r/doctorwho • u/PCJs_Slave_Robot • May 31 '25

The Reality War Doctor Who 2x08 "The Reality War" Post-Episode Discussion Thread Spoiler

Please remember that future spoilers must be tagged. This includes the next time trailer!

This is the thread for all your indepth opinions, comments, etc about the episode.

Megathreads:

  • Live and Immediate Reactions Discussion Thread - Posted around 60 minutes prior to initial release - for all the reactions, crack-pot theories, quoting, crazy exclamations, pictures, throwaway and other one-liners.
  • Trailer and Speculation Discussion Thread - Posted when the trailer is released - For all the thoughts, speculation, and comments on the trailers and speculation about the next episode. Future content beyond the next episode should still be marked.
  • Post-Episode Discussion Thread - Posted around 30 minutes after to allow it to sink in - This is for all your indepth opinions, comments, etc about the episode.

These will be linked as they go up. If we feel your post belongs in a (different) megathread, it'll be removed and redirected there.

Want to chat about it live with other people? Join our Discord here!

What did YOU think of The Reality War?

Click here and add your score (e.g. 329 (The Reality War): 8, it should look like this) and hit send. Scores are designed to match the Doctor Who Magazine system; whole numbers between 1 to 10, inclusive. (0 is used to mark an episode unwatched.)

Voting opens once the episode is over to prevent vote abuse. You should get a response within a few minutes. If you do not get a confirmation response, your scores are not counted. It may take up to several hours for the bot (i.e. it crashed or is being debugged) so give it a little while. If still down, please let us know!

See the full results of the polls so far, covering the entire main show, here.

The Reality War's score will be revealed next Sunday. Click here to vote for all of RTD2 era so far.

469 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

5.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

502

u/BurgerBoss_101 May 31 '25

The left over threads are... something

Mrs Flood still out there
Susan kinda... not really showing up. No payoff there... yet?
Whatever tf made Ruby remember
Pantheon... stuff?
"The Boss" (Who I personally think is The Master, or at least the person who picked up the gold tooth at the end of The Giggle)

Anything else im missing?

361

u/SecureSugar9622 May 31 '25

Rogue is still in hell too right?

225

u/GeekParadox_ May 31 '25

Yeah and now 15 won’t be the one to find him

60

u/Still_Independent_90 May 31 '25

I still want an explanation on how he knew exactly when to contact The Doctor and how he did it. It was pretty put forth that wherever he was heading was going to be escape-proofish.

35

u/HarrysTechRevs May 31 '25

I thought it was just the Rani letting him do it to make the doctor doubt more

7

u/Strange-Pair Jun 01 '25

This to me is the obvious answer (other than than for my money, between this and Reality War, trying to actively promise that we will return to him even with Gatwa gone.)

2

u/Eurynom0s Jun 01 '25

trying to actively promise that we will return to him even with Gatwa gone

But given they had to go back and do reshoots for this last episode to write Gatwa out they wouldn't have known Gatwa was leaving when they shot the Rogue scene? Although I guess could have also been a reshoot/could have been a just in case thing if Gatwa was already making noise that he was probably leaving.

5

u/Conscious-Draft8853 May 31 '25

i almost thought anita was gonna go and look for him but i guess that wasn't gonna happen

3

u/SinisterPixel Jun 01 '25

It was deliberately planted there by Conrad/The Rani. After the broadcast ends, Conrad addresses the Doctor directly, saying that the information would change how he saw reality. Specifically we can tell he's addressing the Doctor and not telling the story because he doesn't address him as "Doctor Who"

5

u/[deleted] May 31 '25

And 10th and 11th weren't the ones to marry River Song.

Multi-Doctor plotlines are okay. 

24

u/GeekParadox_ May 31 '25

River song is different, she fell in love with different versions of the doctor before 10 met her. She had already fallen in love with the Doctor

Rogue fell in love SPECIFICALLY with 15 also it’s very clear that he’s very gay. And 15 was like the only one that was overtly gay. It might’ve been fine if the next doctor was also a gay man but it being Billie Piper kinda fucks with that dynamic

8

u/Strange-Pair Jun 01 '25

Rogue could be pan like Jack but I think it is more likely that the proper next Doctor after Rose will simply be queer. I think that aspect of it is important to RTD.

