Hogan Reviews

I didn’t know what to expect going into “Wild Blue Yonder” because so few details on it were available beforehand, but what I got was actually a good old fashioned claustrophobic sci-fi story with a really fun “conceptual” enemy and some weird visuals… so I was very happy indeed! It feels like ages since I watched a new Doctor Who story that was just a stand-alone good sci-fi story, so let’s take a deeper look.

The story kicks off with The Doctor (David Tennant) accidentally landing the crashing TARDIS on top of the tree that Isaac Newton (Nathaniel Curtis) was sitting under when the apple fell and made him think about gravity, though due to their interference he ends up calling it “mavity” instead, which becomes a recurring gag throughout the episode. The TARDIS then lands on that good old fashioned sci-fi location of a derelict space station with no lifeforms on board, drops The Doctor and Donna (Catherine Tate) off and then runs due to the HADS being turned back on (nice little nod to the past there!) As our lead duo come to terms with the situation we get some nice scene setting as they wonder around a sadly very obviously green-screen long corridor, and no I’m saying they should’ve made a practical set that big just that for what ever reason it looked too… flat, I don’t know. Normally I can suspend my disbelief and not notice but every time there was a wide shot of that corridor it took me out a bit! Anyway, after some fun dialogue exchanges, a mystery with some words being said via Tannoy speakers that change the walls around, and a very slow moving robot we the viewer soon see that both The Doctor and Donna are talking to each other in two different rooms at the same time.

The Doctor promises everything will be okay, forgetting that this isn’t Donna’s first trip in the TARDIS!

Both doubles suddenly start complaining that their “arms are too long” and sure enough the fake Doctor has two massive arms dragging behind him and the Donna double one long one, leading to the real duo to meet back up and run from their weird deformed doubles. As they drive away in a little cart the doubles get bigger and bigger until they get stuck in the massive corridor, allowing the real ones to escape for a time. This becomes the theme really for the rest of the episode as The Doctor and Donna keep finding themselves split up and having to decide whether the person they’re talking to is the real one or not. There are some really good scenes, including The Doctor briefly touching on the Timeless Children arc and the Flux story, two things from Chibnall’s era I enjoyed when they started then got annoyed by the non-finish, so there’s still hope something might come from them, well other than giving the Doctor a new source of sorrow now the Time War has been solved. Eventually The Doctor and Donna find out that the copycats are from the black void past the edge of the universe and that they wish to head to where all the light and warfare is, then the real deals worry as their doppelgangers get closer and closer to exact duplicates of them, which would allow them to pop on the TARDIS and head to the universe proper…

As I said in the opening paragraph, it’s been a while since I watched just a really good claustrophobic sci-fi horror in Who and even longer since a fun, bit-out-there-conceptually enemy has made an appearance (at least on TV) so I came away from this story very happy indeed, especially given Tennant and Tate’s doubly great performances!

The Continuity:

The Doctor, Donna and the little robot definitely in front of a real wall.

As mentioned it’s pretty much a stand-alone affair, though also as mentioned there’s a reference to both the “Timeless Child” story arc that really kicked off with “Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children” and the Flux storyline, in particular the fact that half the universe was destroyed by the end of it’s finale part, “The Vanquishers”, all from the Thirteenth Doctor run. As I mentioned in my review of those episodes and their follow ups I got really annoyed that such pivotal and important things like The Doctor’s very origin and half the universe being destroyed were glossed over and not properly addressed or even finished, so at least RTD adding a bit of remorse from The Doctor over the events of Flux gives a little back to it. Plus it actually confirms half of the universe was indeed destroyed, something that somehow I was left unsure of…

The only other thing I can think of here is the Twelfth Doctor all-time-classic “Heaven Sent”, which similarly had a minimal cast, a creeping horror in a small environment and a standout performance from its lead actor, though this story doesn’t hit those heights…

Overall Thoughts:

The copy Doctor forgets how big mouths are supposed to be in one of the earlier examples of the weirdness of the lead villains!

“Wild Blue Yonder” was a great little stand-alone claustrophobic sci-fi horror story with a unique and fun conceptually-odd enemy. Both David Tennant and Catherine Tate nailed their double roles with some stand-out dialogue scenes all ending with a fun cliffhanger heading into next week. Very little to complain about!

The end is actually pretty simple, the main focus on the story is in our leads being chased and hounded (their fear and quick thinking speeding up the copying process) Basically The Doctor realises the words very slowly being spoken are a countdown from 10 to a self destruct and the little robot is on its way to detonate the station, and that the reason the previous Captain of the ship did it so slowly is so the formless creatures couldn’t figure it out. Now they had though thanks to The Doctor so they run to destroy the robot but it ends up being too late and the TARDIS arrives to pick up The Doctor but he initially takes the wrong Donna on board, before figuring it out at the last moment, dumping the copy back on the station and grabbing the real one just as it all explodes. They head back to Earth and open the TARDIS only to be greeted by Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins)!

Bernard Cribbins makes it back on Doctor Who even after death. Now there’s commitment!

After a fun reunion he basically says “Thank God you’re here Doctor the world has gone mad!” and people start rioting on the streets and planes crash as we go to credits. Should be a fun finale next week!