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The possibility of Arthur finding Faroe in The Dark World is a small one, but not small enough that I find myself thinking about it at least three times a week.

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Sherlock and Co

I need financial compensation after that speech. I had such a visceral reaction I think my hamster thought I was dying tbh.

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I’ve seen some posts floating around saying things like, “Belinda was always a mom, the Doctor just corrected the timeline,” and I genuinely cannot stress enough how little that addresses the core issues people have with how her story was handled.

First of all, if that was the intention—if the idea was that Belinda was always meant to be a mother and the timeline just needed to be “set right”—they did a poor job of executing it. A twist that major, one that fundamentally alters a character’s identity or arc, requires setup. Foreshadowing. Emotional groundwork. You can’t just spring something that massive on the audience in the last five minutes and expect it to feel meaningful instead of disorienting.

And here’s the thing: Doctor Who has done that kind of plot before—successfully. A great comparison is Amy and Rory. The show literally did the “someone you love was erased from time and the universe needs to be corrected to bring them back” storyline already. And while I’ve got my own qualms with how Amy’s arc was handled overall, that particular beat actually worked.

Why? Because there were signs. The cracks in time. The missing memories. A sense of loss Amy couldn’t place. Little inconsistencies that made the audience lean forward and feel that something was wrong. Not to mention: Rory was introduced before he disappeared. We knew him. We saw his dynamic with Amy. We cared about him. We barely see Poppy in these two episodes, other than "child missing bad" we really have no attachment to her.

Now imagine if we never met Rory. If Amy had been introduced as a fierce, independent woman with no attachments, someone whose refusal to be tied down was a defining trait—and then the show suddenly revealed, in the finale, that actually she was about to get married the whole time to a man we’d never seen, and now she’s a devoted wife. No buildup. No context. Just surprise! emotional transformation. That would feel bizarre, right?

That’s exactly what happened with Belinda.

The final minutes of the finale reframe her not just as someone who once had a child, but as someone whose true self is supposedly defined by that role—and we’re meant to believe that this identity has now been “restored” to her, and we’re told it’s been restored to her as a reward. But it doesn’t feel like a revelation. It feels like a contradiction.

It’s like they wanted to write her as fierce and independent, but didn’t also want to imply that she wanted kids or thought about kids—because society still tends to associate maternal longing or caretaking instincts with weakness, or with not being a “strong” woman. So instead of exploring that complexity, they just didn’t. They wrote her as a fully autonomous character, with no visible yearning or absence, and then stapled a child onto her arc at the end.

And just to be absolutely clear: the problem is not that Belinda is a mother. You can write a fierce, independent, female-presenting character who’s also a parent. Those things are not mutually exclusive. The problem is that the story didn’t earn it.

Writers often avoid giving powerful women maternal traits because they assume femininity and strength can’t coexist—but that’s a separate conversation. The real issue here is that the show never showed us that this part of Belinda was missing. It never laid the groundwork for that emotional restoration to resonate. It didn’t feel like they revealed who she truly was—it felt like they replaced her with someone else.

It’s not that you can’t tell a story where a forgotten child or a missing family is recovered from a broken timeline. That kind of emotional twist can be powerful. But if that’s the story you want to tell, you have to earn it. You have to make the absence felt before you try to fill it. You have to let us sense the missing piece and ache for its return. Without that, it doesn’t feel like a twist—it feels like a contradiction.

And no, Poppy showing up once in The Story & the Engine is not proper setup. If this was truly the intended arc from the beginning, then it needed clues. Give us subtle signs. Let Belinda hesitate when asked simple questions. Let her glance at a photo and seem unsettled. Let her correct someone’s memory and then immediately second-guess herself. Plant a sense of wrongness in her own life that even she can’t quite name.

There’s even a interview with RTD about reshooting the beginning of The Robot Revolution to give Belinda roommates, because he thought no one would buy her owning an entire house by herself.

But if this twist with Poppy was truly planned from the start? Then leave her in that big, echoing house. Let it be part of the unease. Let there be a child’s toy tucked into the back of a drawer she doesn’t remember buying. A room she avoids, too pristine and untouched. A lullaby she hums under her breath without knowing where she learned it. Give us texture. Give us silence that feels too quiet.

Let us feel the shape of what’s missing before you tell us what it was.

