 |
| The Doctor reassures Donna after they lose the TARDIS. |
1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 54 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Tom Kingsley. Produced by: Vicki Delow.
THE PLOT:
The TARDIS, damaged after Donna spilled coffee into the console, deposits her and the Doctor inside a massive spaceship. The Doctor initiates the repair protocols by inserting the sonic screwdriver into the keyhole. Then, unable to resist, he begins exploring.
This turns out to be a problem when something triggers the TARDIS's Hostile Action Displacement System (HADS). The timeship dematerializes, leaving the two stranded with no way back to Earth - and without the Doctor's sonic screwdriver.
The ship appears to be abandoned, with their only companion a primitive robot that is barely moving. The computer confirms that there are no other lifeforms, and that the last activity was an airlock opening and closing three years earlier. Their location is the edge of the universe, so far out that even starlight can't reach them. They are surrounded by a seemingly endless nothingness.
But if they're alone, what triggered the TARDIS's emergency systems? Why does this giant ship keep reconfiguring itself? What is the thudding sound against the hull? And why is it suddenly getting so much colder...?
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: Tries to remain calm, reassuring Donna that they will recover the TARDIS and return to Earth. That calm gets punctured when he's confronted with the events of his previous life: the Flux, which devasted half the universe; and the Timeless Child revelation, which has left him with no place to call home. True, he never particularly cared for Gallifrey. But even when he believed it destroyed, he could at least say where he came from. Now even that has been taken away from him. In the emotional safety of an empty corridor, with no one around to see, he cries out and repeatedly strikes the wall. Tennant's performance across this episode is one of his very best in the role - and this moment in particular gave me chills.
Donna: Catherine Tate is every bit as good as Tennant, and this script gives her plenty of good material. Donna isn't at all intellectual, and she's slow to grasp scientific (or technobabble) concepts. But she is extremely intuitive, and she ends up asking questions that the Doctor misses, which is particularly important near the end. She responds well to the Doctor's avoidance of personal questions. When it's clear something is bothering him, she tries briefly to get him to talk... but after he evades, instead of pressing like Yaz so often did with Thirteen, she switches to simply asking if he's all right.
THOUGHTS:
"Wild Blue Yonder... We sang that in the choir in primary school. We'd have a little concert every Christmas. But Gramps complained. He said, 'You shouldn't be teaching children that. It sounds all jaunty and fun but it's not. It's the military going to war.' ...the TARDIS played us a war song."
-Donna and the Doctor realize that something has gone very wrong.
OK, I liked this one. I liked it a lot!
Wild Blue Yonder does something that I wish Russell T. Davies' Doctor Who did more often: It slows down. In contrast to the frenetic activity of The Star Beast, this episode takes its time.
I'm not just talking about allowing the story and characters time to breathe. The sense of slowness is actually woven into the fabric of the story. One of the TARDIS duo's first discoveries is a robot that appears inert. It turns out that it is moving - just very slowly, so that it's spent three years moving down this one long hallway. The light of stars, as fast as light speed seems, is too slow for it to have yet reached their current location. The ship's functions are all automatic, and have been for three years, and each command is executed with large gaps in between.
The slowness also applies to the technical elements, particularly in the first half. Individual shots are held longer. There are extended moments without dialogue, with pauses in conversations, and there's less incidental music than normal. A visually arresting shot takes us for a flyby outside of the ship, a shot that lasts for close to a minute, and a late episode discovery lingers for the audience to absorb for several seconds before the Doctor begins talking about it.
All of this helps to create a sense of dread. It takes a good third of the episode for the characters to encounter an external threat, but the setting feels threatening right away. The TARDIS takes off on its own, leaving the Doctor and Donna stranded - and taking the sonic screwdriver with it, making the Doctor a wizard without a wand. The ship regularly reconfigures itself, separating them a couple of times and leaving them to navigate a maze just to reunite.
The only complaint I have with an otherwise excellent episode is the comedy cold open. The Doctor and Donna have a brush with Isaac Newton (Nathaniel Curtis), resulting in his law of universal gravitation (gravity) to become "mavity" - with every mention of gravity thereafter substituting the new word. It's a running gag that I hope runs very far away, because it set my teeth on edge every time the Doctor or Donna said it.
OVERALL:
"Mavity" aside, this is the best new Doctor Who story in a long time. It's eerie and atmospheric, with excellent dialogue and terrific performances by Tennant and Tate. Most of all, by slowing things down, Russell T. Davies allows the emotion to feel that little bit more genuine, causes the scares to be that little bit more effective, and just generally makes the whole stand out from the series' usual offerings.
Oh, and there's a cameo by a returning character at the very end. I never expected to see that character again, and the appearance was an extremely welcome surprise.
Overall Rating: 9/10. Without "mavity," I would probably be awarding full marks.
Previous Story: The Star Beast
Next Story: The Giggle
Review Index
To receive new review updates, follow me:
On Twitter:
On Threads:
