"Unrelentingly bleak" is probably the most accurate way to describe the penultimate story of Doctor Who's fourth revived season. It's certainly the darkest thing you'll've seen broadcast as part of a family show so early on a Saturday evening -- tonight's first half of the finale two-parter, full as it's likely to be of apocalyptic slaughter, is unlikely to equal the real-world horror of what happened after Donna turned right. Obviously the chances of a replica Titanic obliterating London are slim, but the increasingly disastrous consequences of a major destructive incident in Southern England are all too believable.
Aside from scaring viewers witless, Turn Left allows the series' recurring characters to shine. There are great scenes for both Bernard Cribbins and Jacqueline King here, showing the calibre of actor that Who can cast in even the smallest of roles. But, as was so insisted before the episode's broadcast, it really is Donna's episode. Truth be told, in spite of what people liked to say in the hype, Tate's performance here won't convince many (or any) of those who hate her. That's not because she's no good -- she's brilliant -- but it's the performance she's been giving for the last 10 episodes, plus a resurgence of her one from the 2006 Christmas special, combined and pushed to their utmost quality... but if you hate her in the first place, you're not going to like her any more now. Your loss, but there you go.
Davies' script cunningly re-appropriates elements from the present-day-Earth episodes from the last two seasons, showing how badly wrong things could have gone without the Doctor. The silly moment from the last Christmas special when the Titanic just missed Buckingham Palace becomes the chilling event which wipes out London and ruins Britain. The cute little Adipose, whose creation only resulted in the death of one person back at the start of this season, wipe out swathes of America. The Sontaran's Atmos is stopped, but at the cost of the lives of all Torchwood's remaining team members; the Doctor stopped the Judoon from killing anyone (well, mostly), but Martha, Sarah Jane and her friends die trying to stop them, along with everyone else in the hospital. And to top it all off, the BNP seem to have come into power as ethnic minorities are shipped off to 'labour camps'. Somehow, I don't think it's for "education education education".
Perhaps the most impressive thing about this episode, however, is that, after two Christmas specials and almost two whole seasons, Rose is back... and I've written three paragraphs without even bothering to mention here. Such is the extent that Donna dominates this episode, the return of one of the Doctor's most beloved companions -- certainly of recent years -- is actually an almost incidental element of the episode. The best bit of it is the re-appropriation of Bad Wolf, the first season's intriguing thread that led to a denouement many felt was lacking (personally, I never had any problems with it). It seems Russell T Davies has found new significance to give to it -- as, I suspect, he will do with many things from the preceding seasons in the next two weeks -- and that's probably a good thing.
Certainly, it's easy for the surprising final moments, and the exciting trailer for The Stolen Earth, to take all attention away from the episode itself. Such is the nature of excitement for a season finale which has, as ever, been building since episode one (and possibly longer). Turn Left is still a great, if highly depressing, episode, though difficult to love because it's about as much fun as torture by mosquitoes. I don't imagine it will be topping any Best Of Season polls.
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I like Donna this series, largely because she is nowhere near as annoying as she was in The Runaway Bride. Clearly they had to change the character, because the way she was simply wouldn't work if she was appearing on a regular basis.
However, RTD et al kept insisting that this week was Donna's episode (which it was) and that it was a truly great exploration of her character, and that we really get to see this and that and the other about her.
Except we don't, because it was simply a reversion to her Runaway Bride character. It wasn't development, it was pretty much the opposite. Of course, given that the Doctor is the one who changed her, and given that she never met the Doctor in this world, it makes sense. But RTD was still wrong to hype up those aspects of the episode.
The only other thing that bothered me was Rose's accent. Haha, Billie wasn't making it up a few months ago when she said she'd forgotten how to do the voice. Half the episode she was doing a Sean Connery impression; I could barely tell what she was saying. Fortunately she seems to have gotten back into the swing of things, and by the time they're indoors with the makeshift time machine she's speaking okay again.
Other than that, I don't remember cheering so much!
Martha and Sarah Jane died... okay, that was sad. But then, those annoying kids from SJA all died too! Hooray! And then all of London was destroyed! Hooray! And then Donna suffers a fate worse than death - she has to move to Leeds!!!111111 And then the Americans all get killed too! By adorable little creatures! Hooray! And then Gwen Cooper gets exploded! Hooray!
All in all, good episode.
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