Dot and Bubble (TV story)
Dot and Bubble was the fifth episode of Season 1 of Doctor Who.[1]
For the first time since Blink [+]Loading...["Blink (TV story)"] sixteen years prior, the episode focuses almost exclusively on a guest character, Lindy Pepper-Bean, played by Callie Cooke, with the Doctor and Ruby playing a less active role.
In a shocking turn, the concluding parts of the episode marked the first time in which the Fifteenth Doctor would experience direct racial discrimination, implicitly due to his skin colour, an element made all the more surprising due to the episode's futuristic setting.
Synopsis
Lindy Pepper-Bean is a happy citizen of Finetime. She does her allotted two hours of work and has plenty of friends, but when her friends start to disappear and the Doctor and Ruby Sunday call, she's forced to look beyond her Bubble and confront a horrible truth.
Plot
Lindy Pepper-Bean wakes up in Finetime, activating her Dot, and surrounding herself in her Bubble. Around her swirls a panorama of people in pastel squares. Her friends start talking to her, telling her good morning, and she greets them back, before noting that a friend of hers is missing. Gothic Paul expresses concern about all the people who have gone missing recently, but Lindy dismisses it as others tell her to get out of bed and head to the sink. She watches the new song put out by Ricky September as a request comes in from a man she doesn’t know - the Doctor. He tells her that there are monsters around her in the real world and she needs to listen. She blocks him and goes back to listening to the song.
Lindy walks to work, influencing her friends by describing her clothes. During work she receives a call from someone who says they work for Finetime Industries, Ruby Sunday. The strange woman asks Lindy a variety of questions about the nature of her job and her co-workers. Ruby encourages Lindy to see if her co-workers are in the same room, since none of them are responding in the Bubble. Lindy refuses to lower her Bubble, but eventually relents and peers out between the squares that make it up, looking in front of her for her co-workers. She can't see them. Confused, she’s able to be convinced by Ruby to look to her right as well, where she sees a giant man-trap ingesting one of her co-workers.
Fearful, Lindy tells Ruby Sunday that she wishes to get back to work, but Ruby manages to convince her to lower her Bubble and take a serious look at the creature. Lindy re-activates her Dot and Bubble, dismissing Ruby as she tries to talk to Lindy, flicking through her friends and Ricky September, anything to take her mind off of what she just saw. Ruby Sunday brings herself back to Lindy's attention and refuses to go away, as well as bringing in a new person, saying that she has a friend who can help. The pair tell Lindy that she needs to leave without using the Bubble, it doesn't seem able to see the man-traps. Lindy acquiesces, but as she tries, she repeatedly stumbles into objects - she can't walk without the Bubble. She re-activates it, walking to the elevator, where a man-trap awaits. The Bubble repeatedly tells Lindy to walk forward, as the pair scream at her not to, and slowly inches backwards. She moves to the side, and the man-trap passes by her, ignoring her.
Out in the street the pair have Lindy turn off her Bubble and look around. There are man-traps everywhere, ingesting some people, with others walking by completely unharmed. As Lindy recoups from this experience, the pair ask her what Finetime is, precisely. Lindy explains that it's where the Homeworld sends people ages 17 to 27, if they can afford it. They work two hours a day, partying the rest of the time. She shows them her mother who sent here there, Penny Pepper-Bean. Upon seeing her mother, Ruby and the Doctor comment that they've seen her before. The Doctor recognises her as the face of the ambulance on Kastarion 3, and Ruby remembers her from somewhere else.
Lindy gets exasperated with them and decides that she should be talking to her real friends, not them. She starts a group chat with all her closest friends, and tries to convince them that something is wrong, showing them how many people have gone missing from her friends list. Gothic Paul agrees, and says he's been trying to warn them. Lindy explains that people are getting eaten, seemingly at random, but Paul laughs, says that even he wouldn't be that silly. Suddenly, a man-trap lurches on screen next to Paul and his feed cuts off - the rest of her friends start panicking. Ruby and the Doctor force their way into the group chat and tell everyone that there's a series of locked tunnels under the city leading to a river. They can get there and they'll be sent the code. As this is explained, Lindy's dot begins to run out of power, Ruby's friend only able to tell her to go to Plaza 55.
Lindy walks towards Plaza 55, but finds a bevy of man-traps between her and it, standing, menacingly. She tries to walk forward, but stumbles, unable to do so consistently without guidance. A voice from the edge of the Plaza tells her what to do, guiding her past the man-traps. At the end stands Ricky September, in the flesh, without a Dot or Bubble. When she gets past the man-traps, he tells her that he actually spends a lot of time reading, outside of his Bubble; he's been trying to warn people, but his videos would get deleted. Ricky takes her to the start of the passage underground where Lindy begins to charge her Dot. Ricky uses a nearby planet link to try to contact the Homeworld, but when he pulls up the livefeed, he sees the entire planet wiped out - man-traps standing over the ruins.
To move further down they need to unseal the tunnel, inputting a code of one-hundred numbers. Ruby's friend begins to send them to Ricky as Lindy asks Ruby and the Doctor inquire what has happened with Lindy's friends. None of them have been eaten, but only one of them ran. Most just stayed where they were. The trio tries to puzzle out why some people are getting eaten and others aren't, and hit upon the idea that it might be in alphabetical order. Lindy's shocked, in disbelief, Gothic Paul died and they've still ignored her. They pull up Suzie Pentecost, the last person before Lindy, and watch as she's devoured right in front of them.
