‘Doctor Who’ Recap: Douze Points

Previously, on Doctor Who: Some dudes told stories in a barber shop and nearly broke the world wide web.

This week: Belinda’s starting to enjoy this travelling life, until the Interstellar Song Contest is targeted by horny terrorists who are trying to kill trillions of people. Plus, some national treasures and some Big Reveals that will have Whovians doing the Leo ‘excitedly point at the screen’ meme. Spoilers are ahead!

It’s almost a shame that there are Big Reveals this week, because these will probably steal the thunder of the rest of the episode, which was great on its own. Fifteen’s still triangulating his special sat nav to try and get Belinda home, but she’s super-excited to be in 2925 at the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest. She’s delighted to see Rylan, who is being a very good sport. It is all fun and games until the broadcast is hijacked and almost everyone is vented into space, including Fifteen and the TARDIS. Belinda gets a terrifying glimpse of what it would be like to be lost far from home, alone. But it’s OK; Fifteen comes round, and uses a confetti cannon to fly himself back to the station where he’s fixed up by Mike and Gary. (Sidenote: can we have Mike and Gary back please? They are fabulous.) He also reveals that when he started getting suspicious about the contest, he “triplicated the mavity field” and so 100,000 people floating in space might just be frozen and aren’t necessarily dead. If they are lucky, they can bring everyone back and revive them. Just the small matter of the hijacking to fix first.

The Big Bads, Kid and Wynn, are from the planet Hellia, which was enslaved, exploited and burned by the corporation sponsoring the song contest, and they want to use a Delta Wave doodah to kill anyone in the universe watching the broadcast, which they estimate at three trillion. Fifteen is more angry than we have seen him before. He stops them by nonchalantly blowing up droids and the Delta Wave thing, and making a virtual zappy-slappy Doctor inspired by a hologram of Graham Norton. That is a sentence I never thought I would write. Fifteen figures three trillion zap-slaps should be fair, given the circumstances.

He’s stopped by the arrival of Belinda and the look of horror on her face. Whilst Fifteen has been doing some mad science with Mike and Gary, she’s befriended Cora, one of the contestants, a Hellion living in secret. Cora was saved by Wynn when the venting happened, and Belinda has learned about the atrocities committed on Hellia as well as the prejudices faced by the survivors. Though Wynn saved Cora, she is still angry with her for betraying her people and her true self. However, after everyone’s been revived from their unscheduled floaty space trip, the show must go on; Cora sings a beautiful song to share what happened to Hellia, and celebrate the culture and heritage that was not fully lost with the destruction. The truth is out, and no-one needed to die.

On their way out, hologram Graham Norton mentions that Earth was destroyed on May 24th 2025, and Fifteen and Belinda head there sharpish, only for the TARDIS alarms to go off, and something blows the bloody door off. Uh oh.

Timey-Wimey Revelations

Fifteen has visions of Susan (Carole Ann Ford) calling out to him, asking him to come and find her. We were trolled with Susan references last year, but maybe this time we will have more luck. Fifteen absolutely needs an ally because…

Mrs Flood (sigh) was in the audience and was vented in space with everyone else. When she was revived, she had a little bigeneration of her own, and revealed that she is The Rani, a Time Lady from Classic Who. Well, to be technical, Mrs Flood is A Rani and New Rani (Archie Panjabi) is The Rani. (Don’t make a Two Ranis / Two Ronnies joke. Don’t. FOUR CANDLES. Stop it.) The Rani’s thing is big immoral experiments, so if my Glitch theory is real, this may all be her handiwork. Or perhaps she’s just studying the Glitch and warming up for some mad evil science of her own. Whose side will the pantheon of gods be on?

Mrs Flood’s Rani has been tracking Fifteen’s use of the Vindicator again this week, so the Two Ranis are likely headed to May 24th as well. Along with them for the ride will be Conrad the Bag of Dicks, who is back in next week’s episode (booo). However, RTD has promised a big bad trio and claimed on social media that the Two Ranis count as one, which means there is also speculation that we may see another Time Lord or Lady make an appearance. (Please be Missy, please be Missy.)

Remember when someone with red nail polish picked up the tooth that the Master was trapped in by the Toymaker? Chances are good that this was one of the Ranis…

And yes, mavity is still a thing!

Next week: The finale two-parter begins with ‘Wish World’ and the world may or may not explode. Good luck, everyone!