The Doctor Who Season 2 finale redeemed the episode before it, and I didn’t think it could. I got yelled at last week. Some of you told me to give it time, some of you told me the show’s been over forever, and that’s fine. But I meant what I said: this week vindicated how I felt about last week. It filled in the gaps. I still stand by the complaint underneath it, which is that I wouldn’t have felt the way I felt if they’d seeded some of this better, so that last week wasn’t so dependent on this one. A lot of people like me watched last week, said screw this, and jumped ship. I at least knew I’d come this far to the finish line and I was going to watch the last episode.
Mrs. Know-It-All thought last week’s was amazing, for the record. So this is the two of us talking through the season and that ending, and we’re spoiling all of it. If you want my normal review points and my critiques, I’ve got a separate non-spoiler review for that. This one’s the conversation on the couch.
And yes, the RIP Doctor Who crowd is out in force. Good for them. I’m glad they have something to watch. Hate watch it if you want. The view still counts.
A Season That Felt Like RTD’s First Run
We both loved this season. It felt like RTD one, his first run, and I’ve said it in my reviews more than once: this season was RTD plays the hits.
Neither of us was a fan of season one. It was messy. Mrs. Know-It-All liked the specials because they had Donna and David Tennant, the bi-generation confused her but she was willing to go with it, and then she hit season one and didn’t understand Ruby or much of anything else. I think Russell was getting his feet wet writing for Ncuti Gatwa, the same way it took Peter Capaldi’s era a few episodes to find him. The first two episodes of Capaldi’s first series were written before he was even cast. They were written for the Doctor, and they figured characterization would come later. Then “Listen” shows up, the first one written knowing how he was playing it, and he comes to life. I was not happy before that episode. I was saying this is going to suck. “Listen” shows up and I’m here for it.
That’s what season two felt like for Gatwa. He was just reaching his stride.
This whole era’s been hurt by how few episodes it gets. I believe that 100 percent. We’d have bonded with everybody more over a full season, and Mrs. Know-It-All was onto something when she said the reveal of who Mrs. Flood was would’ve landed better with more room. I knew nothing about the Rani when she showed up in “The Interstellar Song Contest.” I went back and researched her, the BBC put out a whole thing on who she was, we watched some of it together and I finished it on my own. Which is exactly what made last week so confusing for me, because what I’d learned and what I was watching didn’t jibe.
The Time Hotel Pays Off a Year Later
If you go back to my review of the Christmas special, I didn’t understand why the episode just stops in the middle so the Doctor can live at a hotel for a year and work there alongside the woman behind the desk. I’ll be honest, I cared more about that chunk than any other part of the special, and I couldn’t figure out why they’d show me something that interesting and never revisit it.
Then they revisited it. Practically a year later it pays off, and you know exactly who she is and where she came from. I loved that as she goes through, you see she’s been peeking in on him in the past the whole time. Matt Smith’s Doctor at the chessboard, all the way back to the Third Doctor’s era. She’s been checking on him, if nothing else to make sure he’s okay.
It’s also my example of why we needed more episodes. We’d had her exactly once.
Omega, the Rani, and the Boss
I said last week I didn’t think we’d get to see Omega, and I still don’t know that we did. I wanted the guy with the helmet and the whole bit. We got a big CGI monster. I did like the explanation for it, and the voice is the actor who’s voiced Omega before, so at the very least they sound the same.
One Rani gets eaten. Mrs. Flood teleports away, so we assume she’s still out there, and I find that to be one of the most fascinating parts of all this. Very rarely does an enemy of the Doctor’s just get to keep being out there. Mrs. Know-It-All hates Mrs. Flood. “Why does she matter? She only matters now because she’s the Rani.” That’s a direct quote from my couch.
There’s one thing the finale didn’t finish. Rogue shows up again on a television, something’s burning around him, and we don’t know why. Then the hotel lady in the hallway says the boss says hi. So who’s the boss? The Meep brought up the boss back in the specials, and I don’t believe that was Sutekh. I think it’s someone we haven’t seen yet.