That’s how you write a twist that resonates—by trusting your audience to notice the gaps, to feel the ache, and to recognize the truth when it finally appears. Not by pulling a rabbit out of a hat and calling it destiny.

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The Reality War

The floodgates are open now so the next few posts are just going to be rants becasue I've exhausted my options of who to talk to about this IRL, so here we go.

Why the hell did the Doctor not care about the Rani dying? Like yeah they were on opposite sides but that never mattered when it comes to the master. And I know they have a whole other fucked up thing going on with them, but are we really expected to believe that he sees (allegedly) the only other living member of his species, who he also was friends with as a child and just has absolutely no reaction to her death whatsoever? Yeah I don't buy it. I don't buy a lot of the lore they brought in this episode. Like I don't understand if the whole "Time lords are infertile" was just becasue of the Master's blowing up of Gallifrey or if it was supposed to include the Lungbarrow thing with looms and Susan being the last biological born Gallifreyan child? (Forgive me if it's wrong, I have only been able to read extracts because the PDF is hard to source) It just wasn't clear. Again, where the hell was Susan??? If the show goes on hiatus/is cancelled and they fucked what might (hopefully not) the last chance to see her played by Carole Ann Ford I will actually storm the BBC.

Also, Omega's return and defeat 5 minutes later (a generous 5 minutes) actually felt insulting. Like he is such a big deal and they just...wasted him? As well as fucking up the lore for no good reason. Like what actual purpose was served by them saying that he was a mad god who was banished rather than a hero to the, Time Lords who went mad as a result of being stuck alone in a universe of antimatter-the price to pay for giving the Time Lords time travel technology? There wasn't one. Because they did nothing with his chracter. Yeah it explains why he was a big CGI monster. Which they didn't need to do. None of it needed doing. They should have either had the Rani or or Omega as the finale villain. There wasn't enough time for them to do both. Correction, they could ahve gotten away with it if we didn't spend half the episode using Belinda's character to show women how we do really want children if we stop and think about it, and that if we don't then we'll change our minds when we get one and we won't remeber why we didn't in the first place.

After 30 or so years the Rani comes back and they do her SO bad. Like why is she lowkey flirting with Conrad (she said 10 minutes ago that she sees humans as insects, let's be so fr rn) and the Doctor? I had to turn to my family and friends SO fast to clear up the "lovers" comment. Like let's not please. She was a brilliant scientist, and we barely see any proof of it. No she's just evil and insane. Like I think they describe her as ammoral in this episode but she just wasn't? Like to me she just felt evil rather than ammoral. Like her not caring about the opression in Wish World because it doesn't affect her experiments? Fine. But some of the other stuff just felt like a female version of the insane villain we got in the Simm incarnation of the Master. And then she get sliterally eaten. By a fucking CGI skeleton Omega. Sure man.

Let's not forget that it's the South Asian incarnation of the Rani who gets eaten while the older (white regeneration) is the one who survives. Not hating om the actress at all, just on RTD showing of more racism and misogyny in a finale full of it.

It's crazy how in an episode seemingly dedicated to showing why racism, sexism and homophobia and ablism is bad, actually included some examples of all of those things either from the characters or the writers.

What the fuck happened to this show? Genuinely? TV can shape attitudes, especially if you're young and that's what happened to me watching this show (among others) Like of course it was never perfect (ie. Martha's treatment) but to me as a kid it at least got across that bigotry and violence are bad and are never the answer. Like I recognised pretty young some of the problems with Season 3 and more as I got older. And where has that show gone? Everyone says it's gone woke but that finale felt like the opposite. And it's really fucking sad.

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The Reality War Thoughts

After reflecting, I think that the biggest problem this episode, other than some serious incoherencies in the lore and pre-established characterisation of The Doctor and/or the Rani, the biggest problem with The Reality War has to be the character assasination of Belinda Chandra:

-From the get-go, we see Belinda rejecting the heteronormative patriarchal expectations of women-Her opening scene with Alan, the fact that she doesn't like being called "Mrs" and the dedication she has towards her job.

-The whole way through the series, it is her job that she wants to get back to. She enjoys her job and she finds purpose in it and she wants to get back to her family again. I thought that one of the points of the season would be similar to the line from Rory in season 7 about how is job is "important to me" and that an ordinary life away from what the Doctor does isn't lesser just because it doesn't affect the fate of the universe.

