You're listening to a podcast of spurious morality. Hello, and welcome to a podcast of Spurious Morality. I'm Johnston, and with me this week, I have Mansour. Hello. And we have Jimmy joining us as well. Hello, Jimmy. Hiya, friend. So we're here to talk about Wishworld, which is the latest episode of season two of Doctor Who. first part of the finale. But Jimmy's here because Susan has come
back and Jimmy wanted to talk about Susan. We all want to talk about Susan coming back because it's quite exciting and we still don't really know where it's going, but that's something we can discuss shortly. But first of all, we will have a look at Wishworld, which I was there, ready to go and more or less ate in the morning. Got it on and found it to be a bit of a strange episode, actually. It's definitely something Doctor Who's done before, sort of not everything's
quite right. Nobody knows who they are and they're living out in this weird reality type thing. We've done it in Lie of the Land. Big Finish have done it in a fair few stories. I think probably a good 20 % of the Eighth Doctor's mind wipes have come through stories like this. But I think this is the sort of the biggest scale the concept has been done because pretty much the entire episode, the Doctor doesn't know who he is. And there's a lot of not that subtle hints dropped
to him, actually. And it takes him a little while to kind of accept what's going on. So, yeah, interesting. Have to admit, it's not been my favourite of this run. However, I think it's a bit difficult to judge to this stage because it is part one of a two part finale and there was a lot of great stuff going on. The Rani's
were fantastic. The whole idea that the world was basically Conrad's vision is particularly interesting and it would be nice to sort of have got a chance to explore that a little bit more. I'm sure it's going to feature somewhat next week. There's a lot of characters in it. We've got unit characters. We've got Ruby. We've got Mel. All sorts going on. One thing that we sort of said last week was going into the finale and not particularly knowing much about it was that
there's an awful lot of pieces there. There's an awful lot of ingredients to this one. And I do think that maybe... And some of those ingredients didn't really get to do much, like Mel was in, what, two or three scenes? And I'm kind of hoping that we do get some sort of Mel and the Rani reunion at the end of the day. It was the Rani who killed Mel's first daughter, caused the sixth daughter to regenerate into the seventh. So I think there's still more I'd like to see from
this. But as I've said, it's part one of a two -part finale. There seems to be an awful lot more coming in part two. So it's going to be interesting to see where that goes. So let's hop over to Mansour. What did you think of it? What were your thoughts on Wishworld? So I've watched it one and a half times. First time in the morning on Saturday and then watched half
of it with family on Sunday. And I was... really interested in the setup of wish world and i'm kind of a bit frustrated that we didn't get a chance to to spend more time in that and explore what that world was like because that yeah that was the most interesting part of the episode for me i know it's kind of very like sort of cheekily lampshaded and there is a purpose in universe to it but there was a lot of exposition towards the end of the And I know the whole point
of that is it's the Rani prompting doubt in the Doctor, so it serves a purpose. So in my head, I was thinking, like in previous episodes of this podcast, we've sort of jokingly speculated about the Rani and then that happened. And I think we've been talking about Omega in previous episodes as well. I think this is like partly about how much Big Finish we consume as well, that I'm just increasingly less impressed about
these sorts of returning elements. And I just want, I wanted that new novel stuff about what the wish world is and how it works and what it says about fascism and all of that to be just explored in a little bit more depth. And like you say, rather than... closing off things neatly. This just seems to be adding more open threads to the mix to be resolved. I feel like I should
say some good things about it. I think the new Rani is really good, and there's an interesting dynamic with Mrs. Flood still hanging around, and an interesting dynamic with Conrad, who seems to be in this very subservient position of being held prisoner and used. That's sort of interesting commentary as well about how dynamics work within kind of misinformation and right -wing commentators. And the Doctor and Belinda, it was sort of this
interesting WandaVision type setup. But again, yeah, I'm a bit frustrated that we haven't had more space. to develop Belinda as a character. And I saw, this might be reading too much into it, but I saw some stuff posted like behind the scenes stuff for Lux. And there was a little illustration that had Ruby in one of these images.
And it's making me increasingly feel complete speculation, not based on anything concrete, that Belinda seems to have been this like late in the day replacement for Ruby in season two. And I think, I really like Belinda's character and I really like the performance. It's just that I don't feel like there's been space for her to have an interesting story in the seven out of eight episodes that we've had so far.
