The set design of the Rani’s Bone Palace bothers me.
This is a very specific part of Wish World/The Reality world that’s been bothering me. And since I haven’t seen anyone else talking about it, I’m going to assume it’s a “me” problem. Then again—what is this blog for other than my twisted rambles from my weary mind.
It really started to itch at my brain when I watched Doctor Who: Unleashed, and they offered this as a direct quote explaining the set's design choices:
“There’s a lot of bird references in it. A lot of avian references.”
“Okay. That’s interesting. Why did you go with birds?”
“We just thought they looked cool. We just thought they looked great.” - exact moment here
Listen. My degree is in technical theatre design. I usually live in the world of sound and lighting—that’s my happy place. But I have designed sets professionally, and I cannot stress this enough: “we thought it looked cool” is not a valid primary reason to design anything in a narrative medium. That may be part of the process, but it should never be the foundation.
Set design is an extension of character and story. The environment should reflect something about the world or the people who inhabit it. It’s not just aesthetic; it’s psychology, geography, history, and intention.
We arrange our environments both consciously and subconsciously. Our spaces reveal who we are, what we fear, what we want to control. And this is the Rani we’re talking about—someone whose entire thing is control, science, order, ego. Her spaces should say something about that. They should tell us something new.
But the Bone Palace? It’s big. It’s white. It’s empty. There’s a clock. A big seal of Rassilon. That’s it. No sense of her past, her goals, her emotional landscape—just bird skeletons.
The only other bone-related elements in the episode are the Bone Beasts. Which—fine—cool concept, sort of, except they aren’t even hers. They’re not minions. They’re not tools she created. They’re just a consequence of realities colliding. They graze on atoms. That’s it. Not touching the sci-fi hoblesquabble of that right now, but what I’m saying is: there’s no direct connection between her and the Beasts, so the whole “bone” aesthetic doesn’t anchor to anything.
The best I can come up with is this: the Rani likes dinosaurs. The Bone Beasts vaguely resemble dinosaurs. Dinosaurs had bones (hot take, I know). Birds are descended from dinosaurs. Bird bones. Voilà. A thin, speculative, retroactive logic tree that still doesn’t explain why the Rani lives inside an empty, glowing aviary cathedral made of vertebrae.
Even if that’s the real-world rationale (and honestly, if “they looked cool” is the best we’ve got, I’m screaming into the void), it leaves a glaring absence in the actual story: why is the palace like that in-universe? Did the Rani build it? Did she steal it? Is it the bones of some long-dead dimensional god she killed in the Time War?
Is it meant to be a metaphor for her obsession with structure over life?
But they didn't say they did it for that, they said they did it "because it looked cool" I'M LOOSING MY MIND. ahem anyway............
The dismissal—or worse, the lackadaisical handwave—of the Rani’s environment just highlights how little thought seems to have gone into actually integrating her into the story’s world, plot, or emotional landscape.
Because as it stands, it doesn’t feel like the Rani’s domain. It feels like a Pinterest board titled “spooky vertebrae + cathedral moodboard” got approved by committee and then vacuum-sealed in white light.
And I know Doctor Who has always danced between narrative logic and vibes. I love that about it. But there’s a difference between “this doesn’t make sense because it's alien” and “this doesn’t make sense because no one thought it through.”
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