TV Writer Megan Hughes reviews Doctor Who’s ‘Wish World’, exploring the return of the Rani and how the episode sets the stage for the season finale
*Spoilers for Doctor Who Season 2, Episode 7*
Mr and Mrs Smith live happily with their daughter Poppy (Sienna-Robyn Mavanga-Phipps). They are a perfectly normal family, thank you very much, and they do not have doubts – even if the amount of mugs they lose through an unusually transient table per week might testify otherwise. Ruby (Millie Gibson), however, is having visions of another world. A world where John Smith is about as far from a human member of a national insurance team (which is in fact a cleverly reimagined UNIT) as you can get when you are in fact an authority doubting Time Lord. A world where Mr and Mrs Smith are actually the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and his companion Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu).
“This world quickly proves a problem for our delightfully un-normative Doctor
In this episode, Ruby, along with UNIT regular Shirley (Ruth Madeley), acts as the audience’s perspective into the jarring dimensions of the Rani’s new domain. As imperfect as our society remains (with human rights increasingly under attack), tonight’s ‘earth’ is in fact the ideal of the bigoted Conrad (Jonah Hauer-King) from earlier in the series – ‘Lucky Day’. Supposedly standing for public transparency, Conrad was never very good at disguising his true political leanings as a conservative traditionalist who yearns for the good old days. As seen by the fact that in the world he rules over – by suggestion – only unmarried women can work, and even the slightest hint of anything beyond the cisgender, heterosexual, or able-bodied diaphragm is quickly deemed suspicious.
This world quickly proves a problem for our delightfully un-normative Doctor when even complimenting a coworker of the same gender (Conrad is not a fan of office bromances it seems), is enough to raise a scandal. Just as sinister is the shunning of the dispossessed and disabled into fully visible street-side camps that people (Ruby included) simply choose to ignore.
‘Wish World’ was a solid episode that still had me wishing for slightly less exposition, regardless if it did have the Rani’s (Archie Panjabi) royal stamp of approval. Having said that, I didn’t not enjoy tonight’s episode. It was certainly ambitious, ending on a towering cliffhanger that rivalled the bone tower itself. And Archie Panjabi is wickedly delightful as the Rani. There isn’t a single second of screen time where she is wasted, putting to rest fears that this infamous villain of Classic Who (Doctor Who 1963-1989) would end up wasted simply as shock factor for the previous episode. Bringing understated elegance and a dark, unapologetic attitude to the screen. I can’t help hope that, no matter her nefarious plans, next week won’t be the last we see of her.
“Archie Panjabi is wickedly delightful as the Rani. There isn’t a single second of screen time where she is wasted
I also loved the construction of the world. Whilst most of London’s skyline remained the same (with the addition of walking dinosaur fossils), the designers still managed to invoke references to the 1950s attitudes espoused by Conrad – through plastic heavy decorations and vintage colour palettes. The doubt system of tattling on loved ones also served as an allusion to George Orwell’s 1984, which I very much appreciated. And the quick cameo of love interest Rogue (Jonathan Groff) was an unexpected (and in my opinion slightly unnecessary but still pleasant) surprise. Even if he could work on the crypticness of his reality saving message: ‘Tables don’t do that’.
However, not even the beautiful designs in this episode could assuage my doubts. My first and main criticism would be, as I mentioned at the start of the review, the reliance on exposition. Initially I was inclined to leniency, given the fact that the Rani needs to overload the Doctor on details in order to make reality crash. However, it ultimately came across as lazy writing for me. Especially given that very little ended up actually being explained. Of course, we have next week’s finale to solve that problem, but it meant that for me many of tonight’s characters ended up being wasted.
“this episode feels as though it only exists to set up the second half of the finale.
Whilst Shirley, Mel (Bonnie Langford), Ruby, and Belinda are all characters I adore and was happy to see, they ultimately ended up doing nothing in this episode. Shirley’s speech about the relegation of disabled people in society was passionately delivered and a message that sadly remains needed even in 2025. At the same time it feeds into a wider problem of the writers not trusting their audience to understand the social criticism that was very clearly being delivered through the return of Conrad, who we already know serves as a herald to the toxicity of ‘manosphere’ culture. Even with the hints dropped through the rest of the series, like the continued reference to the destruction of earth after 24 May and the glimpses of Poppy (who returned properly in Wish World after first appearing in the ignomious ‘Space Babies’), this episode feels as though it only exists to set up the second half of the finale. Especially given the reveal of the third member of the unholy trinity, who is another classic returnee in the form of the feared time-travel pioneer Omega.
Omega brings me to another criticism which is in fact more of a scepticism on my part, so to speak. New, new Doctor Who seems to be enjoying bringing back big bad villains of the Classic era – such as Sutekh, the Rani, and now Omega. The favourable treatment of the Rani does give me hope that Omega will be shown the same deference, in terms of honouring his previous canonical dalliances with the doctors of old. However, given the lightness of hand with which Sutekh was treated in last year’s finale (notably being leashed back into the time vortex like a naughty dog and not a god tier alien), and the fact we only have one (albeit extended) episode left for Omega to both premiere and be foiled in, I can’t help but worry.
Doctor Who’s season finale, The Reality War, airs at 6.50pm next Saturday, 31 May on BBC One.
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