But yeah, I'll stop there. But like you said, it might all tie together neatly next week in a really clever way. But let's see. I really do still feel as though sort of, Straight out of the gate, Belinda had a pretty strong start. Like, we had three very, very good episodes for her at the start of the season. She felt like a real person. She felt like a real person who you could, yeah, you can understand human reactions
from. Yeah. And then it does seem to have fallen into a bit of a generic companion serving the plot trap ever since the well. Like, she got shot in the well. And we've said before, we never revisited that. That never got discussed again. And that just didn't feel right based on what we'd had the two weeks before that. Yeah, I know what you mean. And yeah, it's kind of a shame to do a, this character doesn't know who they are and are living a WandaVision -like life.
you know, not quite right world scenario when you don't really know the original character to start with. You kind of lose a bit of impact there. And another thing adding to this theory is that we never meet her family until this episode. So, you know, let's not even get into like Ruby's family and mother betraying her again. But like
with Belinda's family, surely... If you were introducing a weird wish world version of them, you would introduce the real world version of them at the start of the season for the contrast. Yeah, because you just don't get it otherwise. Yeah. Yeah, it's like parachuting Jackie Tyler in in Father's Day without having met the character before. Yeah. Sort of half the impact of the episode would just automatically vanish. Yeah. Jimmy, go on then. You talked to us about Wishworld.
What did you think? I think a lot of how it's going to feel and be rated overall is going to come into how the next episode resolves it because there's a lot of potential for things to turn out really amazing and really brilliant. And there's a lot of potential for them to totally botch everything. So anything I'm saying, it's tentative at this point because it's all going to come down to how it finishes. I'll leave the Susan stuff to last because that's the part I'm
most interested in. But talking about the episode itself, I think I loved the concept, but I think the execution was a bit off the pacing. There are some things that they dragged out too long and didn't really do much with, and there's other things that were really brilliant that they didn't do enough with. My favourite part was that whole camp full of the disabled and dispossessed who have been... forgotten about by Connor and left
to survive on their own. And I think they did a really good job of realising that and looking at the unleashed and the behind the scenes and how much effort and work they put in to make it realistic. It was just such a brilliant scene. And they got Shirley and Ruby together and they're doing this thing about, oh, if we can stop Connor's broadcast, we can stop everything. And then, you know, the Rani lets the Doctor make the world fall apart and their whole arc of, oh, we're
going to do something about this. Like there was so much potential for we're the dispossessed and the forgotten and we're going to be the ones that solve this. And they just sort of threw it away and had all their efforts lead nowhere. And I think that was a bit of a failure on the episodes part because that could have been handled a lot better. Also on the side of things that I think didn't work for me is the Miss Flood and the Rani thing. It's been really poorly executed.
Like, I think with the original bi -generation of the 14th into the 14th and 15th Doctors, like, they were both still portrayed as the Doctor. Like, they were equals and they were both working together at the same problem and it sort of made sense. But Mrs. Flood is just like, oh, she was all mysterious and whatever beforehand, but as soon as the new Rani appeared, she just became a generic minion. She's just doing whatever the other Rani tells her and no real trace of any
personality or uniqueness. She's just become a generic minion and I think it's a huge waste. I mean, I love Archie as the new Rani and I think she's much better for the role and she's been absolutely brilliant. But it's a real shame to see Mrs. Flood sort of go nowhere and it's like, oh, I'm just a generic minion now. Forget all that stuff. I think it was a huge waste of her. So I really think it would have been a lot better
if... They'd just done a normal regeneration and given us just the new Rani and got more of a focus on her. So that was a bit disappointing. But also going back to what I was saying earlier about the realisation of the world and to what you were both saying about hoping Mel has more involvement, I did notice one thing when I was discussing this online with some other people earlier, that they did sort of hint at that with in front of all the houses there's those slip
bins for... Oh, every time you have a doubt, the cups fall through and they smash. And every house has a whole giant bin in front for them. But when you see that little scene with Mel in the street with Ruby, Mel's house has two bins. And I think that ties back to her whole classic series thing of, oh, memory like an elephant. She never forgets anything. And so she's, you know, she's an experienced companion and she's got a really great memory. Of course, she's going
to be forgetting more like. She's got two giant bins for all her slips, whereas most houses with a whole family, having their doubts, have only one bin. So I think there's a lot of potential to follow that up and have Mel be important, which she should be because she's met the Rani before and there's a lot to follow up there if they want to do it. So I'm looking forward to seeing if she gets used well and how they do that. The other thing I'd agree with what you
were saying about Belinda is... She's a brilliant actress, brilliant performance, but they haven't really given her much to do this whole season. I think the only real standout moment for me was in the previous episode in the Interstellar Song Contest when she had that complete breakdown when she thinks the Doctor's dead and she's never going to get home. And the performance was amazing. I think it's the best acting from a companion actor on TV since the original Donna season.