But Ruby's friend points out to Lindy that if people are being eaten in alphabetical order, the man-traps are not natural. This is intentional. And maybe the Dot isn't just ignoring them, maybe it's intentionally trying to lead people into the man-traps. If they've become self aware and constantly listen to the residents of Finetime, maybe they hate the residents of Finetime. Lindy tries to turn the Dot off, but it refuses, flying through the air and attacking her. Ricky and Lindy swap places, Lindy punching in the numbers and Ricky fighting off the Dot. Lindy manages to finalize the code, but the Dot stuns Ricky, disorienting him. As the Dot turns towards Lindy, Lindy tells the Dot that Ricky's real last name begins with a "C". "September" is a stage name. The Dot turns towards Ricky and kills him - Lindy sneaking through the passage, closing it behind her.
Further down the tunnels Lindy finds some other refugees of Finetime, as well as Ruby and the Doctor. The refugees say they've decided to head out into the wilderness, to try and survive, to tame it like their ancestors. Ruby's friend offers instead to take them in his ship, his blue box that's bigger on the inside. But Lindy and the others dismiss this idea in no uncertain terms - due to his skin colour, they can't travel with him. As a person of colour, he's not one of them. It was his duty to save them, of course, but continual face to face contact is just untoward. And a box that's bigger on the inside than the outside? Voodoo. And wherever they live, they must maintain their standards.
The Doctor insists that none of this matters; he just wants to save their lives. He begs with them, pleads with them. They walk away, and he screams in frustration, before retreating back into the TARDIS after Ruby.
Cast
- The Doctor - Ncuti Gatwa
- Ruby Sunday - Millie Gibson
- Lindy Pepper-Bean - Callie Cooke
- Cooper Mercy - Eilidh Loan
- Harry Tendency - Aldous Ciokajlo Squire
- Hoochy Pie - Niamh Lynch
- Valerie Nook - Millie Kent
- Blake Very Blue - Billy Brayshaw
- Gothic Paul - Pete MacHale
- Dr Pee - Max Boast
- Rotterdam Twin 1 - Elloise Bennett
- Rotterdam Twin 2 - Olivia Bennett
- Ricky September - Tom Rhys Harries
- Weatherman Will - Jack Forsyth-Noble
- Alan K Sullivan - Milo Callaghan
- Penny Pepper-Bean - Susan Twist
- Suzie Pentecost - Ellie-Grace Cashin
- Brewster Cavendish - Jamie Barnard
Crew
| Executive Producers Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter with Joel Collins and Phil Collinson |
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| Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources. |
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This episode was produced with the support of incentives for the Irish film industry provided by the Government of Ireland. |
Worldbuilding
Finetime
- The city of Finetime is surrounded by the Wild Woods.
- The inhabitants of Finetime are 17 to 27-year-olds from the Homeworld.
- The humanoid inhabitants of Finetime have blue blood.
- The city was sealed off after the Great Abrogation.
Finetime profiles
- Harry Tendency is currently reading Ulysses the Revenge.
- Hoochy Pie's profile has a notice saying she'll perform at Finefest in 24 weeks.
Notes
- The title of the episode was revealed on the official Doctor Who Twitter account on 31 March 2024.[1]
- Davies told Radio Times that he had first conceived the idea for the story around 2010, and discussed it with Steven Moffat. However, the concept was too expensive for the show, so Davies shelved his "vague idea" at the time. He further explained that the episode had more visual effects than "any other episode".[2]
- According to the accompanying Unleashed episode, the final scene of the episode was filmed on December 17, 2022 and was Ncuti Gatwa's first day on set[3] after his scenes in The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"].
- The slugs seen on Finetime are called "man-traps" in the accompanying Unleashed episode.[4]
Myths
to be added
Filming locations
to be added
Ratings
to be added
Production errors
to be added
Continuity
- The Doctor and Ruby both recognize Penny Pepper-Bean as familiar, marking a further acknowledgement of Susan Twist's multiple roles across the season. Ruby cannot remember where she has seen her before, referencing TV: 73 Yards [+]Loading...["73 Yards (TV story)"]), but the Doctor recognizes her as the face of the Villengard Automated Ambulance Units they saw in TV: Boom [+]Loading...["Boom (TV story)"].
- The Doctor still calls the TARDIS a "ship", as the Twelfth Doctor did in TV: Twice Upon a Time [+]Loading...["Twice Upon a Time (TV story)"].
- The audio story, Like [+]Loading...["Like (audio story)"], previously depicted the Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown encountering a social media platform that killed its users if enough people disliked a user, and shocked a user for each dislike. This system also caused hatred to run rampant, in that case against immigrants.
Home media releases
to be added
Gallery
- Main article: Dot and Bubble (TV story)/Gallery
External links
- Official Dot and Bubble page on doctorwho.tv
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 @bbcdoctorwho (2024-03-31). DOT AND BUBBLE
Writer: Russell T Davies
Director: Dylan Holmes Williams
#DoctorWho. Archived from the original on 2024-05-29. - ↑ Morgan Jeffery (2024-04-30). Doctor Who boss says finale contains scenes he's been planning for 50 years. RadioTimes.com. Archived from the original on 2024-04-30.
- ↑ 00:58 - 01:09: Stefan Powell: "Welcome to Cardiff Bay Barrage, 17th of December twenty twenty two. It's eleven o'clock at night, minus two degrees. Ncuti Gatwa's about to shoot his very first scene of the series."
- ↑ Doctor Who: Unleashed: Season 1: 5: Dot and Bubble: 11:45 - 1149: "But never has there been a more gloopy, slurpy, or gnarly eater than the man-traps."