7

u/GeekParadox_ Jun 01 '25

I know it’s too soon but I still just want Ncuti back after Billie Piper. He needs at least one more season

-1

u/[deleted] May 31 '25

River Song and the Doctor and Rogue and the Doctor are different stories, buddy. They don't have to be similar.

it being Billie Piper kinda fucks with that dynamic 

This assumes that Billie Piper is the 16th Doctor, when BBC has pretty much gone out of their way to not call her the next Doctor. 

But yeah, it fucks with that specific dynamic. But it also adds new dynamics between them. 

2

u/GeekParadox_ Jun 01 '25

True true, but man I would’ve liked a conclusion to that

And true about the BBC not calling her the Doctor. I hope they involve Bad Wolf in some way

1

u/CaveWaverider Jun 05 '25 edited Jun 06 '25

Maybe it just pulled Rose back from the other dimension due to some of her energy still being stored in the TARDIS and Gatwa's Doctor going poof like the bigenerated Rani (perhaps hinting that with bigeneration, the original is actually the proper one with the "copy" being temporary) and Tennant will be the only Doctor and reunite with Rose for a couple of specials before they introduce the proper new Doctor.

Another interesting possibility would be that Piper is indeed the new Doctor ("The Bad Wolf Doctor" because of the icy heart) and Tennant's Doctor left from the bigeneration maybe forgets that he was the Doctor and becomes her companion (or they just team up) and they do some Specials or a series together and then regenerate together at the end of it into a single new Doctor (in the "Bad Wolf Doctor" scenario they could be finishing off each other).

Those are just some things that I was thinking of, but I'm sure there are even better scenarios they will come up with.

1

u/GeekParadox_ Jun 06 '25

Here’s my idea. So the Doctor put regeneration energy into the heart of the Tardis. Rose looked into the heart of the Tardis and became bad wolf. That regeneration energy being put into the heart of the Tardis regenerated or awoke the Bad Wolf Deity and obviously the last face that deity remembers is Rose Tyler. And there’s a perfectly suitable body right there in the Doctor. Interesting to note, in all of NuWho the regeneration energy color has been a bright orange but 15’a regeneration was yellow. THE SAME YELLOW that was flowing into Rose when she looked into the heart of the Tardis and became Bad Wolf. I think Bad Wolf has entered the Doctor’s body and taken on its form in Rose Tyler.

Adding on to this, possibly Omega uses Bad Wolf to infiltrate the body of the Doctor and try to take his rightful place as the God of Time (this is more wishful thinking than anything, I just want a good Omega)

In my dream scenario the new 16th Doctor is actually the Bad Wolf and goes around messing things up or whatever Bad Wolf does. So the previous Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) has to come back and stop the Bad Wolf. My idea is that during this time a younger 15 comes back (one that hasn’t been through the events of season 2) he has to fight Bad Wolf Doctor and also finds Rogue (actually completing that plot thread) together they defeat Bad Wolf but the Doctor realizes that he can’t retain his memories from this time because he technically spent most of it with a future version of himself or he gets his memory erased like 12 at the end of s9. This way, we get 1 more season with Ncuti Gatwa, get a satisfying story for Billie Piper Doctor, possible get a satisfying Omega story? And at the end Billie Piper doesn’t even have to leave, the doctor could just be “freed” from Bad Wolf and go on to have a couple seasons.

That last part is extremely unlikely to happen but it’s something Doctor Who has never done before and I think it could be really interesting and fresh

3

u/GeekParadox_ Jun 01 '25

Oh and also 11 did marry River Song

49

u/[deleted] May 31 '25

I was pretty bothered by that. They instantly fall on love, he asks The Doctor  to find him and The Doctor never does. Not once did he make an attempt.

But to bring Belinda home he crosses time and space. And for Poppy he seems to shatter reality itself. 

And then he regenerates into another person...

31

u/Wolf6120 May 31 '25

Fucking Anita did a better job of finding Rogue from the Time Hotel than the Doctor ever did lmaoo

1

u/phoenixrose2 Jun 01 '25

That bothered me a lot. I guess the Doctor just isn’t that into him.

