Doctor Who - "Turn Left" (Part 1 of 3)

[iainjclark]

Not quite sure what to make of this one.

THE GOOD

It's a mostly well-executed tale of a road not taken, peppered with allusions to just about every major event in modern Who history and spiced up by the SF device of Rose's interventions and the Evil Space Beetle. For an RTD script it's surprisingly low key, the music isn't terrible, and generally speaking Catherine Tate does a reasonable job of suggesting an earlier, spikier Donna without losing the core of the current iteration of the character.

The sheer darkness of the alternate history of the Earth is remarkable, recalling last season's devastated Earth under the Master's dominion but in a far more gradual and realistic way. I don't quite believe the idea of concentration camps for immigrants but it's a strong image that wasn't hammered home TOO unsubtly.

THE BAD

It's almost entirely dispensable, almost entirely prelude, and serves only to convey a small nugget of data to the Doctor which, had Donna never encountered the Evil Space Beetle, would not have been possible. Dramatically the parallel history may be well-executed but it comes too quickly on the heels of Donna's alternate life in 'Forest of the Dead'.

THE UGLY

IIRC I thought the Titanic crashing would wipe out all life on Earth? Maybe Torchwood fixed that too. I'm sure this wasn't the only potential plot hole in the alternate worldbuilding.

More importantly, if Rose could simply splice the Bad Wolf words into history in that way, why was any of this necessary and why has she been shouting impotently on various TV screens all season? And when exactly did she do the splicing? Back when she was linked into the space-time vortex in Parting of the Ways? Mighty convenient. Also, why did it suddenly appear now instead of having always been there? There's no logic to this at all that I can see, just a cool idea and plenty of Russell T Davies' patent bluster. Also Murray Gold cranks the music up to "SEASON FINALE" mode at the end.

Edit: Also, if all it took to put history to rights was a road accident, why did it even have to be Donna who went back?

THE OTHER STUFF

I did still mostly enjoy this one, and with coalescent's recent poll in mind it probably rates as one of RTD's better episodes.

Despite the ending descending into Total Bollocks Overdrive (mainly through Rose helpfully having a Total Bollocks Overdrive machine and switching it on), it's a mostly well-realised and effective episode.

It's obviously the Doctor-lite episode of the season, but splitting this and last week's Donna-lite episode is a smart move that disguises what they're doing far more than in past seasons. It successfully reintroduces an older, more self-assured Rose and impresses upon us the seriousness of the threat about to descend. And of course we're now more clear than ever that Donna is IMPORTANT and also DOOMED. It also pays off the "there's something on your back" foreshadowing from the Pompeiian psychic.

And last but not least: Cloister Bell!

As for next week, we're gleefully shown every recurring or spin-off character ever to appear on the show. This can only get messy.

Comments

[fba.livejournal.com]

Release your inner seven year old and enjoy the ride!

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong - I did enjoy the ride this week and I'm not entirely closed-minded about the next two episodes.

However my fear, based on last season's finale, is that the big music, frenetic pacing and overblown impausibility will undermine the gosh-wow and the character drama.

[fba.livejournal.com]

TBH there are lots of Daleks in flying saucers - I'm just not seeing the bad. I suspect its going to be like Parting of the Ways - but on a much bigger scale. The main thing that spoilt last season's finale for me was the characterisation of The Master and Simm's all-over-the-place performance. I suspect that Daleks Daleks Daleks is impossible to get wrong...

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

It's not strictly Daleks Daleks Daleks that worries me, it's Daleks Gwen Ianto Jack Daleks Sarah Jane Daleks Martha Rose Donna...

[fba.livejournal.com]

I suspect the general tenure of the finale will be 'humanity's great isn't it?'...

[ajr.livejournal.com]

My inner seven year old wanted to get off.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I don't see a great deal wrong with this week's episode barring the usual plot contrivances. I can see that things may go a bit pear shaped in coming weeks, but as a standalone episode the worst I can really say about 'Turn Left' is that it was more solid than it was exciting.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I am being a curmudgeon. But I thought it was pretty terrible, in a typical RTD "Let's chuck out ideas and hang making any sense!" way. An evil, time-travelling beetle thing? COME ON.

[fba.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I am being a curmudgeon

You? A curmudgeon? Never!!

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I liked the beetle as an idea (not quite so keen on the prop). The concept reminded me of something which I can't pin down - either something SF or something a bit more gothic. The idea of something drawing its energies from squandered potentiality is definitely familiar too.

