well, there's a pesky young woman named Ruby Sunday planting some doubt into the Doctor and Belinda but his neighbour Melanie Bush is there too for the status quo. Yes, John Smith's world isn't a lie whatsoever. Why would he doubt it?
Maybe it's the cryptic message from the handsome man named Rogue (Jonathan Groff) on the TV or his granddaughter Susan Foreman also appearing to him. Maybe it's the various slip ups he kept making at work and at home. John cast enough doubt for Belinda to call the thought police on him. Belinda then also got rounded up by them, just so that her and the Doctor could finally meet the Rani.
Now, lets circle around the Unholy Trinity. Technically, only two thirds appeared with the last member literally looming at the last minute. Conrad Clark became a word of God, using the power of wishes from the God of Wishes aka Desiderium to create the hellscape that Ruby and Shirley were trying to build a resistance against. As for Desiderium, he's a little baby that won't stop chuckling.
Getting back to the Rani and Mrs Flood, I did like that the latter demonstrated some frustration into being made subservient to her bigenerated self. The Rani on the other hand was running quite the experiment and she was happy to do quite a lot of exposition on the mattress to boot. It did take the Doctor a bit to realise who the Rani and what she intended to really happen to this fake world.
Yes, it was rumoured for week that Omega would make their return and by the end of this episode, the Rani and Flood's meddling (and Conrad and Desiderium too) was successful. I feel Omega would've been better appearing at a later date and I'm not sure I like the idea of the Rani being pushed aside for him. Then again, next week's finale will be longer, so hopefully that will bode for resolving what needs to be resolved here.
- The Rani got a syringe looking sonic screwdriver while turning Desiderium's family into violets, an owl and a load of ducks. I didn't care for that or hinting of a romantic past with the Doctor.
- This episode used a lot of archive footage, including a clip from Dimensions In Time. We saw images of every Doctor here too.
- Mrs Flood was kitted out as a policewoman when she went to arrest Belinda. We briefly met Belinda's mother and aunt here.
- Conrad's little book was called Doctor Who And The Deadly Wish.
- There was no trailer for next week's finale or even a preview clip in Doctor Who Unleashed. Not to mention it's not being released on iPlayer at 8am.
- Chronology: 1865 Bavaria when the Rani took Desiderium as well as May 23rd and 24th 2025, London.
Wish World was an oddity for me. I enjoyed certain scenes but there were moments with the Rani that took me back a little and I'll admit that Omega's inclusion might be too much. I did think most of it worked well enough and Archie Panjabi was excellent in her scenes, especially with Ncuti Gatwa.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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