Doctor Who: Wish World

We're in the endgame now with the first part of the season two finale. I was right about the Rani all along. Is it a case of be careful what you wish for?

The Story & the Engine explored the theme of storytelling through the lens of the Doctor.

Wish World takes this to the nth degree in an episode of Jackanory narrated by Conrad Clark (Jonah Hauer-King), Ruby Sunday's (Millie Gibson) Think Tank-leading boyfriend from Lucky Day, seen through a cathode-ray tube (CRT), in a callback to the Dan Dare retrofuturism of The Robot Revolution. It's worth noting that both Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) and Ruby's ex-boyfriends are self-absorbed narcissists.

For generations of fans (myself included), Doctor Who was teatime family viewing watched on a CRT TV. I’m in danger of falling down a nostalgic rabbit hole littered with fossilised bones and ghosts of the past.

62 years later, Doctor Who continues to draw inspiration from eclectic popular culture sources. This second season on Disney+, the intertextual references to Disney-owned franchises have included Aliens, Avengers, Loki and Star Wars.

Wish World is Russell T Davies' spellbinding tribute to Wandavision, replete with knowing nods to Flash Gordon and Masters of the Universe. An imperious Rani (Archie Panjabi) channelling Agatha Harkness (Davies is a fan of the Marvel Comics witch) in a Grimm fairytale, steals the infant God of Wishes from his parents, before flying a space scooter back to Castle Grayskull in a sight to behold.

The Doctor, under the alias of John Smith, and Belinda are a married couple with a daughter, Poppy from Space Babies, in an alternate right-wing reality of Conrad’s creation where men work and women stay at home. A horrifying vision of conformity and ableism. I've alluded to the latter in The Well. Doubt undermines this cosy conservative world, and it all comes crashing down like the masquerade ball in Labyrinth when Ruby turns up at the front door of their home.

Former companion, Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford), lives on the same street as the Doctor and Belinda. The Rani, as first played by Kate O'Mara, pretended to be Mel during the Seventh Doctor's (Sylvester McCoy) story, Time and the Rani.

Sethu continues to be a standout. It's chilling to watch Belinda storm out of her Tim Burton-inspired suburban home and run, screaming, into the woods.

Season one’s big bad reveal of Sutekh fell flat. This time, the Rani searches for Omega in the Underverse, first mentioned in The Giggle, and we hear his disembodied voice. A tragic villain, Omega was stranded in an anti-matter universe after becoming the first Time Lord and sought revenge against his fellow Time Lords in The Three Doctors and Arc of Infinity. The Seventh Doctor used the Hand of Omega, known as the Omega device by the Daleks, to destroy the Dalek homeworld, Skaro, in Remembrance of the Daleks.

Omega is a curious choice as Davies has gone to great pains to avoid classic villains in this Disney era. However, it has far-reaching implications for the series' future.

With the return of Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford), the Rani and Omega, is The Reality War a feature-length multi-Doctor story to end the status quo and to close the 20th anniversary of the revival?

Oh, boy!

New episodes of Doctor Who drop every Saturday on BBC One, BBC iPlayer and Disney+ outside the UK and Ireland. Season two is available for pre-order from Amazon (affiliate link).

Have you watched Wish World? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below.