Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
I’ve put together a video containing my reactions to Omega’s return to the new ‘Doctor Who’ TV series in the two-part finale of Series 15 called ‘Wish World’/’The Reality War’. This includes my reaction to the announcement of his return in ‘Wish World’ and my reaction to his reveal in ‘The Reality War’. Both reactions come from my Quick Reactions videos on ‘Wish World’ and ‘The Reality War’ respectively.
Enjoy!
Please feel free to check out the rest of my Quick Reactions videos on ‘Wish World’ and ‘The Reality War’ by clicking on the links.
Thanks for reading and watching!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
Bradley's Basement 
Omega’s return in Arc Of Infinity may always be most particularly memorable for the right and wrong ways to do it. Giving him a new look certainly worked the first time around and the designer should have won a costume design award for that. Ian Collier, as did Stephen Thorne, quite easily proved how an actor is able to project himself without being allowed to show his face. Omega was always very special in that regard in reflection of how challenging it has often been through the history of Doctor Who. So the way that RTD in The Reality War brought Omega back is a major disappointment for me and for many others fans, as well I know from YouTube reactions.
Even though the least-recurring villainies of the Whoniverse have become much more exciting now thanks to the Toymaker, Sutekh, Midnight and the Rani, the best creative avenues in light of where Doctor Who is going nowadays are consequently far more challenging. But the great talent, thanks to Neil Patrick Harris, Archie Panjabi and of course the return of Gabriel Woolf, can still make them enjoyably watchable as Kate O’Mara and Michael Gough did. So Omega deserved better and hopefully somewhere down the line that can be made the best amends for, either for TV, Big Finish or even the fan film Whoniverse.
Thank you, Tim.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi scifimike,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Omega’s return in ‘Wish World’/’The Reality War’. It’s a shame how it’s come about with Omega’a return. What gets me, apart from the fact that Omega is a giant CGI monster and gets defeated within 3 minutes, is that his design looks very boring. It’s supposed to be scary, but it doesn’t do anything to excite me. Also, Omega didn’t need to end up like this as he was practically invisible in ‘The Three Doctors’ and presumably in ‘Arc of Infinity’.
As Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor said in ‘The Three Doctors’,
“You exist only because your will insists that you exist. But your will is all that is left of you.”
Had this been explored to a certain extent in the two-part finale instead of rushing through it within 3 minutes of ‘The Reality War’, maybe Omega’s return would have been worthwhile. Instead, it comes across as very underwhelming and disappointing. You could have easily replaced Omega with Morbius and Borusa instead. Honestly, we didn’t need to have Omega back at all, as the Rani (both of them) were the big returning villain in Series 15. The Rani had more screentime compared to Omega. It astonishes me that Russell T. Davies is proud of the redesign of Omega and didn’t think this would backfire from audiences and fans.
Many thanks for your thoughts
Best wishes,
Tim 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good point about Omega being invisible because of his condition making RTD’s CGI monster an even more blatant betrayal. Best wishes, Tim.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi scifimike,
It astonishes me that anti-matter is not mentioned at all in ‘Wish World’/’The Reality War’, as that’s key to Omega’s character.
Tim 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ironically enough, I never saw Arc of Infinity for years after seeing The Three Doctors. I came to the Fifth Doctor’s era quite late in comparison to others. I’d had enough time to mill around, explore other incarnations and, possibly uniquely, my sequel experience with Omega came from Search for the Doctor.
I wrote an article covering the game book back in 2021:
https://divergent-wordsmiths.weebly.com/go-to-six.html
It was penned by Dave Martin, who also co-wrote The Three Doctors and feels quite a lot more personal for the (in this case) Sixth Doctor. He and Omega are thrown together quite early on and remain so for the remainder of the story. Locked in conflict.
That was Arc of Infinity‘s weakness, I feel. The Fifth Doctor doesn’t face Omega, knowing who he is, until the final episode of the story. What’s the point of a returning adversary if you can’t take advantage of that prior history?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Wolfie,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about Omega and thanks for sharing the Divergent Wordsmiths article about the ‘Make Your Own Adventure’ books, including ‘Search For The Doctor’. From checking out the article, seeing a picture of Turlough with Peri and the Sixth Doctor has made me think of the research I’m hoping to do when putting together my 70th anniversary ‘Doctor Who’ series on my blog.
