Doctor Who has just finished his final in two parts. He started last week with the intriguing concept of a world backwards, where our queer doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) was married to the Belinda company (Varada Sethtu) in a Blueprint nuclear family household, with Poppy (Sienna-Robyn Mavanga-Phipps), the girl they never had, and no memory of their temporal adventures.
But while the mystery began to decline, all the qualities that made the convincing situation collapsed – and that sums up my experience with the trajectory of two key characters: the companion Belinda Chandra and the antagonist Mme Flood (Anita Dobson).
The two were introduced with mysterious origins and a complex dynamic. Fans speculated for weeks how their motivations would come up against the doctor, but it turned out that these signs of promise were nothing more than a hanging carrot.
Spoilers for doctor who season 15
The accumulation of Ms. Flood was a complete waste
We all know now that Ms. Flood is a villain from Classic Who: The Rani. Well … not the Rani, a Rani. In simple terms, Ms. Flood was immediately overthrown by being immediately replaced by the real Rani (Archie Panjabi) during the bi-generation scene during the episode of the interstellar song competition.
BBC / Disney / Bad Wolf Studios
Keep in mind that Flood was presented for the first time during the beginnings of fifteen at Christmas in 2023. She broke the fourth wall, something rarely seen at Doctor Who, and continued to appear disturbing throughout Gatwa's mandate.
Meanwhile, fans have speculated on his true identity, some people get it. Unfortunately, the revolutionary revelation I expected in the series was more a groan than a blow.
It was nailed like a disappointing post -key scene, with an incredibly flat dialogue – even substantive music felt cheap for something that was supposed to be monumental and shocking.
From there, Dobson was simply the second violin of Panjabi. She was literally extinct out of the room, and even at some point, said to go make a sandwich for someone else, rather than plotting and plotting (yes, really).
It seemed that Flood was agitated with the treatment of his other half, and I thought it could lead to an interesting confrontation between the two Ranis, but it never went anywhere either. Instead, Rani de Panjabi was committed by the original Timelord Omega in all his horrible CGI glory, while Flood has just teleported.
I am always disconcerted by the need for two Ranis in the first place – apart from reminding the public that bi -generation is one thing. Dobson could as well be there, and having such a known and accomplished actress that she must be kicked on the sidewalk in this way is a very bad service.
I want to give Panjabi a credit for bringing the nasty camp for which the Rani is known, but the writing has not returned this antagonistic justice. We have been launched new twists and turns every few minutes that overshadowed a villain to which the whole race of fifteen had been built.
But if Ms. Flood's writing is bad, the final end of Belinda is really unforgivable.
BBC Studios / Bad Wolf / James Pardon
Belinda has become nothing more than a job
In episode one, Belinda drew everyone's attention.
Here is a companion who is not afraid to question the hypotheses of the doctor that each person he meets is happy to go on an adventure. Here is someone who values her nurse work, who knows his responsibilities and would not disturb them, even when she is on a fully different planet.
Sometimes she went against the doctor's orders during adventures. She was a challenge.
She frequently talks about her parents, how worried they should be during her absence. And we have seen how much the extended family plays in the scenarios of the companions before – take Jackie Tyler, Wilfred Mott and Carla Sunday as some examples. I was intrigued to meet them and see what they did from abroad traveling in time that had mainly stole their daughter.
BBC Studios / Bad Wolf / James Pardon
When we entered the last two episodes, all these dimensions seemed forgotten. In Wish World, we saw that in Conrad's utopia, Belinda was now a household mother for Poppy (Sienna-Robyn Mavanga-Phipps) and married to “John Smith”, alias the doctor.
How laughable, I thought at the time. Belinda is an ambitious young woman who wants more of her life. I trusted that the story would finally reveal that Poppy is a mirage, or something more complicated like the timeless child, a controversial plot of the whitaker era of which.
But no. Belinda was apparently always intended to be just a poppy mother, and nothing more.
Now there is nothing wrong with the transition from someone's story to parenting. We have already seen Doctor Who tackle this type of conspiracy with Amy Pond and Melody. Maternity has become an extension of who it was, but it has always preserved the fiery personality for which we all loved it.
The problem here is that this evolution of Belinda came from nowhere, and all the other qualities that made her complex in the first place were completely demoted in favor of this child -shaped plot device – the majority of his dialogue complained to other characters to save Poppy.
Belinda was literally locked in a box with Poppy (and I mean literally, there was even a photo of his position in silence in the seat of the unit, trapped) while all the other characters continued to save the day, including the companion of last season, Ruby. Again, no lack of respect for Millie Gibson, but why does the current star of the show not shine?
The disappointing “Bellinda” in action
BBC Studios / Bad Wolf / And Fearon
Poppy finally disappeared and I thought that ultimately Belinda could be free – I saw his old personality starting to reappear. But from the age of fifteen, there were a chance that they could save this child, a child who, at this stage, did not even remember the trip of the universe, his personality turned directly to worry about Poppy.
The last interaction between Doctor and Belinda was the last nail in the coffin. Poppy had been miraculously brought to existence, and even if the doctor was no longer his father (this honor was given to an ex random that we have never seen), Belinda was still his mother.
The universe was rewritten to give the impression that each decision that Belinda made was because she wanted to go home to Poppy, and that takes so much from her depth. In addition, the show has never given any indication that she wanted to be a mother, nor any other index that it was the direction that the intrigue was heading.
We obtained a brief cameo from Belinda's mother, which we had heard so much earlier in the season so much. But again, this interaction was centered on Poppy. She never told her parents the truth about her time traveling in time, and we could never even meet Belinda's father on the screen.
I had the impression that the plot was rushing to go to the last shocking scene and facing Belinda as quickly as possible.
James Pardon / BBC Studios / Disney / Bad Wolf
And what a fate he has left. At the start of the season, she questioned the ethics of the doctor who scored her body practically without her consent. But now she is going completely well and dandy with essentially to be forced to become a single mother, while the original father (the doctor) goes to new pastures? This is a step too far for this writer.
I want to stay full of hope for the future of Doctor Who, but this final was a mess, Belinda and the Rani obtaining the weight of the impact. Perhaps it was only eight episodes to say an arc of the intrigue, or the uncertainty of the future of Gatwa (and that of the series generally) caused upheavals in the writers room.
Whatever the reasons, I hope that Doctor who learns from these errors. For a show that broke the limits with regard to the representation on the screen, these female characters deserved better than the stereotypical gender tropes, like becoming “ just a mother '' and be ordered to go make a sandwich.
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