The Reality War, the Doctor Who Season 2 finale, is an unadulterated mess, and I enjoyed myself the whole way through it.
We’re diving into the smoking crater this thing left behind, and the question on everyone’s lips is what in the name of Rassilon Russell T Davies is smoking. The ending changes everything. We’re talking a regeneration that breaks the internet, a farewell that feels way too soon, if not rushed, and a cliffhanger that might just be the most audacious thing this show has ever pulled.
There’s also a detail in the credits of that final scene. I know that sounds really clickbaity, but I promise you it’s a genuine detail, and hopefully it’s going to have you rewatching that last moment with a little bit more than just your jaw on the floor.
So, The Reality War. The supposed grand finale to Ncuti Gatwa’s second and, as it turns out, final season as the Doctor. Our hero, alongside Ruby and Belinda, faces off against the returning Rani, who’s got some truly bonkers plans. There are universe-ending stakes (when aren’t there), a giant skeleton monster, some very questionable plot resolutions, and ultimately a regeneration that, well, let’s say it’s a regeneration. How about that. It’s launched a thousand fan theories and probably a few therapy sessions.
This is a full spoiler piece. If you haven’t seen The Reality War, this is your final chance to bail, because the spoiler bomb I’m about to drop is so big it’ll make the Dalek fleet look like a minor inconvenience.
A Glorious Train Wreck
Was it a good finale? Objectively, no. The plot threads are tangled like a ball of yarn after a catnip party. Did I enjoy myself? Hell yes. Was I entertained? Yeah, absolutely. Is there something fundamentally wrong with me for liking this glorious train wreck? Probably.
This felt like classic RTD through and through. It had all the RTD-isms, if you will, dialed up to 11: big emotions, questionable plot logic, and those moments that make you shout at the screen in disbelief and, occasionally, delight. It was definitely more solid than Season 1. There was chaotic energy for sure, and I kind of vibed with it.
Last week’s episode, I completely hated. It was a confusing mess. But weirdly, The Reality War actually managed to connect to it in a way that almost, almost made sense. Let’s see, how would this Doctor put it? Oh honey, this episode was built on contrivances. Did it make a lick of sense? Not a single bit. But did I care? Honestly, no.
The Seams Are Showing
The whole thing felt rushed. We know Ncuti made the decision to leave abruptly, and there were rumors of reshoots earlier this year. I saw those, and I think you all did too, with different images that ultimately spoke to a different ending.
And you can’t tell me that when Ruby notices Poppy’s gone, the Doctor didn’t know, because Ncuti was clearly playing that. The whole time he’s doing this thing of “it’s okay,” like, no, you must be wrong, Ruby. To me that’s left over from whatever version of this was written prior. This finale screams of a hastily written ending.
I know he was on an episode of The Graham Norton Show where he was talking about how the next season was going to be filming this year, 2025. So there was clearly another plan somewhere.
I’m not going to speculate on why Ncuti left, or whether the passionate online discourse had anything to do with it. Who’s responsible for when things changed, I can’t speak to, because I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t part of the thing. Everyone wants to save face and tell you one thing or another. But we all see the writing on the wall. There was a different plan altogether.
A Doctor Who Never Quite Landed
Ncuti Gatwa. Look, I think he’s a fantastic actor, but his Doctor never quite landed for me. At least not fully. There was always a slight disconnect, like the character wasn’t quite fleshed out enough. He had moments for sure, but it often felt like Ncuti Gatwa playing the Doctor rather than just being the Doctor.
His final scenes were emotional, though. I’ll give him that. Maybe they were for you. They weren’t for me. I had very little investment in this Doctor, and that’s the problem. Every other time we’ve seen an ending for a Doctor, you felt like you’d been going somewhere very specific with the character. This one didn’t feel like that.
He deserved way more defining character writing, more defining character traits. He didn’t have a Doctor Who outfit. He had no real defining iconography. There was nothing for me that made him his Doctor, other than maybe the crying. I thought the orange jacket might have done it, but in the end even that wasn’t that great.
Thirteen Gets Her Best Few Minutes
Jodie Whittaker coming back was really great. I liked her Thirteen better in those few minutes than I think I liked her throughout her entire run.
I’ve always maintained that Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor was amazing and should’ve been given the opportunity to have a better writer. By amazing, I mean I liked what Jodie wanted to do with it. She had a frenetic energy that I liked. It was very early David Tennant, if you will. And I felt like she never really got a good shot.
This was a good opportunity, though it felt really tacked on, right down to her wig and whatever was going on with her hair. She just looked kind of thrown together. That’s fine. Whatever.
The Rani, Omega and the Mystery Box
The Rani storyline was utter trash and pointless beyond words. As someone who despised the whole Mrs. Flood mystery box nonsense of it all, this didn’t surprise me one bit. It felt like they just needed a big-name villain, so they threw her in.
Then there’s Omega, who never arrives as some grand, terrifying reveal. What we get is a giant zombie skeleton monster thing, which proceeds to literally pick up the Rani and eat her. I kid you not. That happened.
