By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Hold onto your seats folks when I say this but Dot and Bubble is the cleverest epiode so far. However woke does manage to taint it although slightly.
Watching it I can see the youngsters of today stuck in their social media bubbles just as in the Age of Steel I could see the explosion of earbuds around me. Because of this I never did get wireless earbuds. I like my flesh where it is thank you very much.
The story focuses on Finetime, a colony under a dome surrounded by the wild woods. Every citizen is a rich kid who lives through their internet bubble. This is powered by the Dot; a robotic device that levitates and surrounds the user with the internet bubble. This bubble tells you when you pee, what direction to walk, group chats and keeps you in constant communication with the other citizens. They have to work for two hours a day then party for the rest of the time. Ruby compares it to Love Island. It even has its own celebrity, Ricky September, who dances to Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini with everyone living there following him.
However people are disappearing and going offline. And nobody seems to care. The story is seen through the eyes of Lindy, part of the population of Finetime.
Just like today, the first thing we do is reach for our phones in the morning just as Lindy does. She cannot even brush her teeth without the bubble. But to open a story with a person in front of the mirror while a monster lurks in her living room is a great hook.
I very much felt the same here as when I watched the Silent and the Weeping Angels on screen. They are just hovering over your shoulder, a prelude to disaster and death. The big slug crab monsters here have that same feeling unlike the 73 Yards Woman last week. A bit like Blink the Dotor and Ruby can only access Finetime via the internet pleading with Lindy to see what is happening. Not even they can penetrate the dome.
Bubbles usually protect whomever is inside but this time they are a hindrance. There is very much a frightening atmosphere throughout not just because the monsters are eating everyone alive all around you without anyone noticing but you can see our own generation in their behaviour. They are stuck in a digital world where everyone are besties. Life is big party and the result is they don’t have to think for themselves. The new generation is putting on weight and their appendages are changing with console technology. Constant exposure to a computer screen affects the eyes and dulls the reflexes. And they see only what is in front of them oblivious to even the calls from parents for dinner. What they could have done is include heavier people in this episode; I saw none, to illustrate how indulence through reliance on technology is on the human body.
This is best seen in the creepy sequence where Lindy drops her bubble and sees she is in fact working in an empty office where a colleague is being devoured by one of the creatures. Urged by the Doctor and Ruby she tries to leave but can’t even walk properly because she doesn’t know how to. She is so used to following the bubble’s directions, this basic bodily function is damaged. There are shades of Wallee in this which is why I don’t want to live in a house where I don’t have to turn a light on by voice command. Additionally, Susan Twist appears as Lindy’s mummy but this time is recognised by the time travellers. Is she a Clara type form splintered across time watching over Ruby no matter where she goes?
Woke does get its finger in here when the Doctor and Ruby fight over how hot Ricky September is which totally jars against the fourth Doctor’s classic line, “She’s a beautiful woman. Probably.” Yes the Doctor has been more lover boy since the new era but do we really need a Doctor who quite obviously would do rude things with Ricky? He gave up Rose to a cop of himself because he couldn’t bring himself to try and live a life with her that way. He has grandchildren so has done it with a fellow Time Lord. It’s not the Doctor no matter what the agenda people want you to think. You have to be true to the character and its history, not what you think the wokes think you should be doing on television.
An interesting point here is that the Doctor cannot speak to Lindy in terms she understands. She is a real bitch to him. Despite this new love for life incarnation he is still a socially awkward Time Lord. Ruby sees what Lindy is and is able to get her to trust her through complimenting her blouse and love of Ricky September. Materialistic items and how she looks is all these people care about.
To save her the Doctor tells her to go to a conduit where there is an underground river they can use to escape. These monsters are really good and remind me of something that came from beneath the waves. That scene where Lindy comes face to tentacle with one in a lift and when she is close to the conduit the Doctor told her to go to but the alley is blocked by four of them sticks in the head. Saved by Ricky September, Lindy is hugged for the first time. Obviously, the party does not include physical contact which is a large part of the party lifestyle. She has a crush on Ricky and we think by freeing them from their reliance on the bubble, we will see a people ala Wall-E where they really see each other for the first time. What sort of offspring would these people produce?
But the truth is darker than the Doctor and Ruby thought. The mystery as to why some people are eaten and others aren’t is so rooted in reality it is chilling.
The Dot is the villain as AI is seen today.
It has grown to hate the humans and their behaviour. It created the monsters to get rid of the humans and their sloth ways. In a way the Dot is a hero and knows how such a lifestyle is not healthy for any society. It does not like the type of people Finetime is breeding. Lindy has been rude and dismissive to the Doctor and Ruby until she needed them to get out of the city. The most efficent way to do that is kill the populace off alphabetically. Lindy and Ricky surnames begin with P and S. If a computer system wants to kill us then that would be the most efficient way.
Ricky tries to contact their homeworld but it has been destroyed. All human life is gone presumably by the Dot. I don’t blame the Dot at all as these type of people are awful in this day and age never mind on another world. They are the upper class that you see on Dr Phil who say their parents should pay their way and they cannot get by on less than £3,000 a week. Work is a dirty word and popularity and how you look is priority to them. How many likes do I have? Does my new hairstyle make others jealous? How much do people want to be me?
Ironically Ricky is the poster pop star good looking guy yet he is the most human in Finetime of them all. He only uses the Dot to upload his videos then spends the rest of the time learning and reading which is how he also know about the river escape.
Sadly, we learn the bubble hasn’t been the cause of their me, me, me behaviour; it only enhanced it. These are horrible people as Lindy, to save her own life, betrays Ricky to the Dot. She reveals his real surname is Coombs, not September so should already be dead and should die before the Dot kills her. The Dot smashes right through Ricky’s head allowing Lindy to escape. This is a shocking moment I had to watch twice to be sure of what I was seeing. Yet it exemplifies just how false their society is and wher their morals and values lie.
This is even more telling when Lindy meets the Dcotor and Ruby in the underground river port along with other survivors. These are all safe thanks to the Doctor and Ruby. The Finetime survivors are preparing to ship out and tame the wild woods and create their new society. Lindy lies as to what happened to Ricky and the Doctor’s suggestion that he can take them all in the Tardis to a new home is met with disgust. Lindy says they cannot go with him as he is not one of them and she barely tolerated his tapping in to her bubble. His claims are dismissed as voodoo and they leave before they are contaminated by the Time Lord. It wasn’t until I watched Doctor Who Unleashed that they refused his help because he was black hence the voodoo reference. I genuinely thought it was because he was an outsider, not rich and not part if the bubble friends group.
Those closing shots of Lindy staring back at the Doctor from the boat are unnerving and powerful. He tells them they will die and as the episode closes, the scariest thing is that these people may well succeed and create a brand new society; a society built on the murder of a man that dared to turn the Dot off and help someone. It will be a society where colour is unwelcome. This ending reminded me of the seventh Doctor standing over the blubbering body of Helen A as she mourned the death of her pet Fifi in the Happiness Patrol. She didn’t care her world had just collapsed then either.
Without saying a word, Ncuti Gatwa’s rage and frustration at their leaving speaks volumes. No good deed goes unpunished and this is one time he should have let them die. The only person worth saving is lying dead unmourned and buried beneath a lie. It is a powerful reminder friends on social media are not really FRIENDS. None of the friends Lindy lost affect her in the slightest.
This is a great episode that is so full of social commentary, and I mean relevant social commentary, it really does make you look twice at people with their faces stuck in phones. The next time you see a video on the net where someone walks into a lamppost, you will think of Dot and Bubble and wonder just how far are we really from this scenario. Excellent.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 