Doctor Who Recap: When In Doubt
Despite what the Rani says, this episode is just exposition. The main action is clearly being reserved for the second part of the finale. Right now, the focus is on getting our bearings in this weird, wished-into-existence world — which our characters are slowly trying to do, too. This is a Doctor Who episode where the Doctor spends almost all of it unaware that he’s the Doctor. That’s happened before (see: “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood”), but this time, the Doctor’s current companion has also forgotten his true identity. And his other friends on Earth aren’t quite at the level of Martha Jones saving the world in “Last of the Time Lords.” Ruby and Shirley are trying to resist, but they don’t even fully remember what iPads are. If it weren’t for all the little speeches that the Rani(s) and Conrad give to fill us in… forget Omega, I would be The One Who Is Lost. Even so, I’m still left with plenty of questions I’m hoping will be addressed next week.
But let’s back up to the opening scene, which explains why 2025 is so strange. The Rani has shown up to snatch a baby in Bavaria in 1865. We later learn that this newborn is the most powerful god in the Pantheon: Desiderium, the god of wishes. The seventh son of a seventh son’s seventh son is “the fountainhead of a power from beyond this universe,” the Rani explains. She places kisses on the god’s forehead to turn his mother into violets, his siblings into ducks, and his father into an owl.
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Belinda have made it back to London on May 23, 2025 — the day before a big May Day celebration. Last time we saw these two, an explosion was sending the TARDIS door hurtling toward their faces. Very concerning! But the Doctor’s performance of heterosexuality might be even more unsettling. Apparently, he and Belinda are now a married straight couple who are parents to Poppy from “Space Babies.” They’re both so chipper that it feels like they’re seconds away from waving and saying, “Hi, Barbie!”
A few rules in this confusing new world are established pretty early on. First, Conrad Clark is on everyone’s TV, where he gives the weather forecast and he reads from a storybook that has a lot of information about Time Lords and Gallifrey. Second, a “slip” happens whenever people experience doubt. Mugs literally slip and break, even if placed in the middle of a table. And although it happens often enough that everyone’s trash cans are full of broken shards, our understanding is that it is a bad thing; the Doctor, who believes he’s John Smith, warns Poppy that she should try not to doubt too much. He doesn’t recognize Ruby when she shows up on his doorstep, and she only kind of recognizes him. Ruby offends Belinda when she says that the Doctor doesn’t have a daughter, and we learn a third rule of this world — when in doubt, call the police. Ruby runs. It’s not clear what happens to people who are arrested for expressing doubt, but it doesn’t seem pleasant.
Once the Doctor clocks in for work at UNIT (now the Unified National Insurance Team), the signs really start to become clear that this is the type of regressive world that Conrad would dream up. Women are supposed to strive to be mothers and wives. If it’s “undignified” for Kate Lethbridge-Stewart to work, it’s no wonder that Susan Twist is here serving snacks instead of showing up as Susan Triad, the tech she-EO.
The Doctor keeps slipping up — he triggers Colonel Ibrahim’s homophobia while trying to play matchmaker, then shocks all his coworkers by wondering aloud who the Rani is as she flies to the Bone Palace that now hangs over London. Back at home, Belinda’s also going through it. During a visit where her mom and auntie smilingly reinforce outdated gender roles, Belinda realizes that she can’t remember giving birth to Poppy. After a mug crashes to the floor, Belinda sprints off to a forest and screams.
But all this doubt is actually intentional. It’s being tracked up in the Bone Palace, where Mrs. Flood kinda channels The Substance by muttering bitterly about her counterpart who gets to enjoy being the main Rani (and who technically sprang from her loins). At the Rani’s request, Mrs. Flood makes a sandwich for Conrad, who is apparently quite drained from having to think and talk. On brand! Mrs. Flood tells him that he was found and chosen because he wants the world to be better. She and Conrad look at Desiderium, who laughs to the tune of The Giggle, and describe him as both amazing and terrifying for being able to sustain this entire fantasy.
The Rani affixes the vindicator to a giant clock and begins a countdown… for something. There’s a trap waiting to be primed that apparently requires raising the Doctor’s doubts. It’s also evidently going to be deadly. The Rani says it’s a shame that humans have to die (I wouldn’t have expected her to care at all, so that’s a step up). But she’s going to find The One Who Is Lost tonight, after which point “the great work begins.”