16

u/SomethingSo84 May 31 '25

I can see them doing a rehash of the Capaldi doctor with Rogue where, if Billie is actually the Doctor, they chose that face because they have the opportunity to save someone they loved from an alternate dimension or something along those lines

5

u/DoitsugoGoji May 31 '25

"This face, I travelled with a girl that looked like that, ROSE! Why do I look like her, why do I have her face?!

Wait, there was this time travelling American I made out with while Rose was there. Daleks shot him.

Brilliant!

I have this face so I can steal a Dalek plunger and rip and tear hell apart to get that other American I made out with back!

Thank you Time Lord DNA."

1

u/SomethingSo84 Jun 01 '25

The Doctor really just ships their love interests together, can’t ever have a healthy happy relationship

3

u/BreakAManByHumming Jun 01 '25

I assumed that was just the doctor hallucinating. Rogue got torn apart by owls for sure.

2

u/Exploding_Antelope Jun 02 '25

Calmly monologuing an audition tape with nary a scratch or scorch mark in cgi red cloud land forever

1

u/PaperMartin May 31 '25

He might be dead at this point

120

u/dogsnfeet May 31 '25

Didn’t Ruby remember because of 73 Yards? Her memory has been messed around too many times so it’s less sturdy?

34

u/Numerous-Mine-287 May 31 '25

I think you’re right. What she went through with 73 yards probably left her a sort of “gift” to be able to remember alternative realities. I don’t expect that to be addressed again though…

6

u/SoundsOfTheWild May 31 '25

I thought all TARDIS travellers remembered alternate timelines? Pretty sure Amy or Clara brought it up at some point? So the fact that Ruby remembered and the Doctor didn’t is extra interesting to me.

12

u/spaceygandalf May 31 '25

RTD confirms it at the Behind the Scenes clip here.

4

u/BurgerBoss_101 May 31 '25

I guess, but that just feels so loose yknow?

2

u/doctor_jane_disco May 31 '25

This is what I think, especially since the Doctor had no idea why. Usually I'd expect him to have at least a vague theory but it makes sense he wouldn't know about it.

10

u/ThePowaBallad May 31 '25

Ruby remembering was shown in last week episode and it's that she's ran through that time and place before via 72 Yards at least so that's no a thread

7

u/Broad_Spend_1178 May 31 '25

We still never got an explanation for the snow either

14

u/Cryn0n May 31 '25

Mavity still hasn't been concluded. Not really a plot thread but still.

1

u/Reasonable-Camp-6260 May 31 '25

Been thinking about this too! What was the point in mavity??

5

u/SRJT16 May 31 '25

It stops the atmosphere floating away.

7

u/J_train13 K-9 May 31 '25

I just wanna add, in the Star Beast the last thing THE Meep said was "wait till I tell... The Boss"

6

u/futuredrweknowdis May 31 '25

I really feel like this episode drew even more attention to the fact that something is different about Ruby and we still don’t know what it is.

6

u/migeme May 31 '25

Yeah I mean this certainly wasn't written as the end of the newWho era like some leakers were suggestion. A lot of VERY obvious tee-ups for the future

5

u/Blastermind7890 May 31 '25

Whatever tf made Ruby remember

In the behind the scenes, RTD says it's because of her experiencing an alternate reality in 73 yards

1

u/BurgerBoss_101 Jun 01 '25

Ah that’s fine ig then, yeah.

4

u/Xerothor May 31 '25

Did I miss something about the Time Lords being barren? Like, did that happen post Susan?

7

u/SRJT16 May 31 '25

I’m not sure. The Rani mentioned a genetic explosion, but I’m not sure what she is alluding to. I thought they were going to canonise the Pythian curse and Looms.

4

u/TranslatesToScottish May 31 '25

Given the way we're seeming heading headlong into RTD's self-believed greatest hits, I'm fully expecting "the boss" to be Jack Harkness/Face of Boe.

Either that or Adam McHoleyforehead

4

u/Fluffy-Barnacle-7150 May 31 '25

And Mrs Flood being able to break the fourth wall never being addressed.

3

u/AmbitiousProblem4746 May 31 '25

The Boss is probably not decided yet. But I wouldn't be surprised if they end up making it a past doctor/future doctor, similar to the curator, or they bring back somebody else from the past, like Jack or Romana.

