Gridlock

[Craig @craig Emperor]

The Doctor takes Martha to New New York, in the far future, only to discover that the inhabitants live in perpetual gridlock within the Motorway, an underground highway system. Notable for the return of the Macra, and it’s the final part of a loose trilogy with ‘The End of the World’ and ‘New Earth’.

[The Krynoid Man @thekrynoidman]

Out of all the monsters from the classic series you could have brought back, they chose the Maccra.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

I wrote a blog to accompany this, which discusses the comic 2000AD and some of the callouts made in Gridlock to it. It may sound weird, and you may have little interest in comics in general, but 2000AD has been a huge influence on sci-fi storytelling over the years, influencing Russell & Andrew Cartmel amongst others. It’s here.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

I think Gridlock is my favourite RTD episode so far in the retrospective. Rewatching it isn’t a chore, it’s a joy.

Smith and Jones was a good intro for Martha, and following it up with The Shakespeare Code and this made for a good strong start for the character.

The script bubbles along, and there isn’t really a still point, or anything superfluous in it. The guest cast is great – Lenora Critchlow (beating fellow Being Human costar Russell Tovey to appear in Who), Ardal O’Hanlon, but above all Anna Hope returning as Novice Hame, obviously having a whale of a time as the gun totting feline nun (a phrase you can’t really type enough times).

I said in the rewatch of New Earth that the prosthetics and makeup on the cats was wonderful, and I’ll repeat it here.

Ardal is fun as Brannigan, but he just has such a distinctive voice. When he gives the obligatory “oh Doctor, aren’t you great line”:

Valerie: He’s completely insane.
Brannigan: That. And a bit magnificent.

My mind can’t help remixing the audio so I get:

Valerie: He’s completely insane.
Father Dougal: Yes Ted, just look at that great fecking idjit!

The Macra was a bizarre little “thing to be avoided” to include, but it still gave me a bit of a fanboy thrill. The Doctors race to the bottom leaping from car to car is a great swaggering sequence.

It’s funny, I was listening to one of those Splendid Chaps podcasts on Religion in Doctor Who, and this episode was cited as a good strong positive portrayal of faith in the show. It’s curious that I’ve heard this a few times, but I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. Yes, the inhabitants of the Motorway take comfort and community in their faith, but it leaves them going round and round in circles on the Motorway. Unengaged and relatively unquestioning. It requires an outsider to intervene and lead them into the light, so that the meek can inherit the New New Earth. We’re back to the Doctor as God again aren’t we? Still – great choice of hymns in Abide with Me and The Old Rugged Cross.

It’s still massive fun, and the You Are Not Alone sequence was very tantalising. The end point, with the Doctor telling Martha the truth about Gallifrey is really well played as well.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

The Macra, for those who are wondering, were celebrating their 40th Anniversary. They appeared from 11th March to 1st April 1967, and Gridlock was first broadcast on 14th April 2007.

I agree wholeheartedly with @phaseshift – Gridlock is a joy, a very sharp and funny episode with some excellent prosthetics and cracking performances from the guest cast. I thoroughly enjoyed rewatching it.

Yeah, the religion thing is interesting. I always do feel that RTD gets his religion wrong – he wants to discuss it, but it’s like he doesn’t understand it at a very fundamental level. Unlike Moffat (and, indeed, Terry Pratchett) I always feel that his critiques are based on his own idea of what religion is, rather than what religion actually is.

David Tennant certainly felt that the portrayal of the car drivers was that they were wrong; too passive, too much waiting for someone to come save them. RTD says his intention when he wrote that script was to show religion in a good light – community builder, hope builder. But he failed; his real opinion bled through.

The hymns were good though, with some moving performances by the actors. 😉 And the end point is, indeed, beautifully played.

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

The moment that Martha is kidnapped is very well executed.

The forget patch reminds me of the ‘Aeon Flux’ episode ‘Chronophasia’ which has ‘bliss pellets’ that make people forget everything… Watch it here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Yb4cS8GIY
The mood patches were actually inspired by the number coded mood controllers in the Ninth Doctor novel ‘Only Human’ by Gareth Roberts.

All these vehicles are the same which is slightly odd. Makes me think of Germany when everyone drove VW Beetles.

Right now I’m having kittens about how this couple have had kittens (not really – it’s just fun surrealism).

‘What if there’s no one out there?’

The Doctor is obviously used to drinking recycled pee-pee.

The Macra claws bashing the car window reminds me of the 456 from ‘Torchwood COE’.

