Honestly, the world of Finetime looks like the gayest place in the universe, stereotypically. There are bright colors, young White men who are very conventionally attractive, and everyone is very happy, toxically so, but also catty. Still, we have the same director from last time, Dylan Holmes Williams and Russell is once again writing. There are no major changes to the production, making this opening paragraph where I run down who is doing what and what they’ve previously done a bit short. Williams is best known for directing the Apple show Servant unless you like “meh” short films and music videos from artists you’ve never heard of.

Speaking of things you’ve never heard of. “Dot and Bubble” is an episode about social media and teenagers (well, 17-27-year-olds), on a far-off planet where everything looks like student accommodations and everyone lives in their Apple Vision Pro Augmented Reality headsets. Charlie Brooker? I’ve never heard of her! Focused on Lindy Pepper-Bean (Russell is on one of those kicks) we’re in another Doctor-lite episode, though more so in that “Blink” sense of Doctor-less than what we saw last time out in Doctor Who with “73 Yards.”

Given the number of primmed young men in the episode and loud colors, I’m sure if Russell tried to produce this in 2005 he’d have been told no because it is stereotypically gayer than a rainbow flag. I guess this is the perfect episode to kick off Pride Month. Following Lindy and her happy, cheery young friends – aside from Gothic Paul, I like (to a degree) Gothic Paul – we never leave the perspective of Lindy and her bubble (augmented reality headset), making it yet another big swing episode. With only three left and Susan Twist appearing again, it makes you wonder if we’ll get that sixth-seventh episode lull.

Shall we get into the thing the Internet has supposedly been setting itself on fire over this week? I didn’t take a long look but I did see people complaining that it was about young people and their phones, then some complaining about how they thought it was supposed to be racism and there wasn’t any. To that I ask you, watch the episode again and watch it properly. Don’t “second screen” it like the teenagers you complain about, there is a lot more subtlety to “Dot and Bubble” than some can seemingly comprehend.

Finetime, the student accommodation town, is filled with young people stuck in the little bubbles that were created for them. Well, who are Lindy Pepper-Bean, Valerie Nook, Cooper Mercy, Hoochy Pie, Blake Very Blue, and Suzie Pentecost? A whole lot of perfectly primmed conveniently attractive White folks whose mummies and daddies sent them here to work 2 hours a day and party the rest of the time. Yes, apparently “party” includes the best contraceptives ever made, as 17-27-year-olds definitely wouldn’t rut like rabbits.

“Dot and Bubble” isn’t so much about teenagers and “their damn phones” as it is so much about the tech industry and the wealth behind it, subconsciously creating an “I’m better than you” ideal. I try to avoid spoilers, especially the resolution if it is important so I’ll dance around this a little. I don’t think it is racism/White supremacy just because Ncuti is the only Black face in a sea of Whiteness. I think “Dot and Bubble” is about race, class, and the images that social media places into the minds of teenagers.

We see it throughout the episode: Lindy won’t even speak to The Doctor when he first appears in her bubble, she won’t listen to him when Ruby and he are telling her what is going on, and she makes very “subtle” remarks about him. Speaking to the survivors left, Lindy says: “When this is over, he is going to be so disciplined. I can’t wait.” It isn’t just her, Hoochy Pie says of the Doctor “That’s voodoo,” and most notably of the wildlife, it is said, “Fight it, and tame it, and own it. […] Just like our ancestors.”

On a far more subtle scale, each face in the bubble (aside from Doctor Pee, the Urolagnia Doctor Who porn parody) has a subscriber number, showing just how vapid this cesspool of White supremacy is. Correct me if I’m wrong, though I’m fairly certain on this one, Gothic Paul is the only one with a low number of subscribers. As I said, I don’t think “Dot and Bubble” is about kids and their phones so much as it is about the industry of social media and its influence on us collectively.

The first interaction for Lindy is with Cooper Mercy, and that interaction is positives: Day’s nice, you look nice. The interactions keep going like that until two points, Gothic Paul calling attention to the people going missing, and the Doctor trying to make contact. The bubble (EPA! and all that) is about toxic positivity and reinforcement of ideas, similar to that of social media. You don’t have to be 17-27 to be pulled into social media echo chambers.

It is also the first episode of Doctor Who that we’re seeing where Ncuti lets out The Doctor’s full anger, and it is something different. Where David brought the planets crashing down around your ears if he was angry at you, Ncuti’s anger here at least is more helpless. It isn’t anger at those he’s trying to save, it is anger that he can’t do anything in that moment for them. In a different way, it is what Eccleston brought to the role when what hope was there is gone.

On a much less depressing note, especially after the hints from “73 Yards,” there is an establishment of consent. Lindy and Ricky hugging and then establishing consent on the hand-holding might have been forced elsewhere, but it is established straight away that this was the first time she’s hugged anyone. Comments/jokes about contraceptives aside, having that moment to say “Is this okay?” is what needs to happen in those situations. These are two people who know of each other, but they don’t know each other. That’s what is important here.

“Dot and Bubble” is a fantastically dark (though filled with bright colors) and twisted episode that possibly takes actually watching it with empathy, something apparently in short supply these days, for you to fully grasp. Yeah, it is unusual to not follow the protagonists for an episode or two, but I’d argue that’s a problem with production and the number of episodes rather than the episodes themselves.

Ultimately, “Dot and Bubble” is a typical sci-fi episode that is flying over people’s heads, ignoring not only Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror but also The Orville’s “Majority Rule.” Looking at an extreme of this experiment we call social media, Russell took the opportunity to look at it through a different lens than these other examples, hitting some with a ton of bricks on the final reveals. Whether you feel you should have seen the bricks beforehand or not, that’s a good thing, that’s what this episode was supposed to do. “Dot and Bubble” was well-written enough that it takes those hints to realize: The signs are there, and privilege can blind you.

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Doctor Who "Dot and Bubble"

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• All the seeds are planted beautifully.
• Ncuti's dispaired cry/yell.
• Gothic Paul.

Cons

• I could have used an extra bit on the end with Ncuti.