Major spoilers ahead for Doctor Who episode 5, Dot and Bubble.
The latest episode of has sparked huge discourse among fans after a heartbreaking twist ending. The new series of the hit British sci-fi show stars Scottish-Rwandan actor as the Thirteenth Doctor and as companion Ruby Sunday.
The pair have travelled through space and time confronting , dodging bogey monsters and saving the Beatles from self-destruction and almost being .
But the ending of the most recent episode may just have been the most horrifying yet.
The Black Mirror-esque episode follows Lindy Pepper-Bean (Callie Cooke), a resident of the vaguely futuristic planet Finetime where people live in a literal social media bubble and never interact with the actual world around them.
That is until The Doctor and Ruby infiltrate Lindy’s bubble to warn of deadly giant sluglike creatures slowly picking off the population one by one as everyone remains blissfully unaware.
What begins, however, as a damning indictment of how social media blinds us to the reality of the world ends in a devastating commentary on by targeting the heart of the show, the Doctor himself.
As the Doctor and Ruby race to save Lindy and her friends from their terrible fates via the bubble, they successfully make it through the city and to the safe zone just in the nick of time.
There Lindy finally meets the Doctor and Ruby in person. But things take a sinister turn instead of the expected outpouring of gratitude.
After the Doctor offers to whisk Lindy and her friends away on the TARDIS and find them a new safe haven, Lindy brutally replies: ‘But we couldn’t travel with you.’
It soon becomes apparent that the all-white cast of characters is, in fact, racist.
‘You sir, are not one of us,’ Lindy continues. Her friend backs her up by calling the TARDIS ‘voodoo’ and talking about ‘maintaining the standards of Fine Time’.
While yet another person tells the women to turn around before they become ‘contaminated’.
Despite the blatant bigotry, which has moved Ruby to tears in her shock, the Doctor remains adamant, delivering one final powerful message.
He proclaims: ‘I don’t care what you think. you can say whatever you want, you can think absolutely anything. I will do anything, just allow me to save your lives.’
But his pleas are to no avail as they all sail away to their certain doom, leaving the traumatised Doctor behind.
Ncuti’s acting is truly astonishing to watch as the Doctor breaks down before steeling himself and returning to the TARDIS, all while Ruby offers a shoulder to lean on.
And fans have many conflicting thoughts on the episode’s clear nod to Ncuti’s ethnicity.
‘There’s no resolution to the racism in Dot and Bubble. No big Doctor Who speech and no redemption; even the Doctor can only cry in anguish against the self-inflicted stupidity of it all. That’s harrowing,’ X user @stevenwritesnow wrote.
‘Six episodes in, Ncuti Gatwa is already giving us one of the all-time best Doctor Who performances,’ @davidopie added.
‘That ending. Ncuti is a powerhouse. We don’t deserve his Doctor but we need him, desperately. I f***ing love #Doctor Who again,’ @dustinddh wrote.
‘The scene where the Doctor is confronted with racism for the first time worked REALLY well for me.
‘The combination of these being rich kids, the hints that there were NO people of color in Finetime, and the fact that their bigotry gets them Ki**ed All makes it work for me,’ @the3rdjp said.
While there has been the natural backlash, with some fans claiming the show has been taken over by the ‘woke left’.
‘The irony of Doctor Who telling people to get their head out of the bubble and look around. This entire show is lost in a bubble of woke trash,’ @ChrisHa38358521 argued.
‘The woke left have to spoil every thing. a highly unique sci-fi concept. boiled down to racism on a alien planet. what the f***,’ @richieharrop complained.
There is a meta layer to the episode, since Ncuti himself has had to hit back against racist trolls after he was cast.
‘It’s not something I’ll avidly keep up on. The hate? It is kind of fascinating to me because there’s so much energy they’re putting into it. “I think they need to go find a hobby is one thing,’ Ncuti told Attitude earlier this year.
As the first Black actor to play the Doctor full-time, this is a significant moment on the show. Prior to Ncuti all but one of the actors who have played the Doctor have been white men.
The show has delved into discrimination before with Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor such as the season 11 episode The Witchfinders in which she is accused of being a witch.
But Dot and Bubble is one of the first episodes dedicated to making the Doctor’s identity not only a point of contention but outright rejection.
Doctor Who airs every Saturday at 6:50pm on BBC One and is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
