2nd Opinion, Take 2 “Dot and Bubble” – A ‘Finetime’ for Doctor Who? No, Just Miserable

J.C. reviews the fifth episode of Series 14.

Russell T Davies wasn’t kidding when he said episode five of Series 14 was Doctor Who’s attempt at emulating a Black Mirror-esque episode. Comparisons to the season 3 opener of Charlie Brooker’s seminal series, “Nosedive,” are evident for all to see. A sunny-on-the-surface female lead? Check. A setting too perfect to be true? Check. Technology micromanaging people’s lives? Check. Obsession with online validation? Check. Isolated yet connected individuals? Check. Dystopian critique of modern social trends? Check. The pitfalls of conforming? Check. A dark and depressing ending twist? Absolutely.

Perhaps Brooker should be receiving royalties for this one. Actually, RTD could repay him by allowing him to write an episode (he was offered before but was sadly too busy to accept). RTD does deviate slightly on the already well-trodden ground of the social media premise by taking this concept to its literal extreme, introducing a group of young ‘adults’ who almost entirely live in a bubble (save for sleeping). Indeed, they are so entrenched in their online spaces that they can’t even walk without the assistance of their bubble (which I found amusing, if far-fetched).

We also see the return of a more old-fashioned Doctor Who monster (which have been somewhat lacking since the opener). The giant slug-like creatures weren’t particularly inventive and might as well have been part of the scenery for their relative inaction, but the few scenes where they were devouring people (and almost Lindy) were used quite effectively in a cheesy B-movie type of way. Really, the purpose of the monsters was just to show how the social media-addicted can be oblivious to real-world dangers right in front of them.

As I feared in my “73 Yards” review, this episode was another Doctor-lite. Not only that, but it was also companion-lite (as Millie Gibson was busy filming “73 Yards”). Admittedly, we saw far more of the Doctor than last week, but sadly all but one of Gatwa’s scenes were confined to the group chats. I’m not going to dwell on this issue again, other than to say it’s a shame two out of eight episodes lack a significant presence of the Doctor in his debut series. Hopefully, this won’t be a problem next year.

With the Doctor and Ruby taking a bit of a breather, our lead character instead is Lindy Pepper-Bean. If actress Callie Cooke’s goal was to make me dislike her, then she did a fantastic job! And I disliked her long before the ending. I found all her obnoxious “friends” very grating too. People will argue that’s the whole point of the episode – you are not meant to like any of them. But that still doesn’t mean I’m going to enjoy the time I have to spend watching them. And if I for some reason I wanted to view vacuous, self-absorbed people, I’d just find some on TikTok in seconds.

Actually, there was one other guest character who wasn’t a completely annoying a-hole and was more enjoyable to watch: Ricky. His heroic turnaround surprised me, because at the start I didn’t think I could forgive him for getting the song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini” stuck in my head! I was even more surprised when Lindy willingly caused Ricky’s death just to save herself. And she didn’t even have a shred of remorse, but she was only just getting started…

Yes, let’s talk about that ending.

First, kudos to Gatwa for a great performance in his only on-set scene in the episode. He actually felt much more like the Doctor (I got Ninth Doctor vibes) than I think in most of his episodes so far. I’d love to see more of this acting level from Gatwa. Though character-wise, I think the Doctor would’ve put up more of a fight. He didn’t use to give up so easily, at least. The only other thing that slightly tarnished it for me is that the Doctor was brought to tears. It’s not that I have a problem with him crying at this moment; it’s that it would have been even more powerful if this had been the first time he did it in his tenure, rather than the fifth time in six episodes now (including Christmas)!

Now, we get to Doctor Who’s hot-button topic of the week. The episode is not as on the nose with its portrayal of racism compared to, say, “Rosa,” where Ryan was verbally and physically attacked for his skin colour as soon as he left the TARDIS. Here, I think it’s understandable that some viewers might not have immediately realised what RTD was going for based on the episode alone.

When I watched Doctor Who Unleashed, RTD didn’t leave any room for any other interpretation. But I think the better approach in cases like this is always to allow people to sit and think on it for a bit. The episode taken on its own merits would still achieve this. When you watch again, there’s enough there to make you question her reasoning and figure out what is really driving her decision. I just wish RTD had left it there without needing to spell it out. This approach risks diminishing the impact of his message, and not trusting the audience’s intelligence. Subtlety seems to be a lost art.

Alas, I’m not really sure what viewers are ultimately meant to take away from the episode. The Doctor is unable to save the day, most of the Finetimers are all but guaranteed horrible deaths, and racism still exists in the far future. It’s just miserable. And all for the sake of a twist (or perhaps to fit the Black Mirror M.O.). The thing is: isn’t Doctor Who supposed to be about thrilling adventures in space and time, wrapped up with a hopeful message?

Asides

• Why did the AI Dots even need the slugs? It is shown to kill humans directly and far faster. It could even direct them to the top of the building and get them to walk off if it wished!
• Why did Ricky just give up defending himself from the AI Dot before he died?
• Why was there green blood on one of the human victims?
• This episode is interesting when you consider one of Gatwa’s pre-interview quotes from last year: “What’s scary is that we all live in [social media] bubbles. I remember scrolling on Twitter and being like, “Oh my gosh. I’m so loved.”
  ‘And then I clicked on one tweet that wasn’t as positive. And then that opened up an entire world of the opposite feeling. “Oh no. There they are.” Seeing the anagrams of my name [made into a racial slur] was just lovely.
  ‘But it was interesting. As I say, I live in a very leftist, liberal bubble. And in fact, there’s a really great episode coming up … where we lean into that.’