Companions: Melanie Bush, Donna Noble, Wilfred Mott, Kate Stewart
The Fourteenth Doctor era brings back David Tennant, and the justification why is shockingly shaky. However, David Tennant continues to show why he’s one of the best.
The Review
Here’s the scores for the stories
Wild Blue Yonder: 10/10
Liberation of the Daleks: 9/10
The Star Beast: 8/10
The Giggle: 8/10
So, RTD chose to bring back David Tennant, not just as the Tenth Doctor again, but as a full regeneration of the Doctor. Was it worth it putting Tennant’s face twice in the line-ups of Doctors? Honestly, despite the quality stories and I think the greatest Doctor costume of all time, I’m not so sure. The reason posited that this face came back was that the Doctor needed to go to rehab by living the quiet life with Donna while Gatwa has all of the Doctory-Doctor stuff covered. Despite paying as much homage as possible to the Moffat and Chibnall eras, the effect is that it appears the Doctor went through everything they did as Smith, Capaldi, and Whittaker…and chose to return to this form as Tennant. Simply too much revolves around Tennant in the show now, and unless the scales are balanced later, his figure looms so large that I think it creates too much issues. Still, I’m not that upset with it for one obvious reason: Tennant is such an exceptional Doctor. Him and Donna might be my second favorite companion duo only behind the unimpeachable heights of Capaldi/Clara.
Now, his best moments.
5. Got to give a shout-out to Liberation of the Daleks and the Doctor’s uniting of all the dream-Daleks and dismissal of Georgette at the end was classic.
4. Deducing the truth behind the eponymous giggle in The Giggle was some classic Doctor-detecting that was Tennant at his best.
3. In Wild Blue Yonder, the Doctor’s discussion with NotDonna revealing his trauma from the Flux and the Timeless Child gave me some faith in the second RTD era.
2. The Doctor having to bring back Donna thinking he’s going to kill her in The Star Beast is so heartbreaking and well-played by Tennant.
1. “Oh, I think you’ll find we’re really quite something!” The delivery of this line leading into the chase and first analysis of the Not-Things is excellent.
In the end, this ends up as the highest-rated Doctor era ever! Quality tends to win out. I just wonder if a decade from now we’ll look at the Fourteenth Doctor as an aberration, something that flowered into a beautiful re-opening of the show’s history, or an entertaining but ultimately wrong-hearted misfire. Time will tell, it always does…
Companions: Melanie Bush, Donna Noble, Wilfred Mott, Kate Stewart
Quality always helps win out, and the 60th anniversary delivers well enough there, but you still can’t shake the feeling of wondering what we’re all doing here.
The Review
Here’s the scores for the stories:
Wild Blue Yonder: 10/10
The Star Beast: 8/10
The Giggle: 10/10
There will be a lot of overlap with the Fourteenth Doctor review, so let’s stay focused on the tv stories for this post. The Star Beast was fun enough, and the Meep brings his iconic comic-villain status to the screen, but ultimately got bogged down with some weird dialogue that got a bit too heavy-handed. Then we got our first out and out classic in years with Wild Blue Yonder, an absolutely terrific terrifying story that reminded us what we love so much about this show. Finally, The Giggle starts with some great satire, and then left us with a resolution that left us with more questions than answers. For people who wanted classic series fan-service, they were at least covered by The Power of the Doctor. Now, we wonder what the future holds.
8.667/10 The 60th anniversary definitely feels more in line with Series 1-10 than the Chibnall era did, but hardly surprising with all the same people coming back. The real question is what will the bold new future have in store for us?
Doctor: The Fourteenth Doctor, the Fifteenth Doctor
Companions: Melanie Bush, Donna Noble, Wilfred Mott, Kate Stewart
The Giggle brings the 60th anniversary festivities to a close with a very fun episode that just ends with a bit of whimper while introducing some major lore changes that feel a little more half-baked than game-breaking.
