Doctor Who’s fifteenth season has come to a close with a big, bombastic finale that went for everything, including the kitchen sink approach.
The Doctor is falling to his death. Luckily, he’s saved by Anita Benn (Steph de Whalley) and her time hotel portals. Going into the portal awakens The Doctor’s memory, and he can use it to awaken UNIT from Conrad’s Wish World trance. The Doctor and UNIT seek a way to defeat The Rani before she can free Omega from the Underverse.
The Doctor and his allies were in a perilous situation where it looked like death was inevitable. The only way they got out of their situations was through multiple Deus Ex Machinas. The Doctor was saved by a character he had met in the 2024 Christmas Special, and time was reset with Ruby and Belinda waking up in their beds. It was an annoying cop out. It made the events of the previous irrelevant since the characters were trapped in a time loop, and anything bad that happened, like a death, could be reset.
When The Doctor brought UNIT back together, “The Reality War” kicked into gear. It became a big blockbuster experience with Unit laser cannons fighting off bone monsters, a narcissist villain making grand speeches and big threats with a booming soundtrack playing in the background, and an all-mighty monster potentially being able to wreak havoc across the universe. There was so much CGI spectacle on display that it looked like most of the season’s budget was spent on this episode.
“The Reality War” did move at a rapid pace. There was a bombardment of information, like revealing that the Doctor and the Rani were sterile, and UNIT needed to build a special box. Millie was placed in the center of the action and got a chance to shine by taking on Conrad, concluding their storyline. However, Belinda was literally put in a box for most of the climax.
“The Reality War” did entertain on the surface, but digging deeper, there were issues. Omega’s appearance was a letdown, seeing that he was just a giant CGI monster, not an all-powerful being or a genius that could rival The Doctor and The Rani. The Rani was dispatched unceremoniously. There were lingering storylines that were left unresolved, such as why Belinda and Mundy Flynn looked the same, and Poppy lived in modern-day London and on a spaceship in the far future. It felt like the season was rushing to a conclusion, but also had a long run time of 67 minutes. The Fifteenth Doctor was given the same treatment as the Tenth Doctor by being given a long goodbye.
“The Reality War” was Ncuti Gatwa’s final episode as The Doctor, and he regenerated as Billie Piper. Piper played Rose in the first two seasons of “Nu-Who,” and she’s a fan-favorite, but this regeneration felt too similar to David Tennant’s return as The Fourteenth Doctor: an exercise in nostalgia-baiting.
“The Reality War” was televisional cotton candy. It looked pretty and could provide a sugar rush, but it lacked any nutritional value since it left so much unexplored.
