In the frenetic, time-twisting tapestry of Doctor Who, last night’s episode, Wish World—aired May 24, 2025—arrives like a fever dream, all glitter and grandiosity, yet faltering under the weight of its own ambitions. This penultimate chapter of the season, penned by Russell T Davies, plunges the Doctor and Belinda into a warped 1950s-esque reality, a dystopian fairytale that owes a conspicuous debt to WandaVision.
While the episode dazzles with its visuals and Archie Panjabi’s electrifying turn as the Rani, its plot creaks like a TARDIS with a loose bolt, overstuffed with ideas that never quite cohere. It’s a spectacle that thrills in the moment but leaves one longing for a tighter script, as if Davies has raided Marvel’s playbook without quite mastering its emotional finesse.
The visuals are a triumph, a kaleidoscope of retro-futurist suburbia and nightmarish flourishes that scream Doctor Who at its most audacious. The Harmony Arena’s bone palace, with its James Bond-esque dome, is a production design marvel, while animated sequences, dinosaurs stalking London, and a wish-granting baby’s eerie giggle evoke a Tim Burton fever dream. Director Alex Sanjiv Pillai crafts a world where every frame pops, from the Stepford-like streets to the Rani’s spiky leather swagger, a nod to Kate O’Mara’s original. These visuals, paired with a haunting score, make Wish World a feast for the senses, even if the narrative can’t keep pace.
Archie Panjabi, as the newly bi-generated Rani, is the episode’s supernova, chewing scenery with a relish that’s both camp and chilling. Her performance transforms the Rani from a niche Time Lord into a galactic force, striding through her bone palace with a punky menace that fits her like a glove. Whether taunting the Doctor with a disco ball dance or weaving a reality-shattering scheme, Panjabi commands every scene, her Emmy-winning gravitas lending depth to a character once dismissed as a Master-lite. Her interplay with Anita Dobson’s Mrs. Flood—a subservient Rani variant—is a delight, their dynamic a mix of menace and mischief. Panjabi’s Rani is a villain you love to hate, her every line dripping with theatrical venom, making her the episode’s undeniable highlight.
Varada Sethu, as Belinda Chandra, continues to shine, her nurse’s pragmatism anchoring the Doctor’s disorientation. Her scenes in the faux-domestic bliss of Wish World, particularly in moments of doubt, grounds the episode’s wilder swings, though she’s underused in the latter half.
Yet, the plot is where Wish World stumbles, a chaotic jumble that feels like a WandaVision photocopy run through a Doctor Who filter. The setup—Conrad Clark (Jonah Hauer-King) crafting a repressive utopia with the Rani’s wish-granting god-baby Desiderium—echoes Wanda Maximoff’s grief-fueled Hex. The Doctor and Belinda wake as a married couple with a daughter, Poppy, in a 1950s Britain rife with homophobia and ableism, a critique of tradwife totalitarianism that feels like Stepford with a sonic screwdriver.
The WandaVision comparison is inescapable and not entirely flattering. Davies’ love for Marvel, evident in his nods to Loki and Star Wars this season, here feels like a direct lift, with the Doctor’s “John Smith” alias mirroring Wanda’s suburban delusion. The episode’s ambition is admirable, but its rushed pacing and reliance on Time Lord lore, like Omega’s looming return, dilute its impact. It’s as if Davies, enamoured with Marvel’s reality-bending playbook, forgot to ground his story in the emotional stakes that made his first Who run soar.
Still, Panjabi’s Rani and the episode’s visual flair keep Wish World afloat. The cliffhanger—the Doctor plummeting into the Underverse as Omega’s voice booms—promises a finale of epic scope, per Radio Times. It’s a bold setup, but one hopes Davies can weave these threads into a tapestry less derivative and more cohesive than this outing.
Ten Interesting Things from Wish World:
- Panjabi’s Punk Rani: Archie Panjabi’s theatrical menace as the Rani, swaggering in a spiky leather coat, reinvents the villain with camp and gravitas.
- Bone Palace Spectacle: The Rani’s domed base, a “James Bond set” is a visual stunner, with animated dinosaur skeletons prowling London.
- WandaVision Echoes: The 1950s dystopia, with the Doctor and Belinda as a married couple, blatantly channels WandaVision.
- Belinda’s Poise: Varada Sethu’s Belinda, radiant in retro attire that subtly flatters her form, grounds the chaos with quiet strength.
- Desiderium’s Creepy Giggle: The wish-granting baby, a “terrifying” god, adds a fairy-tale chill with its eerie laugh.
- Conrad’s Dystopia: Jonah Hauer-King’s Conrad crafts a repressive utopia, a “tradwife totalitarianism” that remains chillingly plausible.
- Ruby’s Resistance: Millie Gibson’s Ruby, teaming with Shirley (Ruth Madeley), forms a resistance that feels underused but potent.
- Rani’s Bi-Generation Dynamic: Panjabi and Anita Dobson’s interplay, with Mrs. Flood as a subservient Rani, is a barrel of laughs.
- Omega’s Looming Return: The cliff-hanger tease of Omega, voiced but unseen, promises Gallifreyan high stakes for a character not seen since the Peter Davison episode "Arc of Infinity".
- Social Commentary: Davies’ critique of conservatism and thought policing, while heavy-handed, resonates in 2025’s fraught climate.