Doctor Who’s 15th season has reached its penultimate episode with “Wish World”, which sees the whole of Earth trapped in an alternative reality.
John Smith lives happily with his wife Belinda and daughter Poppy, and works for the Unified National Insurance Team. But this world isn’t quite what it seems: mugs slip off tables when people experience moments of doubt, disabled people are forced to live in hiding, and a young blonde woman tells John that he is really called The Doctor.
“The Interstellar Song Contest” ended with a massive cliffhanger, showing the TARDIS exploding with The Doctor and Belinda inside. It made for an intriguing situation, and the whole of Earth find itself in a similar scenario to Donna Noble in “Forest of the Dead” where she was trapped in a dream world. The Doctor got to live in suburban bliss, and there was a dark underbelly to this world.
“Wish World” tied back to “Lucky Day.” Mrs. Flood recruited Conrad Clark at the end of “Lucky Day” and the dystopia world was based on his fantasies. He was already shown to be a narcissist who wanted to manipulate reality through his conspiracy theory podcast. The new world was based on his fantasy, as he acted like a Big Brother-like figure who read Harry Potter inspired stories to the masses. He was someone who had traditional outlook on life.
The world that the Doctor and his allies ended up inhabiting was a retro one. Men wore pin-striped suits and went to work, and women wore dresses and stayed home. This illusion was under threat when someone said something that broke the norms of society, like when The Doctor made a comment that a man was good-looking. The episode felt like a mix of The Matrix and We Happy Few. Like The Matrix, characters began to question the world they were living in, and it felt a bit like the first Matrix, where people rejected it because it was too perfect. We Happy Few was set in a retro-futuristic version of Britain where people lived in a drug-induced trance, and the people who rejected the society were ostracized.
“The Interstellar Song Contest” also revealed Mrs. Flood’s true identity. She was actually The Rani and bi-generated, just like The Doctor in “The Giggle.” Archie Panjabi took on the role of The Rani, and she was having fun as the villain. Her first appearance in the episode involved her abducting a baby like she was in a Grimm’s Fairytale. She had presence and a dominating presence, as shown with her treatment of Mrs. Flood. The Rani monologued and explained a lot but Panjabi made the most of the material. The Rani was a theatrical, pantomime villain, something Doctor Who has had plenty of. She has dastardly grant ambitions which will be interesting to see where the second part takes it.
For people who enjoy viewing alternative world episodes, “Wish World” was intriguing and it was bolder than some of the other episodes in Series 15.
