14 thoughts on “SPOILER FREE Reaction to ‘Dot and Bubble’ (Doctor Who)”
scifimike70
The giant slug villains for this one looked a lot like the giant slugs in Image Of The Fendahl which was interesting. I’m sure that the mean-spirited ending will get a lot of Whovians and sci-fi fans in general thinking about where the sci-fi universe let alone Dr. Who could be headed next. Certainly when taking on real issues like social media dangers.
I actually wondered if the giant slugs (Mantraps, I believe they’re called) were relatives of the Tractators from ‘Frontios’. 😀 I’m not sure what their plans were exactly and where they came from. I think the Dots might have created them. I don’t think it was properly explained in the episode. Or if it was explained, then more time was required for audience members like me to process the information.
An aspect about this episode that I didn’t initially pick up on was the sense of there being casual racism aimed at the Doctor when he offered Lindy and her friends help at the story’s end. Not meaning to be ignorant, but I thought Lindy and her friends were simply being snobs and were stuck in their own social-media world to consider associating or recieving help from outsiders like the Doctor and Ruby. Rascism wasn’t something I picked up on after initally watching the episode. It’s something for me to examine and re-acknowledge when it comes to doing an in-depth review on ‘Dot and Bubble’.
You’re very welcome. One can imagine that Ncuti’s Doctor might occasionally run into racist characters as of course Martha, Bill and Ryan did. Just as women on the TARDIS team had to deal with sexism, and even abuse from men, like Peri being slapped by Maldak’s glove or Romana getting her hair pulled by Rorvik, the realism of human prejudice can be a factor in many Whoniversal stories and certainly when conflicts arise with Silurians, Sea Devils and Draconians. Quite confidently we can still expect Ncuti’s Doctor to stand his ground as Jodie’s Doctor stood hers. To set the best examples in dealing with the issues of the times, Dr. Who, regardless of race or gender, will still be a true icon for justice.
That’s an element I’ve always appreciated in Doctor Who, scifimike70. For as many speeches we have about human indomitability, there is still a ready recognition of human prejudice.
The programme never really swayed towards the Star Trek utopian ideal of “we’ll have solved these problems by the future”. It was far more pragmatic than that. Classism is still a problem (the Time Lords). Racial prejudice is still a problem (the Daleks). Denying body autonomy is still a problem (the Cybermen). Colonialism is still a problem (the Sontarans).
There are still the poor, the marginalised and the victimised. Humanity has taken all its baggage out into the stars with it. And, more often than not, acknowledging that sidestepped the potential hypocrisy of future settings that alleged all was well, but could never truly prove that.
I kind of loved how the New Adventures used the Earth Empire for that reason. For every Doctor, we have a recurring adversary. The First Doctor had the Daleks. The Second had the Cybermen. The Third had the Master. The Seventh Doctor’s recurring adversary of the VNAs… was Humanity. The worst aspects of human xenophobia.
Because by that point, Doctor Who could look back critically over its own history and acknowledge that humans can (and often are) their own worst enemy.
The Doctor will fight them as readily as any “alien monster”. Because it doesn’t matter. Extremist violence is still extremist violence. Given the current state of the world (2024, at time of writing), a story like Dot and Bubble — well, it’s always relevant, but it also — it feels really timely.
One alien race in the Whoniverse that I always had issues with were the Androgrums in The Two Doctors. Because, even in the Doctor’s own words, they were all-bad, which would be opposed by Gene Roddenberry’s wisdom that there’s no such thing as an all-bad race. As I just heard, the Androgrums are making a comeback in a Big Finish story. So I wonder how they might turn out now after so long.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I don’t know if it’s me, but there was an element of ‘Midnight’ featured in ‘Dot and Bubble’, as in that story, the Doctor struggled to convince people that he wanted to save them in spite of them being hostile when in a perilous situation. Whilst I’m not really a fan of that story and whilst it doesn’t exactly match to what’s going on in ‘Dot and Bubble’, it’s fascinating RTD likes to go for stories where the Doctor can’t always save people, especially when they seem opposed to him.
I agree, scifimike70. And, as well, the species essentialism that’s behind the Doctor’s assertion about the Androgums. That was something challenged way back in The Curse of Peladon with the Doctor’s own ideas about the Martian Ice Warriors.
If it had been me, and I’d been looking at putting The Two Doctors through a rewrite… I’d have put that spotlight on Chessene, not on the Androgums. The Two Doctors should have been about how “civilising” sociopathy doesn’t make it go away.