The Review
David Tennant gives it his all, as usual
The first two-thirds of this story are a lot of fun. In what I was unaware of was a very true story, the first television image was of a creepy puppet. It turns out none other than the Toymaker supplied this puppet, and its evil giggle has been embedded into every television screen, getting stuck in people’s brains. Now in the 21st century, all of the world is turned online, and guess what: the Toymaker is making everybody think they’re right and everyone else is wrong, the modus operandi of the 21st century. This is all great social satire, but they don’t do much with it in the second half of the episode to my disappointment. Neil Patrick Harris is a ton of fun as the Toymaker, the sequence of him lip-syncing Spice Girls and terrorizing UNIT is sensational (including turning two soldiers into bouncy balls). UNIT has a full team with Kate, Shirley, this alien called the Vlinx, and Mel! Mel explains she got a lift back to Earth after Glitz died, and found a home in UNIT. Bonnie Langford does a great job in this episode. I like this new UNIT team here, but I do need to hear from Osgood, even Chibnall at least shouted her out in Flux. Then we get the final third of the story…
The first every bi-generation
The Toymaker eventually shoots a big ‘ol laser at the Doctor, and he bi-generates, with Gatwa basically spawning out of Tennant. This is the big thing that caused endless controversy, and honestly…I don’t mind weird stuff like this. What matters is how it gets used. The Toymaker’s defeat is a game of catch which has some fun scenes, but eventually he just misses and gets stuck in a box. It’s a bit of a whimper, and the shock of the bi-generation really steals the Toymaker’s thunder away. Secondly, there’s a lot of confusion about what exactly is going on here. Gatwa seems a lot more with it than Tennant, and basically says he needs therapy and to settle down with the Nobles while Gatwa heads out of there. He even hits the TARDIS with a mallet and creates a duplicate Tennant gets to keep. Honestly, my main question is just: why? Was it worth it to risk overshadowing Gatwa and still keep the specter of Tennant out there? It’s such a kind ending for the Tennant Doctor, but it also has made it feel like everything we saw in-between The End of Time and now and the three Doctors we had was really stealthily character development just for Tennant. Hopefully the unfolding of the RTD era will ease my concerns, but it’s a change I’m going to see RTD need to put more leg-work in to justify. At least we’ve mentioned the Flux.
The Giggle starts off as potentially a potent satire of 21st century outrage culture, and ends up getting bogged down by some lore that leaves us all with more questions than answers. I’m just glad we’re finally going to see Gatwa in action. (And I didn’t even mention, the new Master is all but confirmed to be coming).
8/10: The first part of the episode saves this from the 7 range, but the ending kind of falls apart in a RTD-way reminiscent of old.
We go even further beyond in a story that becomes an immediate classic.
The Review
The TARDIS is perfectly fine
At last…this is why Doctor Who is incredible. We regrettably went the entire Chibnall era without a true classic episode you could point to and declare that is what the show is about. Demons of the Punjab was incredible, but not necessarily something that only Doctor Who could’ve done. This is (okay maybe Star Trek). Following a hilarious cold open where Isaac Newton discovers ‘mavity’ instead of ‘gravity’ (which is just a joke and isn’t hinting at anything…right?), we land on a massive abandoned spaceship. The TARDIS’ hostile action system kicks in, and it vanishes with the Sonic, leaving the Doctor and Donna to unravel this mystery. It’s a two-hander…and then the penny drops when the two split up and start talking to two people who are very decidedly not the Doctor and Donna. The true villain are these ‘Not Things’ from the edge of the universe, who occasionally turn into revolting body horror. It’s the Other Mother from Coraline, horrifying copies who just can’t quite get the arms right.
The Fourteenth Doctor looking fabulous
The plot is relatively simple once you know it, but watching this story was exhilarating and tense. Many scenes of trying to figure out who was real and who was the copy, and unraveling that the ship was about to self-destruct to prevent these non-things from entering the universe. We get more insight into the Doctor and Donna, Donna’s newfound confidence, and how the Doctor is feeling after the whole Flux thing with half the universe getting eaten and not knowing their origins. I am so happy that RTD is dealing with the fallout from Jodie’s run head on, and not papering it over like it doesn’t exist. That’s one big fear for this era gone. The resolution is thrilling, climatic, with the Doctor almost taking on the wrong Donna. At the very end back on Earth, we get a reunion with a now wheelchair-bound Wilf, and to see Bernard Cribbins still in top form at the end of his life was so bittersweet.