-At no point during the season does Belinda ever show that she has a desire for a child. Some people have pointed out that if anyone should have been given a fake baby then it should have been Ruby because of her feelings around wanting to find that biological connection. I personally wouldn't want the 19 year old to just become a mother on the spot but I can agree that Ruby's character had some grounding in that idea and would have made more sense than Belinda (Although it would still be a poor writing choice imo)

-Then we get to Wish World-I was so interested at the point where Belinda looks at Poppy when she can't remember how long the labour was and there was a moment where she almost has no idea who Poppy is.

-If Belinda had got back to the real world and had seen Poppy as an innocent baby that needed defending, that would have been fine. It would have been in character for her because all season she has had that caring nature where she tried to help others whenever she could. Some people are using that trait to somehow say that means she wanted to be a mother or that it forsehadowed this development with Poppy. And I am not falling for this ridiculous idea that just because a woman is caring it is her "maternal instinct" coming out in another format because there is no child currently available for her to show it towards.

-Considering that she doesn't know the Doctor all that well, and she wanted to go home only ONE EPISODE PRIOR, Belinda seems to be fine, even happy, about the fact that she now has a tangible and permament link to the Doctor that she did not ask for or want.

-The fact that Belinda straight up says to Shirley that she is fine to go back to a wolrd where disabled people were living in camps, and a world where Rose didn't exist and she herself was a trad wife who couldn't work (When she one of her key thing is that she loves her job) is CRAZY. Like it would be wild for anyone to say but it felt wildly ooc for Belinda especially.

-Then she's just thrown into the Zero Room (And don't even get me started on how stupid it is that Susan Triad can just make a Zero Room in 20 minutes because since when can humans recreate Time Lord technology so easily????) Because she tells the Doctor that she can't help because her battle is saving her daughter. A child that she had forced on her mind you. The fact that she was made to love Poppy with no resistance, no problems was extremely weird.

-The folding up of the coat with that track in the background was beautiful. Like how it started off with Belinda wanting to have this family with the Doctor and Poppy (again fucking stupid) seems to fade away into Belinda having changed her mind and wanting to travel with the Doctor, which is a narrative choice that makes sense! It could have been better built to across the seaso but it was belivabel that she wanted to travel with him. But in the end even that was taken away from her and we'll never know if she wanted that with the Doctor because any of her want or desires outside of Poppy were erased.

-And then Poppy disappearing was sad (ig) especially given how bad the doctor wanted a child and a family

-BTW, did anyone else get the feeling that the Doctor KNEW that Poppy had disappeared and that he was pretending to Ruby that he didn't because he knew it was the right thing to do? Like the looks that the Doctor was giving, it definitely felt that eay and maybe before the reshoots that was the plan (You will pry fro my cold dead hands that this wasn't the original story)

-And then we have the worst it of all. The Doctor rewrites Belinda's life so that Poppy was always the centre of her life and she has a baby with a man that she hasn't seen in years in her real life (I preseume) which neither of them consented to.

-And then she wasn't even the Doctor's daughter which was just ridiculous to me. Like what was the point??? Of any of it.

-Yeah. And then she can't remeber any of the life she had before. And the Doctor sees no problem with it whatsoever. Which is wild because of anything like this happened to any of his prior companions, he would have torn the universe apart to free them and get them back to their normal life.

-So the Belinda Chandra we knew in the 6 episodes leading up to this esentially died when she entered Conrad's Wish World (mind you, he had no punishmant for what he did, he just got a happy ending while Belinda was forced into a nightmare. ) She was shackled to a baby she didn't consent to having and that she hardly knows. Her whole life, rewritten without her knowledge or permission. And given that she hated that the Doctor scanned her without permission, she would HATE having a child forced on her. Although she doesn't care about him scanning Poppy with no permission apparently.

-So to sum up, this was a misogynist, racist fumble where the woman of colour was sidelined for more Ruby content (love her but she had her season and whole episode of Belinda's season already) and shows that RTD needs to be put on a fucking leash with his writing in the form of a LOT more guest writers per season so that we can get some originality rather than whatever nonsense this was.

-My friend said that Belinda's plotline felt like Pro-Life propoganda and I couldn't agree more.

Belinda will go down as the most failed character in all of Doctor Who I fear. She deserved better and 15 deserved a much better exit that the one he was given.

