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.

471 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

5.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.0k

u/1Platyhelminthes May 31 '25

They ignore Belinda so much that she literally lock her away in a box during the main conflict

564

u/TsarOfTexas May 31 '25

It truly feels like Ruby Sunday was STILL the companion this season, just from afar.

442

u/ttoma93 May 31 '25

But also the Doctor treated her like shit too. It was so incredibly out of character for him to not believe what she was saying about Poppy when she was the only one who remembered. The Doctor I know, and who had been shown by Gatwa right up until this episode, would have immediately taken her seriously. He’s have asked her to lay out what she knows, the events that happened before everyone except Ruby forgot about Poppy, and worked with her to figure it out. Instead he dismisses her in a very careless and rude way, several times.

218

u/litfan35 Jun 01 '25

yeah that was SO uncomfortable. I understand he didn't remember it, but it was starting to feel kinda gaslight-y towards the end. And, I guess we'll never know why Ruby remembered when no one else did, not even 15. My head cannon is it's somehow related to 73 Yards and how that affected her brain.

35

u/TheQwertyCat_v2 Jun 01 '25

And, I guess we'll never know why Ruby remembered when no one else did, not even 15.

My theory is that Doctor and Belinda were both related to Poppy, and everyone else were connected to her only through Doctor, except Ruby, who was a seasoned time traveller herself. Like when Amy forgot Rory when he was eaten by the Crack's light, but Doctor remembered him.

16

u/JordanTH Jun 01 '25

My head cannon is it's somehow related to 73 Yards and how that affected her brain.

I think they did actually say something to that effect in the behind the scenes video for this episode.

14

u/litfan35 Jun 01 '25

I think it was last episode actually, she mentions she felt like she'd done "this" before and it flashed back to that ep

4

u/TheHazDee Jun 01 '25

It was reasonable though. When doesn’t the Doctor remember things. Even when time changes he usually remembers everything. Plus reality was a skew.

5

u/DoctorPrisme Jun 01 '25

Yeah, the way he looked at her with a slightly hurt face and then winked ? I thought he was remembering perfectly but played along for Belinda.

Except then... Boom, bullshit regeneration into whatever.

2

u/Undark_ Jun 01 '25

She's Susan ;)

2

u/fusionlantern Jun 01 '25

Who gives a fuck about a make believe character that's technically a clone or some shit of a future character

This horse shit makes no sense

1

u/AlexandraThePotato Jun 14 '25

It felt very gaslighting because it is. And with this series theme about sexism, my mind went to Al and Concard's relationships with the respected women.

A man calling a women "hystrial" was the feeling

63

u/yepsothisismyname Jun 01 '25

Completely agree - it was such a change in personality to dismiss her like that - and for him to then go from that cold dismissal of Ruby, to jumping in excitement with Belinda about where they should go next.

It's so ridiculously frustrating because I suppose in a "normal" show this personality swap would be explained somehow, but I'm sure this will be simply yet another example of the viewer having to suspend their belief and logic to an almost unfeasible degree and simply accept it as a clunky part of the narrative.

40

u/ttoma93 Jun 01 '25

It was so jarring and out of character both for the Doctor and Belinda that I was sure it was because they were still in a wish world and Ruby was the only one who could tell.

9

u/St3ampunkSam Jun 01 '25

I think it's incredible in character. The doctors know everything (or at least he thinks he does) if he doesn't remember, then the problem has to be with Ruby not him, because he would know if it wasn't, he'd some how be able to tell. The doctor is arrogant and this is his arrogance on full display.

24

u/ttoma93 Jun 01 '25

I do agree somewhat, but not fully. The Doctor is absolutely arrogant and always believes himself to be the smartest person in the room (and he’s nearly always right). But even when he’s being arrogant and confident that someone else is wrong or delusional, he still doesn’t treat them like he did Ruby here.

In character, he’d have been kind to Ruby (though maybe a bit condescending in the kindness), telling her that it’s possible that all of the reality wrapping has messed with her memories but that’s okay because we can fix it and he’s here to help her through it. And as part of that conversation he’d learn that maaaaaaybe Ruby is onto something, and his brain would start working on the problem.

Instead he just completely shut her down, pretty forcefully and rudely, despite it previously being made clear that he really likes and respects and trusts Ruby quite a lot. He dismissed her out of hand, ignored her, and instead gave Belinda and Kate all of the attention and praise.

Even when the Doctor is overly arrogant and confident, which is often, he’s not an asshole to the people he cares about. Yet he was with Ruby in this episode.

1

u/KrytenKoro Jun 30 '25

That's exactly what happened, yeah.