Regardless of what happens in The Giggle, this dynamite episode proved that Doctor Who still has the goods 60 years later. For people wanting more characters and fan service, I get it, but The Power of the Doctor filled that role well enough for me not to be worried here. Also, shout-out to the fun interlude comic preceding this story with the Doctor and Donna careening through history.
10/10: Been too long since I’ve given out a ten. A slimmed down cast in an impossible problem has worked wonders from Midnight to Heaven Sent and even on audio with Scherzo, add Wild Blue Yonder to that canon.
Wilfred Mott/Bernard Cribbins you lovely lovely man. We all miss you
Companions: Sarah Jane Smith, Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, Captain Jack Harkness, Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Wilfred Mott
The Tenth Doctor and RTD era winds down with five specials that range from disposable to essential.
The Review
Here’s the scores for the stories:
The Waters of Mars: 10/10
The End of Time: 9/10
The Next Doctor: 8/10
Planet of the Dead: 8/10
The Tenth Doctor’s final four stories start off with The Next Doctor and Planet of the Dead, which are good stories but really nothing special. The drama really gets ratcheted up with an all-time classic in The Waters of Mars, and concludes in a too-long story saved by emotional sensational performances. These specials are really unique because they give a glimpse of what the Doctor is like without a companion, and serves to re-affirm that as long as there is the Doctor, he needs a companion to keep him grounded. For David Tennant, spiky hair and all, he absolutely went out on top with a series of unforgettable performances.
8.75/10 The Tenth Doctor and RTD era goes out exhibiting the best of the era with some of its flaws
Story 202, Episodes 755-756, Doctor Who 2009 Christmas Special & 2010 New Year’s Special
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
Companions: Wilfred Mott, Donna Noble, Sarah Jane Smith, Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, Captain Jack Harkness, Martha Jones
In a monumental story closing the Tenth Doctor era, the RTD era, and the 2000s on Doctor Who, the Doctor affirms who he is.
The Review
The ‘Master Race’ is really an obviously clever bit of wordplay
There are a lot of parts of The End of Time that are silly and ridiculous, but as the story builds and builds it keeps getting better and better held together by two perfect performances from David Tennant and Bernard Cribbins. The worst stuff comes right away, the weird Harold Saxon cult that brings the Master back to life, but also his wife was part of an anti-Saxon secret group that leaves his body half-formed. He then proceeds to rant and rave about meat and literally eats people, jumping a million miles in the air and firing off ridiculous lasers. I feel so sorry John Simm had to do all this ridiculous stuff. It’s an hour long, but not much actually really happens in part one, but it feels all so orchestrally drummed up that we can’t help but be intrigued. The best moment comes when Wilf and the Doctor talk in the cafe, with the Doctor saying regeneration feels like death and Wilf making another pitch to the Doctor to restore Donna’s memories somehow. The Master using the Immortality Gate to turn every human on Earth into him is completely silly but actually works because of how hilarious it is to see John Simm dressed as all those different people. It gets better, but part one is a whole lot of build-up to the reveal that our mysterious narrator is a Time Lord, and the Time Lords are coming back, a reveal that comes out of absolutely nowhere but certainly hooks you!
Wilfred Mott, the Tenth Doctor’s final companion
In part two, I wish there was more interaction between the Doctor and Master, because their one conversation where the Doctor tries to convince the Master to travel the universe with him is so good. Thankfully the Capaldi era would give us all the Doctor/Master interplay we could ever ask for. Timothy Dalton as Rassilon is perfect for the role, he is imposing and is the perfect embodiment of the ugliness that had become the Time Lords. This story attempts to provide more justification that the Doctor had no choice to kill the Time Lords, and successfully shows how awful they are. Of course, the Doctor will find another way later, but for the concept of this story it works. The Time Lords implant the Master’s brain with the infamous sound of drums all just so they can try and pull Gallifrey back out of the Time War and onto Earth, Boxing Day 2009. For being nearly two and a half hours, the story is actually surprising light on plot, and could’ve been easily condensed. Still, it keeps us hooked with all the quiet intimate conversations. Several happen between Wilf and a mysterious woman only he can see revealed to be a Time Lord, one of two who voted against Rassilon. When the Doctor sees her, it’s clear, be it his mother, daughter, whomever, she’s one of the Doctor’s family. Some people have complained about this character, but I like how it expanded our knowledge of the Doctor while preserving the mystery.
