After a serious spoiler warning to hopefully send anyone who wants to avoid spoilers running for their lives and averting their gaze, I begin this post with the biggest mystery of the episode but by no means the only one, namely whether the credits saying “Introducing Billie Piper” is significant and if so in what way. Saying that she was mentioned is of course a spoiler, but for those who are still reading, who either don’t care about spoilers or have seen the episode, that doesn’t reveal the big question: is this the new face of the Doctor?
The answer might seem obvious. We saw the Doctor release regeneration energy into the time vortex, and then undergo regeneration. Then we see the face of Ncuti Gatwa transform into that of Billie Piper. Is there any ambiguity? Yes, and it results not from the scene but from the credits that follow immediately after.
You see, “Introducing Billie Piper as The Doctor” would be in keeping with the tradition. We did not get that. If she is the Doctor, why the ambiguity? Or is the ambiguity just to get us speculating? Both Colin Baker and Peter Capaldi were individuals who appeared in episodes prior to becoming the Doctor, and so we have the sense that the Doctor’s faces are significant rather than random and may be those of individuals the Doctor previously encountered.
The Sterility of the Time Lords
There is no chance whatsoever that the reappearance of Susan and the claim that the time lords are sterile happened in the same season without the combination being significant. Poppy is said to be a glitch of sorts. The Rani says, “She’s not real. She’s made of hopes and dreams and wishes.” The Doctor replies, “That is every child.”
By the end of the episode, when the Doctor has given up a life in order to save Poppy and bring her back into the timeline, we learn that she is not the mysterious wish-fulfilment offspring of the Doctor and Belinda Chandra, but the purely human offspring of Belinda and another human.
All of this is teasing us. The episode suggests that the genocidal act of the Master (often called the Spy Master in this iteration) caused the remaining time lords to become sterile, so that this is not a historic problem but a recent and current one. Yet in a recent episode the Doctor said about his children that he does have and “I will have.” Do you think this all reflects a consistent mystery that Doctor Who is poised to explore, or is it an incoherent mess that has been introduced into the show’s mythology in time wimey family wamily fashion?
The Rani complains that a human mother would represent a “contamination.” This provides a point at which one can discuss racism, eugenics, and other such topics.
If all of the above gets resolved by the fact that the Doctor is half human on his mother’s side, then I’ll be happy. Until then, I reserve judgment.
Maintaining the Mystery
Doctor Who is a show that launched in the 1960s with a mystery that it preserved, then revealed, then expanded, and on and on in cycles of revelation and tantalization.
What are your guesses? The Doctor has chosen a face that has significance from the Doctor’s past? If the Doctor is played by Billie Piper, how will you feel about that? Might the Doctor at some point have thought he encountered Rose Tyler and in fact the Doctor was face to face with herself? Is the way of phrasing it, “Introducing Billie Piper,” a distraction or a clue? Will Billie Piper play the Doctor next season? Will Billie Piper’s character eventually become the Valeyard as some have already begun speculating? My mind didn’t go there until others raised the question. What’s the appropriate response to this? Speculate, deduce, or wait and see?
The Omega Point
There is a lot more that deserves to be discussed about the episode, especially for those interested in religious elements. There’s the mention of an “unholy trinity: God of Wishes, crazy timelady, and Malcolm Clark.” Omega and his pioneering work that makes time travel possible and his exile that secures that for the rest is said to be “the original sin of the time lords.”
If you’re not familiar with it, watch The Three Doctors from the classic era to find out about Omega. The biggest disappointment of this season’s finale was that Omega is teased only to not truly appear or communicate even briefly.
The reappearance of Omega in skeletal animal form is a disappointment. Omega was a significant figure, monstrous in a way but a person, not a creature that would want to feast on a world.
Concluding Thoughts
On the whole, I have a lot of points of disappointment with Doctor Who’s version of Groundhog Day. “The Reality War” may have shortcomings less due to writers and producers and more due to circumstances. Ncuti Gatwa decided to leave the show and as a result, a different cliffhanger had to be scrapped.
For those interested in religious themes, words from towards the end of the episode are worth pondering. The Doctor says, “The gods play tricks. But I beat them. I always win.” The Doctor also ponders the transitory nature of things, so that time changes and things disappear, but even within a timeline things fade. All is vanity. Everything is sandcastles. “Traveling in and out of the slipstreams of time…beautiful things can be forgotten.”
Who do you think the boss at the time hotel is who sent greetings to the Doctor? Might it be his granddaughter Susan?
What are your thoughts on this past season of Doctor Who and its finale, “The Reality War”? What are your thoughts on the credits saying “Introducing Billie Piper”? Would you be excited by Billie as the next Doctor? Either way, do you think that’s where the show is headed?
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