It was really... incredibly performed and it was nice to see her get some material to really dig her teeth into. But I'm loving Belinda as a character more than I liked Ruby in the previous season, but they're really not giving her enough good material and enough to really let her show how good she can be. And so I think that's another thing that definitely needs some improvement. But going back to Ruby, I think she's been brilliant
this season. I think. following up last season with that whole arc in Lucky Day and she's got PTSD and she's having troubles and she really has improved a lot this season. Like, I think Ruby this season has been much better than Ruby last season. And I am interested to see, like Mansour was saying about how it seems like she was cut out and replaced because of those pictures from Lux of her in the cartoon world because...
The speculation I've seen online, and I'm not sure how true it is, but with Poppy coming back and all that stuff earlier in last season about, oh, I haven't had a kid yet. Susan's my granddaughter, but I haven't had the actual her parents yet. And way back in Space Babies, when Poppy and all the other babies were like, oh, Ruby and the Doctor, you're our mum and dad. There was this line from Shooty about, we're not your mum and dad, but I wish. we were, and we've just
had the God of Wishes introduced. And so it would make a lot of sense if that retroactively turned the Doctor and Ruby into Poppy's mum and dad, but they're really dwelling on her being real and acting like Belinda's her mum. So I think that's definitely evidence that there was some rewriting going on because if they've made the Doctor and Belinda her mum and dad, it doesn't make as much sense as it would have if they'd
made the Doctor and Ruby her parents. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how they deal with that. Also, now that we've covered all that, I've got to say, Susan, I'm so hyped for her being back. I'm so delighted and I can't wait to see where it goes. I actually, in the episode she first turned up in, in the Stellar Song Contest, as soon as they put that mention of Trion as one of the planets in the contest, I thought, oh,
you're kidding me. All that teasing about Susan last season and they're going to bring back... bloody turlo before they follow up on it and so i was completely blindsided when they actually did bring susan back in that episode because it's the one time i was sort of not kind of hoping for it and expecting it it was the one time i didn't think there was any chance so it was such an amazing surprise and her calling out to find me grandfather and that being the thing that
made the doctor revive from being frozen in space it's just so brilliant and i really hope we get a lot more from her and a lot of good interaction between her and the doctor because the other thing I liked was that um when the doctor was shocking kid over and over again we had Susan going grandfather stop and he didn't it took until Belinda arrived and for him to see that Belinda was alive for him to stop like maybe he wasn't believing it was really Susan or that
it could be real but like Susan not being able to stop the doctor is a pretty dark moment. And I love darker doctor stuff where he's, you know, having that anger and stuff that he doesn't normally have. So I absolutely love that scene, but I definitely am looking forward to seeing how they follow it up. The only thing I'm really worried about with Susan coming back is that they're almost inevitably going to say it's the first time the doctor's seen her since he left her.
And so that's going to retcon a whole lot of brilliant, brilliant material from Big Finish. I loved her arc with the Eighth Doctor. I loved her getting her own spin -off in the Time War and, of course, all the companion chronicles that deal with her after the Doctor left her
and especially the most recent box set. They did a brilliant job of following up on after Alex had died and she's mourning him and talking about how she finally realised she needed to move on from the Doctor but she couldn't and it's so much brilliant material for Susan. It's going to be really sad if just after we've got that, a couple of weeks later, it's going to be not canon anymore. But, I mean, we'll find our headcanons. We'll find a way to make it work.
But, yeah, it's the one thing that's making me slightly apprehensive about her return. But the excitement and the joy and the eagerness to see where they go far outweighs the worries and questions of canonicities. But, yeah, it'll be really interesting to see her back properly. I'm looking forward to it so much. I'm going to say what I always say when a canon discussion comes up. Time War messed it up. Everything's fine. It's the only way you can approach it with Doctor Who, I think.
Yeah, it is really good to sort of have these little moments of Susan, but I... I want it to go somewhere and I want it to go somewhere meaningful. Like Susan's return could be a big point in an episode on its own, but it's actually a small point so far across two episodes that have dealt with so many other things. There's even talk about Omega. Well, there's not even talk. Omega is coming back. It was mentioned in the episode. It wasn't shown. We don't know what Omega is
going to look like. And I think we got some voice clips that were Stephen Thorne, but for obvious reasons, he's not going to be playing Gomer in this. And the interesting thing about those clips was it wasn't actually clips from the three doctors. Those clips were actually from Big Finish. They were from Gallifrey Intervention Earth. And so it's really cool that we're getting a tie back to Big Finish in some small way. Yeah, that's certainly going to be interesting to see how
that connects, if it does. But it's an awful lot connecting together. And that's kind of my problem here. Like, I want the Doctor and Susan meeting again on screen to be a big, big thing. I want it to be huge. And my concern is that it's going to be, oh, hello, this is my granddaughter. Meet Ruby, meet Mel, meet... Belinda, meet Keita from Unit. Anyway, got to go and fight Omega
now and the Rani and the other Rani. Bye. I'm just really, really worried that it's going to be a little bit hand -wavy when it should be huge and it should be Susan -centric. And I just don't think that's where it's going to go. Like Mel coming in in the giggle, absolutely fine. That worked. It made sense. And she became a companion. She stood there and she held on to the Doctor as she thought she was going to regenerate
as he bi -generated. Again, Mel became pretty much full -on companion during the last finale. It was the Doctor and Ruby and Mel that survived being turned to dust. So how are we going to get that with Susan? Are we going to get that
with Susan? When there's so... much other stuff there as well so that's that it's becoming a bigger concern just because last week i said there's loads and loads going on here and now it just feels like there's more going on and actually wish world hasn't really done much with all of the stuff that we were talking about last week um it's a very it's a very odd approach i found which will be a bit of a thing that gives me hope in regard to that is the actual next
episode i've heard is going to be It's going to be 66 minutes, not the usual 45, 50. So they've got time to cover everything if they do it well. And like you say, I mean, I've got the same worries that it won't be done well, but I'm optimistic because I love the character and I think they wouldn't bring her back after 60 years and not do something good and meaningful with it. So it's just a question of how well it lands and
how well they realise it. I'm more optimistic than I am worried, but I can totally see why you'd be more worried than optimistic also. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see where it goes and hopefully it'll be satisfactory for everyone. With any luck, yes. But, of course, there was a lot of other stuff going on, as we've said, so let's delve into that a tad. We got to kind of see the Rani's... together properly in this
episode. We got the little teasy scene at the end of Interstellar Song Contest, but we never quite got a proper big scene with the two of them. And we get that a little bit more here. And we do see, as we suspected, that Anita Dobson's Rani's a little bit unhappy with being the not definitive one, the more subservient one. I think, you know, she's, my prediction is she will, she'll turn the tables at some point, all will seem lost and she'll go, nope, I've had enough of
this. I'm the main Rani now. Something like that. So to kind of, what did we think about the two Ranis, Mansor, you go first. It seems to be, to me, like quite obviously setting up for some
sort of twist at the end. Like, I think we talked about this previously that, The shift from Mrs. Flood being so mysterious and intimidating in other moments previously to suddenly being so subservient, it seems really obvious to me, and especially with some of her comments this week, like kind of sort of needling at the new Rani and complaining when she's making the sandwich. It feels like there's some sort of betrayal or
twist coming up. in that dynamic but it's also interesting that they they have that dynamic but also there's that sort of moment of victory where they're like they're both toasting together and they're kind of so it's not a simple kind of relationship there they kind of are working together as well and Conrad is kind of even lower in the pecking order it seems like he's being kept as a prisoner pretty much is the vibe I
got. So yeah, interesting dynamic. Again, with like so much going on next week, I'm curious to know, I'm sort of anxious and interested about how much space there will be to wrap it up in an interesting way. And yeah, so yeah, I don't have much more to say on that, but I think both their performances, like... So Anita Dobson's character, I don't know if there was something said in behind -the -scenes stuff. Did Russell T Davies know that she was the Rani when he first
wrote her? I think there was something about him saying that he didn't, which makes a bit of sense because you look at some of her previous scenes and they don't really seem like the character
as much as Archie Punjabi's. version does um so so yeah i mean i've seen i've seen arguments that mrs flood might have worked better as just a new villain um and that would have been interesting because it would have allowed anita dobson to continue to have center stage and to just be this new interesting threat but instead we've got this series of revelations which i'm excited about season coming back and The Rani to an extent as well, but Susan, The Rani and Omega, that
almost seems like a parody of what the rumours are every year about what the big reveal is going to be. Like if Paul McGann turns up next week, that'll be to announce his new spin -off series set in the Time War. That will sort of add weight to the theory that Russell T Davies is just writing some sort of metatextual story about fan wishes coming true. So anyway, yeah, I've gotten off the subject of the Rani's, but yeah, I'm enjoying both their performances, but I'm interested to
know how it will all resolve. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see where it's going. Interesting places, I'm sure. I guess another point, and this is kind of harking back to what Jimmy was saying before, really. Would you have rather say, okay, it's definitely the Rani, and there has been some discussion online about... Anita Dobson's character wasn't originally meant to be the Rani. And when you look into some of the dialogue from the last series, it kind of doesn't make any
level of sense whatsoever. It's just kind of generic, mysterious sounding, slightly sinister dialogue, I guess. But say we are, you know, okay, the character is definitely the Rani. Would you have rather it happened without the bi -generation and just... let's just have Anita Dobson as the Rani. Do we need the second Rani? Like, we've got a great second Rani and I'm really enjoying both Ranis, but I think the way Mrs. Flood was built up, it might have been better to give her
a fair crack of the whip. I don't really see the benefit of the bi -generation. So just kind of, what are your thoughts on that? Well, yeah, basically, as I said, Mrs. Flood, as you said, she never really acted much like the Rani. And then when they did Five Generations, she also became subservient and not really standing up for herself. And so, I mean, I liked Mrs. Flood as a character, but I think she's a bit rubbish
as the Rani and Archie's been amazing. I mean, I wish they'd either kept Mrs. Flood as her own separate thing and dealt with it that way, or they'd just had Archie from the start and been more Rani -like. Or heck, do both. Have Mrs. Flood be her own thing and she's working with the Rani. But, yeah, Mrs. Flood I liked on her own account, but she's rubbish as the Rani. She was a good character in her own right, but she's
a crap Rani, let's be honest. So I think I would have just rathered Archie get the part of the Rani and skip the bi -generation. It just, yeah, Archie would have been so much better and she's really been amazing and just... an episode and a single scene, she's captured the role perfectly and really makes a great successor to the original.
I think you can squint and make it work with Mrs. Flood being an incarnation of the Rani, but like kind of an aberration, like the War Doctor or that one iteration of the Eleven who's not completely insane and evil. So you can kind of squint and make it work that way. But yeah, I completely agree that to have a version of the Rani who's not identical but evokes the kind of character that Kate Amara was playing, having Anita Dobson just suddenly switch to that would
have been a bit odd. Because she's not... I know she does the disguise thing in Mark of the Rani to... So I suppose it is part of her character as well. But there's kind of more what you think about the Master, like, you know, spending years in a disguise just to mess with the Doctor. It doesn't feel like that's the kind of thing that the Rani would put time and effort into doing. So I've always found the Rani's disguise in the Mark of the Rani to make sense. you know, little
old woman that owns a bathhouse. No one's going to suspect that. No one's going to consider anything sinister. So I kind of see why that disguise happened and that worked. There's certainly more logic to it than the master dressing up as a scarecrow. But yeah, you're right. It's kind of... Yeah, why was Theroni disguised? You know, the Doctor met Mrs. Flood. Why did he not identify
Mrs. Flood as a Time Lord? And why did she drop her shopping when she was on a street with no one else there and the TARDIS, was it dematerialised or materialised? There's a shot early on in one of Mrs. Flood's early scenes where she just seems really shocked and there's no one else watching.
And the breaking the fourth wall stuff. oh yeah yeah which yeah which is a question about is that just going to be left or is that going to be part of the reality or plot well i mean the doctor broke the four four two now that seems to be just a new thing because um in lux when he says cut cut cut to um to mr ringerding and then he looks at the camera and asks you know why am i who am i saying cut to and way back in The Devil's Chord when he said something about,
oh, I thought that music was non -diegetic. And so maybe it's just a new Time Lord thing that all Time Lords can break the four of wool. That's the only explanation I can think of. But, yeah, it's not very satisfactory if it doesn't have some meaning. There are little moments with like the first and fourth Doctors as well. And the 12th, where they've each got like moments where they... A very Merry Christmas to all of you at home. And so you can kind of, yeah, write
it off as all part of that. But I feel like there's something distinct about how directly Mrs. Flood addressed the audience. That feels like on a different level to me. Yeah. I think for those examples you mentioned with the Doctor there, Jimmy, I think... I think there's a context to those. Like, you know, Lux was literally an episode about breaking the fourth wall and, you know, the Doctor and Ruby crawling out of TV and reality being messed with and all that kind of thing.
Like, I can kind of, you know, and the same with the non -diegetic thing. It's a concept that they're playing with in the episode, within the episode, and I can deal with that. But Mrs. Flood has literally just turned around and said to the audience, have you not seen a TARDIS before? And that kind of thing. And it just, if it is the same thing as the doctor breaking the fourth wall, it is the fourth wall being broken in a different way. And it's clumsier. And again,
maybe there's an explanation for it. We don't know what's going to happen in the next episode.
pretty much at all they could still be going to tie into what happened in um in lux as well because they made that big point in that scene with the fans about oh we're the sort of characters that don't have last names and oh we're all going to disappear as soon as you're gone and then they had that scene during the credits where they were still alive and in their credits the characters did have surnames so i mean maybe they're going to tie back to that with the fourth
wall as well because It seems interesting that they'd make such a big point of, oh, we don't have last names, we're not going to survive, and then make a point of them surviving and of them having last names. So, yeah, interesting to see if that's going to tie in as well. And again, actually, is that something that we're going to come back to? Because we've come back to so much other stuff in this series. It'll be interesting to see if we revisit those fan
characters again. Well, let's sort of... Our last main talking point, really, is let's do some speculation, like Omega. Omega's been mentioned. We've heard the audio clips, as we've said. Do we think we're going to see Omega? Do we think Omega's going to look like he did in The Three Doctors or Ark of Infinity? You know, are we going to have Peter Davison playing him? I've seen that one kind of suggested somewhere. What do we think Omega is going to be? How do we think
Omega is going to be appearing? Now, a lot of the stuff that the official Doctor Who social media channels have been putting out this week have very much been Omega is back. Here's a picture of Omega from Three Doctors. And I've seen some what looks like new artwork. It's certainly very good Photoshop. So where do we think the Omega thing is going? Because normally we'd have had the character by now, like the character would have been there and visible for the cliffhanger,
but all we got was the name drop. I find that quite interesting and I wonder if there's a reason for it. Go ahead, Jimmy. I'm not quite sure how they're going to realise it, but I've got, I think, a good theory of what the Rani's plan with him might be because... We've had this whole arc ever since the Doctor, the 14th Doctor, did that salt thing at the edge of the universe and, oh, we've made myths real, we've made gods real.
And the whole point of the Rani in the classic series was that she was like an immoral scientist. She was all about science and doing experiments.
And so I'm thinking what might be happening is, because Omega's such a famous scientist in Gallifrey's history, like he managed to work out... the eye of harmony and give them the power to time travel so i'm thinking the rani might be she's used her magic and stuff and gods to open the way to omega but i suspect what she wants him for is to restore science to the universe to end this magic and gods and myth stuff and put the universe back the way it used to be and it'd
be interesting if that was the case because i mean that would be It's interesting to see them go back to normal after these more experimental seasons. And it would also be a great way to set up for, well, now we don't know if Disney's continuing or not. We don't know if it's going back to just the BBC. And it'd be a good way to set up. Things are about to change and prepare for a new era. So, yeah, I'm sort of keen to see where it goes. But that's my speculation
for what Rani's intention is with Omega. As to how they'll realise him, I've got no idea and I'm really looking forward to finding out. Yeah, I think that, like, you know, having said that, it's kind of doing a list of rumours from the last, you know, few years. I think there is that interesting connection between the Rani and Omega about science and him being this first Time Lord scientist. So, yeah, I'm curious if something's
made of that. Just because there's so much to resolve, like... I feel like we'll see him maybe, but he won't play a substantial active role in the plot. It might be more of a kind of threat, like was it the end of time part two where like Gallifrey is looming in the sky and it's the threat of it breaking through that's there for the whole episode. So maybe there's moments of Omega or you see him in the underworld or underverse.
but we don't really spend much time with him or like there's a mention about his like his body and that relevance the violence and that i wonder if he's going to just possess one of our other characters like um uh you know like is that going to be a way of having him in the story but we're just using one of our existing actors um so yeah i just feel like that list of things that we've talked about that could
do with wrapping up. I'm sure not all of them are going to get a hugely satisfying resolution, but even like those main central ones, there's just not going to be space for loads of Omega. See, now you've said that, I reckon what they'll do is they will have Omega possess Belinda and we'll have yet another episode where we don't actually spend any time with Belinda, which seems to be the recurring theme. Yeah, there's... Well, I think we've heard about reshoots and I was
wondering about longer runtime as well. Like, was this always designed to be a longer episode or are these reshoots rather than replacing things? Is it like a kind of coda that has been put onto the end of this episode? And that might be about. The Doctor and regeneration and we're leaving him in a certain place. Or it might be about Belinda's story, giving that some sort of definitive ending. Or both. It could be something involving both of them if they are actually Poppy's mother
and father. It would be very curious to see. And I'm sure it will all tie together in some way. It's just how good that way is, I suppose. Well, before we sign off, anything else that you'd like to mention at all? All I can think of is that with not knowing whether the series is going to continue straight away or whether Disney is going to come back or not, my biggest hope is I've absolutely loved Judy Gatwick as
the Doctor and I've loved Belinda. Despite them not giving her much to do, I think the actress is brilliant and she's done a great job. And so I'm really hoping that they both stay as the current companion and doctor. I'm hoping they're not both leaving because even if one is and one isn't, that'll be better than nothing. But I want to see more of them together. I really hope that we're not going to get an era this short.
I hope they've got more to come. I think I'd actually take that a step further and say that I'd really like it if we actually got the Doctor and Ruby and Belinda as a TARDIS team for a season. I don't imagine for a million years it's actually going to happen. It would be wonderful if it did. Oh, yeah. One thing that the press release for when they first announced Belinda said was that the Doctor's going to have two companions. And we've not had that at all. Belinda and Ruby
haven't really met. They had, what, a couple of seconds on screen together in Wishworld, I think. But yeah, this is not the Doctor and two companions, this series and the way it's gone. So I kind of hope the three of them do get to do some stuff together. But again, we're already heading into a pretty busy episode and I'm not sure if we will get that properly. And the other thing, I doubt there'll be space for this beyond something very subtle, but wondering if there'll
be any lead into the spinoff. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a trailer, although there's a question about whether the spinoff is going to be held
off until next year. to fill a bit of a gap if we don't get season three for a while um but yeah i could still see like at least a teaser trailer for the war between the land and the sea but i don't know if there'll be space to set it up i think it's been confirmed was it maybe russell t davis said on instagram that stick around at the end for the first look at a teaser for it or something like that okay so as far as i'm aware I'm not completely making
this up and I have read this, but I'm fairly sure, to be honest, I think my only source of anything throughout this series has been following Russell T. Davis on Instagram and he has been posting an awful lot about what's going on and that kind of thing. But yeah, I seem to remember there being something about we'll get our first look, but I think it is just going to be a teaser. But it'll be an interesting... Interesting one.
And yeah, it'll be interesting to know what the purpose of this spin -off series is, kind of like where. Is it to give us something to keep us going while they make more Doctor Who, or is it just there for the sake of it? Are we going into a gap year? So many questions, and I sincerely doubt that in a week's time when we come to discuss reality war, we're actually going to really know, unfortunately. We shall see. Okay, well, we shall leave it there. So that's Wishworld. It left
me wanting more. Not necessarily in all the best ways, though. Don't think it was a bad episode. I just don't... I'm not as hyped about what it did as I was with... Was it The Legend of Ruby Sunday last year? I thought that was a really good episode. that kind of built up an awful lot, whereas this felt a bit like it was treading water. But at the same time, quite a lot happened with quite a lot of characters. So we'll see
where it goes. But the extended length of the finale does give me hope, even though there is a hell of a lot to fit in there. So roll it on. But for now, I will say thank you and goodbye to Mansour. Thank you. And thank you and goodbye to Jimmy. Thanks very much. And we'll be back to discuss the finale next week. Goodbye now.