‘Dot and Bubble’ Puts a Devastating Twist on a Familiar Doctor Who Staple

• Doctor Who, Season 1, Episode 5, “Dot and Bubble” revives the Doctor-lite episode format of episodes like “Love and Monsters” and “Blink.”
• “Dot and Bubble” marks the first time since “Blink” a Doctor Who episode has been led by someone other than the Doctor or a companion.
• Callie Cooke’s Lindy Pepper-Bean is a far cry from characters like Sally Sparrow and Elton Pope, making for a shocking ending.

“Dot and Bubble” saw Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor and Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday take a back seat on Doctor Who as Callie Cooke’s Lindy Pepper-Bean stole the show. The episode introduced viewers to Finetime, a small human colony sealed beneath a dome on an otherwise wild and untamed world. The colony was inhabited by the children of wealthy families like Lindy, all of whom worked a mere two hours per day, spending the rest of their time partying and socializing. The inhabitants of Finetime were also social media addicts, rendered blissfully oblivious to the world around them by their Dot systems, which projected a constant social media bubble around their users.

The Doctor and their companions have been known to step out of the limelight in previous episodes of Doctor Who. When the series was revived in 2005, “Doctor-lite” episodes became a regular part of its format. These episodes saw the Doctor and/or the companion in a reduced role, which allowed episodes to be filmed at the same time to accommodate intense shooting schedules. In Seasons 2 and 3 of the 2005-2022 era, each featured an episode in which both the Doctor and companion were largely absent, much like “Dot and Bubble.” In the latter episode, the Doctor and Ruby mainly appeared via video chats with Lindy. However, unlike the guest stars of previous Doctor-lite episodes, Lindy Pepper-Bean was no hero.

‘Dot and Bubble’ Revives the Doctor-Lite Format

When the modern series of Doctor Who began in 2005, there was a need for the series to meet the intense scheduling demands of a modern drama series. This meant that every so often, episodes had to be written to allow for “double banking” — that is shooting two episodes at the same time. The first notable example was 2006’s “Love and Monsters,” which followed Marc Warren’s Elton Pope, an amateur investigator looking for the Doctor after meeting him once as a child. David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor and Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler only made fleeting cameos in the episode. The next major example was 2007’s “Blink,” which introduced the Weeping Angels in an adventure led by Carey Mulligan’s Sally Sparrow, whom the Doctor contacted via video recordings.

After 2007’s Doctor Who Season 3, it became more common practice for the series to address the need for double banking by splitting the Doctor-lite episode into one Doctor-lite story and one companion-lite story. The former included stories such as “Turn Left,” “The Girl Who Waited” and “Flatline,” in which the Doctor’s companion took on a starring role, while the latter included stories such as “Midnight,” “The Lodger” and “Closing Time,” which saw the Doctor on adventures without his companions. As a result, “Dot and Bubble” is the first Doctor Who episode since “Blink” to feature both the Doctor and companion in a reduced role, with a new character taking the lead.

It is not clear whether “Dot and Bubble” was written to allow for double banking or it was simply a story choice to prevent the Doctor and Ruby from being physically present in most of the story. The previous episode, “73 Yards,” was a more traditional companion-led Doctor-lite story, written to revolve around Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday while Ncuti Gatwa was still completing filming for the Netflix series Sex Education. In either case, the premise for “Dot and Bubble” marked a return to the earlier Doctor-lite format, in which both the Doctor and companion were relegated to supporting roles.

By placing Callie Cooke’s Lindy Pepper-Bean in a leading role without the Doctor present to save her life himself, “Dot and Bubble” upped the ante. The episode saw Lindy looking beyond her literal social media bubble for the first time, only to find herself facing a swarm of man-eating giant slugs called Mantraps. Finetime’s defenses prevented even the Doctor from entering the city, meaning he and Ruby were only able to protect Lindy by guiding her through their video chats. This premise might sound like the setup for a classic hero’s journey for Lindy, who would have to learn to overcome her ego and rise to the occasion, but the ending of “Dot and Bubble” instead delivered a devastating shock.