Terry Pratchett tackled the idea really well in Carpe Jugulum and some of his other Discworld stories featuring vampirism. They took their evil and industrialised it. The slaughter was removed from them, hidden away, but it didn’t change the devastation behind it.
There is one conversation in The Two Doctors — written by Robert Holmes in the script, removed by Eric Saward, and returned in Holmes’s novelisation — that highlights a really important part of Chessene’s character. Her acquisition of the coronic acid to kill the Sontarans is premeditated. She planned to kill them from the beginning.
It isn’t who she is, as an Androgum, that makes her the villain of that story, it’s what she does as Chessene o’ the Franzine Grig. We see those little details throughout the story. She takes pleasure in the scientists’ deaths, she indulges Shockeye’s bloodlust, she likes killing things. But, none of that is an exclusively Androgum trait. If Chessene had been human, her character wouldn’t have changed.
The Two Doctors is much more effective as a fable about turning a blind eye because of arrogance (as with Dastari), than it is about a species being unable to change.
I must check out ‘The Two Doctors’ novelization/audiobook sometime, as it’s one I’ve been meaning to check out for a long time, especially with it being like the only ‘Doctor Who’ Target novelization by Robert Holmes (not counting the prologue by Holmes in Terrance Dicks’ ‘Time Warrior’ novelization.
(As an aside: Perfect editing for the video, leaving that pause after: “lots of close-ups in this one.” 10/10. Alpha Plus.)
I’m loving this continuing thread of mature themes this season. From faith to isolation to racism. Dot and Bubble was a great anthology-style dystopian tale. I could tell something was off from the get-go.
When I was starting out as a fan, I gravitated quite strongly towards stories by Steve Lyons. His name will pop up here and there in Doctor Who expanded media. Particularly in the Wilderness Years. He did Killing Ground, Conundrum, Harry Houdini’s War, The Witch Hunters, The Crooked World, The Stealers of Dreams, etc.
Lyons’s stories had that wonderful visceral edge to them. They picked up the audience in their Alsatian jaws and shook them like a rabbit carcass. It was uncomfortable. The characters could be cruel and vicious. But it had some of the best meditations about injustice (personal and far-reaching) and how we engage with media in Doctor Who, period.
Because, as nasty as the truth is, it is still… the truth. Sometimes the Doctor will encounter a situation where people cannot be saved. Where the problem runs far deeper than a crisis of the day. Sometimes the Doctor can do everything right — everything — and still fail. That is an extremely interesting Universe to explore.
Because the problems in Dot and Bubble go far deeper than a screen. To paraphrase another Doctor: It’s not the screens, but the minds of the people who use them. Don’t mistake the symptom for the cause, says the story. That’s pretty brilliant storytelling.
This might be running contender for my favourite, this season. It’s nice to have some stiff competition.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on ‘Dot and Bubble’. Glad you enjoyed it. Interesting how you’ve compared this season to how things were done in the ‘Virgin New Adventures’ books of ‘Doctor Who’. I’ve not read all of them, but I’m getting a sense of that’s what this season is going for in terms of delving into mature themes in each episode as opposed to traditional monster of the week episodes that we’ve had in the original RTD era. Whether that’s a good or bad thing in this season from my point of view, well, I’m sure I’ll be sharing my thoughts on in it in my quick summary of Series 14 once we it’s completed.
Glad you enjoyed the pause at the end of my video.
I been a fan of Doctor Who over 40 yrs & it breaks my heart to see such awful written stories & bad acting.
To me this series is a mess & become cringeworthy & unbearable to watch to the point I think the show needs resting until a showrunner & lead actor can be found to bring it back to it’s roots.
Sorry to be negative but that’s how I feel & why I’ve quit the forum.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the series so far.
That’s fair enough. I’m saving my overall thoughts on Series 14 until we get to the end, but I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t really have high expectations of this season before it began, especially considering it doesn’t seem to contain many classic elements, apart from Bonnie Langford as Mel, Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart and U.N.I.T. appearing in the two-part finale. There are some good concepts featured in some of the stories, although the resolutions of how those stories came about is to be desired. I’m hoping to be won over by the two-part finale, especially when I get to see it on the big screen later this month. I’m looking forward to checking out ‘Rogue’ next week, especially to see Millie Gibson as Ruby in her Regency outfit, as she looks lovely in the photos and previews I’ve seen.
