Rating: 95/100.
My last Doctor Who review was predictably controversial because of my unpopular opinions. That’s fine; I stand by all my unpopular opinions. But for this week’s special, I’m going to have to get into something that might make me a little more popular and talk about something I actually like about Russell T. Davies—and there are certainly a number of things I do like about him—particularly the fact that I think he does dark episodes better than he does lighthearted, happy episodes.
For my money, the two best things Russell T. Davies has ever written in the Doctor Who universe are the third season of the show’s spin-off, Torchwood, branded as Torchwood: Children of Earth, and a fourth season episode of Doctor Who called “Midnight.” Written at the last minute to replace another episode that Davies had decided was too similar in tone to another episode earlier in the season, “Midnight” had to be able to be made quickly and easily with a low budget.
In the episode, The Doctor (David Tennant) leaves behind his companion, Donna (Catherine Tate), to go off on a train across a diamond planet called Midnight that is incapable of supporting life. But when something starts knocking on the outside of the train and a woman on board seems to have been possessed by something, it seems that life may be possible after all on the hostile planet. But is that life dangerous?
“Midnight” is positively terrifying, which is made all the more impressive by all the limitations that the episode had in terms of time and money. I also love that it’s one of the few moments when The Doctor can’t easily get everyone to trust him to be their leader instead finding himself pleading with a train full of people to listen to him.
In many ways, the second of the Doctor Who 60th anniversary episodes, “Wild Blue Yonder,” is the spiritual sister episode to “Midnight,” demonstrating what “Midnight” would have been if it had been given a bigger budget. Shrouded in mystery prior to its release, Davies would only comment that it was a very dark episode that might be challenging to small children and he refused to allow much in the way of plot synopses to get out to the press, leaving a lot of questions about the episode until the moment it was released.
In “Wild Blue Yonder,” The Doctor and Donna accidentally land on a spaceship that seems to be abandoned except for one robot that is very slowly walking down a long corridor. But when they come into contact with mysterious shapeshifting aliens that can take their appearance, The Doctor and Donna must figure out what happened to the ship’s crew before the shapeshifting aliens become so much like the people they’re imitating that they can work it out for themselves.
Much like “Midnight,” the episode is confined to one location and focuses on aliens that copy people. But, unlike “Midnight,” we see these aliens, played by the actors of the people they’re trying to copy. But what makes these aliens so scary is their uncanny nature, the fact that they almost look like people but, since they don’t entirely understand the concept of shape, they frequently get little things wrong. Catherine Tate and David Tennant as monsters trying to pass as human who can’t remember how long arms are supposed to be makes for a genuinely creepy situation. And, rather than trying to come up with some convoluted explanation to get out of the situation Davies has created, the solution to the episode is quite simple and elegant.
The very end of the episode sees the return of a much-beloved character and a set-up for the final episode of the 60th anniversary special, “The Giggle,” which will feature the highly-talented, queer, American actor Neil Patrick Harris playing the Toymaker, a character who has not been seen on Doctor Who since 1966. I still fear that it will likely end in unsatisfying conclusions as is often the case with Davies’ big, season-ending episodes (and these specials certainly function as a mini-season of the show), but I always live in hopes of being proven wrong about things like that.
“Wild Blue Yonder” is currently streaming on Disney+ with the final special dropping on December 9.
Photo courtesy of social media
