Time Is of the Essence

War Cry's Ewan Hall gives his take on the upcoming Doctor Who finale.

To use the Doctor’s own words, it has been a ‘timey-wimey wibbly wobbly’ second series for his 15th regeneration, played by Ncuti Gatwa – that is to say, its plot has been jumping forward and backward among different places and different eras.  

But this weekend it comes to an end. And Whovians can catch the Doctor Who finale at home or in more than 450 cinemas.

The series has introduced fans to the Doctor’s new, albeit reluctant, companion Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), a nurse who lives on Earth in 2025. Her life was turned upside down when she was abducted by robots from the star system of Missbelindachandra.

It turned out that a star certificate given to Belinda several years previously by her boyfriend, which bought ownership rights to a star he named after her, had unintentionally made her queen of the star system. 

Learning of her abduction, the Doctor gave chase in the Tardis to save her. After defeating the robots, the Doctor tried to return Belinda to Earth, as she wished, but the Tardis was not able to land.

So for the rest of the series, the Doctor and Belinda have hopscotched across planets and time, trying to get her home. In the process, they have faced a terrifying and malevolent God of Light as well as a creature that lurks in the shadows, a story-stealing barber and an alien who hijacked an interstellar song contest.

There has also been a brief appearance by the Doctor’s previous companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), who was back on Earth and working with the Unified Intelligence Taskforce (Unit), which defends Earth from extraterrestrial and paranormal threats.

In the series finale, the Doctor faces his greatest challenge yet. And showrunner Russell T Davies can’t wait for viewers to see it play out.

‘The Doctor is doomed,’ he says. ‘Belinda is lost, Ruby is trapped, Unit is powerless, the Unholy Trinity rule supreme and the Underverse is rising. I can promise shocks, scares and revelations off the scale.’

The whimsy of Doctor Who and time-travelling adventures may sometimes prompt audiences to wonder what they would do if they could control the Tardis. The idea of going back in time to ‘fix’ our lives may appeal.

Whether it’s words that hurt the people we care about, actions we wish we could take back or decisions that spiralled into consequences we never saw coming – most of us have something in our past we would like to go back and change.

The reality is, we don’t have a Tardis, and we can’t change what we have done. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t make a fresh start.

If we confess our wrongdoing to God, who is compassionate, he will forgive us. One Bible writer said: ‘He has taken our sins as far away from us as the east is from the west’ (Psalm 103:12 Easy-to-Read Version).

And having forgiven our past mistakes, God will show us how we can move on from them. Whatever sort of time we are going through, God’s forgiveness is always available, promising us hope as we journey into the future.