'Gridlock' Might Be David Tennant's Most Underrated Doctor Who Story
The New Earth trilogy goes out with a bang.
Plot Summary
Five billion years in the future, the Doctor and Martha must battle gargantuan crabs to avoid a horrific fate: getting stuck in traffic for decades.
Notable for:
Third in a trilogy of New Earth stories, one per season
Return of the Face of Boe
Gareth Roberts wrote a Ninth Doctor novel Only Human, which inspired Davies to include the mood patches.
Ma and Pa are based on the painting American Gothic
Return of the Macra, but as devolved, brainless monsters
The Doctor reveals Janis Joplin gave him his coat.
2 real hymns are featured: “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Abide with Me”
The Face of Boe’s secret, “You Are Not Alone,” is uttered, its meaning to be revealed in Utopia later in the season.
Traffic scene is one of the first fully CG environments.
Pete commentary:
You have to be careful not to overuse it, but the trope of a newscaster narrating the action, often in a dishonest or ironic way, is an effective world-building technique. I like that Sally Calypso’s design is ‘60s retro — not sure if that’s some kind of reference. “Missing you already,” is a brilliant line to end the cold open. This is classic stuff, and it works.
The convo with the Doctor and Martha, where she asks to go to Gallifrey, has some nice layers to it. She inadvertently gets him to open up: he’s too tempted by her and remembers, even though he doesn’t want to at first. His descriptions are epic, obviously fueled by his regret and sadness knowing he can never go back. He’s certainly remembering with rose-colored glasses. Tennant is awesome here.
Gallifrey is confirmed to have:
Burnt orange sky
Twin suns
Lots of mountains
Red grass
Trees with silver leaves
15 lanes in the New New Jersey expressway: as an NJ resident, sounds low.
Nice bit where the Doctor confesses that he’s taken Martha to the same place he’s taken Rose.
Weird that there’s rain in the undercity, that’s supposedly completely sealed in? I suppose the whole point is that it’s all manipulated/architected.
The Pharmacy Town scene with the vendors/dealers is pretty disturbing. When the woman just forgets her parents right in front of them… brrr.
Freema Agyeman’s face is very expressive: she has a pretty smile with big teeth, but she can switch it to annoyance and anger quite effectively when she confronts her kidnappers.
One of Martha’s captors mentions “apple grass” — a nice connection with New Earth.
The whole premise — traffic, but done at sci-fi scale, where you go 10 miles in 6 years — is brilliant. As Grace observed, if you’re used to this life, where you just live on the motorway, trying to get somewhere, you’d probably just resign yourself to it.
23 years sounds a little short in terms of a timeframe for that to work entirely, but for people like Martha’s captors, it would mean they’re indoctrinated to this life.
I like that Martha doesn’t warm up to them right away. She’s rightfully indignant that they’ve kidnapped her and condemned her to a life in traffic.
Martha has several good moments:
She comes up with the “power down” plan when they’re trapped in the fast lane (I love that she “saw it in a film!”)
Her profession of faith in the Doctor is excellent, and the music is on point when they power up.
Her standing up to him at the end.
Kind of wonder how there could still possibly be exhaust fumes in the year 5 billion. This seems like solid evidence that technology is not just a straight progression.
Love the hymn scene, esp. Marha tearing up. All these people, trapped in traffic, but they’re connected through this shared ritual. You get a very strong sense that this is a community from the start — esp. Brannigan taking on the Doctor, no questions asked — that looks out for each other. The idea that a supportive community would emerge from such dire circumstances is arguably one of the most hopeful Doctor Who storylines, and nicely counterbalances the Pharmacy Town scene at the beginning.
The slow reveal that there’s no police, no way off the motorway, no help coming is really, really good. You almost don’t need the macra, though it wouldn’t be a proper Doctor Who story without a monster.
There’s really good character development for the Doctor in this one: facing the destruction of Gallifrey in a way we haven’t really seen yet (which nicely teases the season-long arc). And he turns a corner here in thinking of Martha as his companion: “She's alone and she's lost. She doesn't belong on this planet, and it's all my fault.” Thankfully, Martha calls him out on his responsibility in the friendship, that he needs to be vulnerable with her.
The sequence where the Doctor descends — really great. Love Brannigan’s turn from denying the Doctor transport down, but then marveling at how “magnificent” he is in his determination to save Martha.
The Doctor gets a lot of exposition thrown at him at the end (mostly from a cat), and even though it strains credulity that this was the only solution possible — that the Face of Boe had to sustain the motorway for 23 years to keep the people alive — we believe it. And that’s because RTD actually talks about all the things they should have been able to do to get out of it, and shoots them down one by one. This is important: it’s how you buy credibility for your story. (Take note, Steven Moffat.)
So much ambition in the CGI here. The motorway, but also the Senate at the end. And the fact that we know this setting from the previous 2 eps in the trilogy means we actually care about this stuff! It’s not just window dressing on a galaxy far, far away.
“If it's any consolation, Valerie, right now, I'm having kittens.” LOL — I see all the cat stuff, all the way back to New Earth, as setup for this line.
