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X Men Red if the writers weren’t cowards.

Happy pride month!

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So...um... holy shit.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time tonight or tomorrow to do a full analysis and write-up of the episode (I have a very last-minute zine story to work on due tomorrow), so that will have to wait. But have some rapid half-baked thoughts:

Seeing this in the cinema was an experience.

Omega was such a disappointment. I mean... for fuck's sake. How hard is it to do a cool modern version of the Three Doctors armour? That would look 'godly' enough already! No wonder they only used archive audio last episode.

Also weird how his origin was seemingly retconned, so that he was deliberately exiled? I wonder if this could be headcanoned to link to the "Could Have Been King" Time War stuff?

The Rani being eaten was dumb, but at least it's the kind of fate that could leave her open to return? Plus, Mrs. Flood is still out there, but who knows how that would work.

Honestly, not only was Omega wasted, but we could have done a lot more with the Rani. Again I hope we see more of her.

Even though this episode was a two-parter, I think it's yet more evidence that the compressed series length needs to die. This honestly should have been a Series 3 or Series 4 style three-parter finale, with Wish World being the Utopia / Turn Left before The Reality War parts 1 and 2.

But a lot of other stuff in the episode was good tbf. My heart was pounding through so much of it.

After some of debates about things in Conrad's world that last episode didn't discuss (specifically trans people) I'm glad we got Rose (Temple-Noble, can't believe I have to specify that) back acknowledging that.

Kinda shocked, but honestly relieved, that they didn't retcon Susan's origin. Still surprising that wasn't checked in this finale.

You should have seen me when they declared that Time Lords are sterile. I'm usually very quiet and respectful in cinemas, but it took all my willpower not to scream. I thought we were actually going there...

(Kinda fascinating how ever since Series 9 we've been teasing and teasing at the idea of looms and Lungbarrow, but never actually gone there.)

But it ended up being a consequence of the "genetic explosion" thing Fifteen mentioned in The Devil's Chord, which we've never had actually explained. It's presumably a soft retcon of the effects of the Death Particle in The Timeless Children, but still weird. For a sec I thought they were going to make it fully retroactive too, as a sort of alternative explanation for Time Lord sterility from the Pythian curse.

Everything with Belinda is weird. It feels a little uncomfortable to have her retconned into motherhood and also sidelined for much of the episode. Maybe it would have felt better if this kinda longing for a family, as anti-feminist as it could risk looking (think about the backlash with some of Amy's characterisation), was part of her personality through the series, so it was more of a wish fulfilment (heh) thing? But having it all happen retroactively feels a lot worse.

But on the other hand, as long as it went, I loved all the timeline weirdness at the end, with the idea we're sort of split between these two time tracks? I wonder if that's all going to come back? It must, right, with Belinda's reason for wanting to return home 'glitching' in the new reality too?

I can't believe we got Thirteen back, for a brief moment. A surprise, but a welcome one. And we got a Thasmin moment out of it too?

So sad to see Ncuti regenerate. I've known about the rumour that he wanted to leave so he can do more work in Hollywood and on-stage (though the tabloids as usual have claimed it's a sacking, I doubt that - this episode was clearly planned for a longtime to be a swansong for him). I did think for a while, as the episode concluded, that it was false and he was going to survive after all. But sacrificing your regeneration to reshape reality to save one child is a pretty great way to go out.

(BTW loved Joy to the World of all things having a big impact on this episode, with the final song even being rewritten into Fifteen's regeneration theme?)

On the other hand, I do wonder whether or not this is going to be the last we see of him? For one thing, Rogue's story is still unresolved, and it's going to be weird if Fifteen's not the one to find him. There's also everything about...

...Billie Piper? What a weird pull. On one hand, of course RTD somehow manages to drag us back to Rose in some way. On the other hand, I kinda dig it.

The big question I think is whether Billie is ACTUALLY the Doctor? That may sound ridiculous, but the show's clearly being coy. Note how the credits don't do the usual "Introducing X as the Doctor" thing? I wonder if it's actually meant to be Rose / Bad Wolf or something, somehow switched with the Doctor as part of all the reality warping stuff? I'm totally fine if she is the Doctor, who's just regenerated into that face, but I sense shenanigans. In a way, I kinda hope this is the case, as it implies this might not be the last we've seen of Ncuti.

If she is the new Doctor, it's funny how this comes right after seeing Thirteen, seemingly harkening back to that theory about an incarnation's experiences influencing their choice of regeneration. In fact, if you include Joy, then technically the last two faces Fifteen saw were both white blonde women?

I'm going to throw out a little theory here: I wonder if it is actually Rose, and by reshaping reality the Doctor's accidentally pulled her into this universe as a sort of wish-fulfilment thing, like has been teased the last two series? I know there was another worrying rumour that the BBC and/or Disney wanted to do something with Tennant (presumably Fourteen). The fact we didn't see him again this episode seemed to quash that, but maybe having Rose show up could be a sort of starting point for a limited-run in-between series with him, at the end of which Ncuti, or another actor, will return as the current Doctor?