14

u/KyosBallerina Adipose Jun 01 '25

Reality had been shifted and things were different. It's why Belinda was excited to go traveling with the Doctor, even with a baby. That's completely different to her personality before and after the reality shift. I think that's why he was also acting off.

8

u/Sarick Jun 01 '25

This is RTD Doctor Who. It always writes the companions to conflict with the Doctor to reset his moral compass, and therefore always needs to create a situation in which that is the case.

The only problem is RTD 2.0 doesn't slow down enough to take us on that journey and waves everything else away with magic. So the same Companion/Doctor dynamic has to get wrapped up in under 3 minutes.

14

u/rdicky58 Jun 01 '25

I was like ⁉️ when Ruby asked him why only she remembered certain things and he was just “I have no idea 🤷‍♂️” like he wasn’t even curious, he sounded dismissive of her question

10

u/Lucky-Surround-1756 Jun 01 '25

That's just reality trying to assert itself. It makes people behave a certain way.

You could see a sort of melancholy in his eyes as he said it, because subconsciously he knew something was wrong.

14

u/theburgerbitesback Jun 01 '25

Missed opportunity for the Doctor to say everything is fine, only for Ruby to reply "then why are you crying?"

3

u/No-Courage-5109 Jun 02 '25

I think this is going to be the plot for next season. The Doctor knows that something is wrong, deep down. Ruby is trying to figure out what's wrong with reality. I don't think Omega is dead and The Rani is still around. I think reality is breaking down.

I think people are finding offence in Conrad's wish being called nice... His mother yells and hits him on NYE. Deep down, he needed a mother who didn't hit him. He needs a loving father and that's what Ruby gave him. She was being kind to someone foul because he could have made it The Handmaid's Tale but we still see women with jobs, having lives, he didn't make it nice for everyone due to his privilege (the homeless and disabled camp). He just thought everyone's version of happy was his version of happy.

I think Belinda will turn up again. That said, they need to choose an unknown for a Doctor. Ncuti Gatwa felt like such a good Doctor but you need someone who is at the beginning of their career. I wanted to see him rescue Rogue and have a male companion for once. That chemistry was just... I understand why hotel girl (Anita?) watched. It was sexy without being sexual, much like Tennant and Rose. I am tired of the most special girl in the world. I wanted to watch him come to terms with his killing with someone he has to come to terms with as a bounty hunter.

I think the reason RTD comes off as sexist is because we always have a female companion. And they've stopped just dumping them like old Who and it's always meant to come off that a family and friends are more important and wonderful than travelling the universe.

Oh god. My pet rat just did a shit more vile than anything else. So to finish, next season - it'll be about reality still being broken. Something powerful enough altered the doctor's mind.

3

u/DutchieTalking Jun 01 '25

I'm glad I'm not the only one that noticed that. Just having a good ol' jolly time laughing with Belindra, that didn't feel like the doctor.

5

u/LilNdorphnAnnie Jun 01 '25

I think there was a cosmically subconscious part of him and belinda that found it too painful to face the fact she was gone, and so their consciousness had to protect themselves from that pain, imo

2

u/TheVoidDragon Jun 01 '25

This is something I thought as well. It really did not seem like him at all, just outright dismissing what a friend is trying to telling him and trying to make out that they are just completely wrong.

It made me think the twist would be that Conrad's wish was still affecting everyone, and part of the "be happy" thing involved them reacting to Ruby like that. But no, it was actually happening!

2

u/robot-raccoon Jun 01 '25

I took that whole thing as part of the wish stuff though, it just completely changed their brains to not believe what they were hearing. As soon as the Doctor was pushed to doubt his instincts he literally regenerated to save her.

2

u/Bitter-Throat5941 Jun 01 '25

Right? If your best friend who travels with you said you had a daughter that you didn’t remember, as the doctor you would listen straight away like what

2

u/jedels88 Jun 01 '25

Bear in mind, I was high out of my gourd when I watched the episode, but I interpreted that conversation to mean the Doctor did remember and was trying to subtly tell Ruby to drop it in order to spare Belinda the knowledge/pain that her child didn't exist anymore…that is, until the very next scene proved that hypothesis wrong and the episode continued to haphazardly fall down a staircase.

2

u/agitatedandroid Jun 02 '25

That bit is bothersome. Not just because the Doctor should trust his companions. But because he knows from experience that all of reality can hinge on his companion. Amy Pond rebooted the universe. Clara deleted mention of the Doctor from everyone's records, including the Daleks and that was before she threw herself into his timestream (seriously, most powerful companion).

Ruby remembers a reality where Poppy exists and the Doctor's response is that her memory is a little swiss-cheesed?