And Mrs. Flood, after all that buildup, kind of just poofs. Vanishes. “So much for the two Ranis. It’s a goodnight from me.” And I’m sitting there like, what?
This is the big problem you have when you choose to do mystery boxes. Nine times out of ten, nobody actually resolves a mystery box well enough to have validated the reasons for the mystery box in the first place.
All of that, by the way, happens in the first 30 minutes. They speedrun their way to it. The rest of the episode is the most convoluted series of post-credit, what-the-hell-is-happening nonsense I’ve ever seen in Doctor Who.
Billie Piper, and the Credit That Gives It Away
Russell T Davies hasn’t made any big fuss about trying to hide the regeneration. In fact, he’s leaned into it in ways I’d call annoying for fans who hadn’t had a chance to see it yet. He seems to have wanted this to be a clickbait season.
Because who’s standing there when the regeneration ends? Billie Piper. Not Rose, per se.
It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s bonkers beyond words. But for some ungodly reason, I kind of loved it. My brain was screaming, no, this is stupid. My heart was screaming, you know what, I’m down, man, give me some more of this. Say what you want about it. It was a moment. It got a reaction. It made me gasp.
Now the credits. Every time they’ve ever shown a new Doctor in a regeneration scene, it’s always been “introducing” such and such actor “as the Doctor.” This one had Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor. It had Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor. And then: introducing Billie Piper. That was it. Not Billie Piper as the Doctor. Just Billie Piper.
That’s a huge tell. Really, it is, and it’s glaring. What does it mean? I don’t know, man. Is she the Doctor? Is she Rose? Is this a figment of a dying Doctor’s imagination? We’re stuck with more questions than answers, and we may end up not getting an answer to any of them.
I do know there’s a way out. When they had Peter Capaldi’s Doctor face the fact that he had that face, there was an episode where he literally talks about why his regeneration chose it. You could do that here.
I’ve also seen an awful lot of videos online where people reimagine the last moment, and rather than having it push in on Billie Piper, it pushes into just the energy and then cuts to “the Doctor will return.” What would’ve been wrong with that?
If we are going to get a special, it’ll probably end up being similar to David Tennant’s, which makes all of this that much more frustrating, because it feels like stunt casting. And it’s stunt casting we clearly know is stunt casting, so there’s no real surprise to it. When David Tennant first stepped back in at the very beginning of Season 1, during the specials that year, we thought, oh my gosh, he’s going to get a second bite of the apple. We figured we’d see a little bit more of him, and we kind of did. But that was clearly going in a direction. I don’t know where they’re going right now.
If This Is the End
Against all odds, I had fun. It was schlocky, it was chaotic, it was utterly ridiculous, but it was entertaining schlock, at least for me.
For all its flaws, this season, and this finale in its own weird way, gave me a glimpse of that early RTD era chaos I first fell in love with. The sheer audacity of it. The whole season was a marked improvement on the first one for Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor, and I was here for it. I really was.
As of this recording, neither Disney nor the BBC have announced a renewal. If this is the end of Doctor Who as we know it, I’m weirdly okay with that. This season, for all its insanity, felt like a final, messy, glorious hurrah for a certain type of Doctor Who.
If it does continue, I kind of hope they lean into this chaotic energy. But maybe, I don’t know, hire a plot editor or something. Just a thought. And obviously, explain the Billie Piper situation. Or ignore it.
I find myself asking whether I’m what’s wrong with modern Doctor Who fandom. Probably. I see the glaring issues, the messy writing, the convoluted plots, and yet a part of me is just here for the ride, popcorn in hand.
Is this what the RIP Doctor Who crowd needed for the final nail in the coffin? I think so, without a shadow of a doubt, because the series didn’t even try to make it seem like there was a concrete future here. With that Billie Piper credit, it felt like an ending. Or at least the end of something.
The Verdict
Doctor Who: The Reality War gets an 8 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index.
That’s for The Reality War, just The Reality War. Despite it being a narrative car crash, despite plot holes you could literally fly a TARDIS through, and despite Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor feeling somewhat undercooked, I can’t deny the sheer, baffling fun I had watching this. It was a spectacle and it was memorable. It was also bonkers. The 8 is for being way more fun than I 100% know it should’ve been for me.
I had a blast watching this dumpster fire unfold. I don’t know why. I can’t even tell you.
I know I’m crazy.
When Mrs. Know-It-All and I watched it, we sat there for about 30 minutes just figuring this thing out and sorting out our emotions. So we recorded that conversation as a full spoiler discussion, very podcast style, without the normal production value, because I just wanted to have it.
Did you love it or hate it? Are you as confused and intrigued by the Billie Piper situation as I am? And with the UNIT spin-off miniseries, The War Between the Land and the Sea, on the way, does a UNIT series fill the Doctor-shaped hole in your heart, or are you waiting to see what happens with the main show? The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.
