This article contains spoilers for Doctor Who Episodes ‘Wish World’ and ‘The Reality War’
July 30, 2025, marked the release of “The Reality War,” the second finale ofDoctor WhoforNcuti Gatwa’s15th incarnation of the Doctor that ended with his regeneration. The reaction to the finale has been mixed at best, labeled the worst thing to happen toDoctor Whosince the last finale, or the one before that. Hating the final episodes of aDoctor Whoarc is now par for the course. The reaction has seen a significant shift in the fandom around series showrunner Russell T. Davies. His return to the show was celebrated, but that didn’t last long…
While Davies' new run might have its fair share of issues, its work is as consistent as it was from 2005 to 2009. Maybe he hasn’t changed, but the audience has. Davies' new seasons ofDoctor Whomight not be perfect, but they still mirror our reality, like his original revival.
Davies Thematic Throughline With ‘Doctor Who’
WhenDoctor Whofirst returned in 2005, Russell T. Davies used the series to examine the UK’s place in the War on Terror. Davies used the Time War both as a way to simplifyDoctor Who’s continuity while also painting the Doctor as a victim and soldier in a war that consumed the galaxy and left him shaken, one with clear memories of what life used to be and the depressing reality that exists in its wake. Through his adventures, he meets corrupt politicians, war profiteers, and his greatest foes,like the Daleks and Cybermen, in larger military numbers than ever. The series also had some pointed commentary on reality television, plastic surgery, industrialization, and many more topics that helped the series feel like it was in its moment in the mid-2000s.
Davies' new era, particularly with Ncuti Gatwa as both a Black man and openly gay, broughtDoctor Whointo a new era that tackled the issues facing audiences in the 2020s. Race is a significant focus in both “Dot and Bubble” and “The Story & The Engine,” while the Doctor is allowed his first true same-sex romance in “Rogue.” “Lucky Day” attempted to tackle the spread of misinformation online during the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing entitlement of the “men’s rights” movement. The previous season’s “Empire of Death” finale even took a swipe at modern franchises andfandoms' obsession with continuity and Easter eggs.
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However, it’s in the two-part finale of Series 15, “Wish World” and “The Reality War,” that Davies makes a commentary on the nightmarish pushback against diversity happening right now. We’re shown a horrific world imagined by a right-wing cisgender male looking to restore conservative and traditional values, disguised as a “perfect world.”
The Doctor’s colorful, flamboyant wardrobe is replaced with a destructive suit in a world where even the slightest hint of queerness is treated like a crime. Characters like Shirley Ann Bingham, who uses a wheelchair, are cast out in this society, and thetransgender character, Rose Noble, is whipped from existence because they seemingly “don’t belong” in society and shouldn’t be seen.
It is a horrific nightmare for anyone who doesn’t fit a default standard of normal, and one that the U.K. and the rest of the world are seemingly embracing, frompushback to D.E.I. initiatives, labeling anything non-white as “woke,” and active measures to revoke transgender rights.Davies uses the two-part finale to critique this political and cultural regression and says that returning to “traditional values” is not a bright future but an unsettling dystopia.
Davies has always been a political writer, and while fans might have wanted more lore dumps and development of returning villains like The Rani or Omega, they were always catalysts for character interactions and explored larger themes. As is the case for both Series 14 and 15, the theme is the importance of family in all of its forms.
The Children of Time
It is debatable if “The Reality War” was actually meant to be Gatwa’s finalDoctor Whostory or if it was the result of behind-the-scenes issues, but, in either case,his tenure both begins and ends by saving a child that was almost wiped away by the universe. In “The Church on Ruby Road,” the Doctor saves Ruby Rose from being written out of history and does the same for Poppy in “The Reality War.” Poppy is positioned initially as the daughter of a Time Lord, a genetic rarity since the species has become sterile.
However, in the end, Poppy is revealed to be just the human daughter of Belinda, who was written out of reality before the season began. This is easily the most controversial decision of the series, as some fans claim it rewrites Belinda from being the strong independent woman fans meet earlier in the season to being straddled with a fake child.
This rings false for several reasons. The first is that it presupposes that a woman can’t be a mother and also independent, or that being a mother (particularly a single mother, as the final episode reveals) makes her “less” than.The second is that Poppy “isn’t real” because the entire point of the episode is that Poppy is Belinda’s real daughter. She can’t be a figment of the wish since nothing in the new reality didn’t already exist, a slight meta commentary on how the right-wing Connor truly can’t create anything new but only copy or destroy.
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It also adds new context to the series. Throughout Series 15, Belinda keeps telling the Doctor she needs to be home by August 20, 2025, before 7:30 a.m. Instead of getting home to go to work, it is because she needs to pick up her daughter, Poppy, from her mother. The idea that Belinda being a mom rewrites her character is false because the true “false” version of Belinda is the one briefly seen in the final episode when Poppy has been wiped away from reality. The woman who was so against traveling with the Doctor and wanted to get home is now gone, and is so excited to go on these adventures,which is meant to be unsettling and an indication that this isn’t how reality is supposed to be. Poppy was always real, and her existence doesn’t change Belinda…but for some reason, it does change how the audience perceives her.
Ever since making The Doctor seemingly the “last of the Time Lords,” Davies has explored the idea of his companions and their surrogate families as a larger extended family for The Doctor. This seed was planted in 2008 in Season 4’s “The Stolen Earth” and “The Journey’s End” when Dalek Caan and Davros refer to the Doctor’s companions as the Children of Time.
Now, following theTimeless Child revealthat the Doctor is an orphan in this incarnation (and, significantly, a gay man),the Doctor might not have a traditional family, but that hasn’t stopped him from creating his own family unit. This is a symbolic contrast to the rigid single definition of family that exists within the Wish World. Davies’s view of family withinDoctor Whois that, no matter its shape, size, or members, what matters is that the love is real, and the Doctor’s love for humanity makes us all part of his family.
Not All Perfect… But What Is?
Gatwa’s tenure was far too short, andthe finale’s biggest crime is saying goodbye to a Doctor who just barely arrived on the scene. The fact that Gatwa’s Doctor only got 19 episodes feels far too short, and it seemed as though he had more to say. Whatever the future holds forDoctor Whois unclear. Fans might be unhappy with the story now, but the way fans have alsocome around to previously hated storylinesinDoctor Who’s tenure shows that time, like a regeneration, heals all wounds.
