(*7*)“Wish World” doesn’t deviate from this sample. There may be a lot occurring on this episode – we’ve to become familiar with a wholly new alternate actuality, and our acquainted characters’ new roles inside it. We have now the 2 Ranis, one other new member of the Pantheon (a “terrifying” mystical child with the facility to grant needs), Shirley’s ragtag crew of dispossessed freedom fighters, pictures at reactionary conservatism, ableism, homophobia and tradwife aesthetics. The Seal of Rassilon is there. After which the climactic revelation that every one that is merely a method to an finish, because the Rani’s (Ranis’?) true goal turns into clear – to burrow beneath the floor of actuality and discover Omega, an omnipotent determine from historical Time Lord historical past.
(*7*)It will be overstating it to say that the episode falls aside spherical concerning the time that Rani Prime (Archie Panjabi, having nice enjoyable chewing the suitable amount of surroundings) begins monologuing to a confused Doctor about her dastardly scheme, nevertheless it’s the place the cracks actually begin to present. It’s not probably the most elegant exposition that Davies has ever written, even when he does cling a cheeky lampshade on it by having the Rani explicitly confer with it as such, and making it a part of her scheme. Steven Moffat tended to excel at these kinds of whirling expository scenes the place every part falls into place, whereas right here it very a lot appears like a rushed information dump connecting a bunch of disparate components that haven’t all been adequately arrange.
(*7*)It’s additionally right here that the construction of ‘a number of concepts carried together with manic power and excessive manufacturing values’ actually creaks. Spending time within the want world is nice enjoyable, with all the thrill of mirror universe type tales, seeing everyone compelled into perversely inappropriate roles and making an attempt to work out precisely how this world works – or doesn’t work, because the case could also be. There are many little grace notes, like Colonel Ibrahim’s horrified response when the Doctor unthinkingly reassures him that he’s “a fantastic man”, or the fascinating scene between Conrad and Mrs Flood, displaying us the pressure that maintaining the want alive is having on Conrad, and his uneasy relationship with the creepily chuckling god child.
(*7*)However then the Rani begins monologuing, and it’s revealed that every one of this – two years of Mrs Flood hints, the Pantheon, Conrad, the vindicators, the destruction of Earth, the want world – is in service of reaching again into the dim and distant previous of Gallifrey and discovering an historical Time Lord. A personality who, if reminiscence serves, hasn’t appeared on TV because the Eighties, aside from a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in 2020’s “The Timeless Youngsters”.
(*7*)It’s not possible to correctly decide this reveal till we’ve seen subsequent week’s “The Actuality Battle”, however based mostly on first impressions, it’s exhausting to really feel terribly excited concerning the return of Omega. For an episode that’s typically so bizarre and spiky, and filled with splendidly unsettling imagery (just like the child’s mom gently collapsing right into a pile of flowers), discovering out that it’s all constructing in direction of the reveal of a determine who actually belongs within the Wilderness Years does really feel a tad anticlimactic. Greater than that, it feels basically backwards-looking, which is a weird factor to be saying in a assessment of an episode that includes a laughing god child who grants needs. Terrifying god infants that grant needs aren’t one thing we’ve explored a lot in Doctor Who, whereas historical Time Lord historical past actually feels prefer it’s been finished to loss of life.
(*7*)In fact, it might all be a feint. Maybe the twist can be that it was concerning the terrifying god child all alongside, and Omega will stay within the dustbin of historical past. However, as with final season’s reveal of Sutekh, it nearly feels as if Russell T Davies – who was so cautious with how he rationed out traditional collection characters and references throughout his first run – is making up for misplaced time by enjoying with as a lot Doctor Who lore as he can get his fingers on whereas he has the price range to visualise it, whether or not it’s probably the most dramatically compelling selection or not. And it contributes to the uneasy feeling that, whereas there are many new concepts being launched on this period, the inexorable gravity of Doctor Who’s mythos is at all times going to overpower them, so even one thing as bananas as a wish-granting god child finally performs second fiddle.
