Dot and Bubble

You don’t know me, but my name is the Doctor, and your life is in danger, okay? There are creatures out there in the real world: there are monsters, and they are coming to get you. No. No. Lindy, don’t–!!

The Fifteenth Doctor

Warning: This review contains spoilers. The spoiler-free review can be found here.

Synopsis

The world of Finetime seems happy and harmonious. But an awful terror is preying on the citizens. Can the Doctor and Ruby make them see the truth before it’s too late?

Review

Dot and Bubble comes hot off the heels of a Doctor-lite episode, and this story does note feature the Doctor as much as we would tend to expect. Whilst 73 Yards barely features him, this story feels more similar to Doctor-lite stories like Blink with the Doctor featuring but not really appearing in person until the end of the story.

This is a story that has drawn parallels with Black Mirror, and it is easy to see why, but there’s nothing stopping Doctor Who from doing stories like this too. Throughout the show’s history, there have been episodes set in dystopic Russell T Davies has not been shy about addressing issues through his writing throughout his career, and there have certainly been moments in both of his eras of Doctor Who where he writes about issues that he sees affecting society, and in this story it is social media and technology. This story focuses on the harmful effect that this has on the young, forming bubbles and echo chambers around themselves and not being interested in the world around them. The story is set in a bubbled community made up of young people, who all come from rich families and get aggrieved at working for two hours a day as this takes them away from partying with their friends, presumably through the dot and bubble system on which they are dependent. Davies creates a world in which artificial intelligence had developed to the point in which it has decided that it does not like these humans and has started to pick them off in alphabetical order. On first watch, I assumed that this was going to be on the basis of the number of followers that they have, but I think that the reveal that it is actually something much simpler works really well. The slug-like creatures eating the influencers are effectively creepy, but I would like the story to have explained whether they were the natives of the planet of Finetime, or whether they are creations of the artificial intelligence.

There are a couple of plot holes that did take me out of the story, as much as I enjoyed it. Lindy is shown being unable to walk easily early on in the story but remarkably quickly learns how to walk, confidently using stairs and ladders, despite walking into a lamp post multiple times earlier in the story. She is even led, companion-like, by the hand by Ricky September as they run through the streets of Finetime, In addition, it feels as though the twist about September’s real name is something that the AI should have taken into account earlier, as the system knows that his real name is Coombes. I am perhaps quibbling a bit too much with that last one though.

Finetime appears to be a utopian society with pastel colours and the titular social media system allowing them all to communicate with their friends. Beneath the surface, however, is the fact that this society is inherently racist, something which is only explicitly clear in the story’s final moments. This point is seeded throughout the story subtly and I am ashamed to admit that it was only in the final moments that I realised that all of the people in Finetime are white, and on rewatching picked up on the hints that are dropped through the story. These are mostly seen through subtleties in the actions of Lindy, for instance, her calling the police when the Doctor reappears in her bubble, but are there from the first moment she opens up her bubble to show that everyone in her network is white. LIndy is a character who blocks the Doctor simply because he looks different to her, and then doesn’t know that she is talking to the same person later in the story. She is also far more receptive to what Ruby tells her than the Doctor, and is shocked when she learns that they are in the same room later, leading to her pretty flatly ignoring both of them when she arrives in the tunnel at the end of the story. What is so crushingly depressing about the twist in this story is that this is set in the future and humanity is still not willing to move beyond such a basic and petty division. In addition, at the end of the story, characters like Brewster Cavendish seem to have a sense of entitlement and privilege that colonising the outside world will be easy.

I must at this point mention Callie Cooke, who plays the main character, Lindy Pepper-Bean, who puts in a truly remarkable performance as a character who becomes more and more unlikeable as the story progresses. What first appears to be a vacuous and vain influencer becomes a really unpleasant character towards the end, willing to sacrifice Ricky September, who is arguably the only reason that she is able to survive to that point in the story, in order to save her own skin, and then lie about him when asked by the Doctor. Cooke, in no small part thanks to the work of the director Dylan Holmes Williams, manages to carry off a challenging part, because the audience do have to care for the character, despite her flaws. The character is vain, vacuous and childish, willing to bury her head in the sand of the dot and bubble system rather than face the truth of what is happening around her. Lindy is the one of these influencers that we spend the most time with, and as the story progresses, some of those edges do get sanded off slightly once united with Ricky September, which makes it all the more shocking when she sacrifices him so that she can survive combined with one of the most gruesome character deaths I can remember seeing on Doctor Who.

As mentioned above, the Doctor and Ruby mainly feature through the dot and bubble system, however, when they do appear they do manage to make their presence felt. The final scene, between the Doctor, Ruby, Lindy, Hoochy Pie and Brewster is really powerful, along with the reveal that everyone surrounding them is white. Gatwa is superb in this scene, showing his frustration and anger at the prejudice of the inhabitants of Finetime beautifully. I think that this moment will come to define this Doctor and shows how this Doctor deals with defeat, even following taking that time for therapy in his previous incarnation. Gibson, after her good performance last week, gets saddled with a lot of exposition. but her presence in that scene is vital for conveying her support for the Doctor in this new situation for him, being rejected because of his race. Lindy, Brester and Hoochy Pie dismiss the TARDIS as being voodoo, and him being dangerous or infectious, despite him saving Lindy from being eaten.

Verdict: Dot and Bubble is another strong entry in Gatwa’s debut series, but perhaps feels as though it has too many ideas to address at times. 8/10

Cast: Ncuti Gatwa (The Doctor), Millie Gibson (Ruby Sunday), Callie Cooke (Lindy Pepper-Bean), Tom Rhys Harries (Ricky September), Eilidh Loan (Cooper Mercy), Aldous Ciokajlo Squire (Harry Tendency), Niamh Lynch (Hoochy Pie), Millie Kent (Valerie Nook), Billy Brayshaw (Blake Very Blue), Peter MacHale (Gothic Paul), Max Boast (Dr Pee). Elloise Bennett (Rotterdam Twin 1), Olivia Bennett (Rotterdam Twin 2), Jack Forsyth-Noble (Weatherman Will), Milo Callaghan (Alan K Sullivan), Susan Twist (Penny Pepper-Bean), Ellie-Grace Cashin (Suzie Pentecost) & Jamie Barnard (Brewster Cavendish).

Writer: Russell T Davies

Director: Dylan Holmes Williams

Producer: Vicki Delow

Composer: Murray Gold

Original UK Broadcast Date: 1st June 2024

Behind the Scenes

• This story features the first filming work that Ncuti Gatwa did as the Fifteenth Doctor.
• Working titles for this story included Monsters, Monsters Everywhere and IRL.
• Russell T Davies pitched this story idea to Steven Moffat in 2010, however, the story was deemed to be impossible to make at this time.
• Russell T Davies took inspiration from the Black Mirror episode Nosedive.

Cast Notes

To follow.

Best Moment

It has to be the final scene where the reality of the Finetime society really hits home and the Fifteenth Doctor’s reaction to his pleas for them to come with him to safety instead of risking death outside of the protective bubble.

Best Quote

Previous Fifteenth Doctor review: 73 Yards

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