Bradley's Basement 
The giant slug villains for this one looked a lot like the giant slugs in Image Of The Fendahl which was interesting. I’m sure that the mean-spirited ending will get a lot of Whovians and sci-fi fans in general thinking about where the sci-fi universe let alone Dr. Who could be headed next. Certainly when taking on real issues like social media dangers.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi scifimike,
I actually wondered if the giant slugs (Mantraps, I believe they’re called) were relatives of the Tractators from ‘Frontios’. 😀 I’m not sure what their plans were exactly and where they came from. I think the Dots might have created them. I don’t think it was properly explained in the episode. Or if it was explained, then more time was required for audience members like me to process the information.
An aspect about this episode that I didn’t initially pick up on was the sense of there being casual racism aimed at the Doctor when he offered Lindy and her friends help at the story’s end. Not meaning to be ignorant, but I thought Lindy and her friends were simply being snobs and were stuck in their own social-media world to consider associating or recieving help from outsiders like the Doctor and Ruby. Rascism wasn’t something I picked up on after initally watching the episode. It’s something for me to examine and re-acknowledge when it comes to doing an in-depth review on ‘Dot and Bubble’.
Many thanks for your comments,
Tim 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re very welcome. One can imagine that Ncuti’s Doctor might occasionally run into racist characters as of course Martha, Bill and Ryan did. Just as women on the TARDIS team had to deal with sexism, and even abuse from men, like Peri being slapped by Maldak’s glove or Romana getting her hair pulled by Rorvik, the realism of human prejudice can be a factor in many Whoniversal stories and certainly when conflicts arise with Silurians, Sea Devils and Draconians. Quite confidently we can still expect Ncuti’s Doctor to stand his ground as Jodie’s Doctor stood hers. To set the best examples in dealing with the issues of the times, Dr. Who, regardless of race or gender, will still be a true icon for justice.
LikeLiked by 2 people
That’s an element I’ve always appreciated in Doctor Who, scifimike70. For as many speeches we have about human indomitability, there is still a ready recognition of human prejudice.
The programme never really swayed towards the Star Trek utopian ideal of “we’ll have solved these problems by the future”. It was far more pragmatic than that. Classism is still a problem (the Time Lords). Racial prejudice is still a problem (the Daleks). Denying body autonomy is still a problem (the Cybermen). Colonialism is still a problem (the Sontarans).
There are still the poor, the marginalised and the victimised. Humanity has taken all its baggage out into the stars with it. And, more often than not, acknowledging that sidestepped the potential hypocrisy of future settings that alleged all was well, but could never truly prove that.
I kind of loved how the New Adventures used the Earth Empire for that reason. For every Doctor, we have a recurring adversary. The First Doctor had the Daleks. The Second had the Cybermen. The Third had the Master. The Seventh Doctor’s recurring adversary of the VNAs… was Humanity. The worst aspects of human xenophobia.
Because by that point, Doctor Who could look back critically over its own history and acknowledge that humans can (and often are) their own worst enemy.
The Doctor will fight them as readily as any “alien monster”. Because it doesn’t matter. Extremist violence is still extremist violence. Given the current state of the world (2024, at time of writing), a story like Dot and Bubble — well, it’s always relevant, but it also — it feels really timely.
LikeLiked by 2 people
One alien race in the Whoniverse that I always had issues with were the Androgrums in The Two Doctors. Because, even in the Doctor’s own words, they were all-bad, which would be opposed by Gene Roddenberry’s wisdom that there’s no such thing as an all-bad race. As I just heard, the Androgrums are making a comeback in a Big Finish story. So I wonder how they might turn out now after so long.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi scifimike, Hi Wolfie,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I don’t know if it’s me, but there was an element of ‘Midnight’ featured in ‘Dot and Bubble’, as in that story, the Doctor struggled to convince people that he wanted to save them in spite of them being hostile when in a perilous situation. Whilst I’m not really a fan of that story and whilst it doesn’t exactly match to what’s going on in ‘Dot and Bubble’, it’s fascinating RTD likes to go for stories where the Doctor can’t always save people, especially when they seem opposed to him.
Many thanks,
Tim 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cheers, Tim. That’s a good observation.
I agree, scifimike70. And, as well, the species essentialism that’s behind the Doctor’s assertion about the Androgums. That was something challenged way back in The Curse of Peladon with the Doctor’s own ideas about the Martian Ice Warriors.
If it had been me, and I’d been looking at putting The Two Doctors through a rewrite… I’d have put that spotlight on Chessene, not on the Androgums. The Two Doctors should have been about how “civilising” sociopathy doesn’t make it go away.
Terry Pratchett tackled the idea really well in Carpe Jugulum and some of his other Discworld stories featuring vampirism. They took their evil and industrialised it. The slaughter was removed from them, hidden away, but it didn’t change the devastation behind it.