That’s a good point about Omega’s return in ‘Arc of Infinity’. As much as I like that ‘Doctor Who’ story, the Fifth Doctor doesn’t get to have much interaction with Omega in knowing who he is until ‘Part Four’. That does get made up for in the audio story ‘Omega’ to a certain extent, although it’s been a while since I’ve heard that story. When you find the ‘Search for the Doctor’ story featuring the Sixth Doctor does more on the Doctor/Omega relationship compared to ‘Wish World’/’The Reality War’, you know something’s amiss. And it’s ironic since Dave Martin wrote the ‘Search for the Doctor story with the Sixth Doctor and Omega, as he co-created Omega with Bob Baker.
Many thanks,
Tim 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, I think the trick with a returning adversary is that said adversary has to say something about your current hero.
For instance, the Fifth Doctor and the Ainley!Master didn’t gel as well as the Third Doctor and Delgado!Master because we didn’t learn anything new from their interactions together.
Through the Master’s repeat appearances during the Third Doctor’s UNIT days, we gained strong sense of the characters’ dynamics. They were friends once. They went to school together. The Master was more academically gifted than the Doctor was (or better at faking it). The Doctor and the Master’s point of contention was that the Master literally didn’t understand the Doctor’s lack of ambition.
The Crispy!Master worked with the Fourth Doctor because it was a radical reconfiguration of their dynamic. Their altercations had gone on for so long that the Master was flayed alive. In constant pain with only one thought on his mind — to survive. Nothing else. Gone were the gentlemanly gibes of old and in its place was pure, unfettered hatred.
When the Master reappeared again, that could easily have been a misfire, but his machinations on Traken complimented the new focus on the Fourth Doctor’s old age. Both were rapidly approaching the end. Both cheat death in the end through differing means. Their interactions are cradled in that idea of facing and defying mortality.
After the Fifth Doctor’s birth… Well, we completely lose that dichotomy. The Master doesn’t really say much about the Doctor anymore or vice versa. A much stronger candidate was the Mara, which complimented the Fifth Doctor’s emotional repression, specifically, by showing what emerges from that repression. Temptations, impulsive cruelties, wickedness.
That’s why the Rani was kind of perfect for the Sixth Doctor. Far more than the Master. The Rani was a cold villain who didn’t care pitted against a warm hero who was nothing but caring. Callousness vs. compassion. She was ideal for the Sixth Doctor, specifically. Self-described as: ‘A man of science, temperament and passion.’
That’s why Sutekh didn’t quite work last season. What did Sutekh actually provide as a mirror for the Fifteenth Doctor? Tragically, I think the Daleks would’ve actually been his best enemy. A diverse, emotionally expressive and fun-loving incarnation against uniform, cruel and unrepentant fascistic adversary. The Daleks would have been perfect.
That’s the difference. What does your hero say about your villains? And what do your villains say about your heroes?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Very good points. Thank you, Wolfie.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Wolfie,
Yes, I agree with scifimike. Those are a very good points you’ve made, particularly with ‘what does the hero say about the villain’ and ‘what does the villain say about the hero’. It’s also reflected in the new TV series in how the David Tennant Tenth Doctor and the John Simm Master interact with each other in being opposites of each other. And even though I’m not a fan of Michelle Gomez as Missy, at least I get the parallels between her and Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor, as he was on a journey to finding out whether he was a good man or not in Series 8 and she went on a journey to sort-of redeem herself in Series 10. It was fascinating to see the interaction between Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor and Sacha Dhawan’s Master, especially when it’s a female Doctor vs. a male Master. As much as I enjoyed the interaction between Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor and Archie Panjabi’s Rani, I wish more was spent in terms of their interaction, especially when he had that caring aspect and she had the callous disregard.
It’s such a shame that the Fifteenth Doctor had left and never fought the Daleks in his era, as they would be ideal opponents for him as the Doctor, especially with the themes of racism and prejudice in their characters, which I’ve discovered in my revisit of ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ lately. I get Russell T. Davies was trying something different in his neo-era and he avoided bringing back the Daleks due to them being used frequently, particularly in Jodie Whittaker’s era. But it goes to show how the planning and preparation for each of Ncuti’s seasons could have been thought-out better, particularly evident in how the TV show’s future seems to be nowadays. Hopefully, Big Finish can remedy that by providing a Dalek adventure for Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor and Millie Gibson as Ruby, but it’s a shame the TV series didn’t do it first. 😦
Many thanks and Best wishes,
Tim 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person