Doctor Who Episodic Coverage: “Wish World”
“Wish World” Has Quite A Lot Of Strange Moments
I think one of the most efficient ways to review “Wish World” is to describe a little bit of what it’s like watching “Wish World.” Because this is one of the weirdest, most unmooring episodes of Doctor Who I have ever seen.
After a truly strange scene involving the Rani and a baby who grants wishes—which implies that Pantheon gods can just be very special humans—we fall into an effective dystopia scenario, with a twist. Anytime someone starts to break out, or even notice that something is wrong, a mug shatters—effectively distracting them, or scaring them back into compliance. And mugs break so often that everyone just accepts it as part of the world and has tons of them on hand.
There Are So Many Details Put Into The Set Design
Now, this is obviously already a lot to take in, but I must say the set design, acting, and general pacing for this section is amazing. “Wish World” basically takes any characters or elements from the past two seasons possible, and reincorporates them into this setting in interesting ways. We get so much social commentary—especially on the enforcement of gender roles—in a few tense scenes.
And then Ruby recognizes Shirley and the dystopia and commentary changes. It becomes more specific. It’s not just a dystopia based on the nuclear family, it’s Conrad’s dystopia. And Conrad is a close-minded bigot. What he wants, notices, and expects thus informs the world and warps people’s mental states so effectively even the Doctor has trouble breaking out. Anyone Conrad doesn’t even consider, or think about, still exists, but are left in an almost purgatorial state.
“Wish World” Covers A Lot Of Social Commentary
And I can’t speak for how well the commentary in this section is handled. Shirley and Ruby’s scenes are obviously a damning indictment of how people often refuse to see the unhoused, disabled, and/or financially struggling human beings. But how that’s presented, I’ll leave it to others to decide. Besides being commentary, its function in the narrative is being one of several inciting incidents that start to break open the dystopia.
Once it is broken open, though, and all of the main characters end up near the giant palace, the episode loses me a bit. And I don’t mean I wasn’t having fun—I mean I was deeply, deeply confused. I actually assumed I misunderstood or even misheard when the Rani started saying that she wanted the Doctor to break out of the scenario. Hadn’t the Rani created this scenario? It’s a trap. A trap for the Doctor, right? Why would breaking it be the villain’s goal?
And though the episode does eventually “justify” the rampant and continuous exposition that makes up basically the rest of the episode from here, I wasn’t buying into the scenario. My immersion was shattered. At one point, the Rani literally takes the Doctor by the hand and runs around from room to room showing off plotlines. It’s a total tone shift.
“Wish World” Has A Really Long Villain Monologue
Though credit where it’s due, once I did get the full plot of “Wish World,” I will concede it is remarkably creative. Making a world with the express purpose of then breaking it is not a plotline I’ve seen in any other fantasy/sci-fi story I can even remotely recall, and it’s not a plot that would’ve worked without setting up the broad Pantheon’s stuff beforehand. I have complained across many, many episodes now, that the magic stuff needs to have rules that hold firm, and though the table explanation doesn’t account for every on-screen mug break, this episode otherwise has a fairly consistent, if convoluted, rules set. I mostly get what the Rani is doing. I think the reason the Doctor couldn’t get to that specific date has been loosely explained. I get why she chose Conrad to helm this new reality. At some point, the plot will need to deal with the existence of a functionally omnipotent wish-granter, but nothing in the plot appears to be functionally breaking at this time.
So, though I am left with my head still swimming with so many plotlines, and I have no idea how I could succinctly describe an episode like this, all of these cool ideas presented and combined actually make “Wish World” one of my favorites—though I’ve said that about most of these episodes. It’s got so many good moments. It’s surreal and creative and unique and the sets look cool. I’ve been reviewing this show episodically for more than a year now, and “Wish World” rewards people for watching closely the last two seasons. I worry about how the next episode could possibly wrap up a story like this, but if it manages it, this will be an absolute standout in the series as a whole.
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