That Face of Boe geezer is an obvious pinch of/homage to the 3rd Stage Guild Navigator from the film ‘Dune’.

‘You are not alone.’, has a different slant now, post ‘Day of the Doctor’.

It’s a very unusual tale and one of RTD’s best.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

I’d forgotten just how good this story is, even though it’s one of my favourites. Thanks to everyone for picking out the various refs. @wolfweed – if the vehicles weren’t all the same the Doctor would have had a much harder job in breaking in and out of them all (wonderful use of a sonic screwdriver to circumvent the need for an extra 3 episodes!).

I thought the Macra were a good choice, especially as they are creatures of pollution. (Maybe more for the concept than the actual execution)

And kittens… what would happen when they grew up…? And how….? Ah, maybe best not to overthink some things 😉

I liked the portrayal of the car drivers as passive – as a metaphor for just grinding on cos there’s nothing else to do, with the bleakness of MegaCity1 at its dreariest (see @phaseshift‘s excellent blog for more detail). Although that would seem to confirm @bluesqueakpip‘s comment about RTD “getting religion wrong” if they were meant to be pilgrims.

[Arbutus @arbutus]

I meant to comment on this one last week, and never got around to it. Everyone has pretty much covered my views, so I will just agree that Martha shows very well in this, and I enjoyed the whole scenario and the supporting characters. There are a few nicely brief opportunities for soul-searching on the Doctor’s part, and I think the final confrontation with Martha is beautiful. It is interesting that he chose initially to lie to Martha about Gallifrey, to pretend for awhile that he was the escaped renegade of old, rather than the damaged orphan. And in the moment that he finally admits the truth, and begins to share his memories of Gallifrey, there is a sense that he is moving on to a new stage of his grieving process. Nicely done.

 

[Anonymous @]

I’m curious. Has anyone listened to ‘The Macra Terror’ on audio or perhaps read the target novelisation of it? If so, is it good? Patrick Troughton is one of the best Doctors in my opinion and I love the target novelisations.

[Tindalos2013 @tindalos2013]

I thought at the last part as the chorus begins singing and Martha marvels as the Doctor describes his memories of his home was good scripting. And the kittens were a nice touch as well.

[gamergirlavatar @gamergirlavatar]

I think that “Gridlock” is a underestimated episode. This episode was, as the tenth Doctor would say, brilliant. This episode showed The Doctor and Martha on their own to expand on Marthas character and to expand on The Doctors feelings about a new friend after Rose left. Martha proved herself to be very intelligent and quick on her feet, even without The Doctor. The Doctor found himself taking Martha where he took Rose soon after he got his new face. The setting shows that The Doctor misses Rose and it will be along time before he got over her. After Martha was taken, he started fearing for her. He said it was his fault that she was taken and that he should have never brought her to New Earth. He did what he could to save her, but she didn’t need to much help. After he finds out that she was safe and saw how she could stand her own ground, he thought that she could be the one to be safe, making her a great friend after losing Rose. This might have been what made Martha more independent to. She was smart and quick on her feet before but she had The Doctor with him. Giving her a early episode where she was alone thought her that she had to take care of herself and gave her the introduction as a independent character early on. The only down fall to this episode was one of it’s greatest qualities, the setting. The Doctor bringing Martha to New Earth, where he took Rose, pushed Martha into a darker corner of Roses shadow making her seem unimportant causing her to be underrated.

[Pharell, Man! @pharellman]

Very weird episode… Well, yeah, towns like this must die someday, but not that was weird… The Story Outline… I just don’t feel magic of this episode, like almost all episodes I reminded last time, which were written by RTD… Man, pepole saying, that Moffat is bad writer, but RTD era hasn’t got that DW real climate…

[Anonymous @]

@pharellman

I actually really liked Gridlock thinking it was both poignant (Tennant’s speech to Martha), adventurous (jumping from car to car) and frightening (we meet The Face of Boe).

I stay away from divisive arguments (well, OK, I try to) about RTD and The Moff.

Both are excellent writers for Who and made a major success of it. Also, I haven’t come across people who dislike Moffat. I omit youtube ‘voices’ who are so unbearably stupid, bitter and inarticulate that I’d imagine they’re not Moff’s target audience?

Certainly, we’ve had a few members who have articulately explained why they prefer Russell and that type of debate is welcome. Interestingly, those who “hate” Moffat tend to overlook his work in S5 and earlier seasons where Blink, The Forest of the Dead and Silence in the Library ultimately had high viewership and are still considered some of the best Who ever -including the most recent duo of Hell Bent and Heaven Sent.

