Warning: Contains Spoilers!

Dot and Bubble is the second story this season in which Ncuti Gatwa’s presence was limited by his commitments to Sex Education. However, it’s not a Doctor-lite story in the way that 73 Yards was, because the Doctor is present throughout the bulk of the story – just not in a way that required the actor to be on location for any length of time. How is this done? Very cleverly as it turns out, for Dot and Bubble is a story about social media and an almost defining characteristic of social media is that your physical presence is not required. The ‘Dot’ and ‘Bubble’ of the title refer to a tiny holographic projector and the bowl-like video screen that it projects around the user’s head. These are favoured by the bright young things of Finetime, a resort city in the middle of a jungle planet, favoured by the offspring of the rich and vacant.

A typical resident of Finetime is Lindy Pepper-Bean (Callie Cooke), an attractive blonde girl who, save for a few hours mandatory data entry, spends every minute of her time online, as do all her friends. Her bubble not only connects her with her wide circle of vapid friends, but also instructs her on how to conduct every other aspect of her life, from where to walk to when to urinate. It’s a broad caricature of today’s social media culture and a warning that such ‘bubbles’ are echo chambers, reflecting back only our own beliefs and leaving no room for differing opinions. It’s a scenario in which people become not only very, very single-minded and closed off alternate thoughts, but also incredibly open to manipulation. The episode has been compared to Black Mirror in its depiction of the media, but I think that in itself is a little close-minded and its origins can be traced back as far as Nigel Kneale’s Year of the Sex Olympics.

But all is not well on Finetime, because seemingly unnoticed by the bubble-obsessed denizens, they are being systematically consumed by giant man-eating slugs. The Doctor drops into Lindy’s feed to try and warn her of the danger, but she’s very dismissive of him. Is it his age, or… something else? She’s more receptive of Ruby, whose youthful blonde good looks fit more with her group of friends. Reluctantly, she is persuaded by Ruby to close down her bubble and take a look around her, whereupon she witnesses the carnage for the first time. She (and everyone she knows) is so dependent on the Bubble that she is unable to even run away and protect herself, and she has to accept guidance from the Doctor and Ruby against her rather naïve judgement. Only one of the citizens of Finetime seems less offensively shallow than the others and that is the singing swoonfest Ricky September, but Lindy betrays him to save her own neck.

Cutting to the chase – and the fact that all of you probably know if you’re reading this – the pretty things of Finetime turn out to be deeply racist and the creatures are being directed by the AI Dots to eliminate their hateful masters. Re-watching the episode with this in mind brings a few horrifying alternate takes on certain lines of dialogue. Talking to Ruby, seemingly about the creature, Lindy asks, “Is this thing something to do with you?” But she’s just brushed off the Doctor, leading to the grotesque possibility that the ‘thing’ she’s talking about to Ruby might not be the creature but the Doctor! I might be reading too much into that, but it’s powerful stuff either way. It’s beautifully subtle and although you might suspect something is going on early in the story (I didn’t), you’ll find yourself hoping that is not where it’s going because until the revelation, Callie Cooke makes Lindy such a likeable and pity-worthy character.

Doctor Who has dealt with racism many times before, from The Mutants to Remembrance of the Daleks; even the original The Daleks was something of a treatise on race (albeit one in which everyone was white), but never so explicitly and never previously directed at the Doctor. This is a story that could only really have been made with Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor and he plays it just perfectly. At the end of the story, when the surviving citizens of Finetime refuse to travel to safety with him in the TARDIS on account of his race, his rage at their ignorance is simultaneously explosive and internalised and shows instantly what an incredibly good actor Gatwa is. Such is his kindness that he even offers to rescue them despite their bigotry and they still reject him; it’s something the Doctor has never faced before in centuries of travelling and the weight of those centuries informs his performance. This is the scene that will define the Fifteenth Doctor – and it’s the first one he ever shot!

Perhaps one of the bravest moves on the part of Russell T. Davies – largely ignored in all the reviews that I have read – was to present one of Lindy’s group of friends as gay, thereby stating that gay people in certain circles are equally as likely to be as racist as straight people. This is of course true, but I think that a writer less associated with gay culture than Davies might have been too afraid to state it. For me, this is where Dot and Bubble is at its most radical; it would have been easy for any writer to present a society where a bunch of middle-aged straight white men are racists, but Dot and Bubble says no, that’s too much of a generalisation – affable young people can be racists, pretty girls can be racists, handsome gay men can be racists. To demonise only those whose faces fit our idea of a racist is to leave the door open for the less obvious candidates.

For all its many benefits, social media can be a remarkably negative force, pushing disinformation and bias under the guise of friend groups. As counterintuitive as it sounds, even a positive message can be a negative force if pushed in a radicalised and inflammatory manner and there’s a genuine sense that the youth of today can be guided into new kinds of hatred if they don’t take enough care, so a society like that of Finetime could come to exist very easily. I’ve seen many post-Millennial fans on X (Twitter) railing against the suggestion that this story is aimed at them as children of the social media generation, but there’s kind of no escaping that it kind of is. Some go on to loudly protest that it must be about the Boomers because they’re all racists, whereas Gen Y never judge anyone.

Do you see the irony in what you wrote?

How about now?

I can wait.

Dot and Bubble is an amazing story, currently vying with 73 Yards as my favourite of the series, though I feel I must stress this is nothing to do with the limited availability of Ncuti Gatwa. He might not be in this much, but when he is, it’s incredible! Millie Gibson is as dependable as ever, but she’s not driving this story the way she did in the previous one. Dot and Bubble revolves around Callie Cooke as Lindy Pepper-Bean and she sells it incredibly well. The emotional punch of the story stands or falls on whether we care for Lindy and feel betrayed when she turns out to be a wrong ‘un and Callie Cooke delivers the desired performance to such a degree that you almost feel sorry for her even after she’s revealed to be an irredeemable racist. Almost. The strong acting performances have been one of the things that make this series stand out and Callie Cooke’s turn as Lindy is probably the best in the series so far.

The design of Dot and Bubble is also remarkable. Shot in candy-coloured pastel tones and filmed in squared-off modernist locations, it genuinely convinces as a sanitised, vapid society. I don’t know where the final shot of the Finetime survivors floating off to certain death in their little boat was filmed (this is the kind of thing they should tell you on Doctor Who Unleashed) but it was a beautifully composed shot and a credit to director Dylan Holmes Williams. Nicely written, artfully acted and beautiful to look at, I don’t see anything not to like about Dot and Bubble and I think it’s definitely the direction in which the series should be headed. It also delivers a powerful and important message in today’s modern world; if Doctor Who is to reach out to a younger audience via Disney+, it really needs to be sending the messages ‘be kind’, ‘be careful’ and ‘don’t be fooled’, rather than ‘let’s have fun’ and ‘everything is awesome’.

‘Doctor Who – Dot and Bubble’ is available to stream on BBC iPlayer in the United Kingdom and on Disney+ throughout the world.