I'm trying to remember the last time I was this bummed out after watching an episode of TV. I mean, I watch bad TV sometimes, but this wasn't just a case of "that was not a good episode," this was... watching this just made me so, so sad. Let's... dive in.
Cons:
I'm going to start small and work my way up, here. The Avengers Assemble of it all was fun, but it really sidelined Belinda and it even sidelined the Doctor in a weird way, where I wish there had been a bit less spaghetti thrown at the wall here? I remember feeling this way about last season's finale too, that there was just too much going on, and too much of it was connected to old lore that I don't understand or care about. I stand by that the bi-generation thing with the two Ranis was pointless and it should have just been a straightforward "Mrs. Flood is a Time Lady" twist without that added element tossed in.
The thing about Poppy is that I wanted to like this concept, I honestly don't mind the idea of the Time Lords being an infertile species and the Doctor "wishing" himself this miracle chance to be a parent, but it was too confusing and the stakes were therefore difficult to grasp. I think the plot cul de sac of "yay, Poppy was okay inside the box!" and then she vanishes from the TARDIS and now the Doctor has to do a big sacrifice, all should have been squished and curtailed. Like, what if it was just shortened so that the box is opened, Belinda is in there, but Poppy isn't, and everyone else has forgotten Poppy, but Belinda remembers, and then because of weird shenanigans, so does Ruby, and then it's Ruby and Belinda together making a case for this world missing one person and how that's wrong? That would have given Belinda more to do (more on that later), and cut through some of the weird pacing in the end of this episode.
Let's talk about Belinda. Okay. I don't think it is automatically crap for Belinda to want to stay home from traveling in the TARDIS because she's a mom and she wants to stay with her kid. I don't think it's anti-feminist to have a story be about a mom anxious to get back home to her young child. But guess what? That's not what this season was about! I honestly think the twist needed to be sacrificed to make this work. Or like, mediated somehow. What if Belinda kept saying the 7:30am thing throughout the season but couldn't/wouldn't explain why? We know there's something more specific that's making her anxious to get back home, but we don't know what it is. Then, sprinkle in lots of times where Belinda is showing having connections with kids, and a troubled expression crosses her face, like there's something she can't quite place. I don't know. Something, to make this a story of a woman who wants to get back to her daughter, instead of what it is: a story about a woman who gets retconned into being a mother because the Doctor wanted to be a parent. Do you see how fucking gross that is? The fact that Belinda was inside of a box with a baby during the climax while the Doctor and Ruby and UNIT did all of the adventuring? Please! You've gotta be kidding me! Belinda was so sidelined at the end of this season, and it seriously ticked me off.
But all of that. All of that. I could have grumbled about and then moved on with my day. I probably would have had the take that this finale was pretty bad but it was a good season with lots of individual excellent episodes, and oh boy am I excited to see what's happening next season! Maybe the same way Ruby came back, we can have a guest episode with Belinda, we could have all the companions meet up, it'll be great, blah blah blah. But instead, the only thing I can think about is that Ncuti Gatwa was done so dirty. Just two really short seasons? He's the best thing that's happened to this show in forever, he brought back so much joy and light and incredible energy! I feel so cheated and let down by this surprise regeneration. I thought we'd get one more go around with Gatwa. I am nowhere near ready to say goodbye. It's this that's bumming me out, more than anything else; it's devastating to me that his time as the Doctor got cut so fucking short, and that everything about both his entrance into the show and his exit from it are going to be overshadowed in media coverage by the nostalgia-bait gimmicky RTD shit.
(Also this isn't like... the point, but the fact that they teased us TWICE with Groff, first with the TV message and then with the flash-back to Rogue and the Doctor's dance in this episode, and then they took away Gatwa so we can't actually ever see these two characters reunite properly is like... the height of homophobia, to be quite honest.)
I'm not even going to talk about Billie, okay? I want to just like. Let myself simmer on that one. Maybe I'm wrong and it won't be incredibly fucking dumb. Love her, hope it's good for her sake I guess, jury's out. But I'd just... I'd give anything not to lose Ncuti yet. Please.
