Writer: Russell T. Davies
Director: Graeme HarperCast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Bernard Chibbins (Gramps), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Chipo Chung (Fortune Teller), Joseph Long (Rocco Colasanto), Noma Dumzwemi (Captain Magambo), Suzann McLean (Veena Brady), Marcia Lecky (Mooky Kahari), Natalie Walter (Alice Coltrane), Bhaskar Patel (Jival Chowdry), Loraine Velez (Spanish Maid), Clive Standen (Private Harris), Sanchia McCormack (Housing Officer), Terri-Ann Burmby (Woman In Doorway), Paul Richard Biggin (Soldier #2), Neil Clench (Man In Pub), Lawrence Stevenson (Soldier #1), Catherine York (Female Reporter) & Lachele Carl (Trinity Wells)
While visiting an alien planet, a beetle-like insect attaches itself to Donna's back and alters history, throwing her into an alternative existence where she never met The Doctor...Russell T. Davies writes himself a big love letter with "Turn Left", cramming it with winks, nods and some sideways looks at the integral episodes that have informed Doctor Who these past few years. We begin on the alien planet of Shan Shen (an intergalactic Chinatown, based on the décor), where The Doctor (David Tennant) has fun bartering with local stallholders and Donna (Catherine Tate) is persuaded to visit a Fortune Teller (Chipo Chung). The Fortune Teller's true intentions are revealed when a giant beetle-like insect attaches itself to Donna's back and somehow manipulates her history – making Donna turn right at a road junction (and consequently secure a £20,000 dream job) instead of left...
This simple decision alters established history, butterfly effect-style, meaning Donna never meets The Doctor during "The Runaway Bride". Consequently Davies' script spends most of its runtime illustrating how unbelievably disastrous the loss of a Doctor/Donna team-up would be for mankind. Now in an alternate universe of her own forgotten making, The Doctor is killed under the Thames while fighting the Queen of Racnoss in "The Runaway Bride", Martha Jones is asphyxiated when her hospital is transported to the moon ("Smith And Jones"), and the Titanic crashes into Buckingham Palace, destroying London in a mushroom cloud ("Voyage Of The Damned"). This bizarre catastrophe forces the UK into a not-very-plausible post-apocalypse – where southern English refugees cohabit with ethnic people up north, before the government solves the crisis by transporting all "foreigners" to labour/concentration camps.
Donna wanders through this horrific parallel existence with numb, tearful confusion – perturbed by mysterious appearances of a blonde woman shortly after each disaster – a girl recognisable to audiences as Rose Tyler (Billie Piper). It seems Rose has inexplicably found a way back to our universe (after the events of "Doomsday") and apparently has a plan to correct Donna's timeline and save the world – using The Doctor's unused, dying TARDIS...
"Turn Left" is actually very enjoyable, despite being incredibly dour and depressing for a good half-hour in the middle. RTD clearly enjoys looking at past events from a different vantage point (a trick he employed, briefly, in "Love & Monsters") -- but while it's generally fun and amusing, it's a bit excessive here. Americans wiped out by the chubby Adipose from "Partners In Crime", the planet's ATMOS-powered cars smoking out the population (see: "The Sontaran Strategem"), there's barely a moment that isn't referencing past new Who and its spin-offs (Torchwood's Jack, Gwen and Ianto are mentioned, while Sarah-Jane Smith and her kiddie gang bite the dust according to a news report.)
Away from the onanism of RTD's script, the basic idea behind Donna's situation eventually gets on-track and builds to a fairly exciting climax (via a makeshift time-machine, courtesy of UNIT) and a last-minute sting of recognition from The Doctor when a "two word" message from Rose is delivered – in an agreeable, spine-tingling echo of season 1's big revelation. However, the underlying mechanics of "Turn Left" turn to mush under scrutiny, the return of Rose wasn't explained (she just appears from an off-camera blue flash), and it made no sense that Rose would even know what's going on with Donna – let alone how to put things right! Well, unless the next two episodes add some vital information we're missing here.
So, suspension of disbelief is required and nitpickers will have a field day with the all flaws in its logic. But, even so, "Turn Left" is punchy and entertaining on a basic level and Catherine Tate shoulders this Doctor-lite episode incredibly well. Indeed, Tate's well-judged reactions to this "what if?" scenario are good compensation for the storytelling deficiencies, and she overshadows the much-trumpeted return of Billie Piper – who gives a comparatively two-dimensional and bland performance. In her first scene finds Piper even has problems deciding on the right accent! Piper herself admitted finding it hard to remember how to play Rose, and her inability to get back in the saddle is apparent. I just hope she pulls herself together for the last two episodes.
Overall, there's a lot of stuff I had issues with, but "Turn Left" certainly had a sense of pace and built to a decent, effective conclusion. Rose's big return was underwhelming, but I liked the idea of an invisible parasite that can change its host's personal history, some of the call-backs to old episodes earned a good reaction, and there was plenty of juicy foreshadowing (not least for Donna's strange relevance in The Doctor's life). However, like "Utopia" last year, this is really just a stretch and flex before the two-part finale next week. A finale that throws everything and the kitchen sink into events, judging from the trailer...
21 June 2008
BBC1, 6.40 pm
That review summed it up perfectly. For me it was a great episode while it was on (and far better than Midnight - which I think should've been scrapped from the off), but it does fall apart a bit once you try to analyse it (and I could even put aside the fact the beetle was like an oversized plastic moustaches that falls out of Xmas crackers).
