Episode Discussion | Doctor Who | 2x08 "The Reality War"
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this post was submitted on 31 May 2025
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I just watched it tonight.
I struggle to really pin down exactly what the difference is between the good and bad Doctor Who episodes/seasons. Like if I was going to give a general complaint about this episode or season, I'd say that it felt like confusing nonsense but.... I feel like that's Doctor Who most of the time and I usually loved it even when it was in spite of the confusing bits. The more recent seasons have been confusing in a boring way that's just hard to put into words. I think this Doctor started out pretty strong but somewhere along the way it lost it's magic.
The one thing that comes to my mind as a potential difference, but honestly I could just not be remembering right, is it feels like the Doctor kind of just stands around listening to exposition a lot more in recent seasons. Like we're being told a lot more than we're being shown and The Doctor doesn't really run around solving problems as much as they wait around for the bad guy to explain everything and then we reach the end of the episode and the plot happens to wrap things up somehow. Then there is just this over-reliance on reveals of things that I don't even know why I should be surprised because it's based on some random reference from a long time ago.
There's definitely some important differences, I'm just not 100% sure that those are it or not.
Others have done a great job of breaking down the specifics of this episode. I just wanted to air my more general thoughts as they relate to the newer seasons.
EDIT: Also, whether or not the new Doctor turns out better or not, it's kind of sad to see this Doctor getting the short end of the new paradigm of shorter seasons for streaming shows. Eccleston was only on for one season and he got nearly as many episodes as this one got in two.
I feel like the RTD2 era doesn't have as many "quiet" moments as RTD1. As an example, in David Tennant's final episode, they'd break up the action with little scenes like this where they'd just let the actors sit there and carry the scene themselves, and I don't really remember there being many of those in the recent finale. I wonder if maybe it's kind of a budget thing, where before they'd have to use CGI and big effects sparingly? In the new era, when they need to, say, have 15 travel from UNIT to where the bad guys are, instead of using that moment to take a breather and have the Doctor talk about the Rani or Omega or the implications of the Wish World or whatever, they just stick him on a CGI space scooter and make everything blow up instead.
It's a good spectacle and makes for higher production value, but I think it comes at the expense of letting the episodes breathe and the characters talk about things. There's no time to really process anything that happens because there's always something happening, if that makes sense.
Yeah I think it's some of that. I feel like there is often an inverse relationship between budget and how interesting/emotionally resonant a show/movie is. More time for action is less time for human moments.
I imagine if you have a script deadline it's probably much faster and easier to write the latter one of those scenes than the former too lol.
I don't know how they do it for Doctor Who, but I remember reading that for Marvel movies they often do work on the CGI scenes before they've even finished the script or hired some of the key talent. It can't be easy to try to stitch together a narratively coherent and emotionally resonant movie when before you begin you've been told which action scenes you need to work into your script.
That's definitely the case when they use a "volume" AR wall, which I know they used during Season 1. Since the CGI environment is projected live behind the actors, it all has to be prepped in advance of filming.
From what I've seen of "Unleashed," though, they've also been using a lot of old-fashioned green screen.
I think this season - finale aside - was the best season in years, but I still think you made some good points.
This was certainly a problem in the last couple of episodes, and Jodie's Doctor did her fair share of that, too. Ncuti's Doctor was also absent a lot in season one ("Dot and Bubble" and "73 Yards" constitute 1/4 of the season!).