Doctor Who – Season 15 Episode 8 Recap, Review & Ending Explained
The Reality War
Episode 8 of Doctor Who season 15 begins with the Doctor saved by Anita from the Time Hotel, with a magical doorway opened up in the balcony and pulling him out to safety. Anita is now head of HR but the hotel is in limbo because when it comes to Earth, the timeline keeps resetting to the same day as soon as it hits midnight.
Rani is doing all of this so reality stretches thin and then breaks so Omega is unleashed. The Palace is a point of no-entry so Anita can't get in there… unless it's a falling bit of balcony, that seems to be okay.
Anita brings The Doctor back to his old house, where he rocks up in a dress to see Belinda and Poppy. Anita saves them both, bringing them into the Time Hotel which snaps them out of this fantasy world funk.
Next, the doorway arrives in UNIT, where the Doctor shows them all the truth. It works to see reality start to reset, and here we learn that large skeletal creatures patrolling London are Bone Beasts, creatures that feed off the energy being created by projecting this new reality.
There are trackers inside every member of UNIT, and Kate presses a button which sees all of these guys snap out of their funk and head off to the palace, including Shirley, who presses a button on her wheelchair and zooms off, leaving skid marks and flames on the floor.
At UNIT, the Rani pops up and explains that she had a split second to survive back in the day – and she took it. She flipped her DNA and made a biological side-step. She has a Time Ring and this led her to the TARDIS.
Now, Poppy is apparently a biological anomaly. There can't be another child of Gallifrey given all the Time Lords are sterile. Poppy has come out of this wish as an accident and she's half-Time Lord. Belinda and the Doctor are determined to save their make-believe daughter, and refuse to let the Rani press ahead with her plan of turning Earth into the next Gallifrey.
The Doctor decides to use a contraption called the Zero Room to save the day. This will allow them to place Poppy inside and if the Wish comes to an end then Poppy will still be alive. Belinda decides to join Poppy and leave the fighting to the rest of the group.
The rest of UNIT fight off the Bone Beasts, which the Rani has managed to manipulate into fighting the group. The Doctor though, flies straight into Rani's palace and hangs back, watching as the Rani summons Omega. Omega has now become his own legend, the Mad God, coming in the form of a large creature crawling out the portal. It eats the Rani, while the Doctor just stands and watches, while Mrs Flood (the other Rani) grabs the Time Ring and leaves.
The Doctor grabs the Vindicator and fights back, pushing Omega back into its tomb while Ruby also makes it inside the palace, thanks to a UNIT teleporter that jumps her into Conrad's room. Ruby brings up his daddy issues before grabbing the baby from the crib, wishing for Conrad to be happy, and leaving.
The Palace disintegrates as the fantasy world ends, with the Doctor making it back with Ruby and wishing for no more wishes. The Zero Room has also been successful in keeping Poppy alive… or has it? When Belinda and the Doctor make it back into the TARDIS, Poppy disappears completely and both the Doctor and Belinda have no memory of it. Only Ruby does.
Ruby is the only one who remembers the imaginary child, while everybody else has been course-corrected. Ruby convinces The Doctor to remember, and after a bit of a monologue, heads off in his TARDIS to change reality and get Poppy back.
Jodie Whittaker shows up and speaks to the Doctor, explaining that he could damage the whole of creation if he ruptures the Time Vortex, which is what he intends to do in order to get Poppy back. In the end, she decides to help and gives some words of encouragement and affirmations before leaving. After all, on her watch half the universe was obliterated with the Flux which – if we're taking count – still hasn't been resolved.
The Doctor uses his Regeneration energy to shatter reality and when he awakens, he finds himself face down on grass in Belinda's garden. Poppy is alive in this world, ands after some reunions, the Doctor leaves. Just before he does, he thanks Joy before regenerating into… Billie Piper.
The Episode Review
It's quite funny to see Ncuti Gatwa touching grass because that's precisely what all the Doctor Who fans have been doing this year – in their masses. The writing this season has been nothing short of disastrous, with Russell T. Davies determined to rip every shred of Doctor Who apart.
The entire finale continues to violate parts of Doctor Who's past, and the desperate call-backs to old Doctors, along with contrived writing like the Time Hotel (which can apparently open a doorway anywhere except the Time Palace unless a chunk is falling off?) feels like sloppy writing and a poor excuse to find the easiest way to 'save the day.'
Speaking of which, the Doctor brute-forces his way into defeating Omega, using a Vindicator rather than his intelligence (a hallmark of the Doctor's character of course) while also standing back and letting the Rani get killed and not even batting an eyelid. This is the same Doctor who tries to save The Master numerous times, and also forgives a psychopathic barber hell-bent on destroying reality.
With poor writing and one of the worst companions we've ever seen in Belinda, season 15 has solidified itself as the absolute worst in the show's history and a feeble attempt at a regeneration into Billie Piper feels like the rotten icing atop this lop-sided cake. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a cancellation notice soon for this one.
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