Gridlock
Russell T Davies has admitted freely that the influence of Judge Dredd's Mega City One is all over his script for this episode, and it shows - with a varied array of freaks, crazies and weirdos trapped on the Motorway, not to mention the lovely deliberate homage to informer Max Normal (though it would have been great to have The Businessman talk in Max's "hey daddio" patter rather than the predictable upper class). Though I think that Judge Dredd would have banished the cat people to the Cursed Earth as being mutants. There were links too in the concept of a never ending traffic jam, with people living in "mo-pad" mobile homes for all their lives, and the idea of "City bottom" being somewhere where bad things happen.
However, where as Dredd's world has a consistent internal logic, RTD's script had more holes in it than a swiss cheese factory. To be honest it would be easy to find fault with loads of things (such as, if they had inter-car communication, why, in 24 years had no-one radioed back to say that the motorway didn't go anywhere?), but at the end of the day you know what? I actually really enjoyed the episode - and that's primarily because it had bags of heart, and dealt with the idea of faith through adversity in an interesting and entertaining way.
I am not a religious person at all. I have only been to church for the obvious christenings, marriages and funerals. And I have strangely never heard "The Old Rugged Cross" before - despite it apparently being one of the top ten hymns. Maybe that's why the whole scene with the travellers singing together genuinely moved me. I have watched it several times since Saturday, and each time the same thing happens. Maybe it's sloppy writing to have a Christian hymn survive so long, and maybe the whole New Earth thing would fit better if it was a few hundred years in the future rather than five billion, but it worked for me. Apparently the more people change, the more they stay the same...
Maybe that's why the whole scene with the travellers singing together genuinely moved me.
That's seemingly true of the Irish as well, at least on New Earth. Americans seem to have disappeared from New New York, but Brannigan is evident proof that the Irish still have their pioneering spirit in the far future. I found it easy to ignore thoughts of Thermoman and just enjoy Ardal's performance - the makeup being so excellent didn't hurt either. I can only assume that one of the reasons their journey took so long was because they pulled into the equivalent of a service station occasionally, bought a hit of "happy happy joy joy" from those dodgy street vendors and had a bit of inter-racial shagging in the lay-by. "Dogging" takes on a whole new meaning. Still, the kittens were dead cute.
...bought a hit of "happy happy joy joy" from those dodgy street vendors and had a bit of inter-racial shagging in the lay-by.
Both The Doctor and Martha were excellent once again, particularly Martha bonding with her kidnappers, and the Doctor rocking the status quo by asking those questions all the little Mo-Padders had forgotten to think about.
And then we have the return of the Macra, or the Tulips of Doom as they looked at first glance. No reason why they were there, no genuine reason for them to attack people and no resolution to their presence at the end of the episode - typical stuff from our Mr D then really! Still if you are going to have a pointless monster to create some menace, it might as well be one from 40 years ago.
Finally, the Face of Boe uses his life to let everyone out of the Undercity and gives his last, predictable message to the Doctor. I was hoping for him to ask the Doc "Why are you always shouting?". Still, we knew what was coming, it was just the way David Tennant played it perfectly that made all the difference. Shock and denial all at once, but still keeping it all internalised. It's also good to see that Martha won't take no for an answer or any of the old "I'll explain later" crap from the Doctor. More and more I prefer her to Rose.
Next Week: Daleks Take Manhattan. Who's for Dalek Sec in a huge Busby Berkeley number?