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This could have been a horror film. I was waiting for it to become a horror film. And then it didn't become a horror film and that bottle of whisky in the corner of my mum's living room started to look really appealing just so I could forget what the fuck I just watched

Episode one Belinda: breaks up with her boyfriend because he’s a controlling misogynistic prick who wants her to conform to the role of wife and mother, when he later kidnaps her to force her to marry him she calls him an incel and explodes him

Episode eight Belinda: I can’t help you with the battle I’m no use at saving the world, the best thing I can do is stand in this box with my daughter and be a mother, I love being a mother, please rewrite my entire timeline so that I have a daughter, I’m so glad this right wing incel fascist rewrote reality so that women are wives and mothers because that means I am a mother to my daughter

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Up until the very last second I was hoping to see my bbg. And they fucked it. Again.

Me waiting through the whole episode.

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the episode peaked when they hinted briefly at a toxic mel-rani yuri. it all went downhill after that

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The Reality War MAJOR SPOILERS

I am so angry.

Ncuti deserved a better exit than that

That episode was so pointless, plotless and no questions were answered.

Actually fuck RTD at this point, if the show gets cancelled he has no one to blame but himself

My thoughts are too disorganised right now so this is just raw feelings

I guess this is what it feels like to see your favourite show since childhood be butchered on live TV

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Malevolent 53 Spoilers

So it's that time again, season Premiere means 50 million thoughts:

It has been ONE MINUTE and they are at each other's throat and being buried alive-Harlan can I have a minute please?

Who and what is happening?

Oh. We could have built to that Jonny boy but sure.

Oh GOD

"I'm Dead" Why did that delivery hit me?-Mountains? Of Madness??

-The dead scarecrows imagery is SO fucking cool.

"We may have always been here" The lines are popping off this episode?

-I don't think we will be fine but if you say so pal.

-ohhh I don't like this

-WHAT THE FUCK.

-Human hair? The imagery is just...not to glaze it but as I said it's great.

-OH I CAN HEAR HIS SKIN BREAKING WHAT THE FUCK GUYS.

-Just once. Just once I want to listen to him NOT going through the horrors.

-We always find a way.

-ohhhh that scalp imagery i don't like ittt.

-"Why" why was that funny tho-...them talking about blood on his feet reminds me of Kayne...that unsettles me.

-Imagery going TOO hard actually.-not the scuttling

-I haven't been this genuinely freaked the fuck out since Season 1-Mask ???-

FUCK ME IS THAT KELLIN?? WAIT, WAIT , WAIT.-THE BREATHING! I SWEAR TO GOD I RECOGNISE IT.

-that sounds effect was definitely the same as Kellin's mask I KNOW it was.

-Okayyyy wrap it up with the descriptions John.

-WRAP IT UP WITH THIS SCENE ISTG why rats for Christ's sake

-New Harlan Guthrie voice unlocked (why is he Russian?)-DON'T FOLLOW HIM BRO WTF?

"So long"- He's so odd.

-Playing Faroe's song when he's talking about being distracted by who else could be there is diabolical 😭

-These creatures and setting is SO GOOD I love this, it's everything I wanted it to be

The soundscaping is NEXT LEVEL

-KELLIN. OMG I WAS KINDA RIGHT

Whose land are they on? Yellow's?

-Him equating getting Oscar maimed and ditching him to committing cannibalism is WILD

"We had to try" he's come SO far -I'm not exaggerating when I say that John's character arcs is one of my favourites of all time

-WHAT THE FUCK MARIE'S SON ???? Crazy link mind you.

-"I will never leave the war. The war will never leave me." oh my god?

It takes a lot to best Part 40 in my opinion but GOD if anything comes close this does, purely for the portrayal of the Dark World and using two of my favourites music pieces from the show

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Torchwood: The Boy Who Never Laughed

This audio drama is probably the very first time I have viscerally needed a character to be hugged because Jesus's Christ. I knew that shit with the teacher was going where it went and it was just so sad. The whole thing was just SAD. Like this is the first audio in a while where I've just sat staring at the wall. This is what happens when I wish for more content for my favourite characters. They go through the horrors and I cry about it. Typical. Anyway going to go listen to Among us again to cry over the new gangs shenanigans again.

