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The following contains spoilers for “73 Yards.”

Russell T Davies acknowledges that his work eschews narrative formalism and goes with what feels right. Twenty years ago, his critics pointed to Deus Ex Machina endings as a way to discredit him, but times have changed. atmosphere In the drama’s new fantastical twists, as in the real world, logic is just as important as “The 73 Yards.” Most Vibrant New Episodes Doctor Who So far, however I I found it easy to just sit back and enjoy the action.

Doctor Who is a complex show to produce, with some series starting production on day one more than a week late. To address this situation, the show has started producing “light” episodes that do not require much involvement from the lead cast. There are also “Doctor Light” episodes like “Love and Monsters” and “Blink”, and “Companion Light” episodes like “Midnight”. This production process allows the lead cast to step away from filming Episode A and allow the guest star to take the spotlight for the majority of Episode B.

Production on the new series began around the time lead actress Ncuti Gatwa wrapped up her last Netflix project. sex educationThe Doctor appears at the beginning and end of “The 73 Yards” but not elsewhere, as he is erased from history. It gives us a chance to see what our modern companions would do if they were stranded in uncertain territory without their alien companions. The episode veers sharply from folk and country horror to kitchen sink drama before becoming a light-hearted homage to the Doctor. Taxi driverNeedless to say, this is not an episode to watch with small children.

The TARDIS lands on a cliff edge in Wales, where the Doctor points out that this is another liminal space where magic can enter. He also mentions a war “on land and sea”, Rumored spin-off Fans sifting through production materials discovered the scene, in which the Doctor talks about how great Wales is, except for Roger ap Gwilam, a Welsh politician who would lead Britain to the brink of nuclear war 20 years later. The Doctor then steps into a fairy ring, disturbing the web and disappearing while Ruby reads a note tied to the ring. The note makes reference to Mad Jack, a terrifying figure who resembles a villain from folklore.

Suddenly, Ruby, alone on the cliff, sees the vague shape of an old woman waving in the distance. Ruby tries to get closer to her, but wherever she goes, she remains the same distance away (the titular 73 yards). Believing the Doctor has disappeared, Ruby takes this persona conundrum on herself. She approaches a hiker (Susan Twist) and tries to remember where she has seen the old woman before (in every episode so far), but is unsure. Ruby asks the hiker if she can speak to the old woman who is following her, but when the hitchhiker gets there, everything the old woman says is so horrifying that Ruby runs away in fear.

Ruby heads to a pub in a nearby town, where the locals mock her, mistaking her hesitation for disrespect. She asks one of the regulars to talk to the woman, but when he does, the same thing happens. Ruby goes home and asks her mother to hold the phone and talk to her so she can hear what Ruby is saying. However, the call is interrupted and her mother, equally horrified by what she hears, quickly locks Ruby out of the house. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart UNIT then offers to help, but when they encounter the woman, they all abandon her.

The old woman is always 73 yards away from Ruby’s location, unnoticed unless Ruby draws her attention; her face is too blurred to photograph, and no one can get close enough to hear her ominous warnings. In fact, many mysteries remain unsolved by the end of the episode.

Ruby is mysteriously resilient, and once she gets over her abandonment, she tries to build a new life. Treating her stalker as a friend and wishing her well, a montage plays out the next chapters of Ruby’s life: she gets a job, moves into her own apartment, and experiences a series of breakups as she slowly ages into her 30s, then 40s. Then she sees Roger ap Gwilam on the television; Roger even mentions Mad Jack, recalling both the Doctor’s warning and the message of the fairy ring. Ruby soon becomes convinced that her purpose in life is to save the world and avert Gwilam’s nuclear disaster.

She signs up as a volunteer for Gwilam’s fascist party, eventually rising to a position near the top. Gwilam rises quickly through the ranks, and it’s not long before he’s promising to withdraw from NATO, triggering Britain’s nuclear arsenal, and preparing to wage war on the rest of the world. Gwilam’s inauguration takes place at Cardiff City Stadium, and Ruby follows the politician, lurking in the crowd.

Ruby then begins to approach Gwilam across the restricted pitch of the stadium. It seems as though she will pull out a weapon. Instead, she takes out her phone and begins measuring the distance between herself and Roger, closing in on her to 73 yards. As she measures the distance, she gestures for the bad guy to notice the woman, and when he notices her, he hears her say the horrifying words. The impact is enough to make Gwilam run out of the stadium, resign as Prime Minister and stop nuclear war.

Ruby had hoped that would be the end of it, but the appearance stayed with her for the rest of her life. Only on her deathbed did she realise she could project herself back in time to warn the Doctor not to step into the fairy ring. In doing so, she prevented the accident in the first place, paradoxically nullifying the entire time stream in the process. History went on happily and all was well… for now. But given the risk of paradox, Doctor Whoand the general feeling that history is unravelling may not bode well for what’s to come.

“73 Yards” is an exercise in putting characters in a hostile world and seeing what they do to deal with it, which, when you transcribe it, doesn’t feel like there’s a lot going on, because so much of the episode is spent exploring Ruby as a character. Doctor Who Stories come alive when they’re played by companions who want to own the story, and Ruby Sunday seems all too capable of drawing logic from her experiences and acting accordingly.

There are narrative and thematic similarities between the new series and Davies’ first term, and this episode is taken from “Turn Left.” Both are about what happens to the companions when the Doctor steps back from the story, and what they do to right that wrong. And it’s no wonder they suggest that without the Doctor’s intervention, Britain would slide into fascism within days.

Ruby’s humanity shines through, even to the point where she tries to treat her tormentors with kindness. She refuses to fly or travel by boat in order not to endanger the lives of the ghosts who are pursuing her, no matter how much damage it might cause her own life. And when she sees Roger ap Gwilum on TV, she becomes convinced that it is her destiny to prevent the nuclear war the Doctor has warned about. This is another useful thread, the idea that Ruby has an instinctive grasp of the genre she exists in, as she did in “Space Babies”.

As for the ending, perhaps it’s best to talk about its “atmosphere”, a slightly twisted association in the show’s logic. Ruby, at the end of her life, finds herself able to time travel, to somehow project herself, in order to avoid the Doctor’s fall. There’s nothing in the episode to indicate this, no hint that the ghostly figure is Ruby, or that it has anything to do with Snow or anything else. But perhaps the trick with an episode like this is not to go any further than that, but to simply relax and enjoy the character development.

Susan Twisted Corner

Apparently, Susan Twist will play the hiker who Ruby first encounters after the Doctor disappears and who she first realizes is familiar with. In the materials sent by Disney, the character of Susan Twist is named “The Mysterious Woman.”

Speaking of plot twists, you’ll recall that in the final credits of “The Church of Ruby Road,” Mrs. Flood (Anita Dobson) breaks the fourth wall. This annoying neighbor character, who lives next door to Ruby’s mother’s apartment, turns to the camera and asks, “Have you never seen the TARDIS?” (Considering her surprise at seeing the TARDIS earlier in the episode, it’s clear that her history may have changed over the course of the show). When Ruby returns to her mother’s house, Mrs. Flood (played by Anita Dobson) is sitting on the steps in a deck chair. Interestingly, she notices a ghostly figure and, seeing Ruby and her mother trying to deal with it, declares, “It’s none of my business,” and goes inside. This, too, felt like a hint that Mrs. Flood and the mysterious woman are two different people.