There is one conversation in The Two Doctors — written by Robert Holmes in the script, removed by Eric Saward, and returned in Holmes’s novelisation — that highlights a really important part of Chessene’s character. Her acquisition of the coronic acid to kill the Sontarans is premeditated. She planned to kill them from the beginning.
It isn’t who she is, as an Androgum, that makes her the villain of that story, it’s what she does as Chessene o’ the Franzine Grig. We see those little details throughout the story. She takes pleasure in the scientists’ deaths, she indulges Shockeye’s bloodlust, she likes killing things. But, none of that is an exclusively Androgum trait. If Chessene had been human, her character wouldn’t have changed.
The Two Doctors is much more effective as a fable about turning a blind eye because of arrogance (as with Dastari), than it is about a species being unable to change.
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Thanks for sharing those points.
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Thanks Wolfie,
I must check out ‘The Two Doctors’ novelization/audiobook sometime, as it’s one I’ve been meaning to check out for a long time, especially with it being like the only ‘Doctor Who’ Target novelization by Robert Holmes (not counting the prologue by Holmes in Terrance Dicks’ ‘Time Warrior’ novelization.
Many thanks,
Tim 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
(As an aside: Perfect editing for the video, leaving that pause after: “lots of close-ups in this one.” 10/10. Alpha Plus.)
I’m loving this continuing thread of mature themes this season. From faith to isolation to racism. Dot and Bubble was a great anthology-style dystopian tale. I could tell something was off from the get-go.
When I was starting out as a fan, I gravitated quite strongly towards stories by Steve Lyons. His name will pop up here and there in Doctor Who expanded media. Particularly in the Wilderness Years. He did Killing Ground, Conundrum, Harry Houdini’s War, The Witch Hunters, The Crooked World, The Stealers of Dreams, etc.
Lyons’s stories had that wonderful visceral edge to them. They picked up the audience in their Alsatian jaws and shook them like a rabbit carcass. It was uncomfortable. The characters could be cruel and vicious. But it had some of the best meditations about injustice (personal and far-reaching) and how we engage with media in Doctor Who, period.
Because, as nasty as the truth is, it is still… the truth. Sometimes the Doctor will encounter a situation where people cannot be saved. Where the problem runs far deeper than a crisis of the day. Sometimes the Doctor can do everything right — everything — and still fail. That is an extremely interesting Universe to explore.
Because the problems in Dot and Bubble go far deeper than a screen. To paraphrase another Doctor: It’s not the screens, but the minds of the people who use them. Don’t mistake the symptom for the cause, says the story. That’s pretty brilliant storytelling.
This might be running contender for my favourite, this season. It’s nice to have some stiff competition.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Wolfie,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on ‘Dot and Bubble’. Glad you enjoyed it. Interesting how you’ve compared this season to how things were done in the ‘Virgin New Adventures’ books of ‘Doctor Who’. I’ve not read all of them, but I’m getting a sense of that’s what this season is going for in terms of delving into mature themes in each episode as opposed to traditional monster of the week episodes that we’ve had in the original RTD era. Whether that’s a good or bad thing in this season from my point of view, well, I’m sure I’ll be sharing my thoughts on in it in my quick summary of Series 14 once we it’s completed.
Glad you enjoyed the pause at the end of my video.
Best wishes,
Tim 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
P.S. Hope everyone got the ‘Face and Book’ joke at the beginning of the video. 😀 Tim 🙂
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I been a fan of Doctor Who over 40 yrs & it breaks my heart to see such awful written stories & bad acting.
To me this series is a mess & become cringeworthy & unbearable to watch to the point I think the show needs resting until a showrunner & lead actor can be found to bring it back to it’s roots.
Sorry to be negative but that’s how I feel & why I’ve quit the forum.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Simon,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the series so far.
That’s fair enough. I’m saving my overall thoughts on Series 14 until we get to the end, but I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t really have high expectations of this season before it began, especially considering it doesn’t seem to contain many classic elements, apart from Bonnie Langford as Mel, Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart and U.N.I.T. appearing in the two-part finale. There are some good concepts featured in some of the stories, although the resolutions of how those stories came about is to be desired. I’m hoping to be won over by the two-part finale, especially when I get to see it on the big screen later this month. I’m looking forward to checking out ‘Rogue’ next week, especially to see Millie Gibson as Ruby in her Regency outfit, as she looks lovely in the photos and previews I’ve seen.
Best wishes,
Tim 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person