Let’s just get this out of the way; Ncuti Gatwa is so good as The Doctor that he manages to pull off one of the most affecting performances in the show’s history while only appearing as an in-person character for about five minutes. The rest of the episode has him and Millie Gibson on a social media style interface within the “Bubble” mechanism that completely envelops the heads of each resident of the domed city, Finetime.
Seemingly a fairly straightforward, while effective, indictment of modern social media addiction — the main character, Lindy Pepper-Bean (Callie Cooke) is so wrapped into the bubble interface that, if it’s off, she can’t physically walk in a straight line without its arrows to point for her — this story takes a sharp left turn that we should’ve seen coming, perhaps since the season began, but to find it before it smacks us in the face, we also have to learn to find our way without arrows.
Lindy Pepper-Bean is beginning to notice that her friends are not coming online like they used to. Her repetitive social media routine, which is the entirety of her life, is developing some gaps in it, and, shockingly, two strangers have popped into the feed that seem to be trying to warn her about something that she, very strongly, doesn’t want to know.
That something is that her friends are being eaten by giant slug creatures without her noticing. (Finetime being a sort of boarding school planet for extremely privileged kids, we assume that the repetition of the word “eaten” is a play on “Eton” one of England’s most prestigious boarding schools.)
The Doctor and Ruby are on the case, however, trying to remotely alert Lindy and her friends to the danger and, along with heartthrob pop star Ricky September (Tom Rhys Harries), find a way to guide the helpless kids to safety.
The episode, shot in pastel colors and smooth interface-like textures, starts as a breezy, almost playful, indictment of social media culture until it isn’t.
I’ve tried to keep these reviews spoiler-lite, but that becomes a problem with this particular tale because the meat of it, what makes it great, comes in a few stunning narrative turns at the end which put everything that the audience has taken in to that point under a different lens.
So, instead, I’d like to point to a few things to watch for.
Who does Lindy take advice from?
She works in a room with other people, why is it so difficult for her to stomach The Doctor and Ruby being in proximity?
Twist-watch! Susan Twist is back, yet again, as Lindy’s mom, and The Doctor and Ruby have become aware that she’s a face that’s reappearing. The Doctor remembers her as the face of the ambulance in Boom and Ruby seems to remember her from 73 Yards, but since that story ate its own tail, she can’t quite bring it into focus.
We see one of the resident’s blood at one point, what color is it?
Why does Lindy phone the police?
What is “The Great Abrogation” that Ricky September talks about?
A little like a cross between Black Mirror, Severance and playing off the expectations of the heroine from Doctor Who’s own classic story Blink, Sally Sparrow; Dot and Bubble forges its own path by revealing that the broad metaphor of it being problematic that our noses are buried in our phones all the time is not the point that writer/showrunner Russell T Davies is trying to make. We have to pull back for even more perspective to get to that or let RTD and his magnificent TARDIS team smack us in the face with it.
Doctor Who airs on the BBC and BBC iPlayer in the UK and Disney+ everywhere else.
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Kelly McCubbin is a columnist for Boardwalk Times
