Doctor Who: Wish World Review - 4 Ups & 6 Downs

I’m absolutely devastated that Belinda is shaping up to get about as much screen time and attention as Dan did in Thirteen’s era. There’s a running theory online that big chunks of this series were originally written with Ruby as the companion and have tweaked accordingly, and the longer this run goes on, the more I buy into it.

Varada Sethu is so much fun, and has the potential to be the best companion we’ve had since Bill Potts, but this series just doesn’t know what it wants to do with her. She’s not felt like a main character since her first story, and to be honest, every story since would have remained pretty unchanged by her absence. She’s not even been given the standard companion trope of being the one to save the day fifty percent of the time, and it’s really sad to see her being so underutilised and under-appreciated.

She spends half this episode playing a brainwashed nuclear housewife, before she is thoroughly relegated to the background in favour or Ruby (again), who is the one who has a personal connection to UNIT and Conrad.

In a move that sums up Belinda’s role in the story, in the closing moments of the story, she fades into literal nothingness and, I promise you, I genuinely didn’t catch it until I rewatched it.

Justice for my girl. She better save the universe next week.