![](https://ionahealthandwellness.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Doctor-Who-Dot-and-Bubble-Review.jpg)
“Dot and Bubble” is a strange story to review. It starts off as a very on-the-nose look at modern society’s reliance on mobile phones and social media and then towards the end turns the spotlight on a much nastier and longer-lasting aspect of society instead in a really great last 10 minutes. Can the latter make up for the rest? Let’s take a look!
The story mainly focuses on Lindy Pepper-Bean (Callie Cooke), a spoiled rich kid who is extremely obnoxious to the point of me instantly disliking her and her social-media friends, which I’m not sure was the idea but there we go (well, judging by the end of the episode I think I do have an idea…) Anyway, she complains about having to work two hours a day while she is constantly surrounded by a literal bubble of a smart-phone like screen where she talks to her friends, though one of them is worried about some of them disappearing. Soon she’s interrupted by The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa), who she immediately ignores, and then Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) who she at least gives the time of day and upon her instruction she peers through her bubble to see a giant slug thing devouring the person she was literally sitting next to, so comfortable and distracted in her literal bubble that she didn’t see what was happening to the world around her. That’s some on-the-nose satire right there!
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If phones are like this in the far future then I’m glad I’m 39…
She tries to run but without the help of the bubble telling her where to go with big arrows she struggles to walk (bloody hell…) but eventually she makes it outside with the help of The Doctor and Ruby, but mostly her beloved bubble. Sadly for her though her bubble runs out of charge and the dot that projects it falls to the floor, leaving her helpless without her technology (again, on-the-nose satire alert!) She nearly walks right into a slug because of inability to walk properly but local social media influencer Ricky September (Tom Rhys Harries) manages to talk her through the slug and to his side. He reveals that once he uploads his videos he shuts his bubble off and actually “reads and stuff” which gives him the super powers of walking and thinking for himself. Again, subtly isn’t the word for this part of the story! The two head to an exit The Doctor gave them and there Lindy happily charges her dot while Ricky finds out their homeworld, where all their parents are, has been wiped out, literally reduced to zero population by the slugs, and that’s there’s no going home to mummy and daddy for them!
I’ll be honest, if it weren’t for the next bit that I’ll get to in the spoilers I was going to give this a pretty poor review. At this point in the story I thought Lindy’s complete stupidity and aggravating way of talking was supposed to be endearing and make me like her, but it had the opposite effect. Thankfully the last 10 minutes justified my instinctive dislike of her in spades, and has another great performance from Ncuti Gatwa to boot, completely changing my thoughts on the episode…
The Continuity:
![](https://ionahealthandwellness.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/1717581671_245_Doctor-Who-Dot-and-Bubble-Review.jpg)
Arrrgghh!!!!!!
Not really anything to connect this to, specifically. I mean the themes of the episode have been dealt with in the past in similar ways across different platforms, but that’s a bit too general! The slug creatures did remind me a bit of the Tractators from Fifth Doctor TV story “Frontios”, but that’s a vague visual similarity, so again not much to go on!
Overall Thoughts:
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The Doctor and Ruby spend most of the episode in these boxes… must have been an easy day’s shoot!
“Dot and Bubble” spends 30 minutes being the “Black Mirror episode you have at home” before suddenly turning and becoming something really quite great with a well written and acted big moment for Ncuti’s Doctor. Due to those 30 minutes and the general annoyance of the central character I can’t say I’ll be watching this again, but I can’t just give it a 3 either, so consider this a rare 4 star rating but with the 3 star rating’s “I probably won’t watch it again” tagline…
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As Lindy and Ricky try to get a door open The Doctor figures out why they haven’t been immediately attacked or feasted on during the last few days like other people: the slugs are eating them in alphabetical order by surname, and wouldn’t you know it? Pepper-Bean is up next, and given this very robotic and orderly method of dispatch the Doctor also figures out that the AI behind the dots is what’s behind the killing, probably learning to hate them for their super-aggravating lifestyle (I can relate… well, maybe not the killing, but it grating on you anyway…) As he said this the dot turns red and tries to kill Lindy, and while Ricky bravely fights it off and keeps it away from her she shouts that Ricky’s real surname isn’t September and that he changed it from one beginning with ‘C’, causing the dot to turn of him. As she manages to get the door shut Ricky, the man who literally saved her life earlier in the episode, looks on in disbelief before he’s killed outright. She meets up with the other survivors and The Doctor and Ruby, who question her as to where Ricky is and she just says “he went back to look for others, he was so brave” before happily reuniting with some of her screen-friends in real life.
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If this is what’s waiting in a well-lit alleyway then I’ll take my chances with a dark one any day!
They reveal they’re going to live in the wild and colonise like their ancestors but The Doctor knows full well given how they’ve spent their lives that will just lead to their deaths, but upon offering to help them he’s rejected, the wholly white population of spoiled rich kids wanting nothing to do with a black man’s help, Lindy even saying he’s not “one of them” as the reason for why they don’t want his help. The Doctor shouts, cries and pleads for them to come back, but they head off to their inevitable death because they’ve been taught not to trust those who don’t look like them by their precious mummy and daddy’s. So yeah, silly old clumsy Lindy is actually willing to kill her idol and love-interest to save her skin and then turns out to be a racist to boot. Looking back the latter should’ve been obvious and I’m kind of embarrassed I didn’t pick up on that sooner, but hey-ho. I was too busy hating her for various other reasons to notice her all-white friends list or how she treated The Doctor’s calls and advice compared to Ruby. It was a powerful final 10 minutes, it’s a shame I had to sit through the other 30 to get there…