Story #184 - 42 (2007)

Sarah -
We can be forgiven for having thought Chris Chibnall’s first Doctor Who script would be a homage to Douglas Adams. It was actually inspired by the TV series 24, which was a huge hit at the time.


Harry -
Oh yes, Jack Bauer’s time-sensitive adventures were all the rage in the 00s, and Chibbers provided us with a Whovian spin on the format.


Sarah -
The story begins with Martha becoming a proper companion when the Doctor upgrades her mobile to universal roaming.


Harry -
It’s a deceptively casual opening, with the Doctor even ditching his necktie for a more loungey look.


Sarah -
Things take a quick turn when the TARDIS picks up a distress signal and they find themselves on a spaceship hurtling towards a sun, with only 42 minutes until impact. I’m a huge fan of base-under-siege stories and being under siege by a sun is about as siege-y as you can get.


Harry -
The pacing of this episode is positively frantic. So many conventions got compressed in the opening minutes, from receiving the distress signal, to the TARDIS landing, to meeting the crew and getting hurtled right into the action.


Sarah -
And, did I mention "42" was directed by Graeme Harper?


Harry -
And, he delivered a cracker.


Sarah -
The direction is outstanding.


Harry -
Having met the panicked members of the crew, the Doctor realizes that the TARDIS is stuck in the spaceship’s venting room and temperatures inside have soared by thousands of degrees. The craft is being pulled into a sun, and the on-board computer is counting down the minutes to impact.


Sarah -
Things aren’t looking good. The engines have been compromised by someone who knew what they were doing and the auxiliary engines are behind a series of password-protected doors. The crew isn’t feeling particularly hopeful and the Doctor tries to rally them with, “Oh, listen to you. Defeated before you've even started. Where's your Dunkirk spirit?” It works enough to get crew member Riley working on the passwords with Martha’s help. 

The passwords are all tied to pub-quiz-type questions and they’re stumped when asked who had more number ones -- The Beatles or Elvis. The Doctor is busy with other things, so Martha uses her universal roaming privileges to call her mum back on Earth.


Harry -
Martha's flip phone was endearingly antiquated.


Sarah -
Remember the excitement of your first flip phone? It was incredibly satisfying to shut it with a snap after a call. I imaging Francine doing a lot of snapping her phone shut back in the day.


Harry -
Poking the touchscreen in anger just ain't the same.


Sarah -
Francine is immediately concerned about Martha, which is this case is entirely reasonable, and wants to know if she’s with the Doctor. Francine gives Martha the correct answer -- Elvis -- and we discover that a young woman, with ties to the mysterious Harold Saxon, is listening to their conversation. With hindsight, I really admire the way "42" was linked into the series arc in such a fluid way.


Harry -
Saxon's acolyte is found in the cast list as "Sinister Woman" played by Elize du Toit. How's that for a sinister name? It would have been perfect for the character.


Sarah -
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Captain McDonnell are trying to track down Korwin, McDonnell’s husband, after a series of seizures in the medical bay and the mysterious vaporization of Lerner, the medical attendant. The Doctor tells McDonnell that her husband has been infected by something and killed Lerner. She doesn’t want to believe him until another crew member has been killed.


Harry -
Alas, poor Abi Lerner, picked off after only a few lines of dialogue. She was played by Vinette Robinson and would return to Doctor Who eleven years later to star as Rosa Parks. I didn't realize that this was her first appearance on the show. And she's now a legendary repeat guest star!


Sarah -
Wow! I was so caught up in the story, I didn’t realized that was her. I love when Doctor Who guest actors go on to bigger things!


Harry -
Honestly, we'd barely gotten to learn anything about Korwin before his transformation. It must have been one of the painfully necessary cuts to the story that enabled Chibbers to realize the 42-minute framework.


Sarah -
I like to imagine Korwin was a lovely fella before his horrifying transformation. The first time he bellows, “Burn with me,” is chilling. Base-under-siege as horror -- I am here for that!


Harry -
Martha and Riley work well as a team, but having already burned through "ask an audience member" and "phone a friend", the pace of their lock-breaking slows. Korwin continues to wreak havoc on the ship and the pressure is building. The tension is augmented by vintage sci-fi elements like sirens and gratuitous steam -- very Alien! The colour palette is also fantastic, all harsh reds and yellows lighting up the actors' faces.


Sarah -
I was thinking the same thing about Alien. That movie really reset our expectations about how sci-fi horror should look.


Harry -
Crew member Ashton also becomes infected by the "burn with me" menace, and he chases Martha and Riley into a chamber. The door slams behind them and suddenly they are in a cool blue room and everyone gets the briefest of respites. However, Riley reveals that it's an escape pod, and Ashton begins attempting to jettison the pod from the ship. A frenzied back and forth of commands and countermands ensues, but Ashton succeeds and the Doctor arrives too late to stop the pod being jettisoned. Another fantastic nod, this time to 2001: A Space Odyssey, as the scene cuts between the Doctor and Martha, looking at one another and yelling across the silence of space as the pod begins to drift towards the sun. It was riveting stuff. 

Everyone was on their game in this one. Tennant, Agyeman, and all the guests acted the hell out of it. Murray Gold's score was also pulse-pounding stuff, and I remember it was used in promotional spots for this season as well.


Sarah -
That moment is absolutely perfect. The image of Martha in the window has always been the lasting image of this story for me and probably everyone else who’s ever watched it. Absolutely iconic!

Martha’s scene with Riley in the pod is so sweet. She tells Riley that the Doctor will save them, as unlikely as it seems. Riley’s not sure about the Doctor, but he’s clearly smitten with Martha. (And who wouldn’t be?) I was hoping they’d kiss, but instead, she calls Francine. That call doesn’t go well as Francine only wants to know about the Doctor. Fortunately, Riley is there to comfort Martha in her moment of distress, but, alas, no kiss.


Harry -
They really did form an effective team in no time. 

As the Doctor struggles to keep a handle on things, he's gotten no closer to figuring out the cause of this crisis, but during the mayhem of the jettison we were given a clue when Korwin confronted Captain McDonnell and said: "It's your fault."


Sarah -
Whoops, that’s awkward.

The Doctor climbs outside the ship to magnetize the pod back to the ship. Hooray! Unfortunately, he also looks at the sun and realizes that it’s alive and that he’s become infected. It turns out McConnell has illegally mined the sun for fuel without checking for life signs and has essentially scooped the heart out of a living being. Things have just gotten even more awkward.

While Martha is trying to treat the Doctor in the medical unit, he confesses to her that he’s scared and tries to tell her what will happen to him if he dies. It’s really startling on the rare occasions when the Doctor admits he’s afraid, but Martha is having none of it. The Doctor saved her and she plans to save him.


Harry -
This story was great for Tennant being "physical". He stretches and heaves outside the ship. He thrashes and flops around on the floor. He makes terrible faces of anguish. It's all wonderful.


Sarah -
He does seem to be having fun with it. 

Things move quickly as Korwin shuts off the power to the stasis chamber where the Doctor is being treated. He’s trying to fight the infection, but manages tells Martha that the contraband fuel needs to be jettisoned. Meanwhile, McDonnell runs into Korwin, admits she is responsible, apologizes to the crew that’s left, and lures Korwin into an airlock, sending both of them into space. The crew vents the fuel and the day is saved -- hugs for everyone!


Harry -
Normally I hate when writers fall back on the "guest character commits suicide to save the day" trope, but here it worked. McDonnell atoned for her crime, removed the threat to her remaining crew, and saved the day without melodrama or histrionics. Nicely done by Chibs.


Sarah -
It works so well. The moment when she tells Korwin that she loves him is heartbreaking. 

More importantly, we finally get the kiss! Martha plants a big one on Riley and says goodbye.


Harry -
"Well done, very hot," Martha concludes. Oh, they really did make a sweet couple.


Sarah -
I want to find the fan fiction where Riley joins the TARDIS crew and settles down with Martha on Earth.


Harry -
That would have made for a much more satisfying conclusion than Martha and Mickey being shoehorned together as spare parts. Dammit, RTD!

Imagine how radical it would have been if Martha turned the tables on the Doctor. As he headed for the TARDIS doors, she could have cheerily announced that she'd prefer to stay with her new friend and lend her help where it was appreciated. If Leela could dump the Doctor for someone else, surely Martha could too. And he would have really deserved it this time.


Sarah -
And she actually had a relationship with Riley, unless the awkward Leela-Andred "relationship." I kind of love the Martha and Mickey pair because they're both awesome and, more importantly, because it confuses the heck of out of the Doctor. "What, you picked Ricky over me?"


Harry -
42 never seems to be talked about as a classic of Nu Who, but on this rewatch I totally loved every ticking second of it. Season three is really building up steam now, and not the gratuitous kind.


Sarah -
It’s a solid story that deserves more attention.


Harry -
Best Line:
"Talk about dumbing down! Don't they teach recreational mathematics any more?" As someone who never made it beyond grade 10 mathematics, I love it when the Doctor totally geeks out like this.

Favourite Moment: the escape pod is jettisoned.

Lasting Image: Martha and Riley.

9/10


Sarah -
Best Line: 
Ha! I noted the exact same line. Apparently, I get the badge for mathematical excellence on this sofa -- I made it to grade 11 maths!

Favorite Moment: THE KISS!

Lasting Image: Martha in the pod window

9/10

Our marathon continues with Story #185: Human Nature / The Family of Blood...

Story #183 - The Lazarus Experiment (2007)

Sarah - 
Here we are in episode six and the Doctor is ready to dump Martha off at home, just 12 hours after they left. “The end of the line. No place like it.” 

Halfway through the season and Martha is still being treated like an inconvenient guest.


Harry -
Cannot believe how shitty he behaves here. Like he can't wait to drop off a passenger and hit the road with barely a goodbye.


Sarah -
For a show based on changing the lead and supporting actors on a regular basis, it feels incongruous for the Doctor to still be mourning Rose’s departure. Did the production team think the audience wouldn’t watch without Rose? Viewers had already been through the Doctor’s regeneration, so why not trust them to survive a new companion?


Harry -
The production team's infatuation with Rose is evident.


Sarah -
The Doctor is ready to move along until he hears Professor Lazarus, for whom Martha’s sister, Tish, works, declare on television that he will “change what it means to be human.” The Doctor can’t resist finding out what’s going on and heads off to Lazarus’ big reveal with Martha, who finally gets to change out of her TARDIS uniform and into evening wear.


Harry -
All dressed up to the nines, they look smashing. This time, they can march right into Lazarus Laboratories and not have to pretend to be the hired help.

One of the hallmarks of the RTD era was providing expanded views of companions' lives and families, and it looks like most of Martha's family members have made their way to the reveal gala. Joining Martha and Tish are their brother Leo and their mum Francine.


Sarah -
Including the companions’ families is one of my favorite things in the RTD era. We occasionally met a family member in the classic era, but they usually didn’t stick around too long before meeting the business end of a tissue compression eliminator.


Harry -
Martha throws her arms around her mother, delighted to see her again after all of her adventures with the Doctor -- to which Francine frankly replies that they saw each other only the night before. Then she recalls Martha's sudden departure, turning her gaze onto the Doctor. Losing his cool, he stumbles through some awkward explanations of where they'd been and what they were doing. You can practically see the suspicion fall all over Francine's face.


Sarah -
One of my least favorite things about the RTD era is the way the companions’ mothers are portrayed. It doesn’t seem out of line for her to be concerned about what Martha’s been doing with this weird man, but she’s pretty much turned into a villain by the end of the story.


Harry -
It must be a given that RTD did not have a good relationship with his mother.


Sarah -
I have to admit I’ve wondered about that. 

So, Professor Lazarus performs his parlour trick and emerges from his device several decades younger. My favorite fact about this story is that the wig that Mark Gatiss wears as the young Lazarus is the one he wore as the veterinarian on The League of Gentleman, a character that was based on Peter Davison’s Tristan in All Creatures Great and Small. It’s a small world in the Whoniverse.


Harry -
What a factoid! How long have you been waiting to drop that one, Toby?


Sarah -
I bide my time...


Harry -
I have to say the wig did look a bit silly on him. Maybe it was meant to be a symbol of Lazarus' vanity, as he soon shows us that he's a tremendous jerk.


Sarah -
To be fair he was already a creeper when he was old, asking Tish what her “interesting” perfume is called. Her response, “Soap.” was brilliant.


Harry -
Flashback to Mister Jobel in Remembrance of the Daleks, another wig-wearing jerk. In both instances, these were characters of rather limited physical appeal who nonetheless believed themselves to be ladies' men.


Sarah -
They’re definitely cut from the same creepy cloth.


Harry -
No sooner had he rejuvenated than Lazarus batted his partner Lady Thaw aside. His partner in matters professional and seemingly personal, she had assumed she'd be next in line for the treatment. Instead, Lazarus tells her he'd grown tired of her. When the side effects of the experiment cause him to mutate into a giant scorpion monster, Lady Thaw ends up being his first victim as he sucks the life out of her body.


Sarah -
That was even more horrifying than I remembered. Before she leaves us, Lady Thaw lets us know that the experiment is being funded by the mysterious Mr. Saxon.


Harry -
The season arc gains another hint.


So it's clear then that the experiment has not been a total success. Lazarus is able to present his younger form for a few minutes, but the mutation keeps kicking in. His body is literally going haywire. This is confirmed when the Doctor and Martha step away to a lab to study Lazarus' DNA. They see it is unstable and set off to find him.


Sarah -
The Doctor runs past Francine, spilling her drink on her, as they dash off to search for Tish. A rando immediately sidles up to her, whispering in her ear about the Doctor.


Harry -
Meanwhile, the newly-young lecher has lured Tish up to the roof of the building.


Sarah -
Tish is disturbingly taken with the new young Lazarus, flirting with him and brushing his cheek. So gross. When the Doctor and Martha find them, he confronts Lazarus about defying the laws of nature. Lazarus believes living multiple lives is a gift, but the Doctor is all to aware of the curse it can be. 

While Tish is trying to justify her attraction to Lazarus ( “I know the age thing's a bit freaky, but it works for Catherine Zeta-Jones.”) he starts to go all scorpion again. The scorpion effect is more than a bit dodgy, but if you can’t handle dodgy monsters, you really shouldn’t be watching Doctor Who.


Harry -
The CGI scorpion is dodgy but I didn't mind it. The Lazarus Experiment is a very straightforward story. Corporate power and arrogance, laboratory tinkering, science gone mad and the Doctor saving the day while an old nemesis lurks in the shadows... this could have been a dusted off script right out of the Pertwee era. Of course, back then the giant scorpion might have been an awkward effect like something out of Invasion of the Dinosaurs.


Sarah -
It does feel very Pertwee-ish, doesn’t it? I believe the Third Doctor’s era is Gatiss’ Doctor Who touchstone and many of this stories feel like they could have been made in the early 70s, which I mean as the highest compliment possible.


Harry -
Lazarus' demise was mostly of his own making. The first time around, anyway. Finding himself trapped with Martha inside Lazarus' machine, the Doctor reverses the polarity (hah!) and causes a shockwave to blast outward, seemingly killing Lazarus.

Naturally, you can't have a character with a name like that not rising from the dead, and Lazarus escapes the authorities and flees inside nearby Southwark Cathedral. The Doctor, Martha and Tish follow him in. After a final failed attempt at reasoning with him, the Doctor convinces the incredibly trusting sisters to lure Lazarus (once again in scorpion form) up a tower. The Doctor then plays the church organ at maximum enhanced volume -- enough to kill a giant scorpion monster but no one else! -- and Lazarus plummets to his death once and for all.


Sarah -
He turns the volume up to 11 and that’s the end of Lazarus.


Harry -
Maybe because there's not much to the story, I didn't really have any strong positive or negative memories about it. It's just kind of there. The acting and production are good, the "Saxon" arc is nudged forward ever so slightly, and one other notable factoid here is that this is where Mark Gatiss begins his reign as the New Who era's perpetually returning guest actor. A Michael Sheard or John Abineri for our times.


Sarah -
"The Lazarus Experiment" is a solid-enough story for the middle of the series. In retrospect, it’s clear that it’s setting up the series finale, but we’ll get to that eventually.

Back at Martha’s place, the Doctor offers Martha one more trip, which she turns down without hesitation. She doesn’t want to just be a passenger, so the Doctor offers a long-term residency and Martha is back in the TARDIS.


Harry -
It's awkward how they go back and forth like this.


Sarah -
As the TARDIS dematerialises, Francine leaves a message on Martha’s voicemail, “I know who this Doctor really is. I know he's dangerous. You're going to get yourself killed. Please, trust me. This information comes from Harold Saxon himself. You're not safe!”


Harry -
Oooo!


Sarah -
Onward!

Best Line: "I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end, you just get tired. Tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you, tired of watching everything turn to dust. If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone."

Favorite Moment: I have to admit I enjoying Francine making the Doctor squirm. It’s fun to see Mr. “Act Like You Own the Place” feel uncomfortable.

Lasting Image: The dodgy scorpion

6/10


Harry -
Best Line: 
Tish: He's a science geek, I should've known.
The Doctor: Science geek, what's that mean?
Martha Jones: That you're obsessively enthusiastic about it.
The Doctor: Oh, nice!

Favourite Moment: Squirming Doctor.

Lasting Image: rejuvenated Lazarus' wig.

6/10

Our marathon continues with Story #184: 42...

Story #182 - Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks (2007)

Harry -
It has been 11 years since this Doctor Who two-parter was first broadcast. Having just rewatched it, I’m sitting here asking myself — just as I did back then — what on Earth was that supposed to be? The nicest way I can think of putting it is that it felt like being on some kind of “Doctor Who” themed adventure ride at an amusement park. It’s Doctor Who all right, says so on the signage, but they got it all wrong.


Sarah -
It’s terrible. It’s just so, so terrible. Can we just go straight to our final thoughts and spend the rest of the day watching "Timelash" and "Time-Flight" on an endless loop? The stories will look brilliant by comparison and at least we’ll get to watch Captain Stapley.

There are a lot of mediocre episodes of Doctor Who that still manage to be watchable, but this isn’t one of them. Oh wait, I should say these two, because for some reason it’s a bloody two-parter. Why, oh why?


Harry -
Agreed, let's not kill our wills to live by going through the whole story. It's awful in so many ways that I don't think we can even pretend to be Rob and Toby and only see the good things here.


Sarah -
The only good thing I can think of in this story is Martha’s general awesomeness. I was always just waiting for her next scene. That’s all I’ve got. And, speaking of Martha, shouldn’t she have some new clothes by now? It’s like Tegan’s uniform all over again. Why has she not been allowed to raid the TARDIS wardrobe?


Harry -
The burgundy jacket and blue jeans is Martha's signature look, but she's due a change by this point.

Overall, what the story seemed to be attempting was to harken back to classic era favourites that gave us a slow reveal of Daleks hatching nasty plots in the shadows.  A nice buildup until the Doctor came along to expose their schemes and wreck everything. Here we have four Daleks -- the Cult of Skaro -- who escaped the battle of Canary Wharf by initiating emergency temporal shift. Landing in 1930s Manhattan, they embark on a new nasty plot to fuse Daleks and humans together into a new lifeform. Okay, kind of intriguing, but the rest of the story is a mess.


Sarah -
It’s like a plot borrowed from the Ainley Master. All that’s missing is a wacky disguise.


Harry -
For some reason, the Daleks create human-pig hybrid slaves. Did we not just have a pig spaceman in "Aliens of London"? Too soon for more of this porcine activity.


Sarah -
Seriously, what is with RTD and pigs?


Harry -
It would have been cooler if they brought back the Robomen from "The Dalek Invasion of Earth".

Key to the plot is the harvesting and preparation of human bodies, who are then zombified in preparation to become human Daleks. Presumably they will all suffer the same fate as Mr. Diagoras, foreman of the Empire State Building construction site. He was forcibly hybridized with Dalek Sec to become the first "human Dalek." I guess this reveal was supposed to be great shock and horror. But it fell horribly flat. Actor Eric Loren failed to sell it at all, maybe because his head was smothered by a prosthetic Dalek thing with a bulbous brain and phallic tentacles that would not stop wiggling. It was just ridiculous.


Sarah -
I’m pretty sure he failed to sell it well before the prosthetic showed up. There were no successful guest actor performance in this story. I guess the whole Dalek identity crisis could have been interesting, but we’ve seen Dalek internecine strife over genetic purity done much better in the 80s.


Harry -
Our friends over at Big Finish have also done much better with this in the War Doctor audios.  Anyway, the rest of the story involves the Doctor standing in front of the Daleks for ludicrously long periods of time without a single one of them shooting him. This aggravated to no end, especially after they happily dispatched Solomon in Central Park after his "can't we all just get along?" oration. He failed to sell that too, so maybe he had it coming.


Sarah -
I couldn’t even feel sad about his extermination. It was all one big meh.


Harry -
The characters were having a miserable time, but it looked like the actors were too.  There were a couple of moments when David Tennant appeared to be forcing out the dialogue just to get a scene in the can. 

I don't know. I tried to accept the cornucopia of American accents, because people come to New York City from everywhere to chase their dreams, right? But what was Tallulah's accent supposed to be? "Roaring 20s Dame?" "Talking Pictures Starlet?" "Peorian?" I just don't know.


Sarah -
My brain still hurts from all the accents. Tallulah -- with 3 ls and an h -- was straight out of central casting at some Poverty Row studio.


Harry -
As for New York City, this was the least-looking-like-New-York-City thing I can remember. "The Chase" offered a more believable Empire State Building.


Sarah -
Where are you when we need you, Morton Dill?


Harry -
No kidding.  I don't know where else they blew the budget on this one, since all the live action was shot in the UK. Could they not have come up with some better looking art deco? They should have drowned us with art deco. What a terrible waste, especially since they started shooting Doctor Who all over the world -- including New York City! -- in the seasons to come.


Sarah -
In a desperate attempt to say something nice, I’ll share that Mr. Smith had favorable things to say about how the illusion of movement was handled in the elevator scenes. The Dalek eyestalk design on the elevator door was a nice touch, too.

I do feel badly for Helen Raynor, the writer of this mess. She famously went online after the stories aired to discover that the stories weren’t well-received. And, this being the internet, the negative reviews included vile personal attacks. People are the worst.


Harry -
The story was a mess to begin with, let down by poor production and acting, and then to have to deal with toxic fanhood, yuck.


Sarah -
I’m sure there’s a way to blame this all on Eric Saward, but I haven’t quite sorted that out yet.


Harry -
Let us never watch this one again.


Sarah -
It's a deal!

Best Line:
SEC: You have betrayed me.
DALEK 1: You told us to imagine.
DALEK 3: And we imagined your irrelevance.

That pretty much sums up this story...

Favorite Moment:
Martha mooning over the doctor and Tallulah assuming he doesn’t reciprocate because he’s “into musical theater.” That made me laugh out loud.

Lasting Image: I’d prefer to have every image erased from my memory, but I guess I’ll go with Tallulah in her showgirl finery.

1/10


Harry -
Best Line:
MARTHA: I wonder what year it is, because look, the Empire State Building's not even finished yet.
DOCTOR: Work in progress. Still got a couple floors to go, and if I know my history, that makes the date somewhere around
(Martha picks up a copy of the New York Record which is lying on a bench.)
MARTHA: November first 1930.
DOCTOR: You're getting good at this.

Favourite Moment: two of the Daleks down in the sewer tunnels, gossiping behind Dalek Sec's back.

Lasting Image: the Doctor and Martha with the Statue of Liberty.  It was all downhill from there.

1/10

Our marathon continues with Story #183: The Lazarus Experiment...

Story #181 - Gridlock (2007)

Harry -
After the new seasons of Doctor Who began to roll in, I looked forward to scooping up each DVD box set when it was released. Still do!

I can't say there's a definite reason for this, but "Gridlock" is the one story in all of new Who that I have watched more than any other. It's always been a go-to. It's one of those ones that I would put on a list of episodes to show new viewers. It's got a little bit of everything: fascinating aliens, a far-out but relatable setting, progressive characterizations, danger and suspense, classic monsters, a celebrity guest and the drop of a big clue in the season story arc. But the question is, does it all come together?


Sarah -
I can't recall the last time I watched "Gridlock", but, after this viewing, I would answer that question with a resounding YES! "Gridlock" is a proper science fiction story and an excellent episode to show to new viewers.


Harry -
We also see the continued development of the relationship (or lack of) between the Doctor and Martha. Having promised her one trip in the TARDIS, he suddenly offers another. Once to the past, and now once into the future. That's the new deal.

She leaps at the opportunity and asks to see the Doctor's home planet. He loses himself in a momentary reverie of Gallifrey before waving the suggestion off.


Sarah -
With all we’ve learned since this episode aired, I still found the Doctor’s description of Gallifrey quite touching, “The sky's a burnt orange, with the Citadel enclosed in a mighty glass dome, shining under the twin suns. Beyond that, the mountains go on forever. Slopes of deep red grass, capped with snow…. Nah. Where's the fun for me? I don't want to go home.”


Harry -
Instead, he decides they should go and see New New York on New Earth. It sounds fabulous and Martha gets excited... until he lets slip that he'd been there before with Rose.


Sarah -
I love that Martha calls him out on being on the rebound.


Harry -
Paint Martha distinctly unimpressed, especially when they land in a grimy alleyway during a rainstorm.


Sarah -
Martha’s “You’ve brought me to the slums,” comment pretty much sums it up. She definitely hasn’t woken up in the city that never sleeps.


Harry -
Surrounding this have been a couple of short scenes to give us some background. First we saw a couple inside a vehicle being attacked by an unseen monster. (I've always wondered if that couple wasn't inspired by the "Ma and Pa" characters in Grant Wood's "American Gothic.") In another part of the city, the Face of Boe urges a cat nurse to seek out and find the Doctor. Gun in hand, she sets off.


Sarah -
They’re definitely the father and daughter from American Gothic. I’ve always felt sorry for the daughter, being mistaken for her father’s wife. If you haven’t already, you can see it at the Art Institute of Chicago on your next visit.


Harry -
I had no idea it was a father and daughter. You learn something new every day here on the sofa! The one time I was at the Art Institute, the painting had been taken down. Can't remember if it was for restoration or for a loan.


Sarah -
But, back to Doctor Who, the cat nurses always unnerve me, even when they’re not being evil.


Harry -
A testament to the amazing work by the makeup team.

Back in the alley, the Doctor and Martha encounter a row of street vendors who sell synthetic moods such as "happy happy" and "forgetfulness". A simple patch applied to the neck, and the user immediately feels the effects. In a split second, the Doctor turns his back and two young people kidnap Martha at gunpoint. They drag her behind a heavy door which immediately locks behind them.

Stupid Doctor! He'd been all flippant and even arrogant to this point, and look what happened. Now the Doctor full on rages -- more at himself for being so casual in an unfamiliar place. His story-long search for Martha ensues.


Sarah -
This is the moment when the Doctor starts to think of Martha as a companion and not someone being rewarded with a trip in the TARDIS for her good work. Meanwhile, Martha realizes that the Doctor could easily abandon her and leave her to spend the rest of her life trapped in a traffic jam. It’s really quite terrifying. 

One of my favorite things about Gridlock is that there really isn’t a baddie in the story. The people who kidnap Martha aren’t trying to hurt anyone, they just need a third person so they can access the fast lane and get to Brooklyn in six years -- just in time for their child to start school.


Harry -
Each new bit of information reveals how badly New New York has declined since the last time the Doctor was there. 

Cheen and Milo "speed off" with Martha. The Doctor clambers up to a deck overlooking the motorway. It is clogged with endless lanes and levels of flying cars, and poisonous exhaust. As a coughing fit seizes him, a passing car opens up and invites him in. The Doctor leaps inside and is welcomed by... more cats! Thomas Kincade Brannigan is a human-feline hybrid. Valerie is his human partner, and in the back of the car they have kittens. Totes aborbs! The Doctor says his hellos, then explains his pursuit of Martha.


Sarah -
They’re such an adorable family. I love that they leap into action to help the Doctor.


Harry -
Brannigan enlists the aid of Alice and May, a couple whose hobby is car-spotting.


Sarah -
I think of them as the Lovely Lesbian Carspotters.


Harry -
They help locate the car that Martha is in, and the Doctor takes off. Leaping from car to car and barging through, he encounters many more people who sit wasting their lives away in the gridlock.


Sarah -
I love this entire sequence. It’s an impressively inexpensive reuse of one set, which is SO Doctor Who!


Harry - 
Meanwhile, Novice Hame the cat nurse is in hot pursuit.


Sarah -
As we’ve learned, you don’t mess with a cat nurse!


Harry -
After witnessing a terrifying attack on a nearby vehicle, Cheen and Milo veer off and stop their car. Strange noises persist outside. They tell Martha the legends of monstrous things that live at the bottom of the motorway. That leaves all three of them shaken and scared.

The Doctor reaches the bottom and barges into another vehicle. Getting a closer look underneath, he confirms that the monsters are real, and he's encountered them before: the Macra!


Sarah -
A vintage take from 1967! Who can ever forget "The Macra Terror"? Well, just about everyone, as all four episodes are currently missing from the archives. Honestly, that makes me love RTD more for bringing them back. I mean, who could forget this moment? 

Harry -
Some of the best horror faces in all of Doctor Who.

I was blown away that of all the monsters to pull out of the mists of time, RTD chose the Macra. And he found a plausible reason for them to end up where they did.


Sarah -
How many years do you think he was working it out in his head?


Harry -
It's impressive that a story about a city-wide traffic jam bounced along as quickly as it did. As soon as Novice Hame locates the Doctor, she zaps him up to the Senate chamber with a mini-teleport. The chamber and all civic institutions surrounding them are dead. Everyone perished from a virus that was contained in one of the new drugs that was introduced to the city. The only survivors are the people stuck in the traffic down below, doomed to circle around forever.


Sarah -
It really puts any traffic jam we’ve experienced in perspective.


Harry -
The Face of Boe has been there with the nurse, keeping the power going. After a quick reunion with his old friend, the Doctor rigs up a power surge that brings the city back to life. The sun comes out, traffic clears, and Martha finds her way up to the Senate chamber.


Sarah -
The reaction of the traffic-bound to finally seeing the sun is so lovely. It warmed my skeptical little heart, even after all these years.


Harry -
She arrives in time to witness the Face of Boe's final moments. The power surge drained the last of his energy. His casing shattered and he is fading. Before he goes, he has a final message for the Doctor: "You are not alone."


Sarah -
I’ll never forget my reaction the first I saw this scene. After two seasons of the Doctor being the last of the Time Lords, we found out that he wasn’t the only survivor. I had high hopes for who it might be, but that’s a story for another day...


Harry -
Martha asks what that means, but the Doctor shrugs it off. He decides it's time to be off and trudges away towards the TARDIS.

Martha has had enough. She sits herself down and refuses to take another step until the Doctor finally talks to her like a normal person. It finally dawns on the Doctor what an arse he's been, and how shabbily he has treated his new friend. He opens up and tells Martha about the Time War, of Gallifrey, and how he is the last of the Time Lords. Boe's message still hangs there like a shadow. There's still something that the Doctor doesn't want to talk about.


Sarah -
It’s about damn time!


Harry -
This remains a story that I would show to a new viewer. It has the list of qualities that I mentioned at the start of our discussion, and I can add that it's visually interesting, and that ending would make anyone want to race to the next story to learn more. Well done by RTD, director Richard Clark, and the incredible costume and makeup teams.


Sarah -
It’s an excellent story that completely holds up. Well done!


Harry -
Best Line: 
DOCTOR: What, you've been driving for two months? 
BRANNIGAN: Do I look like a teenager? We've been driving for twelve years now. 
DOCTOR: I'm sorry? 
BRANNIGAN: Yeah! Started out as newlyweds. Feels like yesterday. 
VALERIE: Feels like twelve years to me. 

Favourite Moment: the Doctor's wild race through all the vehicles.

Lasting Image: the Doctor and Martha with the Face of Boe and Nurse Hame.

8/10


Sarah -
Best Line: 
BRANNIGAN: Still your hearts, my handsome girls. It's Brannigan here.
ALICE: Get off the line, Brannigan. You're a pest and a menace.
BRANNIGAN: Oh, come on, now, sisters. Is that any way to talk to an old friend? 
ALICE You know full well we're not sisters. We're married.
BRANNIGAN: Ooo, stop that modern talk. I'm an old-fashioned cat. 

Favorite Moment: The Doctor bounding from car to car.

Lasting Image: Brannigan and Valerie in their car 

8/10

Our marathon continues with Story #182: Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks...