Doctor Who S2E7 Wish World ★★☆☆☆
There is a lot of fun here but most of fails to link up or go anywhere. I like the wrongness of jolly fascism land the way it is limited by Conrad’s perspective. The disabled being able to leverage their invisibility as a strength in order to tear down and kill God is wonderful! It is a shame nothing like that actually happens and that grand statements results in them sitting in a square and watching a tablet while waiting for the cliffhanger to happen. Rose being absent because Conrad cannot even comprehend trans people feels a bit of self-congratulatory cleverness about erasure of trans people that still ends up erasing trans people itself but honestly Yasmin Finney is the weak link of the UNIT cast so I don’t particularly mind her being absent (though I would prefer if UNIT itself were more absent from the era in general).
Similarly the mugs falling through the table is a cute visual that is beautifully mirrored in the cliffhanger by the bottom just falling out from under reality itself but is very transparently just serving as the big “oh no it’s the cliffhanger!” scene with little else to it after the wind has already been taken out of the sails by ten minutes of dull technobabble and the show wanting you to clap like a trained seal whenever some shite from the ’70s is mentioned. I have seen The Three Doctors and even I don’t give a shit about Omega.
Other small comments:
- I saw this in the cinema as part of the special two-part finale showing. It started with an add for the BBC iPlayer, which is not available here in the Republic of Ireland.
- Carla disowns Ruby in an wrong version of the world again.
- It took me a minute to remember who Rogue was. That scene also looked hilariously bad.
- I rolled my eyes at Conrad’s Doctor Who book covers being based on Harry Potter.