DOCTOR WHO-DOT AND BUBBLE (spoilers)

 

DOCTOR WHO-DOT AND BUBBLE

 

Okay, I can almost overlook and accept that there are a few things that do not make sense in this episode because…it’s a rather tense, better episode than the four previous POS. For the first time in a long time, the show stunned me and shocked me. I almost expected those slug things to be Fendahl but never mind that. First, the stuff that doesn’t make sense: why did RTD, after setting up a good alien invasion and a sort of world built or world building (we really don’t get a lot of answers as to what the background to this is---were the young ones sent away because they annoyed the parents? What “jobs” are they doing, data collection?), RTD makes it so that the tech is the bad thing that evolved and became sentient. Sigh. Yawn. God awful. At least that part.

 

BUT if the dots could kill everyone and THAT was the goal, instead of giving these things food to eat, the dots could have easily killed everyone right away instead of having big monsters eat them. By giving us the dot being behind it all, RTD shoots himself and logic in the foot or the head really (poor Ricky). I mean why bother making the monsters to eat the young alphabetically if the dots could just kill everyone instantly like they did Ricky and almost did to that bitch Lindy? And why do it alphabetically? AND WHY would hungry creatures eat alphabetically?

 

BUT anyway, the rest of this is not bad. Lindy has a suitability to be rather a vapid but changing person but she fails utterly to do that and sacrifices the charming, hot, super man Ricky September by betraying him to HER dot that is trying to kill HER. After he’s saved her life numerous times, the super hot (did I mention that) guy dies. It crushed me almost as much as Adric.

 

For a few moments, I hoped Ricky was a future Doctor and/or hoped all along that he would become a companion forever. Or lover of the Doctor (it’s a possibility or was).

 

It also made me wonder if Ricky would have gone with the Doctor unlike…well all the other white folk.

 

Yes, a tense alien invasion spurred on by technology…so calling the bug slugs aliens is not correct, the Doctor thinks those things were bred. Okay, how exactly did the tech breed those things? It must have had human help. The parents? Someone else what wants the rich dead? Lindy while not likable was starting to be somewhat until she got Ricky killed.

 

Would Ricky have been racist too?

 

The ending with the black Doctor calling out that he can save the new youth pioneers who are setting out into wilderness the Doc thinks will kill them (including Lindy and another hot guy) but them rejecting him because he’s black (no one says it out loud but that is more than the implication) is extremely powerful. If you’re going to do a message, that’s the way to do it.

 

And only this Doctor could have done this. They reject his help because he is black and the Doctor has to live with that and they will probably die with that. It would be nice to see what did happen to them. I wish the Doc and Ruby knew what Lindy did to Ricky. They never find out. And we never find out how he would have interacted with them if he left with them OR indeed, IF he would have left with them or would he be the product of his culture like the racist youth that left and rejected the Doctor because he is black!?

 

So, while questions linger (as ever this season) about logic, there’s less of them than the last four episodes and less silliness (though Lindy walking into a pole is really stupid and reminds me of an very old, now, STAR TREK movie where Scotty walks into a bulkhead and knocks himself out and what the?). Ricky is a bit too perfect and I almost expected him to be an alien and/or the Doctor and/or an android. I’m fixated on him. Gosh, why did they have to kill him off?

 

In all, a tense, surprising episode that does what sci fi is supposed to do: give us a clue about ourselves and what matters. It’s also a cautionary tale on a few fronts: one is the time age old warning of don’t rely on tech too much. The other is maybe think for yourself (Ricky seemed to be and he was a reader and turned off his bubble often so maybe he would have gone with the Doctor). And third, don’t be racist.

 

Not sure why Lindy didn’t know how to walk without the arrows. Her physicality should have been able to get her to move so that’s another stupid part but never mind, there’s less stupid than all four of the other POS this season.

 

Let’s rejoice, we have one good episode this season out of five. Not a great track record but this surprised me by killing off Ricky (there I go again), by making Lindy a person if nastiness (in a way it might have been better if Lindy didn’t get Ricky killed----hear me out---yes, we’d have him as a hot companion maybe---fan fic here I come----but if Lindy wasn’t so nasty by that action, her being a racist might have been more hard hitting).

 

Nevertheless, this episode was finely crafted though flawed in a few spots. I will subtract one for that and one for killing Ricky off, the bastards or rather RTD, the bastard. So that makes this an 8/10. Considering Space Babies shit was 0/10, Devil’s Bored was a 0/10, and the other two, Boom (goes the show), and 73 Yards Away and stay were both 1/10, this is marvelous. 8/10 for DOT AND BUBBLE. Who would have thought?

 

The Doc and Ruby are almost guest stars and in an anthology show.

 

If only Ricky survived. Time to write fan fic!