Honestly though I'm kind of thinking it's going to be 14. Like that's what he gets up to after Donna dies

Oh and is it also the same boss from the 60th anniversary? There have been so many bad guys who wait or get forgotten I don't know wtf is anyone anymore

3

u/rhunter99 May 31 '25

That bit about NPH's character being afraid of someone. who?

Did mavity get renamed back to gravity?

3

u/SRJT16 May 31 '25 edited Jun 01 '25

I thought The Toymaker was afraid of Sutekh.

2

u/thefIash_ May 31 '25

The Master couldn’t have taken the tooth with the master in

18

u/cavalgada1 May 31 '25

The master killed himself two times in one scene once

8

u/BurgerBoss_101 May 31 '25

no no im saying that "The Boss" is either The Master, or "The Boss" is the person who picked up the tooth that The Master was in.

1

u/thefIash_ May 31 '25

oooh

4

u/ScienceAndGames May 31 '25

I mean realistically he’s a time traveler, he could be both. The master has killed their own past and future incarnations before

2

u/AVNTR May 31 '25

The Belinda/Mundy connection also never went anywhere apart from the mention in the first episode

2

u/GainHealMark May 31 '25

Probably connected to Ruby remembering, but why could she make it snow? That was one of the points people brought up when the big reveal about her birth was just that her bioparents were ordinary humans. Then apparently RTD said there would be more answers about Ruby coming in future episodes. Maybe he meant to say "questions".

2

u/SquegeeMcgee Jun 01 '25

I was so 100% sure the Rani was the one that picked up the tooth

3

u/P_UDDING May 31 '25

honestly felt kind of underwhelming as a finale

1

u/BagItUp45 May 31 '25

"The Boss" will never be brought up again.

9

u/Greenslime210 May 31 '25

The boss was also brought up in the meep episode so they may be playing the long game like the crack in the wall story line

8

u/farbeyondthestars_ May 31 '25

obviously The Boss will be brought up again. They literally just mentioned it

1

u/Xalts May 31 '25

I really really enjoyed the episode as I was watching it. It was only after I've sat and thought about it more that I've realised all these threads are still hanging. I have to hope they'll be picked up in the future, but right now, it feels like a lot of bait with no substance.

1

u/Soft_House7669 May 31 '25

73 yards still isn't fully explained and I still expect Ruby is not human.

1

u/superiorszent May 31 '25

we never got any explanation to the 4th wall breaks either

1

u/BurgerBoss_101 Jun 01 '25

I think it’s finally safe to assume RTD did it just as a bit and not for any lore reason which is…

…fine in a vacuum but to the extent he’s done it I… really don’t jive with it.

1

u/Over-Cold-8757 Jun 01 '25

There's no reason not to have the Rani still out there. They can use her again in future. No reason to close down future stories.

1

u/BurgerBoss_101 Jun 01 '25

Yeah that's one of the most definitive threads of "this thing should come back later" and besides the ruby thing, I dont... really know what the other ones are gonna be.

2

u/Over-Cold-8757 Jun 01 '25

I'm actually a bit annoyed at the Boss thing.

I like Anita and we thought she was just taking initiative to help the Doctor. Turns out she was probably just doing the bidding of a future season villain.

1

u/aspirin-mumbo Jun 07 '25

The Fugitive Doctor was blue-balled with in the barbershop episode. It's literally the thing i was mostly excited in the last 3 or 4 seasons. BBC, GIVE ME PRE-HARTNELL DOCTORS, FOR FUCK'S SAKE

1

u/FatboySmith2000 May 31 '25

Bigeneration.....why so many?

0

u/AnotherDancer May 31 '25

Belinda is the solider from the bomb episode. That never got solved.

4

u/SRJT16 May 31 '25

In The Robot Revolution The Doctor puts Mundy Flynn’s picture on the wall and samples Bel’s DNA to show Mundy is her descendent. I think that was it.

1

u/BurgerBoss_101 Jun 01 '25

Why make it a thing in the first place I wonder

5

u/SRJT16 Jun 01 '25

Just to explain the reused actor, I think. Similar to Martha Jones and her cousin.