Doctor Who Season 2’s Episode Titles Reveal The Return Of A Dangerous Trope
The return of a crack?
The Doctor is back, and this time the entirety of reality is at stake. But, haven’t we been here before? All the episode titles for Doctor Who Season 2 (or Season 15) have been revealed in a slick new teaser, and what those titles tell us about this next batch of adventures is tantalizing.
Based on these titles, this season of Who is set to deliver an electric mix of wildly different types of sci-fi stories. But the title of the season finale is probably the most interesting. Let’s unpack what “The Reality War” might actually mean for this season and the future of Doctor Who.
On March 22, Disney+ and the BBC dropped a stylish new Instagram video that dropped all the titles for Season 2 of the new series. Here are all those episode titles:
- “The Robot Revolution”
- “Lux”
- “The Well”
- “Lucky Day”
- “The Story and the Engine”
- “The Interstellar Song Contest”
- “Wish World”
- “The Reality War”
The overall story of Doctor Who Season 2 involved the Doctor meeting a new companion named Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), a nurse who gets stuck with the Doctor, seemingly by accident. To make these more complicated, we’ve seen Belinda’s face before, because actress Varada Sethu appeared as Mundy in the episode “Boom” from last year. The question of why the Doctor has seen a different version of Belinda before will be one of the biggest mysteries of the season to be sure, which, as fans and experts have pointed out, is very similar to what we got back in 2012-2013 with the character or Clara (Jenna Coleman) in the era of the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith).
But the title “The Reality War” also seems to borrow a bit from the 11th Doctor era, too. In the new teaser, the title is accompanied by a massive crack, which seems to be destroying reality, not unlike the crack in the universe from Doctor Who Season 5 back in 2010. In that season, the Doctor (Smith) had to reboot the entire universe and all of reality with a second Big Bang. Is the new, upcoming “Reality War” meant to evoke that infamous crack, or is this a different breakdown of reality altogether? The new official Season 2 trailer, which can be seen below, certainly hints at huge universe-impacting stakes.
In fairness, Doctor Who loves trying to destroy all of reality all the time, not just back in 2010. In the 2008 season finale, “Journey’s End,” Davros was trying to detonate a “reality bomb” that would have caused the Daleks to be the only creatures in all of existence. And, if we go even further back, villains like The Celestial Toymaker also wanted to manipulate reality on a fundamental level.
So, “The Reality War” could tease the return of the 11th Doctor’s crack, the return of Davros, another comeback of the Toymaker, or likely, none of those things. Instead, this “Reality War” will likely be caused by something entirely new, or at the very least, something we haven’t seen in quite a while. When current showrunner Russell T Davies first rebooted Who in 2005, all the old tropes, monsters, and villains were new again. This time around, Davies has been remixing not just preexisting Who story ideas and villains, but also, putting a new spin on all the continuity that occurred in the 13 years between his tenures.
With the return of 4th Doctor-era baddie Sutekh in the previous season, Davies clearly has no hesitation in bringing back old concepts from the Who canon. But, the idea of a crack in reality and a companion with a familiar face aren’t deep cuts from the ‘70s. These are tropes and plot points that are fresh in the mind’s of Who fans everywhere. What remains to be seen is if “The Reality War” is dangerous to the Doctor for new, exciting reasons, or, if we feel like we’re watching a repeat.
