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Dot and Bubble (TV story)

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Dot and Bubble
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Dot and Bubble was the fifth episode of Season 1 of Doctor Who.[1]

For the first time since Blink [+]Loading...["Blink (TV story)"] seventeen 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.

Notably, the concluding parts of the episode marked the first time in which the Fifteenth Doctor, whose incarnation was the first time a black actor, Ncuti Gatwa, had top billing as the character,[nb 1] would experience racism because of his skin colour.[2][3]

Synopsis[[edit] | [edit source]]

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[[edit] | [edit source]]

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 claims to 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 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, trying to take her mind off what she just saw. Ruby Sunday brings herself back to Lindy's attention and refuses to go away, as well as bringing in a friend, the Doctor, claiming he can help - Lindy failing to recognise him from before. The pair tell Lindy that she needs to leave without using the Bubble, as it doesn't seem able to see the man-traps. Lindy acquiesces, but as she tries to leave, she repeatedly stumbles into her desk; she can't walk without the Bubble guiding her. She re-activates it and walks to the elevator, where a man-trap awaits. The Bubble repeatedly tells Lindy to walk forward; as the pair scream at her not to she slowly inches backwards. She moves to the side and the man-trap passes by her, ignoring her.

 
"Some of you get eaten and some of you don't. Maybe it's your diet. Or your height. Or something in your DNA. And why can't the Dot see those things?".

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 her 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, while Ruby remembers her from somewhere else.

Exasperated, Lindy decides 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 and 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. If they can get there, they'll be sent the code to get through. As this is explained, Lindy's dot begins to run out of power, the Doctor only able to tell her to go to Plaza 55 before being cut off.

 
"Lindy Pepper-Bean, I will get you out of here. I promise".

Lindy walks towards Plaza 55 but finds a bevy of man-traps between her and it, standing still, 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. The Doctor begins to send them to Ricky as Lindy asks Ruby and her friend what has happened with her friends. None of them have been eaten, but only one of them ran. Most just stayed where they were. Lindy is shocked, in disbelief, as Gothic Paul died and they've still ignored her. 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. They call up Suzie Pentecost, the last person on the list before Lindy, and watch as she's devoured right in front of them.

 
"He was born Coombes. C comes before P.".

The Doctor points out to Lindy that if people are being eaten in alphabetical order, the man-traps are not natural. This is intentional. 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 learnt to 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 finalise 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. As "C" comes before "P", the Dot turns towards Ricky and kills him first, while Lindy sneaks through the passage, closing it behind her.

 
"You, sir, are not one of us. [...] I mean, screen-to-screen contact is just about acceptable, but... in person? That's impossible...".

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. The Doctor 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 inappropriate. A box that's bigger on the inside than the outside? Voodoo. 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. And as they walk away he screams, before retreating back into the TARDIS after Ruby.


Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

Uncredited[[edit] | [edit source]]

Crew[[edit] | [edit source]]

General production staff

Script department

Camera and lighting department

Art department

Costume department

Make-up and prosthetics

Movement

Casting

General post-production staff

Special and visual effects

Sound



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.
          

This episode was produced with the support of incentives for the Irish film industry provided by the Government of Ireland.


Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Finetime[[edit] | [edit source]]

Finetime profiles[[edit] | [edit source]]

Cultural references[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • Ruby describes Finetime as "Love Island: The Planet".
  • Describing her clothing, Lindy describes her socks as a cotton-derivative, her shoes as retrobuffed, and her T-shirt as a classic design from the year Five-5. The thread of the shirt is sourced from refurb, so as to not deplete Finetime resources.

Story notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • 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".[4]
  • According to the accompanying Unleashed episode, the final scene of the episode was filmed on 17 December, 2022 and was Ncuti Gatwa's first day on set[5] 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.[6]
  • This episode, following 73 Yards [+]Loading...["73 Yards (TV story)"], marks the first instance of two Doctor-lite stories airing consecutively, as well as the first example of two such stories occurring in the same season.
  • When describing the Dot before it attacks Lindy, the Doctor uses the word "anti-grav", seemingly against the running mavity gag.
  • Ricky September's lip-syncing was inspired by Russell T Davies' interest in the idea of "handsome e-boys" who become popular by "listlessly miming to pop songs".[7] Davies previously explored this topic in Cucumber.

Myths[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Filming locations[[edit] | [edit source]]

Swansea University Bay Campus - Finetime

Ratings[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Production errors[[edit] | [edit source]]

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

to be added

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • 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, 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)"].
  • AUDIO: 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. Eilidh Loan also played a character in each story, Marconi in Like and Cooper Mercy in this episode.
  • The Doctor is discriminated against due to his physical appearance, in this case, his skin colour. TV: The Witchfinders [+]Loading...["The Witchfinders (TV story)"] previously saw the Thirteenth Doctor facing troubles specifically due to her presenting as a woman.
  • The official Doctor Who Instagram game Try Out Life in a Bubble! [+]Loading...["Try Out Life in a Bubble! (game)"] invited the user to, as the title implied, "try out life in a bubble". This was soon deleted, presumably due to the implications of inviting the viewer to join Finetime, an exclusively white community who are depicted in Dot and Bubble as racist.
  • In Doctor Who The Official Annual 2025, two works of fiction - Welcome to Finetime [+]Loading...["Welcome to Finetime (short story)"] and Dodge the Mantraps [+]Loading...["Dodge the Mantraps (game)"] - expanded upon this story. The former depicted Lindy introducing one or more people to Finetime, with the Doctor attempting to warn her about the "monsters", only to be blocked, as seen in Dot and Bubble, and seemingly setting the story before the episode. Dodge the Mantraps featured "you" needing to make it to the exit without being eaten by a Mantrap.

Home media releases[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Gallery[[edit] | [edit source]]

Main article: Dot and Bubble (TV story)/Gallery

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. ↑ In all three televised appearances of Jo Martin's Fugitive Doctor, Jodie Whittaker received top billing, and Martin's name appears in the closing credits only. The black children depicting the Timeless Child in The Ghost Monument [+]Loading...["The Ghost Monument (TV story)"] and The Timeless Children [+]Loading...["The Timeless Children (TV story)"] had no on-screen credits at all.

Citations[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. ↑ 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.
  2. ↑ DWM 606, "Killing in the Name", pp. 30; 32. "It's the classic love story. Girl [Lindy] meets boy [Ricky]. [...] Girl murders boy. Girl turns out to be a racist. Boy was probably a racist too. [...] The most contentious issue, predicts Russell [T Davies], will 'not be that Finetime's citizens are racists, but the Doctor still offers to help them.'"
  3. ↑ Doctor Who: Unleashed: Season 1: 5: Dot and Bubble. 4:23-4:39. "And apart from the final scene, Ncuti [Gatwa] and Millie [Gibson] do all of their performing down an Autocue lens. Leaving centre stage to Lindy Pepper-Bean, a character who ultimately reveals herself to be entitled and racist.
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. ↑ 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."
  6. ↑ 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."
  7. ↑ Dot and Bubble Preview, DWM 604.
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