Even the titles of the latter are interesting when you consider the last act of each episode.

But yeah, I believe Gridlock wasn’t viewed with much encouragement -at the time and later.

But I still love it.

<call me odd>

🙂   PuroSolo

 

[TheDentistOfDavros @thedentistofdavros]

@pharellman @puroandson

I started watching Doctor Who at the start of series 3 (I had seen the series 2 finale though) and I actually can’t remember what I thought of this episode at the time. I remember the dalek episodes because Daleks were the coolest things on the planet and I remember being very scared of both The Lazarus Experiment and Blink (of course, I still am a bit!) anyway when I finally rewatched this story, a couple of years ago now, I really enjoyed it! It’s probably one of the best episodes of series 3 and it has the surprise return of the Macra! The speech by Tennant that @puroandson mentioned is very good and the death of the face of boe is actually quite touching but the rest of the episode is fun as well!

About this RTD vs Moff thing I don’t really have a side, though I think Moffat probably writes the better standalone episodes such as listen, blink and his many others. They were both good at running the show and did make a big success of it! I don’t really like RTD’s romantic storylines about the doctor and rose but that’s just personal taste. I hope that chibnall can follow up the high standard that the last two series have set!

[winston @winston]

@thedentistofdavros  @puroandson  @pharellman

I thought this episode was pretty good and I really liked all of the different kinds of people who lived their lives on the motorway in their  space vans.  What more can I say?  Oh yes! Cat people and little baby, cat, human hybrids and  cookies made from waste, yummy.

 

 

 

[Rewvian @rewvian]

I liked this episode, and I think the interesting thing about it is that the real monster wasn’t the Macra, but the insane traffic.

It’s a nightmare to imagine a future where society lives years of their lives stuck in traffic, moving barely any distance over that span of time.  It’s not even that uncommon for people to be kidnapped and used to gain access to the fast lane.  At the same time it made for a different sort of storytelling method with the Doctor moving between different cars to reach the fast lane, and trying to resolve things in this overpopulated dystopia where his next chance of leaving a vehicle and stepping back into the city might be as far as 6 months away.

It was good to see the Face of Boe again, and as someone pointed out up above, this episode is kind of like the end of a loose trilogy with the season 1 and 2 episodes featuring Cassandra and Boe.  The poignant conclusion with the death of the Face of Boe hits a little bit, but is even more defined after watching the rest of the season.  The warning that the Doctor isn’t alone fits with the events of the season, but I wonder how Boe knew that for sure.

Much of the episode revolved around the Doctor trying not to talk to Martha about Gallifrey.  It didn’t seem like some big lie as much as it did just something the Doctor wanted to keep personal, but the Doctor opening up about it at the end of the episode seemed to be a sign of him finally easing up and becoming closer to his new companion.

The vendors selling patches that give people feelings was a clever touch, as was the Bliss patch that apparently brought down everyone running New New York.  The cat and human couple having kitties was cute but at the same time made me think that their offspring would be more like a cat and human hybrid.  And it made me curious whether the Doctor was telling the truth about getting his iconic jacket from Janis Joplin.

I feel like I should have more to say about this episode, but that pretty much covers it.  I think New New York is frightening, and it’s good that Boe and the Doctor were able to free the people on the motorway.

[Rewvian @rewvian]

I watched S3 Episode 4, Daleks in Manhattan.  I haven’t yet gotten to the second episode of this two-parter, so this will be a quick mention and then I’ll probably do a different one for the next episode.

I guess right away the pig slaves harken back to the pig creature that showed up way back in the episode with the Slitheen.  It seems like they recycled that idea a little bit, but took it a bit further by making them adult-sized and creepier.  I feel like they didn’t really land as a monster race, and considering that the Daleks are already using cheap slave labor as an incentive for the workers in New York, I think it would have made more sense to just make the Dalek goons poor humans.

The Empire State Building and its unsafe, rushed construction in this episode was more frightening than anything else.  Ultimately the Daleks are trying to create some sort of transmission tower or something (I forget what exactly, but it will probably be explained in more detail in the next episode.) using the top of the skyscraper.

The unveiling of the Dalek Sec/human hybrid was more interesting.  Come to think of it, I’m not sure how Dalek Sec and the Cult of Skaro managed to reappear after being sucked back into the Void a few episodes ago, but I’ll imagine it’s because they were another dimension’s version of them that was not sucked into the Void.

So much of the episode hinges on the love story of Tallulah and Laszlo, but it sort of becomes a beauty and the beast thing.  Soloman’s speech to the people in Hooverville to take up arms will likely have some effect in the next episode, but again I don’t remember these episodes that well.

I guess one looming question I have is what was the jellyfish thing the Doctor found in the sewers?  It came from Skaro, okay, but what is it, exactly?  I’m guessing it was just thrown into the plot so the Doctor would have an aha moment and realize the Daleks were back.

I’ll eventually make another post here after I watch Evolution of the Daleks.

[Rewvian @rewvian]

I watched Evolution of the Daleks, so I’ll give my thoughts on it now.

Firstly the scene with the radio was pretty good.  I half-expected Dalek Sec to ask what the music was and to be impacted by it, but it was used to create a diversion that stopped the Daleks for a few minutes – apparently the pig slaves, too.

When the Daleks started flying I sort of liked it, since they already have the ability to “elevate”, so why not just give them the ability to fly.  I’ll admit I’m still confused about why Martha was given the psychic paper, I presume it let her get in to use the elevator on the ground floor or something.

I hadn’t kept track of when the Doctor got a new sonic screwdriver, but by these episodes he definitely had a new one. (In the first episode of the season I believe his old one was fried.)  He almost loses the sonic screwdriver again, but fortunately Martha finds it and gets it back to him.  I was particularly bothered by the scene where Tallulah stood near the edge and looked out upon the city, and again when the Doctor was climbing up and trying to remove the Dalek metal plates from the top of the skyscraper.  A few episodes ago the Doctor and Donna both just sat on the edge of a building like it was no big deal.  I guess if there were a first batch of episodes that test my fear of heights then these are it.

Dalek Sec as a dalek-human hybrid was a good idea.  While I question how the human that turned into him seemed seedier than the hybrid, and therefore the human was crappier than the dalek-human hybrid, I still like the idea that the human DNA made Dalek Sec more compassionate and capable as a leader.  It was fun seeing the Doctor work with Dalek Sec for a little bit there.

The discovery of the human bodies to be used to create more hybrids was something, but I gotta question why the daleks would ever think this was a sufficient replacement for more daleks.  There would guaranteed be dalek bias, and the new daleks with human bodies would be seen as lesser beings.  All around in these two episodes there are things I have to stop and ask myself, “Would a dalek do that?”

I thought making the dalek lasers for the humans into tommy guns was a nice touch given the time period.

The Cult of Skaro is no more, but Dalek Khan flees.  I can’t remember where or when it turns up again, but I’m sure that gets addressed at some point.  Given the number of dalek episodes throughout the years, I would be surprised if we just moved on to an entirely new dalek plot.

And because I hadn’t seen the episode in so long I thought Laszlo was a gonner, so it was a surprise to see the Doctor find a way to save him in the daleks’ chemical lab.  I liked this pair of episodes more than a lot of the other ones set in past times.

[Rewvian @rewvian]

I watched The Lazarus Experiment, so I’ll discuss it here.

There are quite a few episodes from season 3 I didn’t remember real well, and this was one of them.  I’d say this episode was kind of like the Martha version of any Rose episode where they return back to London and stuff is going on there.  We get to see more of Martha’s family.

Probably the biggest development of the episode is the Doctor was about to leave Martha back home, but finally decides to take her aboard as a full companion.  The episode also does the most so far this season to progress the Saxon arc, with Saxon’s associate misleading Martha’s mother into believing that the Doctor is a bad man.

The plot of the episode revolves around a professor named Rich Lazarus who Martha’s sister works for, and his attempt to de-age himself and prolong his life.  Of course the whole process nearly causes the de-aging machine to explode until the Doctor steps in to stop it, and though Lazarus considers the experiment a success it begins to mutate him.  Lazarus keeps randomly morphing into a genetically-altered being due to activating inactive DNA in his own body, and feeds off of people by sucking the juice out of them.

There are some interesting conversations raised throughout the episode between the Doctor and Lazarus regarding lifespans, and whether or not prolonging life is a good thing.  I have to think if there were no monstrous side-effects to the procedure, maybe the Doctor would be a little more understanding of it?  Maybe slightly, anyway.

The CGI for mutated Lazarus is quite wonky, but it looks imposing and scary enough.  Due to actual science saying we have inactive strands of DNA in our bodies, I can kind of buy that the thing Lazarus turns into could be something a human being could become after horrid genetic manipulation.  I would say coming off of the old New York episodes with the pig slaves and the Dalek Sec-human hybrid, the difference between the show’s use of costumes and CGI is day and night.

I’m about halfway through series 3 now.  I know there are some very good episodes yet to come.  At least the next episode has its own thread, so I can stop updating Gridlock.

[VickyMallard @vickymallard]

And another  thread that seems to cover several episodes 😉

So I’ll start with Gridlock. Great start – I liked the beginning when the Doctor describes Gallifrey, but the way he says it makes it clear something’s not right. However we’re back in New New York – seems to become almost a standard for a first trip, hm? And even the sisters with the cat faces are still there, and that face of… Bo? That face that appeared to be dying in that first episode with Rose Tyler? Quite an interesting storyline. The traffic jam of the universe, I guess. And just when you think how on earth is the Doctor gonna solve this one… he does! And the feline nun with the gun wasn’t out there to kill him, but to get him to help. And then there is the end, which I also really liked. Apart from the fact that it made clear that the good Doctor can be quite a jerk at times, lying to Martha just because he can.

What did Bo mean with “You are not alone”? Another item for my ever-growing “Things to investigate” list. (I vaguely remember reading he actually isn’t a timelord, and thus potentially also not the last of his kind? But we don’t know what he really is, and neither does he?). Nevertheless I liked the ending, when the Doctor finally tells Martha the truth, and the sadness over what he has lost becomes almost tangible. I loved that.

The next two episodes with the Daleks in Manhattan I found somewhat more difficult to connect with. Maybe it was simply because I have a cold and my brain just wasn’t willing to connect properly, but I found found the storyline somewhat less fascinating than the rest of what I’ve seen so far. So there are four Daleks who survived the events of Doomsday and are now trying to create a Dalek-Human hybrid? I have to admit I found the prostetics of the “Prototype” somewhat disturbing… these, ehm, flesh-coloured, carrot-shaped tentacles that kept moving. As I’m not an expert on anything in the Doctor Who universe yet: if the Doctor is the number one enemy of the Daleks, why don’t they simply exterminate him right on the spot? The Doctor says of himself he doesn’t commit genocide, but at least so far my impression of Daleks is that they are less scrupulous about such things.  And what does it actually take to kill a Timelord? Lightning strikes are apparently insufficient – it knocks him out, but he shows no signs of starting to regenerate and is none the worse for wear just a couple of minutes later. And genius enough to find a cure for Lazlo on the spot…? As much as I liked the happy ending for him and Taloola, that was a bit “too much” for my taste. The other thing that confused me – or maybe I just misunderstood something – was that the Daleks were waiting for huge solar flare – I’m not a scientist, but do solar flares manifest themselves in a single giant lightning strike?

Another thing that occurred to me was the situation of Martha. The Doctor still doesn’t really seem to enjoy her company, she’s just there to fill the void, sort of. Initially, he promised her “one trip, and that’s it!” Since then, he hasn’t even really given her the chance to go back – I know she wouldn’t have gone anyway, but he didn’t even ask, it was just “oh, I guess one more won’t hurt” and off they went. And apart from Martha being potentially killed by the Daleks, there was a moment when I thought “If the Doctor gets killed now, that leaves Martha stuck in the 1930s…

[VickyMallard @vickymallard]

Sorry for posting twice, but I cannot find a thread for Lazarus and can’t seem to edit my previous post either, so I’ll continue here…

Nicely creepy episode! The Doctor is finally beginning to warm towards Martha, although I’m not entirely convinced if that’s a good idea, at least for her. Anyway, nice creepy monster – did I understand correctly it was basically all the errors eradicated by evolution come together? But I also loved that it wasn’t entirely a monster. It was a human that went through terrible things no kid should ever endure. I loved his dialogue with the Doctor about whether living basically forever is a blessing or a curse.

Interesting solution to the problem – why exactly did the music from the organ make Lazarus fall to his demise? I must have missed that. Watching him play made a tiny part of my brain wonder whether David Tennant, being the son of a minister, actually has some experience in playing the organ, but I guess not and in any case, that’s not really relevant here. I loved the bit with “hang around Beethoven long enough and you learn a thing or two”.

And that message on the answerphone in the end… who the hell is Harold Saxon?! Was that the man warning Mum that the Doctor is dangerous? But who is he, an old enemy of the Doctor?

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