This is very RTD. His first season was Bad Wolf, Bad Wolf, Bad Wolf. His second was constant references to Torchwood. Each one’s a piece that comes together eventually, and I think the boss is that piece now. I don’t have a guess. I don’t know anything about whether the show’s renewed, either. Even if Disney doesn’t continue with it, and they should, I believe the BBC’s obviously going to do something. You don’t end the way they ended without more to come.
Belinda, Poppy, and the World Conrad Built
The Doctor and Belinda as parents was weird, and I should pick a better word. It was very different from what we’re used to. He’s somehow the father of a child, Belinda’s the mother, and we’re supposed to just be okay with it. Mrs. Know-It-All wondered if it was because they both wished to be parents. My read was Conrad. It’s Conrad’s world.
When Ruby faces him, first off, we get a callback to the teleport Martha used way back in the David Tennant era. I should’ve leaned over and said we’ve seen this before. Then Conrad tells her he did what the Doctor said, that people just want to be safe, so he built his version of normal. And Ruby does a really nice thing. She says, I wish for you to be happy.
The wish baby’s the MacGuffin here, because we never really deal with who that baby is. Ruby’s mom’s going to be raising him now that he’s done granting wishes, and you don’t give a kid a name like that and not revisit him as an adult down the road. We’re clearly going to see Belinda again too, possibly with a grown-up Poppy, which I think would be cool.
Ruby Remembers
After they save the universe, the Doctor and Belinda are talking about where they’re going to take Poppy first, all very parenty, passing her little jacket back and forth. Mrs. Know-It-All caught it before I did. “It’s getting smaller.” It got down to a little handkerchief, and then it was gone, and the cot was empty.
Millie Gibson did an amazing job. She made sure we felt that Ruby felt like everybody else was crazy. And she didn’t quit. Rather than just getting angry, she out-argued them: you’re telling me there were cracks in the universe before, so maybe my memory’s right here just like it was right there. And everybody gives her the benefit of the doubt.
We also wondered if the Doctor already knew, because of the wink. I hate to say it, but I feel like I’m always judging Ncuti Gatwa’s acting, because he keeps acting like Ncuti Gatwa. Fifteen has always felt to me like the Doctor regenerated into that actor, and I never fully got that actor playing the Doctor. So he’s behaving like he knows and he’s hinting to Ruby to leave it alone. Which is plausible. Rule one: the Doctor lies.
Mrs. Know-It-All’s favorite episode was “The Interstellar Song Contest,” and this is why. He got mad. We always saw him happy, we saw him sad a lot, and to be fair they weren’t only sad tears. But that was the first time we saw him angry, and any kind of dimension helped.
The Return of Thirteen
I got whiplash. I was sitting forward when it happened, I turned and said, did you see that, and the dog had to go out so bad that she got up right then. How do you get up right now?
I maintain Jodie Whittaker got the short end of the stick, so I loved this cameo. You get the “you’ve redecorated, I don’t like it” tradition, which every Doctor does when they see a future TARDIS, going back to the serials in the 70s. He says thank goodness, I thought it was the other guy, he always pops up. Right on.
Then he tells her, I love you. How often do we get to tell ourselves we love ourselves? This is the healthy Doctor, the post-trauma one who’s processed everything, getting to look at a younger self and say it’s okay. She says she should tell Yaz that. He says, you won’t. And I’m sitting there going, screw you people, because that’s the will-they-won’t-they everybody thought should’ve happened more fully.
I actually thought we’d see Tennant again once Whittaker walked out. We didn’t. He’s said he’s taking a break from Doctor Who for a while, not that I trust anything actors say about whether they’re in things. You know who we haven’t seen that I’m totally down for? Matt Smith. He’s doing great on House of the Dragon. Get the floppy hair back.
Billie Piper, and Why It’s Rose’s Face
The Doctor regenerates. There were all kinds of rumors that Gatwa was leaving and nobody confirmed anything, because they had to wait for this to come out. And who walks out of that regeneration? Billie Piper.
Mrs. Know-It-All and I had to clarify this for each other first, and I do think it’s the case. This is not Rose Tyler showing up. Rose is gone, in a parallel dimension with her version of Ten. For some reason the Doctor’s regeneration has chosen Rose’s face, and we know that’s a thing, because Peter Capaldi’s Doctor chose the face of that Roman nobleman for a reason.