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Scandal in Bohemia Pt.3

Spoilers? Kinda

Call me morbid but I feel like that second mic is being set up for something. Particularly for a version of the Reichenbach Falls. Because if there are 2 mics then the story can follow John the whole way though but then also have the account of the fight with Moriarty and then the suicide note that Sherlock leaves for John? Maybe. Idk if this is just completely insane but it was the first thing I thought of when Mariana came out with the second mic.

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OK so after thinking about it, the line "you don't look disabled"...yeah.

As someone who has more thna one invisible disabilities that line really didn't sit with well me. Like did Rusell just forget about nereodivergency or any other kind of invisible disability? And giving that line to Shirley as well? Yeah not really the best look imo. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

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Repeating this like a mantra because I refuse to believe any other version of reality (Call me Conrad Clark, ig)

To clear something up; The Rani wasn't saying that she and The Doctor were lovers but rather, people assumed they were because they danced. She was trying to put further doubt into his head because at that point, he was John Smith, a married man.

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Doctor Who Wish World Spoilers

I have SO many questions right now

The commentary wasn't too bad imo , ike about the way that disablied peoply, women and queer people are thought of by the right wing, but I see why people say it was heavy handed. I would have liked it if the episode was a bit longer so that we could delve more into that. Like the way Ibrahim reacted to the Doctor calling him beautiful felt like it was done to point out the homophobia that existed in that society but then was very quickly moved on from without any other example of it, or the Doctor instinctively feeling that it was wrong for anyone (let alone Ibrahim) to be saying that, and that not doing much to snap him out of the delusion. (Straight Ncuti's Doctor was actually the scariest part of the episode fr, fr)

Would have liked to maybe see Rose in this episode to see what her life would haev been like. Because if there was any group whose treatment under the right wing should be called out and explored then it should be the trans community given how absolutely fucking insane transphobia has gotten in this country recently.

But I digress.

Still funny to me that Belinda basically called the police like "Hey, my husband's gay can you come and pick up please, ty"

Verada's acting this episode was amazing tho like damn. Her reactiosn to every time someone told her she doesn't have a daughter actually made me feel it to my core. Also the fact that in the trailer for The Reality War she's still looking for her and calling her her daughter makes me worry about my sanity at the end of the next episode.

What the actual fuck was Rogue doing here? Like obvs happy he came back but like context is important people!!!

Where is he?

How does he know about the table shit??

How did he get a message through???

If this was all a tactic by the Rani to get the Doctor to doubt, then another weird thing tables will be doing is going out the window when I throw them.

Talking of ploys, that better be what the Rani was doing with the whole "Were we lovers?" thing because that woman does not give A FUCK about that man.

Literally almost said in front of my whole family that it should have been the Master but then realised I wasn't in the mood to recontextualise a key relationship in a tv show they grew up with.

OMEGA. RETURN OF THE KING.

Seriously though I was dead set on the Trickster but this also slaps because he's SUCH a cool character. I only hope that they find a way to utilise both him and the Rani in the finale because I do worry with how all these questions can be answered in a meaningful way because there is a lot happening at once.

Speaking of. what the hell did that ending mean? What does he mean that Poppy is real and his daughter? Because unless the mf has been LYING for like forever and Poppy is somehow his kid and he just left her on a space station, I have no idea what the hell is happening.

So yeah. Gonna be thinkng baout this for a LONG time.

My brain is insisting on focusing on Rogue for some reason, it's like June 2024 all over again.

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Norway-The Lighter

Iceland-Faroe Island

Why is Malevolent haunting Eurovision 2025 ???

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Doctor Who 2x06 MAJOR SPOILERS

OH MY GOD !!! That was an amazing episode. The story was so timely and really impactful. It brought me to tears like 3 times and I thought that the acting was TOP TIER. Maybe the complete deminisation of the pair of Helians with the bomb with no empathy with their viewpoint wasn't great but hey ho.

NCUTI THIS EP !! The darker side of the doctor was INCREDIBLE and I'm so glad that Belinda saw it was was uncomfortable.

SUSAN IS BACK. When I tell you I screamed and had to take a lap. I CAN'T wait to see her properly in the finale. RIGHT RUSSEL ???

More importantly...the Queen herself is back, I have BEEN WAITING.

Ever since I saw her with the red tinsel outside her house in Church on Ruby Road I knew.

Ughhh we are SO BACK