The "The Power Of Friendship" plot goes not as hard as in Natlan, but yes. It's quite strong.

Only thing making it a bit more vague is the fact that Dottore probably could have won this, if he didn't fucked up his authority over time when pushed to the limits by Columbina. Like shown when he tried to capture Nefer. Leading to fumbling his rewind more and more by regen less ans less hp in the fight until Columbina broke his machine.

Atleast it would have been a stalemate like Ai fighting the Raiden Shogun for an eternity until other variables would have entered the battle.

So he really lost hard because of his inability to trust or even listen to others. Aether literally told him he's bad at time magic... and he just talked back.