‘Dot and Bubble’ Subverts Previous Doctor-Lite Stories With Callie Cooke’s Lindy

As “Dot and Bubble” progresses, Lindy meets famous singer and influencer Ricky September, who helps guide her through the dangerous Mantrap-infested streets of Finetime when her Dot runs out of charge. Later, when her Dot has been recharged, it emerges that the Mantraps have been created by the Dots and are killing the inhabitants of Finetime in alphabetical order. With her Dot preparing to kill her as she attempts to escape into the city’s underground conduits, Lindy tells it that Ricky September changed his name from Richard Coombes. “C comes before P,” she cries out as the Dot turns on Ricky and flies straight through his skull.

Lindy makes it into the conduit, meeting the Doctor and Ruby in person at last, along with other survivors of the Mantraps’ attacks. Here, the dark ending to her story only gets worse. The citizens of Finetime are preparing to venture out into the planet’s wilds to begin colonizing the rest of the planet. The Doctor offers to take them away somewhere safe in the TARDIS instead, but is rejected by Lindy, who tells him “you, sir, are not one of us.” It is only in that moment that the Doctor and Ruby realize all the inhabitants of Finetime are white, and Lindy’s hatred of the Doctor throughout the episode has been because he is Black. Finetime is a colony — like so many others in human history — built on a foundation of white supremacy.

This is the first time a Doctor-lite story has ended on such a dark note for its new protagonist. In “Love and Monsters,” Elton Pope started off completely driven by his mission to find the Doctor — a mission that saw him lose sight of his actions. At one point, under the guidance of Victor Kennedy, who was later revealed to be the monstrous Abzorbaloff, Elton seduced Jackie Tyler into a relationship to get closer to the Doctor. Realizing Elton’s real motives broke Jackie’s heart and forced Elton to reconsider his actions. Having made friends in the form of LINDA — the London Investigation ‘N’ Detective Agency, formed to track down the Doctor — Elton walked away from Kennedy’s influence and helped his friends defeat the Abzorbaloff.

“Blink” also saw a Doctor-lite episode bringing out the heroic streak in its lead. Sally Sparrow was drawn into an investigation of the Weeping Angels while exploring an abandoned old house, where she found a message written to her beneath the house’s peeling wallpaper. Along with Kathy’s brother, Larry, Sally became embroiled in an adventure that saw her literally staring down the Weeping Angels to reunite the Doctor with his TARDIS. Like Elton before her, Sally grew into a heroic character through her encounter with the Doctor’s dangerous world. Lindy Pepper-Bean was a very different story. The ending to “Dot and Bubble” showed that not everyone is capable of such change, and showed how the influence of racist and colonialist ideas turn people into monsters.

‘Dot and Bubble’ Forces the Doctor to Confront the Worst of Humanity

Previous Doctor-lite stories on Doctor Who have set a certain expectation for how such episodes handle their new lead character. Typically, these episodes have been a chance to show how an ordinary person’s life can be transformed for the better by even a fleeting interaction with the Doctor. However, “Dot and Bubble” completely subverted these expectations by revealing Lindy Pepper-Bean had been harboring a villainous streak all along, preventing her from embracing the Doctor’s brighter perspective on the universe.While other Doctor-lite episodes have been self-contained stories of character growth, “Dot and Bubble” demonstrates the tragedy of a character who refuses to grow.

Aspects of “Dot and Bubble” are evocative of 2008’s “Midnight.” This story was a companion-lite Doctor Who episode that saw David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor trapped on a broken down tour bus on the planet Midnight, with a mystery creature possessing one of the passengers. As fear took its hold on the other passengers, the Doctor attempted to appeal to their better nature to save both the possessed passenger and the mystery alien, but his efforts fell on deaf ears. In the episode’s claustrophobic environment, with fear and desperation setting in, the passengers became monsters who were all too happy to kill to save their own skin. Lindy Pepper-Bean’s betrayal of Ricky September and ultimate rejection of the Doctor were yet another example of someone whose soul the Doctor couldn’t save.

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