Rassilon was the last card RTD had to play, and he played it
So with all this story’s problems, how can it be so good? It’s because David Tennant is fully embodying the final form of the Tenth Doctor, as all the charisma and arrogance is revealed to cover up the fear that he will slip back into being who he was before, the man who killed the Time Lords. With the Doctor’s stance on guns well known, him using Wilf’s old pistol and pointing it at the Master or Rassilon is dramatically effective. Tennant alone can’t save this story, Bernard Cribbins does, and even elevates it to great status. Cribbins had always been adorably charming as the bumbling but brave grandfather to Donna, but now in a brilliant turn he plays the Tenth Doctor’s final companion. Wilf’s character was an accident, from a brief role as a newspaper salesman in Voyage of the Damned to becoming the last companion of the Doctor’s most popular incarnation. When Bernard Cribbins bursts into tears as he and the Doctor sit on the Vinvocci spaceship, telling the Doctor he doesn’t want him to die, it’s hard not to well up with emotion. When Wilf is shooting missiles using an asteroid laser, it’s hard not to smile. This story exemplifies why I love this show because what it does is so unique, it has the biggest more adrenaline-filled crises and still dives right down to relatable characters that we care about.
“I don’t want to go”
At the end, the Master punishes the Time Lords and chooses to save the Doctor as Gallifrey returns to the Time War. The Doctor thinks he’s survived, but here’s those four knocks: Wilf, trapped inside a vault about to flood him with radiation because he saved a scientist out of kindness. The moment is the perfect completion to the Tenth Doctor’s character arc, he whines, he throws a tantrum about all the things that were left for him to do, but there was never a doubt. It didn’t matter that Wilf was old, that the Doctor might die, or never regenerate again, saving Wilf was the right thing to do. RTD gives us one last look at the characters from his wonderful era of 2000s Who, each better than the last. The Doctor gives Donna and Wilf a winning lottery ticket purchased with money from Donna’s late father, and Wilf gives one last salute. Smartly, we visit Rose as we remember her from Series 1, young and ready for so much adventure. As the Ood sing, the Doctor staggers to the TARDIS, and with a line that is effective but I do think was a little too brutal the Doctor says he doesn’t want to go. There, the Tenth Doctor dies a hero, who saved the world, but died saving just one man. The End of Time is too long, maybe too clunky, but at its core is the brilliant end to a brilliant era. David Tennant will be missed. Oh, and that is Matt Smith making a dramatic debut. GERONIMO!
The End of Time isn’t perfect, but it is everything we could’ve wanted from the Tenth Doctor’s final story.
9/10 Come on, no one finishes this story and isn’t affected
Companions: Sarah Jane Smith, K9, Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, Captain Jack Harkness, Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Wilfred Mott, River Song
David Tennant’s final season brings the perfect duo of the Tenth Doctor and Donna, while the stories do not always hit classic status, some do, and they are rarely bad.
The Review
Here’s the scores for the stories:
Midnight: 10/10
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead: 10/10
Partners in Crime: 8.75/10
The Fires of Pompeii: 8.5/10
Planet of the Ood: 8.5/10
The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End: 8.25/10
The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky: 8.25/10
Turn Left: 8/10
The Unicorn and the Wasp: 8/10
The Doctor’s Daughter: 7.5/10
The best part of Series 4 is seeing two talented actors in David Tennant and Catherine Tate having the time of their lives. Tennant is sneaky good still as the Tenth Doctor, inhabiting the role so completely and utterly that his performance is just a built in part of what we expect from the show now. In Donna, Doctor Who gets the most ‘basic’ of all the companions, but also the most compassionate and human of them all. The Tenth Doctor still has a lot to learn about empathy and being a human, and he learns a lot of it from Donna. While the crazy companion fueled conclusion doesn’t hit all the marks, it cannot take away from one of the show’s very best duos.
