First broadcast 31 May 2025.

It is okay: Russell T Davies almost always fouls up the finale. If you come in expecting that, it’s difficult to feel disappointed. He has been here before, eight times in fact since 2005. To some degree it is his ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ approach to guest appearances, cameos, and other unexpected arrivals. In part it is his odd penchant for neatly wrapping up story elements and details that did not need referencing, while failing to deliver on narrative promises that felt more important. It is also down to his obsession with ‘clap your hands’ whimsical climaxes that prioritise emotion over story logic.

I honestly think he has become progressively worse as well, crudely wrapping up each of his seasons of Doctor Who in increasingly annoying fashion, and it honestly does not make sense to me. Davies is, without exaggeration, in the highest league of British television writers. He is as good as a Nigel Kneale or a Dennis Potter. Works including Queer as Folk, The Second Coming, It’s a Sin, and Torchwood: Children of Earth showcase his talent palpably. His weakest work has almost always been Doctor Who, and among those episodes his finales are the weaker still.

For those who came in late, “The Reality War” opens with the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) plunging into oblivion with the rest of the planet Earth as it all descends into the “Underverse”. It is all part of a plan by the two Ranis (Archie Punjabi and Anita Dobson) to rediscover and resurrect legendary Time Lord founder Omega – last seen apparently dying in 1983’s “Arc of Infinity”.

Last week’s episode “Wish World” frustrated with a lack of plot, and fairly weak storytelling that backloaded all of the story onto this second part. Sadly right where “The Reality War” requires a packed, event-filled story, it is almost bizarrely empty. It is fair to say that Omega, for those who were eagerly awaiting the character’s return, is effectively irrelevant to the plot. Similarly the Rani, whose presence here has been widely anticipated by her fans for some years, is almost entirely wasted. Both characters disappoint because they fail to resemble their 1970s and 1980s iterations. They share a fate really, since both were excellently developed and performed in their first appearance (“The Three Doctors” and “The Mark of the Rani” respectively), were poorly used in their second (“Arc of Infinity” and “Time and the Rani”), and now fail to resemble their original characters at all. This is the second time in a row Doctor Who has climaxed with the Doctor facing a generic visual effect named after an original series villain. One assumes next season – if there is a next season – the Doctor will face a random computer-generated dragon named named the Mara or something.

Expectations of a conclusion – or even an explanation – for all the weird god antagonists of recent years go unfulfilled. So – more frustratingly – do any expectations of the Doctor’s grand-daughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford) showing up, following her shock cameo in “The Interstellar Song Contest”. There is another unexpected cameo as well, which is wonderfully performed but narratively irrelevant. The self-indulgence of this current era of the programme is honestly off the charts.

What a surprise, then, when the episode’s final 20 minutes turn out to be cleverly developed and written, smartly plotted, and very emotionally effective. It is based on some set-up that is as poorly devised as it is clever, but it does at least give some redemption to the story and round off the season as a whole. The core cast – Gatwa, Varada Sethu, and Millie Gibson – play their roles brilliantly. In many ways this final section is quite frustrating, because it points to a level of quality the previous 80 minutes of story simply did not have but so easily could have.

Overall, however, I did not actively hate “The Reality War” (weird title too, guys, since it implies, y’know, a war). That would imply too much emotional investment. I actively hated “Journey’s End” back in 2009. I hated 2010’s “The End of Time” so much that it actually made me physically angry. Last year’s “Empire of Death” made me feel much the same. This time around, I am sanguine. It has, all in all, been a good year for Doctor Who in 2025. I have enjoyed much more of the series than I disliked, and as for the finale? Well… it was always going to end like this, wasn’t it? After all, Russell T Davies almost always fouls up the finale.