WRITER: Russell T. Davies DIRECTOR: Richard Clark
CAST: David Tennant (The Doctor), Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones), Ardal O'Hanlon (Thomas Kincade Brannigan), Anna Hope (Novice Hame), Travis Oliver (Milo), Lenora Crichlow (Cheen), Jennifer Hennessey (Valerie), Bridget Turner (Alice), Georgine Anderson (May), Simon Pearall (Whitey), Daisy Lewis (Javit), Nicholas Bolton (Businessman), Erika Macleod (Sally Calypso), Judy Norman (Ma), Graham Padden (Pa), Lucy Davenport (Pale Woman), Tom Edden (Pharmacist #1), Natasha Williams (Pharmacist #2), Gayle Telfer Stevens (Pharmacist #3) & Struan Rodger (The Face Of Boe)
After arriving in the distant future, Martha is kidnapped and finds herself travelling along New New York City's gridlocked Motorway... Russell T. Davies likes to indulge his own beliefs and political opinions in his scripts and Gridlock is no exception, commenting as it does on drugs and traffic congestion. Unfortunately, the unsubtle inclusion of these social issues is overshadowed by a mundane chase storyline that only shows any life in a subplot with The Face Of Boe...
Gridlock contains a large amount of CGI cityscapes, generally of high quality, particularly the later sequences inspired by the Star Wars prequels. It's just a shame everything else is unable to match the computer wizardry, with another listless attempt to create a futuristic world from dirtying and disguising everyday items.
It may seem picky to casual viewers, but when the CGI visuals outstrip the physical sets, there's a clash of believability for me. For much of Gridlocked, Martha and Jones are stuck inside cramped "hover cars" (that "fly", natch) It means most of the show is able to recycle its single hover car set and Russell T. Davies gets to populate each car oddball characters: A feline Ardal O'Hanlon (Father Dougal with whiskers), two old grannies, a hairy "wolf-boy", a posh twit, etc.
I'm not a fan of Davies' brand of supposedly amusing characters and dialogue at the best of times, particularly in this case, as they come across as embarrassing and unnecessary in the context of what slowly takes a serious tone. It's in the latter stages that Gridlock begins to gather some momentum, particularly because cult favourite The Face Of Boe makes another appearance and finally gives The Doctor his dying secret (hinted at in last year's New Earth).
Eventually the traffic-jammed city is saved by The Doctor, who simply opens a seal to allow all the hover cars to ascend to safety. Don't ask me why nobody else thought of doing something that simple in the decades beforehand! While Gridlock certainly improved as it went along, its muddled narrative would have benefited from more rewrites.
This is a malformed idea that scrapes by on The Face Of Boe's inclusion and some enjoyable Doctor and Martha sequences -- particularly The Doctor's beautiful description of Gallifrey and a final heart-to-heart(s) about the Time War. Yet again David Tennant somehow manages to pull some genuine moments of emotion from even the silliest of storylines.
Overall, there's a kernel of a decent story struggling to get out of Gridlock, but it's ultimately too facile and inconsequential to be of any merit. There are a few moments of fun along the way (kids will love the giant crabs) and adults will enjoy the nods to more interesting times to come. But everything else is lukewarm, flimsy and below-average.