And am I the only one who doesn't really care about Rose? Sure, she was fine for her time, but it's just an example of RTD's lazy writing that he brings back past characters just for something to do, and the finale looks like he's cramming in everyone just before he buggers off for good.
Still, on the plus side, he nuked London and everything in it, so he's left me with a big smile :)
I didn't have a problem with Rose coming back (or the many others in the 2 episodes to come), but only because it's being done as part of RTD's swansong on the regular series. It's a good way to celebrate the departure of a showrunner who, while not a very gifted sci-fi writer (most of the time), still resurrected a TV show non-fans treated as a joke.
And no, I've never been that keen on Rose. Piper's okay, and there has been the odd episode where she's really delivered the goods, but I find myself enjoying the fact Catherine Tate can handle "proper" acting -- thus giving the writers more options with what they can do. I was a backer of Freema Agyeman, but she was on the same level as Piper, talent-wise. And then the writers messed up her character by making her too similar to Rose, in how she treated the Doctor.
As for the illogical plot -- I didn't want to bore people with examples in the review, but here's one -- SPOILER: how the hell could Donna remember Rose's message, when it was a totally different Donna who was whispered the message seconds before she DIED? And because she died, she effectively never existed because her sacrifice corrected the timeline -- so none of that episode ever happened? Agh!
I'm gonna chalk the difference in Rose's character (and accent) down to various off-screen events in the other universe. To be honest, I much preferred this version.
My reaction to the episode was roughly the same as yours. I rather liked the references to (and killing of off) Sarah Jane and the Torchwood team, even though the whole killing off major characters in a parallel reality is quite cliche (see any parallel universe Star Trek story). And the death camps were a real mis-step.
I certainly enjoyed it more than I thought I would from the trailer.
Hopefully the inclusion of every single character ever to be in nu-Who next week won't mean that you-know-who gets pushed to the background.
I bet it'll be another Doctor-lite episode, simply because he won't be able to get a word in edgeways ;)
I read somewhere that Billie Piper had her overbite corrected (in a bid to crack America!), so they had to fit her with fake teeth Rose-style teeth in this episode -- making it tricky for her to talk properly! Not sure how true all of that is, but it made me laugh! :)
I didn't actually notice Rose's change in voice at the time (although now I realise it was more posh, rather than her cockney style before), but I did notice the HUGE teeth. I thought she'd been in a fight!
Tate was great, though. And that's something I never thought I'd say after the Christmas Bride.
Yes, nice to see "Tate-hate" dwindle to just passing comments. CT still lapses into OTT reactions at times, but for the most part her acting talent has shown up poor Piper and Agyeman. Fans seem convinced Donna'son her way out, though -- and it kinda makes sense someone as successful as Tate only agreed to do one season for RTD.
So, will The Doctor go solo for the 4 specials in '09? It might be interesting to see him cope without a sounding board, for once. That would certainly be a challenge for the writers, too. Or will Steven Moffat insist on them laying the foundations for his fifth season by introducing a new companion?
Steven Moffat should strong-arm (politely) Carey Mulligan (Sally Sparrow from the Blink episode) as the next assistant, and leave the Rose/Martha era behind.
Is Moffat taking over as both chief writer and exec producer from the 2010 series or from next year's specials?
And will Torchwood and Sarah Jane continue as RTD series? TW is scheduled as just a 5-part story over the course of a week, and on BBC1, for its third series earlier next year according to Digital Spy.
Moffat takes over in 2010 with the day-to-day running of DW. RTD is in charge of the '09 specials, although I'd assume he'd be happy to foreshadow and set-up stuff for Moffat's tenure. If that's agreed between them both.
TW and SJA will continue, with RTD credited as creator of both. I suppose it's possible RTD could drop in and write the odd episode of TW/SJA in future -- if agreed by whoever's showrunning. But I suspect he'll make a clean break from everything Who-related.
And yes, TW season 3 is just a week-long special. Brave, experimental, serial sci-fi spectacular? Or brainless, protracted, soap-style balls-up? We'll find out next year!
Ah, that explains the weird Billie jaw thing! I thought she seemed a bit mumbly...but you're right, she was a bit pointless here, overshadowed by Tate, which is a surprise as I haven't been her biggest fan this series. She had a few bad moments here ("Oi! Mussolini!"), but was actually quite impressed by her. But I do think Rose seemed shoehorned in, and how was she able to know so much about Donna's predicament? It seems that just because she's an old and popular character, RTD's automatically gifted her with a godlike knowledge of everything that's going on and how to solve the problems, which just doesn't ring true, unless the finale will reveal a change in her character that she's undergone. But a pretty good episode, albeit further filler material given that, like you say, none of this episode ever happened. A good premise but FAR too reliant on its own mythology, anyone who hasn't watched Who solidly these last few years would quickly get lost I think.
On a bit of a tangent, are there any concrete figures of how long Tennant is staying? Is he going after the specials or staying for Moffat's 5th season? Just cos a friend of mine says he knows that they're auditioning for a replacement and that it's between the blond doctor from Green Wing (no names, afraid I don't watch it) and somebody else. Does anyone know if this is true?
There's barely a week goes by without some kind of Doctor/companion casting rumour! :) At the moment, DT is considering his future and committed to the specials.
Possibly Doctor #10 will die in one of these specials and regenerate ready for Moffat's tenure, but that's just speculation. I'm sure Moffat would be more than happy to keep DT on the show for awhile, but the fact DT's taking time-out to go back to the theatre in '09 is the strongest hint yet that DT's getting itchy feet. No matter how much of a dream role this is for him, there comes a time when you have to stand down for the sake of the show -- to stop it becoming too stale.