This article contains spoilers for the Doctor Who Season 2 finale, “The Reality War.”
There are probably bigger fish to fry right now with Doctor Who, notably the shocking end of Ncuti Gatwa’s time as The Doctor, the complete curveball (if you haven’t read online spoilers) with the introduction of Billie Piper as a character who may or may not be The Doctor (she’s credited only as “introducing Billie Piper”), and the overall question as to the future of the show, which has yet to announce a next season, let alone a Christmas special. But the thing I cannot get over is how poorly the show failed the Belinda Chandra (Varadu Sethu) storyline in perhaps the grossest way possible.
For those not familiar, here’s the gist. Belinda was introduced in the season premiere, “The Robot Revolution,” as a woman who had been pursued by a toxic dude named Alan (Jonny Green). He purchased a star for her, and due to the regular timey wimey stuff, it ended up that a whole planet was named after her, robots took over, and they were controlled by a cyborg version of Alan. It was a whole thing. But the very smart idea the episode dug in on was the theme of toxic masculinity, so hot right now in the UK, thanks to Adolescence and other shows.
She’s rescued by The Doctor, who takes her into his TARDIS, and she insists she needs to get home to her shift at the hospital on May 24, 2025, at 7:30 am. The Doctor (Gatwa), meanwhile, is doing his Doctor thing and talking about timelines, destiny, and how she doesn’t need to go home right away. And from Belinda’s perspective, you start to see how a male-presenting character keeping her in his vehicle against her will is an extension of the harrowing horror of what just happened to her with Alan.
It’s a supremely uncomfortable scene that ends with Belinda demanding that The Doctor take her home immediately… But him not able to due to more timey wimey stuff. Naturally, as the season continues, Belinda very quickly becomes enamored of The Doctor and traveling, even as things get more dangerous and they continue to not get her home.
I won’t recap every plot point in the two-part finale that was last week’s “Wish World” and this week’s “Reality War.” Instead, let’s talk about just what happened to Belinda. Last week, she was a 1950s-style housewife, brainwashed by a wish into being the mother of Poppy (Sienna-Robyn Mavanga-Phipps), whom she had with The Doctor. This week, she remembered who she is, but mostly stood in the background the entire time, yelling at anyone who tried to take her daughter away. She then spent most of the action in a giant box with Poppy, eventually emerging into the TARDIS and gleefully embracing a pseudo-married life with The Doctor, where the three of them would travel the galaxy.
Then Poppy disappeared because the wish faded, until The Doctor sacrificed his life to bring back a reality where Poppy existed. In the process, he overwrote Belinda’s previous motivation to be that she needed to be back at 7:30 am because that’s when her night shift ended, and needed to return for her daughter, Poppy, who is now fully human instead of half Time Lord.
That’s where we leave Belinda so The Doctor can regenerate nonsensically into Billie Piper (fingers crossed it’s her character from Penny Dreadful, and not Rose Tyler). But think about what happened here for a second. Belinda went from an independent woman abused by a man who tried to possess her, desperately wanting to go home to her old life and family, to a stilted housewife impregnated by The Doctor without her consent, to being stuck in a box for most of the finale, to ending up saddled with a child that was essentially forced on her by The Doctor in a different way. That’s the worst fears she had in that first episode, all coming true. But we’re supposed to think it’s all wonderful because baby Poppy survived.
Nothing against baby Poppy, but what about Belinda Chandra’s life? The one she was happy with until The Doctor came into it and changed it completely? She went from one toxic man consuming her life entirely to another toxic man consuming her life entirely, and leaving her behind with a baby as a single mother. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with being a single mother – but there is if it is against your will.
I’d argue that, as a whole, Doctor Who had no idea what to do with Belinda, or Sethu, an excellent actor who was better served on Andor, a show where she was frickin’ fridged, for frick’s sake. The show almost immediately jettisoned the initially interesting take on a Companion, one who doesn’t want to be there, and turned her into generic “crikey, Doctor, what’s happening over there, you’re wonderful,” with a side of her occasionally being a nurse (something that barely plays into the finale at all). She went from a character who was all agency, to no agency of her own in record time.
Heck, Millie Gibson got more of an emotional arc and growth in this final episode as Ruby Sunday than Sethu’s character did. Double heck, Anita Benn (Steph De Walley), who wasn’t even the main Companion in the Christmas special “Joy to the World,” got more of an emotional arc than Belinda this episode! That’s crazy!
It was a character that just two months back showed a ton of promise, and now has been shoved out of the TARDIS, had her life upturned entirely, and been given a baby she never asked for. There’s a point where one of the characters says something about every baby being a miracle of love (I’m not going back to watch this to find out the exact phrase, sorry), and that’s very sweet and all. But Belinda started as a character who wanted to be left alone to live her life. Instead, she had her life rewritten to fulfill the “happy mother still friends with her ex” trope so The Doctor could die happy knowing he did the right thing.
When he leaves, he indicates he might see her again, just with a different face. But here’s hoping that The Doctor leaves Belinda alone, and Doctor Who leaves Sethu alone. They’re better off without him.
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It’s wild because I honestly think they could’ve fixed Belinda’s agency issue by having Poppy be looked after/adopted into the Ruby family almost a like foundling would, it would mirror Ruby’s story of being a foundling in Season 1 from the perspective of a foundling, to someone having to make that decision for their child (Belinda to Poppy) in Season 2, and how she might navigate that in a potential Season 3. Since she works as a nurse, might be an interesting addition to her character development, as people in medical professions often have to give up a lot of their personal time for their jobs and could even create some inter-personal conflict… I still don’t get why Belinda suddenly had her personality shift so drastically, at the very least they could’ve made her feel conflicted about having a child :/
100% agree, and you could see Sethu trying to connect the thoughts multiple times in the episode from “I didn’t have a child previously” to “my whole personality is this child.”
How dare motherhood be a thing, obviously. /s
That is certainly not my point! If Belinda had ever expressed any interest in it at any point earlier in the series, it would be a different story. As is, they completely changed her character in the final two episodes.