8.575/10 With this classic duo leading the way, no one can fail
Story 198, Episodes 750 & 751, Series 4 Episodes 12 & 13
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
Companions: Sarah Jane Smith, K9, Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler, Captain Jack Harkness, Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Wilfred Mott
In Avengers: Infinity War a decade earlier, RTD writes the most insane, bonkers story ever that somehow gets better with every rewatch.
The Review
Elisabeth Sladen was the best of us
This story is insane. First you’ve got the Daleks, oh yeah, turns out they’re behind the stars going out. There’s the return of the Supreme Dalek. Even bigger, Davros is back for the first time in 19 years. Next up, there are NINE companions in this story, not counting Torchwood and Luke Smith. Oh, and there are two Tenth Doctors. This story is the climax of the RTD era, an era of Doctor Who that focused on characters and relationships like none other and built the most inter-connected earth since the UNIT era of the 70s. There’s so much going on it boggles the mind. As an overview, I have watched this story twice recently for the Doctor Who Lockdown event and this review, and I am struck by how RTD made sure that there was no plot point, no character relationship left untouched. The best examples are the spin-off characters, Gwen calls Rhys to tell him to stay safe, Ianto inquires about when Jack met a soldier in a bar recently, Luke says that Maria and her dad are safe as well as Clyde, every character has their moments. My favorite though is Sarah Jane’s horrified reaction when the Dalek voices come over the screen in The Stolen Earth, and her similar reaction to seeing Davros again. I miss Elisabeth Sladen terribly, and you can feel the emotion and history in her relationship with Davros. RTD doesn’t miss a thing does he? On the Capitan Jack front, he’s here, he’s funny and charming, really actually not too much to say though him kissing Gwen and Ianto after hearing the Daleks over the loudspeaker is emotionally powerful too.
Martha is a soldier now, and it feels like a unfortunate direction for her character
Let’s move on to UNIT’s Martha Jones, who has gotten a very recent promotion to Manhattan, presumably so we can show the Daleks invading New York for real this time. Martha comes very close to using the Osterhagen Key, which will destroy the Earth with a chain of nuclear warheads. In what is meant to be one of the narrative backbones of the story, the Doctor turning people into soldiers, Martha is most explicitly a soldier. Now I know Martha was originally supposed to factor into the third season of Torchwood, but Martha’s character development does end with her as a soldier, and I think I am supposed to feel bad about that. She is the only companion who briefly gets into an argument with the Doctor, and her plan to hold Earth ransom to stop the REALITY BOMB because it needs all 27 planets to function makes some sense but still feels out of character for Doctor Who. Oh, I haven’t even mentioned the plot, the Earth gets stolen by the Daleks and is hidden in the Medusa Cascade one second out of sync with the rest of the universe to power Davros’ Reality Bomb which will leave the Daleks the only race in existence. The earth literally gets pulled out from under the Doctor and Donna in the TARDIS, who visit the Shadow Proclamation and get to the Medusa Cascade because ‘the bees are disappearing’ is actually a vital plot point because some bees are aliens and leave a trail and ok that’s enough.