Pros:
Big case of the whole not being as good as the sum of its parts in this one, because honestly in isolation there were many lovely elements to this episode!
First off, while I was annoyed at the Belinda side-lining, I do love getting the gang together and I always love the Doctor running to all his old friends and scooping them up into big hugs. Rose Noble had nothing to do at all in this episode, completely pointless to have her there, but I was still so pleased to see her, you know? And Mel, of course, and seeing Ruby and the Doctor actually get to reconnect... it's all great fun, I won't lie and say it didn't put a smile on my face in the moment.
We also got references to other "companions" of the Doctor, albeit just one-off companions. There's the reference to Joy at the end, which was sweet, and then we also got Anita! I laughed out loud at the revelation that she was hunting down the Doctor, saw him Gay Dancing with Jonathan Groff in regency outfits, and immediately went and found a new boyfriend lol. Like, good for you, girl, you gotta move on. But it was really sweet that she maintained her love for the Doctor and wanted to find him again, and it was adorable how pleased the Doctor was to see her! We started this season with the Doctor having an off-screen close friendship with a woman who died before she could come travel the stars with the Doctor, and seeing Anita here was a good reminder that some of these connections he forms, while perhaps brief to the viewer because they happen in one episode, actually covered a significant span of time in-universe and are bound to have left impacts on people. Anita for new companion, please, I love her! (Also, incidentally, Steph de Whalley, the actress, is soooooo beautiful.)
If the build-up had been better with the whole Poppy and Belinda situation, I think I honestly would have liked the final moment with the Doctor and Belinda. He's holding back about his regeneration, he has that sweet moment with this kid, wistful about something he can't have... Belinda calls him "Uncle Doctor" which is silly and cute... Belinda has that moment where she's near tears about something she can't quite remember, and the Doctor has that lovely speech about how it still matters that things happened, even if they can't stay. I mean, it's all rendered really gross because Belinda got like, mind-whammied into thinking she's always had this kid, but as a goodbye between the two of them, I thought it worked, at least on the strength of the performances.
Thirteen showing up was, genuinely, the highlight of the episode for me. That's a bad sign for this episode, because honestly the multiple Doctors gimmick for a quick scene should be like, sprinkles on a cupcake, something to make you smile and then you move on with the rest of the episode. But this scene ended up being the load-bearing emotional core for me of the whole ending. I love the Doctor giving themself a hug, I love when they express love for each other, we saw Gatwa give that gift to Tennant's Doctor, that gentleness that he needed to show himself. And here we see these two giving that affection. I loved Thirteen calling out how handsome Fifteen is, that was fantastic. And the crack about how Fifteen is surprised it's not "the other guy" because he's always turning up, was exactly the kind of meta joke I love. Seeing this cameo was totally unexpected, in part because you would expect Russell to yoink David Tennant back in front of the camera for something like this.
The moment when the Doctor says "I love you" and Thirteen says that she never says things like that... it was just so heartbreaking and beautiful. Post-facto confirmation of the Doctor loving Yaz is nice, I honestly squealed, thank you for giving us the two gay modern-era Doctors in a room together talking about their feelings. But more than that, it was an encapsulation of the kind of person this Doctor is. He is the kind of person who tells people he loves them. He is the kind of person who radiates joy and connection wherever he goes. He's got more lust for life than we've seen the Doctor have in a minute, and he sees when people are hurting and he reaches out to them with compassion and understanding, and he's such a good person, and they hugged, and- ugh!
I'm just so fucking sad about this being the end of Ncuti Gatwa again! I can't talk about the stuff I liked, it's like a big grey cloud floating over my head no matter what I do. That's all I have to say for this one, truly! What a big fat waste, after a really fun season, with a companion who had a lot of promise that I was waiting to see actualized, and my favorite Doctor that's ever been on the show, maybe, truthfully! At least perhaps tied with Ten! He did so much with what he was given, and what he was given just wasn't nearly enough.
4/10
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