So let that be the mystery. Why do I have this face? You’re going to have to do something inside the Doctor’s mind, first or second episode, where this Doctor faces David Tennant’s face and asks why we picked this one. I think I just answered it. He really did love her. With both his hearts. Fifteen was the healed one, the happy one, so maybe this is him saying, I don’t have to hide from this face anymore. Mrs. Know-It-All liked that one even more.
I’d love to see the Daleks confused by Rose Tyler’s face, and the Doctor using it. I’d love to see this Doctor walk up to Donna’s house and have Tennant come out and go, what are you, and she says no, no, I’m you. I’d love Belinda to see it. We didn’t get the regular monsters this season and we both kind of missed them, even though it was a very alien, otherworld season when the show’s normally so earthbound, and I really liked that.
Can we get an outfit, please? Gatwa’s going to be remembered for the orange jacket because it was first. I need Billie Piper to pick a lane and stay in it. Don’t let this Doctor be defined by the fact that it’s Billie Piper. And they’d better give her a cool sonic. The Rani’s, with the little purple stone, was dope.
I’ll point this out, and you can look it up. The credits said Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor, Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor, and introducing Billie Piper. In the past it’s always been introducing so-and-so as the Doctor. That tells me she’s probably in it for the Christmas special and maybe two or three more specials while they cast whoever’s next. That’s where I’m setting my heart. I’d love to be wrong and get a solid run.
Mrs. Know-It-All thinks she does play the Doctor. Her words: this is going to sound so feminist, but the one woman Doctor they had got the short end of the stick, and with Russell writing, and he’s written for Billie Piper before, we’d get a very strong female Doctor. Neither of us cared much for Whittaker’s era. For me it was the writing. I still watched all of it, through Flux, because I needed to know how you get from her to Tennant.
Understand where I’m coming from. My first review ever, on a channel that doesn’t exist anymore, was my reaction to the Jodie Whittaker announcement, and the BBC contacted me and used it in their intro package for her. I love that moment. And I love Billie Piper and the legacy she brings. If it’s nostalgia bait, I’m here for it. The hashtag RIP Doctor Who people can go f themselves. I am down for this.
Two Things I’d Do Next
Mrs. Know-It-All asked whether fewer episodes could at least be longer ones. I’d tell one longer story. Back in the First, Second and Third Doctor eras, stories were serials, five or six episodes of one adventure, and it was perfectly fine. If it’s eight episodes, open with a two-parter that introduces everything, then spend the rest chasing the thing. You still get your small adventures, because the thing takes you to a planet and they’ve got their own problem, so you help them as a side quest and move on. It’s the fastest way to keep cohesion.
And revisit the Doctor’s daughter. Start with the same actress, who’s David Tennant’s wife in real life. Have them run into each other early, have her die and regenerate, and now you’ve got a new character and, for once, the Doctor and the Doctor’s daughter traveling together. He’s had heartache after heartache, one evil Time Lord after another. Give the guy someone to identify with for two seconds. Or gal, in this case.
One more thing I have to go look up: Time Lords are sterile. I’ve never heard that, ever. The Doctor’s talked about being a parent before, Tennant’s Doctor said it outright, so I don’t know what it all means yet.
The Verdict
Doctor Who Season 2 lands at a 9 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
I wasn’t going to give a number here. The episode score lives in my standalone review, and Mrs. Know-It-All would not let me leave her hanging, because the series score is what the two of us do together. We both gave last season a seven. She’s at a nine on this one as well, and says it might’ve been a 9.5 if she’d seen “Lux,” the cartoon one, which is the only episode she missed and the one I kept needling her about all night.
I gave last week’s episode a six and a half and I wasn’t happy. She loved it. What was excitement for her was frustration for me. My favorite of the season was “The Well,” which she guessed before I could say it, and it felt like RTD at his best.
Maybe it’s because it was my birthday. My opinion only: this stuck the landing.
Did you like where the season resolved itself? Are you looking forward to what’s next, or is Billie Piper’s face a cheap get? We’d love to hear your take. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