Meanwhile, the Doctor is watching Conrad on tonight’s broadcast. When Conrad mentions an “old” and “terrible” secret hidden away in Time Lord history, the Doctor’s granddaughter, Susan, flashes on the TV screen. Then the Doctor’s long-lost lover, Rogue, appears and warns, “Tables don’t do that.” He adds that he misses and loves the Doctor before vanishing. The Doctor starts really questioning how mugs fall through the table and break. Belinda wakes up to the sound of him experimenting, and when he tells her about Rogue, she calls the police on him … only to find out that her mom has called the police on her. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are both arrested.
By this point, Ruby has run into Shirley on the street. They vaguely recognized each other, so Shirley brought Ruby to a tent city where “the disabled, the dispossessed, the ones who don’t fit in” live. All of the inhabitants sometimes catch a glimpse of a different world, and understand that something’s not right — it doesn’t make sense, for example, that Shirley is doing fine without her medicine and has a state-of-the-art wheelchair as someone who she’s seemingly panhandling for a living. Ruby’s mom may have called the police on her for it, but Ruby’s doubts are celebrated here. In fact, her distrust of Conrad prompts several cheers from Shirley and her friends. Ruby is sure that seeing Conrad in person will jog her memory, in a way that having his face plastered over every sign and screen apparently doesn’t. This burgeoning resistance group wants to block the signal and draw him out from the Bone Palace, but they don’t seem to have a way to actually execute a plan while Belinda and the Doctor are brought inside.
In the Bone Palace, the Rani monologues to the Doctor about things he can’t remember, dancing with him as she asks if he can remember whether the rumor that they were lovers was true. “The tragedy is we were never enemies,” she says, then identifies herself by name. The Doctor is already chanting “no” when Mrs. Flood steps forward. As if they were a pair of Australian twins, they say together, “We are both the Rani.”
The Rani explains that this entire world is a wish, and blames the Doctor for stirring the Pantheon and waking ancient powers. The impact of Conrad’s subsequent look-at-me-now reunion with the Doctor is weakened by the fact that the Doctor obviously doesn’t remember him. Plus, he’s busy processing the concept of a baby god. Admittedly, the mechanics are a bit confusing. Despite being the most powerful being in the pantheon, the god of wishes doesn’t have infinite power, which is why the Rani needed the vindicator to offer an extra boost.
The goal was to trap the Doctor in Conrad’s unsustainable idea of what society should be like. Because while ordinary doubts can crack open a world, a Time Lord’s all-consuming doubt can rip open reality and expose the Underverse. The city begins collapsing as the Rani finally reveals that she is looking for Omega (and Conrad helpfully reminds viewers that this is the creator of Time Lords, “the greatest and most terrifying Time Lord of all”). Belinda vanishes as she is taken back over the Bone Palace threshold. The Doctor’s memories of his past selves — Fugitive Doctor included! — are restored, but the Rani sends him crashing down on a balcony so he can’t interfere. As the Rani and Mrs. Flood toast to their plan, the Doctor yells, “But don’t you understand? I have a daughter. Poppy is real. Don’t you know what that means?” And honestly? No, I don’t. Is Poppy Susan’s mom, or what? I have no idea anymore. The Doctor keeps falling with the city as the clock strikes midnight. It finally feels like this finale is starting.
Cut for Time (Lord)
• The Rani’s baby-stealing outfit kind of reminds me of the baby-abandoning outfit that Ruby’s mom wore. Maybe there’s more to Ruby’s family than last season’s finale suggested? I do think it’s interesting that she was the one who came closest to remembering the Doctor (as opposed to Belinda, who traveled with him much more recently).
• Sorry to Kate and Ibrahim and whatever HR violation they’ve still got going on, but the couple I care about in this episode is the Doctor and Rogue. It would be so rude if this is as much of a return as Rogue gets — a few sentences of dialogue while the Doctor doesn’t fully remember him. Please, let’s at least save him from his “hell dimension” sliding into an unspecified pit. Also … do we think the mysterious boss that he and the Meep referred to was the Rani?
• The Rani’s sonic screwdriver looking like a syringe feels right for her. We still don’t really know what her plan is with Omega, but my understanding based on her past appearances is that she is driven more by scientific curiosity than any desire to conquer the universe. But hey, maybe a character like hers has to evolve when it feels like the laws of science are now broken every 45 minutes due to Pantheon shenanigans.
• Doctor Who and the Deadly Wish’s cover design looks a bit like the first edition of the first Harry Potter book. Conrad would be a J.K. Rowling fan.
• One of the buildings that collapses says “Gestetta,” which is the name of the company that ran the mining colony in “The Well.” Is this just a little Easter egg, or something that will become meaningful later? I had the same question re: Poppy’s reappearance, but so much has happened with babies now that I feel like there’s gotta be a dramatic payoff coming.