Wish World! It’s the best Rani episode of all time. Here’s our spoiler-filled review of Doctor Who season 2’s penultimate episode.
This review contains spoilers. Our review of last week’s episode is here.
They don’t require poster quotes for episodes of Doctor Who, but if they did, I’m going to start with one: Wish World is the best Rani episode in the history of the series. In terms of what’s required to get over that bar, it’s less a leap and more a slight lifting of the leg. But still: I stand by my words.
In fact, there’s much to like in Wish World, in what increasingly looks like the penultimate episode of Doctor Who for the forseeable future. It arrives on screens at a point where speculation has ignited again about Doctor Who beyond next week, and yet while all the noise is going on, the show itself has been on a really confident streak.
In the case of Wish World, it’s a bubbling to the top of the simmering rage underpinning the writing of season two.
Sure, the usual suspects are writing all this off as ‘woke’ (some of whom occasionally going as far as to look up what the word means), but I’m going with the word angry. Take the reappearance of Conrad, who was introduced back in Lucky Day, itself an episode assumed to be a precursor to upcoming spin-off show The War Between The Land And The Sea. Rescued from a police cell by Anita Dobson’s Mrs Flood, he’s now, we learn, the creator of the world as he sees it. An angry man on the internet who finally gets his way, and his desire is a world where women are in the kitchen, men wear bowler hats and go to work.
Things then pick up in the aftermath of last week’s The Interstellar Song Contest, with two Ranis, one of whom is in 1865 Bavaria. Note the significance of a baby being born that’s of particular interest to Archie Punjabi’s Rani. A lot of talk of seventh son of seventh sons there, before she starts turning people into ducks, flowers and owls.
Post-opening credits, Russell T Davies is having fun. I’ve never seen an intimacy coordinator listed in the end credits of Doctor Who before, but suddenly, the Doctor and Belinda are in matching nightwear, husband and wife. We’re left wondering where the hell are we, as the production design takes another terrific leap. But it becomes clear that a story is being told.
If J K Rowling happened to be tuning in, she surely can’t fail to have noticed that the story being read by an extreme influencer on the internet bears a very striking resemblance to the front of a Harry Potter tome. Surely a coincidence, that. The narrator of said book is our old chum Conrad, and the first half of the episode was both unexpected and really good fun. A lot of smashed mugs, and a lot of pastel colours.
Old Who fans might remember the classic Jon Pertwee story Inferno, where the regular characters could basically swap roles for a bit (it’s bloody brilliant if you’ve not seen it: you can find it on iPlayer here). I got a sense of that here, just crossed with The Wicked Witch Of The West on her broomstick, a massive clock that looked like it’d been shipped in from a luxurious production of Alice In Wonderland, and then something a bit Stepford Wives about the apparent perfection of the world we’re presented with.
The key to unlocking this world proves to be Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday, who seven episodes into this series, feels like she’s had a more pivotal role than either the Doctor or Belinda. And she’s only been in two episodes. Still, stepping through that lovely production design and those broken mugs, we’re actually where the Doctor and Bel have been trying to get to, it’s just gone a bit Back To The Future Part II alternative world. Albeit with a massive dinosaur fossil rampaging through. That vortex vindicator thing didn’t quite have the intended effect.
For those who’ve been following the show, meanwhile, there are links to other episodes all over the shop. Back in my Den Of Geek days, we had a fine chap called Pete Dillon-Trenchard – hello Pete! – who wrote extensively about the cross-references to be found in episodes. A field day would be had here.
Might that, then, be the storytelling nexus thingy from The Story & The Engine in there? Look! There’s all of UNIT, just with a new name, and some of them without a job (note the point about people walking past other people on the street). Susan Triad, she’s back from the last series, and she’s au fait with The Rani. Oooh, there’s Mel as well. Wasn’t it said that she’d gone off to Sydney recently? Now, here she is in alternate world, with impeccable recycling.
Then! With the talk of a tiny baby who sustains the entire world, I did have an oh-my-lord are we really going back to Space Babies moment.
Hang on, though! What does the Doctor call himself in his new life? John Smith. We’ve been here before, and not just when we fancy a trip to the off licence. David Tennant’s Doctor lived a happy life as John Smith back in The Family Of Blood two-parter, before finding his real self unlocked by a watch. No such watch was required to get memories back here, but I swear Murray Gold put a tiny bit of The Master’s score in the music to this episode. I found myself half-expecting The Rani to wheel him out, what with the hints as to the greater force.
But no! Our tour through Doctor Who past has led us, seemingly, to the door of Omega, the creator of the Time Lords. Heck, I remember the fuss just over his hand in Remembrance Of The Daleks. Elsewhere in Omega-world, I still think you need a degree to unlock Arc Of Infinity, but more recently, Chris Chibnall brought him back in The Timeless Children. Is Russell T Davies really going to have a go, or is he doing a bit of misdirection?
He certainly seems pissed off. If the ultimate overarching threat of season two proves to be Conrad, his beliefs, and how he thinks the world should be run, then Davies has taken a long hard stare at the world, and responded in kind. A modern-day thought police keeping the people of a world in check, stopping them speaking out about the extremist who holds them in their place? That’s actually chilling, primarily because it doesn’t feel that fictional.
And then on top of all of this was an outpouring of visuals that kicked in throughout the second half of the episode, as the destruction and collapse of things took hold. In fact, in the midst of all the references and reappearances was a standard, entertaining penultimate episodes, with one of those cliffhangers that looks to be easily resolved, basically the world falling apart.
The key to saving the universe this time might just be with Mrs Flood, already showing a tiny bit of frustration at her counterpart bossing her around. And here, I found Anita Dobson really quite unnerving. If Archie Punjabi is channelling a bit of John Simm’s Master in her portrayal of The Rani, Dobson has gone the other way and found a far creepier register.
Note too that Susan didn’t reappear this week. Surely she’s going to pop up next.
The other one to keep an eye on is baby Poppy, but also, it’s likely to be all hands on deck for The Reality War next week, an episode that increasingly looks like being the final Doctor Who instalment for quite a while. I know the usual outlets like kicking this show about, and I know Doctor Who has made its fair share of miss-steps. But I’ve really enjoyed this season, and when all the grown-ups and tabloids have finished telling the kids how woke and terrible it is, a whole bunch of us – young and old – are having a great time.
Wish World? Enjoyable, scene-setting, over-the-top, bombastic, angry, a little bit having its cake and eating it. Far more entertaining that reading a copy of The Sun.
And, to date, the best Rani episode of all time.
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