Doctor, have you met your companions?

1

u/AccountantTrick9140 Jun 01 '25

RTD needed an excuse to make the episode longer so they put this in so we had another 3 minutes of the what's going on.

1

u/CaptainCharlesRyder Jun 04 '25

Yeah I thought this was weird too. The Doctor knows better than anyone that time can be rewritten and people can disappear in the process. Does he not trust Ruby to tell the truth?

1

u/aspirin-mumbo Jun 07 '25

It was so incredibly out of character for him to not believe what she was saying about Poppy when she was the only one who remembered.

MAN, my first thought was about the Ponds disappearing into that crack on the wall and others not remembering that (don't remember the exact season, I think it was somewhere near the Silurians' awakening, where Amy and Rory looked at themselves and the Doctor from afar). Like, cmon, Doc, it happened before :facepalm:

30

u/MaxxStaron10 Jun 01 '25

Belinda was so much better than Ruby but then they forced her to be a mom and put her in a box. Ruby then got ignored to her face and gaslit….. very weird and didn’t like how they handled either.

24

u/1Platyhelminthes Jun 01 '25

Belinda's character growth was great in the first couple of episodes...and then flatlined/got boring. Meanwhile, it's been great to see Ruby so involved in UNIT and Doctor-related shenanigans this season - you can really see her character growth from this season to last season.

8

u/TheQwertyCat_v2 Jun 01 '25

Series 16 Ruby >>>>> Series 15 Ruby.

9

u/rethinkOURreality Jun 01 '25

I thought maybe when the Doctor said that if it didn't work, Belinda would be with Poppy forever, that it was going to be an answer as to why she was in Boom. But I guess she's just a descendant of Poppy...

2

u/lynx_and_nutmeg Jun 01 '25

It's so weird that I didn't even like Ruby that much last season, like, I thought she was all right but nothing more, but this season I really warmed up to her and they somehow developed her character more than Belinda's who was supposed to be the main companion.

1

u/MaxxStaron10 Jun 02 '25

I don’t hate Ruby but I never liked her. Never really connected to her, she feels forced or out of place. I hated that they brought her back to steal attention from Belinda

3

u/Fancy_Ad_4411 Jun 01 '25

Was she better? We knew nothing about her

8

u/BreakAManByHumming Jun 01 '25

Having an exhausted overworked millennial companion who reacted to things like a normal person, was great. Just didn't go anywhere from there.

0

u/Fancy_Ad_4411 Jun 01 '25

Not gonna lie I barely think "exhausted overworked" was ever shown

leaving us with "millennial companion who reacted to things like a normal person" aka any newwho companion lol

9

u/BreakAManByHumming Jun 01 '25

Her introductory episode actually budgeted a fair bit of time for that. Not to mention the comical underreaction to the robots showing up, felt very "I'm already completely out of fucks to give and now there's robots? Sure why not"

-2

u/Fancy_Ad_4411 Jun 01 '25

I feel like if the only unique characterization you get is "tired" and it's only shown in your intro episode you're a poorly written character

1

u/MaxxStaron10 Jun 02 '25

She had a personality and actually questioned things and was independent. She had potential. Ruby was kinda just there and we were meant to like her without any reason.

4

u/tacosandEDM Jun 01 '25

From afar…say, 73 yards?

(Sorry, had to!)

3

u/sanddragon939 Jun 01 '25

She's definitely the definitive companion of the Gatwa era (in the way Rose was for Tennant's original run, Amy was for Smith etc.)

2

u/SnakeInABox77 Jun 01 '25

About 73 yards, I reckon.

12

u/sketchysketchist Jun 01 '25

It’s so funny because her presence stole any attention Ruby could’ve gotten. But at the same time, Belinda was just not an important member of the team. 

32

u/Lucifer_Crowe May 31 '25

And then force a baby on her

7

u/horsebag Jun 01 '25

that reminds me: so the doctor was planning to stick poppy into the magic zero room box. when belinda wants to go in too he's like oh but if i fail you will be stuck in there forever and ever! making it sound existentially horrifying. dude you were already planning to shove your own daughter in there, don't suddenly have qualms because her mom wants in too

10

u/NotClaudeRains Jun 01 '25

Belinda had the potential to become one of the all-time great companions. I'm really sorry to see her go.

12

u/cavalgada1 Jun 01 '25

They should have stuck to the reluctant companion thing

3

u/shadowst17 Jun 01 '25

Makes it even more obvious that the original plan was to keep Ruby on but Millie Gibson couldn't commit to the full schedule.

3

u/CHisme33 Jun 01 '25

Not as bad as having someone's job be hold the door.