I also strongly suspect that Billie's addition is a last minute thing. The rumour I saw also implied that Fifteen's regeneration was going to cut to black, similar to the original plan for Thirteen, if RTD didn't come back to showrun. If we link that with the Tennant rumour I bet this was a last minute pitch for a way to keep the show running, maybe, if we're lucky, just for Ncuti to take a break, or maybe more for behind-the-scenes production stuff with Disney to settle.

On a final note, with regards to in-between series, to get us through the hiatus however long it may be, which we don't really know yet, I am mostly looking forward to The War Between The Land and the Sea. Kinda disappointed 1. with Russell Tovey being back playing a different character (which honestly feels like RTD kinda treating himself), and 2. with whatever the fuck are those Sea Devil designs? Seriously, Legend of the Sea Devils wasn't a great episode, but the designs there were great. It feels like someone just wanted to rift off the Talokanil and Atlanteans from the MCU and DCU. Hopefully, there's at least something about this being a sub-species or a hybrid group or something. Supposedly Gugu Mbatha-Raw isn't playing Tish Jones either, which will really be a shame, as between her possible UNIT connections via Martha and her history with Harold Saxon etc., she would have been a good fit for the story - I'm kinda shocked RTD isn't bringing her back.

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say what you will about the historical figure of Cardinal Richelieu but the ‘black breastplate over cardinal’s robes’ look is some warhammer shit

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There’s two ends of the horror spectrum

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Okay, can we please talk more about the fact that for a brief time period during the 70s/80s there were at least 6 Time Lords (the Third and Twelfth Doctor, the Master, Missy, K‘anpo, Professor Chronotis) more or less permanently settled or stranded on earth at the same time…

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I just finally got round to listening to Big Finish's Omega (rewatched Three Doctors and Arc of Infinity last week). Great story, great script and brilliant performances all round. But, first of all, I wasn't expecting it to be such a direct sequel to Arc, and, secondly, I was much less expecting it to fit so well together with Wish World.

Like, think about it. In Peylix's story, in the Old Times, the universe needed belief in magic – if you questioned things, they stopped working. And what happens in Wish World? Tables stop doing what they should when you question things.

So doubt is so important to Omega's origin story, and here comes the Rani, who according to the interviews, worships him, and devises a plan to bring him back based on doubt. I don't know if it's accidental (I'm sure RTD listened to it back when it came out, but maybe he revisited it when writing Season 2), but hell does it fit neatly. I don't know if they'll mention his history with Rassilon and the revolution too, but what with the seal becoming Omega's in the Bone Palace...

I just hope Omega is even one tenth as compelling in The Reality War as he is in the audio.

I should finish listening to Cutaway's Revenge next, although I think that one's set before Three Doctors. Then I've got Intervention Earth left but I want to do a Gallifrey relisten soon, so I'll probably wait.

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Is this a problem?

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reminding everyone that the in-universe problem with The Doctor and The Master isn’t “ooo horrible nasty enemies who hate each other and don’t get along and fight all the time but are also in love”

the problem is that they get along. the problem is that they can’t stop themselves from falling naturally into a rhythm of riffing off one another and enjoying the other’s company. THAT is the problem. the problem is that it works and that’s the thing that caused all their issues. they like one another. they just click.

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that WAS him

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thasmin crumbs in a 2025 doctor who episode… 🥹

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inspired by this post: 13 in can you hear me

screenshot of the post under the cut

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Wait who's the guy in green from the first set? It's not Morbius, is it?

Bringing back this series of Big Finish Gallifrey series stickers I designed, because they haven't seen daylight in a while.

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DOCTOR WHO (2023) || Wish World

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I saw more than one person point out that the clip of the First Doctor in Wish World's Doctor Montage was in fact the Abbot of Amboise, a 16th century French Catholic also played by William Hartnell in the 1966 Dr Who story The Massacre. (His being identical to the Doctor was completely coincidental - unless you listen to recent Big Finish audios, which of course have a retcon for everything.)

This is hilarious, but also confused me. Because we don't have any surviving footage from The Massacre, and don't even know what the Abbot's costume looked like. So where did this clip come from?

After brainstorming with a friend and doing some searching, I found that the clip came from The Daleks in Colour, which ended with a montage of colourised footage from other First Doctor stories. And I believe its Abbot is edited footage of the Doctor from near the end of the third episode of The Crusade.

So, to be clear, this is footage of the Doctor (The Wheel of Fortune, 1965):

This is footage of the Doctor representing footage of the Abbot (The Daleks in Colour, 2023):

And this is footage of the Doctor representing footage of the Abbot representing footage of the Doctor (Wish World, 2025):

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They were going out to get food.