I’ll be the first to admit that my Doctor Who knowledge isn’t nearly as vast as many fans, largely because I’ve only watched a couple of series of the show overall – and all of them have been during the modern era of the series. So, the importance of the Rani’s return has pretty much been lost on me. Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing Archie Panjabi in pretty much anything, so having her here as The Doctor’s antagonist is fun. But the character and the overall endgame story left me a little cold.
And that’s largely because I don’t really know who she is and her role in the cannon – and I suspect a lot of casual fans don’t either. Yes, Russell T Davies offered us some cliffnotes in the form of Conrad’s story – a masterful reappearance by that wholly odious character – but again, I’m not quite sure what her master plan is, other than chaos and power. And that’s after listening to her villain speech in full. Which was odd. It feels like we skipped a couple of steps to reach the Rani’s endgame. Why has she waited this long? The bigeneration was by chance, so that wasn’t the goal. And having a second Rani doesn’t seem to be all that important to the newest version of her – something that is annoying Mrs. Flood/the Rani #1 to no end (which I suspect will end up playing into how The Doctor will defeat her).
The introduction of a new god – the god of wishes – was hardly a shock but was a nice through line for the past two seasons. And now the reveal that Omega, the first Timelord, is going to be the actual big bad and not the Rani? That’s frustrating. In fact, a lot of this episode was frustrating to me from a narrative perspective. When you have such a limited number of episodes to work with – and you have to break in a new companion – and you take the time to reintroduce a character like the Rani, only to reveal at the end that oops, she’s not really the villain? It makes one’s head spin. Because so much of this season was pushing toward discovering why the Earth disappeared on the day Belinda was kidnapped and now it’s spiraled into reintroducing old characters – and revealing that there is at least one, maybe two Timelords/ladies still out there despite The Doctor’s continued belief that he was alone – as well as a reminder that his granddaughter is still out there, so he does have a daughter for real (even if it isn’t actually Poppy), and now I have a headache trying to keep all of these plot points straight as we burn through them into the finale.
There’s just so much going on that it feels less like this is a coherent narrative arc and more like it’s Davies throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. As a self-contained episode, “Wish World” is a great concept. A reality where you can’t doubt, lest the thought police come by (called by your friends and family, much like when there really are thought police out to get you) to cart you off for re-education. It’s a chilling reflection of something that is very real in our world, flipped into a fantasy where The Doctor can break out of the shared delusion and try to save himself but cannot save Belinda. As a stand-alone episode, or a two-parter introducing the Rani back into the series, it would be a solid episode. It’s that it’s layered with so many other plot threads and new revelations that pulls it down.
Heading into a season finale usually means wondering just what The Doctor will do to save the day and right the ship. But heading into a finale where the actual fate of the series itself is still up in the air? Well, that does lend an extra dose of intrigue to things. Will Davies opt for a safe ending, perhaps starting a regeneration to allow Ncuti Gatwa to walk away from the role should the series get cancelled while still keeping the next Doctor a secret for whenever it gets revived in the future? Or will Davies keep Gatwa in place, hoping there’s another season coming sooner rather than later? Or does he blow it all up and leave The Doctor – and all of Earth and the universe’s – fate up in the air? Whatever he chooses to do, I had hoped that the road to get there would have been clearer and cleaner than it ended up being. Because while this was an interesting concept, the execution of “Wish World” was just too overstuffed.
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