The triumph at the end is especially resonant. Not only is The Doctor Forever surging so goooooood, but you also get the Doctor coming on the hologram transmitter as everyone’s savior, AND you imagine how great the lives of these people will suddenly be upgraded by getting out of years-long traffic. Just beautiful.
New Earth looks a lot like Coruscant!
“I am the last of my kind as you are the last of yours.” Mine that drama, Russell!
The Doctor’s line, “I don’t think so,” might sting, but I don’t hold it against the Doctor — he’s just being honest. And he’s right of course.
The final bit where she draws a line in the sand in her relationship with the Doctor nicely bookends his discovery that he cares about her. She’s forcing him to put his money where his mouth is. Great confession that the Doctor used her question at the beginning to fantasize they were still alive.
Tennant perfectly plays his homesickness at the end.
Blink and you’ll miss Martha getting told about the Daleks when the Doctor opens up to her. That becomes important for the next episode.
Beautiful final shot of the sunset on New New York with all the cars now flying in the sky.
What did Pete’s family think?
Grace loved the episode, even though she said she remembered watching it a few times. She said she always loves coming back to it. The Next Time teaser made her want to watch Daleks in Manhattan. She correctly identified that Ma and Pa were “people from that one painting.”
Four Questions to Doomsday - Pete
Why did the Randomizer take us here? Honestly it’s a fairly similar structure of the Doctor and companion relationship changing as Edge of Destruction. In both cases, the Doctor is guarded and somewhat condescending to his companion. But in Edge, Barbara stands up to his bullying and threats and successfully puts him in his place. By the end, he’s asking for forgiveness. And here the Doctor is awakened to how much he cares about her when she’s taken, and by standing up to him, Martha finally gets him to open up, revealing what he’s been carrying.
Better: Time Warrior = first mention of Gallifrey. I mentioned it’s not meaningful to Sarah, the Brig et al. But here the Doctor makes it meaningful by sheer description.What if the evil plot had succeeded? The only evil plot here is the Macra’s, and if it succeeds, Martha is eaten. The Doctor is sad. He probably isolates himself and never travels with Donna. Time Lord Victorious early.
Where's the Clara splinter? I want to see a special edition where she’s Sally Calypso.
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, Lady Cassandra, or Zarbi? This is a gem. It’s a Banger. Change my mind.
Chris commentary:
Let's talk HALO JONES and MEGA-CITY ONE in our first ever 2000AD corner!
Swifty Frisco – RTD totally stole the name of the HJ newsreader and was apparently embarrassed enough that he named the HJ reporter, Jazz Firpo, as his influence instead.
Max Normal is in this!
Devil's island, the traffic island from judge dredd
"Ever heard the word rebound?" Brilliant stuff. Love that RTD is using his personal desire to return to New Earth as a plot point to prove Ten isn't over Rose.
The Curb Your Enthusiasm carpool lane episode was in 2004. Hmmmmm …
It is a bit strange that cars in the year 5 billion and change aren't EVs. Or solar powered!
"Honesty patch" – wouldn't they be easy to fake?
Damn British immigrants in New New York, it's like you never hear an American accent anymore …
Brannigan is basically Dougal, the actor's character from Father Ted. I couldn't not hear it.
The woman in the exhaust fumes story, "her head had swollen to 50 feet" – is that what happened to Jack/Boe?
Soooo was New New York designed with the exact layout of the old one? Brooklyn, Fire Island, etc.
Doctor on hold with police = Dot and Bubble vibes
Alice and May, the first gay married couple in Who! Telling that Brannigan is "an old fashioned cat" who doesn't want to hear they're married, and that's ok?! How far we've come since 2007 … or is RTD saying that it'll be banned in the future, like Moffat in Boom saying our period without religious wars is just a blip? Dark…
The Old Rugged Cross – funny that I remembered it as Abide With Me, which plays at the end and is a much better hymn imho. This one leaves me cold and is so much more explicitly about one religion … so everyone on NE is a Christian, despite that green crescent on hospitals?
It does beggar belief that nobody has noticed there are no police or emergency services in 23 years until the Doctor pointed it out …
"Janis Joplin gave me that coat" is a bit of a weird choice, given how (though I love it) straight it is. I could imagine the psychedelic Haight Street singer giving Six his coat …
"I saw it on a film" – are we talking Das Boot? Red October?
"Automatic quarantine" – so there's no procedure to overcome that and get help from surrounding planets, huh? Nobody else out there curious about what happened to NEW EARTH?
Would have been nice if they'd added a sense of claustrophobia when they all get out …
The Face of Boe's glass cracking – why? What's that got to do with the power?
Two Questions to Doomsday - Chris
Why did the Randomizer take us here? The TARDIS took the "fast lane" in Edge of Destruction … I'm not saying it's getting political, but it did take us to a Senate full of skeletons, just saying …
What if the evil plot had succeeded? Is it … Boe's plot to keep them trapped? The Macra are just trying to live, man.