Series 4 Rose: we can all agree it was a miss
Now onto the big character problem with the story: Rose. Whether it’s because Billie Piper lost the energy from two years ago, or it is part of an intentional change to make her also this badass dimension hopping soldier, Rose has little of the charm we remember. At least Martha’s soldier-ification happened on screen, all this character development for Rose we never get to see. It’s hard to feel invested in the Doctor seeing Rose again, when this does not track as the Rose we remember. Rose’s pouting ‘I was there first’ when she can see but not join the subwave network Zoom call with the companions rings especially sour with Sarah Jane on call. As much fun as it is to see Jackie Tyler again, her becoming a badass doesn’t make too much sense. Jackie does get the heart wrenching scene where she apologizes to a woman before she teleports away from the Daleks disintegrating people and we see that woman die. The one soldier who makes the most sense: Mickey Smith. Thanks to excellent groundwork laid by Noel Clarke in Series 2, and that he’s done it before, Mickey as a dimension-jumping hero makes a ton of sense. Also, his decision to return to his home universe is made entirely on his own terms and shows how he has finally moved on beyond Rose and is ready to forge his own path. Good for you Mickey! So, on the Rose-centric cast, Rose actually comes off as pretty uninteresting in what should have been her reunion with the Doctor. There’s also SO MUCH going on that you stop caring about the Doctor/Rose relationship.
Visually though, Davros is a home run. Seen here remembering he left the stove on back on Skaro
Alright, let’s talk about the Daleks of it all. RTD was right, for this story (and the landmark 750th episode), something big had to happen, and it does: we actually see the Daleks invading Earth, which we didn’t in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. The shots showing the different planets in the sky and the Dalek saucers flying overhead are awesome. The menace of the Daleks is largely in the first episode, by the second there isn’t much time for them (though we do get German Daleks which is amazing and very Wolfenstein). It’s not really a surprise the bad guys are just Daleks again, but we get some of the show’s best visuals to date. Now, returning is Davros, and he has some snarky monologues with the Doctor and is behind the silly Reality Bomb. Davros’ biggest problem is that he gets lost in the absolute chaos of this story, and is hardly what people remember from it. In a story returning so many characters, Davros is new (to the new series), and there’s only so much energy the audience can spend on processing who Davros is and what he means. Honestly more notable than driving the point home of the Doctor turning his companions into soldiers is Davros’ refusal to be rescued by the Doctor as the Dalek Crucible burns, then declaring the Doctor ‘the destroyer of worlds’ with zero self-awareness. For such an epic crossover, the villains couldn’t be anyone but the Daleks, but they and Davros become victims of plot soup. There’s only so much a story can do.
Meeting of the Doctors
We’re not even close to done. It’s finally time to talk about the ostensible current companion, Donna. Throughout the story, Donna keeps being told she is special, but refuses to believe it even as she helps the Doctor to the Medusa Cascade. Catherine Tate is funny throughout, but gets lost a bit in episode two when she…ok so this is a regeneration story. A Dalek shoots the Doctor when he’s running at Rose, Jack, Rose, and Donna pull him in the TARDIS, he goes to regenerate, and…heals himself but pours energy into his hand in a jar. Donna touches the hand, and out grows the Meta-Crisis Doctor, who dons the blue suit and we learn has only one heart and has picked up some of Donna’s catchphrases and attitudes. The idea of the two Doctors is crazy, but it does allow David Tennant to be in two places at once which I appreciate. At the end of the day, the famous cliffhanger of the Doctor regenerating is exciting but of course it has to end in a cop-out. The second Doctor really is around for more Tennant/Tate banter, and as a gift to Rose to make Ten/Rose shippers happy for eternity. The Meta-Crisis Doctor decides to commit genocide on the Daleks, and as that goes against the Fourth Doctor’s established modus operandi in Genesis of the Daleks, he has to be punished. The Meta-Crisis Doctor gets to love and grow old with Rose, and the Doctor leaves her behind. While the Doctor getting over Rose should be a big emotional moment, it happens mostly silently. Anyway, this crazy new Doctor is a better fit for Series 4 Rose anyway.