[fba.livejournal.com]

You have no inner seven year old.

HTH

HAND

[ajr.livejournal.com]

You may be right. That, or my inner seven year old is also a cranky old man.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

When I was seven years old I though everything was fantastic, including Rentaghost, Grange Hill, and the really dodgy early episodes of ST:TNG. They can make fine episodes which work for seven year olds and also for grownups with critical faculties, as they've shown many times in the past, so I don't believe the fact that the show is aimed at kids means I can't point out how it was mostly filler with a crap plastic alien and some dodgy acting.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

The crap plastic alien was mostly off screen and wasn't terrible (maybe Classic Who has tempered my critical faculties a bit here). I thought the acting was fine - Catherine Tate was less strong than she's sometimes been but partly that was becauae this was an earlier, more shouty Donna.

Filler, yes, but it did at least tell a self-contained story, albeit one that's mainly set-up for a different story. Rather like Utopia in that respect, only without the pant-wettingly cool bit at the end.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Come on, man! It's a terrible prop.

(maybe Classic Who has tempered my critical faculties a bit here)

Blunted, Iain. That's the word you're looking for. HTH HANK.

That and the MAD POINTING of the hotel maid were the only really bad bits. Other than that it was a fine It's A Wonderful Plot Device episode.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Blunted, Iain. That's the word you're looking for. HTH HANK.

Wait, you mean I'm not supposed to close my eyes and go to my happy place whenever a dodgy special effect comes on the screen?

That and the MAD POINTING of the hotel maid were the only really bad bits.

The MAD POINTING was all a bit gothic horror, wasn't it? She was like an extra from a Sherlock Holmes story.

[secritcrush.livejournal.com]

*loffs curmudgeon liz*

[williamjm.livejournal.com]

I don't quite believe the idea of concentration camps for immigrants

Why not? It is implied that future-Britain is under some sort of military dictatorship and I don't find it unbelievable that a sufficiently brutal dictatorship could resort to such measure - after all there are sadly far too many historical precedents.

[fba.livejournal.com]

Well - given that Mr Saxon didn't happen it is probably still Harriet Jones and as The Doctor says, you need to keep an eye on her.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I never quite worked out what the time loop did and didn't wipe out in the season finale. In theory if the loop went back to the moment Saxon introduced the space balls, then he was already PM at that point. Very unclear unless I missed something.

As for the concentration camps, it's not that it couldn't happen, but it seemed a bit of a stretch from "we're overcrowded" to "we're gassing immigrants". Which I think is what was implied. The Detention Centres, sure, I could see that. But I never felt the ideological leap required to get from there to cold-blooded mass murder.

[fba.livejournal.com]

Well if the Doctor was dead he never went to Utpoia - so The Master died as Yanna with Chan'tho.

As someone else has pointed out - the big discontinuity is that the world should be over-run with Human-Daleks as The Doctor and Martha weren't there to stop them in New York.

[snowking.livejournal.com]

Wibbly wobbly timey wimey etc etc. Surely Ms Jones was totally Gordon Browned at the end of Christmas Invasion?

I don't think we're meant to assume they're immediately gassing everyone but it's really much fun in forced labour camps rather than, you know, ovens. It's like V For Vendetta! Except 10 Downing Street is already gone so that'll leave V a bit stumped.

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

As others have said, I'm not sure the implication was that the "labour camps" were secretly full of gas chambers; but that they were a step down that path. Internment camps, might be a better way of putting it? I mean, we already imprison immigrants in "detention centres" now. And it is horribly believable... when trouble hits, we point the finger of blame at Them, where They are anyone who doesn't look, speak, act, believe or think like Us, even if we only suspect that to be true (which ties in with last week's hysteria on the bus). And of course, in this scenario, there's been plenty of trouble, the country is overcrowded and isolated.

Actually, the scene where they guy was saying goodbye, where he and Wilf clearly understood what the truth was whilst Donna was completely blind to it was my favourite of the episode.

[fba.livejournal.com]

IIRC I thought the Titanic crashing would wipe out all life on Earth?

Just re-watching it atm (Sky box is filling up so I need to archive some stuff to DVD). The Doctor though the crash would wipe out life on earth. Presumably they decided that destroying the south of England amounted to the same thing - this is the BBC after all...

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

LOL