Donna about to get the mind wipe
Oh, back to Donna. In the first episode, much of the driving plot is Harriet Jones (former Prime Minister) creating a big Zoom call and sacrificing herself (nobly!) for Torchwood and Mr. Smith to have every phone in existence call the Doctor to drag the TARDIS to Earth’s hiding spot. Donna gets a lot of screen time, but not as much in the second episode. After the Osterhagen Key thing, Captain Jack holding a ‘warp star’ to blow up the Crucible, and the Meta-Crisis Doctor having some backfire gun all fail in a funny twist on Davies-ex-Machina, it is Donna who has the new Doctor brain of hers awakened by Davros who stops the Reality Bomb. To see Donna, the most basic companion filled with self-doubt in full complete control, toying with the Daleks and Davros is a complete and utter joy. It represents the full potential of what Donna could be…and then it’s taken away. After the long denouement as all the companions leave, the Doctor knows he has to wipe Donna’s mind of her time with him or her brain will burn with the Time Lord consciousness in it. I think this is the most devastating companion departure, as Donna pleads to be allowed to die as the Doctor wipes her memory. I know the wipe is controversial, but I do think the Doctor makes the right decision in preserving her life. Just as hard as seeing Donna back to The Runaway Bride is Wilf’s reaction. Wilf is mainly adorable throughout the story and not an official companion yet, notably not on the giant TARDIS flight. Wilf does two important things, he tells Sylvia that Donna was better in the TARDIS (leading to the Doctor finally rebuking Sylvia), and asking the Doctor if he’ll be alright. In the end, this resolution for Donna seems cruel and it just isn’t a satisfying resolution to her arc. Ah well.
The gang flies Earth home
So where does this leave us? First off, this story is a ton of insane fun. It’s like doing a line of pure RTD. It’s hard for me to be too upset at a story that is this wild and fun, and so much of it is pretty great. K9 even shows up! The biggest problems with the story are as follows: the return of Rose brings us a character unrecognizable from when she left us in Doomsday, the motif of the Doctor turning his companions into soldiers does not have a true resolution, is this a good thing or bad thing? The story won’t say. Lastly, Donna’s arc instead of concluding with her in triumph, ends with her reduced back to what she was. Instead of the story being about the Doctor having the largest family in the universe as Sarah Jane tells him, he ends the story dejected and rain-soaked in the TARDIS: alone. It’s a daring thing to end a story jammed with characters and a celebration of the success of the return of Doctor Who with the Doctor being all alone by himself. It’s seriously sad. I’m ok with these potential downer endings, but it just wrings wrong for a story that had so much verve and life and energy. Still though, it is a very good time, and every character gets their own little moments making nobody completely forgotten in the shuffle. RTD even ties up the thread of Gwen being a descendent of Gwyneth from The Unquiet Dead. This is an essential Doctor Who story for the sugar rush it provides, but there is just too much going on for this story to have a truly impactful plot.
There is no story more insane than this one, but the insanity denies characters the time they needed to truly wrap up their arcs.
8.25/10 RTD goes ALL IN.
The most insane story ends on such a depressing note. Such a gamble!
Turn Left is a dark look at the world of Doctor Who if the Doctor had never met Donna in a story that is disturbing to watch in 2020.
The Review
Sylvia Noble, a rude overbearing mother, almost destroys the universe right here
Catherine Tate shines in Turn Left, a story all about the Donna with the Doctor featuring the least he has in the whole new series. A parasite in an alien bazaar attaches to Donna’s back, and she makes a fateful decision to turn right and not accept the HC Clements job, thereby never meeting the Doctor. The Doctor dies defeating the Racnoss, and we run through how the world would’ve looked without the Doctor. The turning point is the ridiculously silly idea of the outer space Titanic crashing directly into London, which causes the apocalypse. Donna and her family were away having won a raffle, and see the nuclear fireball over the city. They are forced to live in a cramped apartment with an immigrant family in Leeds, who are eventually taken off to ‘labor camps’. Wilf completely breaking down telling Donna ‘that’s what they called them last time’ is horrifying. Sarah Jane and her charges die with Martha when the Judoon take the hospital to the moon, Torchwood dies to stop ATMOS and the Sontarans. It is an ugly, sad, brutal world, especially in Britain, and watching it in 2020 after several years of bad choices by the world leading to predicted bad outcomes…it’s tough. There’s nothing really poignant about what it shows about society though, as it all happening with a dead Doctor makes it about showing how important the Doctor (and Donna) are. It’s not nearly as scathing as it could’ve been, for how bleak it is, it rarely twists the knife.
Wilf realizing that Britain is killing all immigrants is a horribly powerful moment
The big event is that Rose is fully back on our screens for the first time since her tearful stranding in Doomsday. The version of Rose we get here is very different than when we last saw her, she’s much more solemn and mature and infamous Billie Piper has a lisp because she could not find the Rose voice. Rose is more effective as a mystery in this episode, and she just does not act like the Rose we all remember. That leaves us with Donna, who is superb in this episode, a normal person with all the flaws that we remember Donna having. Despite never meeting the Doctor, Donna is still heroic when Rose takes her to the UNIT base where they’ve retrofitted the dying TARDIS into a last ditch time machine. The pay-off to ‘something is on your back’ being a disgusting beetle is disturbing, and played brilliantly by Tate. Seeing Donna go from happiness that she’ll meet the Doctor and that she does matter to despair that she’ll die to acceptance, committing suicide to save the world is a heart-wrenching journey. Throughout her life, Donna has been looked down upon, especially by her mother, and told that she doesn’t matter. Actually, Donna matters more than anyone, because of her heart and her stubbornness. When we see Rose and Donna together, there’s no question who we like more. Rose has become some weird action hero while Donna is just trying to do the best that she can. In the end, Donna saves the day, but don’t worry: Bad Wolf is returning to stop the stars from going out.
Rose comes back at last, but it turns out we don’t really care: Donna has been the star of the show and gets the episode she deserves.
8/10 I heard RTD did a whole show about nasty people ruining Britain I think I see enough of that here in America thank you.
Story 192, Episodes 742-743, Series 4 Episodes 4-5
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
Companions: Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Wilfred Mott
The RTD era finally gets its big UNIT story as Martha recalls the Doctor to Earth to uncover an insidious Sontaran plot.
The Review
The Tenth Doctor’s hatred of guns and saluting is at center stage.
It’s been seven years since I’d seen Series 4, and I’d forgotten: it’s the romp season. There is a lot happening in The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky, and it gives us our best look at RTD-era UNIT. UNIT has existed on the periphery of the RTD era so far, but here it takes center stage, and it is its usual militaristic self. Now funded by homeland security, there could be room to comment on, I don’t know, the militarization of police (and UNIT got a bad bad look in Torchwood), but this story is not that interested in it. We do get Colonel Mace, who admits he is no Brigadier, but the Brigadier is stranded in Peru right now. As well, we get the heroic soldier Ross, whose death is a brutal part of the episode. Cars across the world have installed ATMOS, which eliminates carbon emissions from cars completely, but the Doctor points out this might lead to more cars being made and oil being drained. There’s not really an environmental angle here either, this story is about saving the world! The most infamous element of this story is 18-year old super genius Luke Rattigan who is a dumb annoying shrill brat, by design, and Ryan Sampson does his best to hold the performance together but it still misses at times.
Luke blows himself up to save the Doctor from having to like Ko Sharmus will. How many people do that for the Doctor? Luke did have to atone for sanctioning a ton of murder though.
I remembered the Sontarans being silly in this episode, but maybe having seen more of them I think they’re pretty effective, their crazed devotion to war and identical appearance making them memorable foes. This is still the only episode in the new series to have them as villains, and I think we are overdue for more Sontarans (perhaps with Rutons?). Martha is back on screen, newly engaged, but the question of if the Doctor turned her into a soldier is batted down (for now). Martha and Donna get along very well, but unfortunately Martha gets replaced with a clone so we get precious little time with the genuine article. Donna is perfectly Donna in this story, saving the day, roasting the Doctor, and gaining in confidence by the minute. Bernard Cribbins is still everyone’s favorite grandfather as Wilf, and Sylvia Noble continues to be rude and nagging (though her saving Wilf by shattering his car window with an axe is fun). This is a story that could choose to say a lot about the environment, the police, the futility of war, and basically chooses not too. However, it was better than I remembered and I had a fun time seeing David Tennant bounce off the walls to get it done. Just good fun saving the planet!
The season of fun rolls on with Donna meeting Martha, Sontarans meeting UNIT, and David Tennant gluing the whole thing together.
8.25/10 Donna calling the Doctor a space dunce was great
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 