Series 4 Boxset:
Series 4 Part 1:
Series 3 Boxset:
Director:
Graeme Harper
Screenplay:
Russell T. Davies
Cast:
The Doctor: David Tennant
Donna Noble: Catherine Tate
Rose Tyler: Billie Piper
Gramps: Bernard Cribbins
Sylvia Noble: Jacqueline King
Fortune Teller: Chipo Chung
Rocco Colasanto: Joseph Long
Captain Magambo: Noma Dumzwemi
Synopsis:
While visiting an alien planet, a beetle-like insect attaches itself to Donna's
back and alters history, throwing her into an alternative existence where she never met The Doctor...
Russell T. Davies writes himself a big love letter with "Turn Left", cramming
it with winks, nods and some sideways looks at the integral episodes that have
informed Doctor Who these past few years.
We begin on the alien planet of Shan Shen (an intergalactic Chinatown, based
on the dιcor), where The Doctor (David Tennant) has fun bartering with
local stallholders and Donna (Catherine Tate) is persuaded to visit a
Fortune Teller (Chipo Chung - who also played Chantho in last year's Utopia).
The Fortune Teller's true intentions are revealed when a giant beetle-like
insect attaches itself to Donna's back and somehow manipulates her history
making Donna turn right at a road junction (and consequently secure a £20,000
dream job) instead of left...
This simple decision alters established history, butterfly effect-style,
meaning Donna never meets The Doctor during "The Runaway Bride". Consequently
Davies' script spends most of its runtime illustrating how unbelievably
disastrous the loss of a Doctor/Donna team-up would be for mankind.
Now in
an alternate universe of her own forgotten making, The Doctor is killed under
the Thames while fighting the Queen of Racnoss in "The Runaway Bride", Martha
Jones is asphyxiated when her hospital is transported to the moon ("Smith And
Jones"), and the Titanic crashes into Buckingham Palace, destroying London in
a mushroom cloud ("Voyage Of The Damned"). This bizarre catastrophe forces the
UK into a not-very-plausible post-apocalypse where southern English refugees
cohabit with ethnic people up north, before the government solves the crisis
by transporting all "foreigners" to labour/concentration camps.
Donna wanders through this horrific parallel existence with numb, tearful
confusion perturbed by mysterious appearances of a blonde woman shortly
after each disaster a girl recognisable to audiences as Rose Tyler (Billie Piper).
It seems Rose has inexplicably found a way back to our universe (after the
events of "Doomsday") and apparently has a plan to correct Donna's timeline
and save the world using The Doctor's unused, dying TARDIS...
"Turn Left" is actually very enjoyable, despite being incredibly dour and
depressing for a good half-hour in the middle. RTD clearly enjoys looking at past
events from a different vantage point (a trick he employed, briefly, in "Love &
Monsters") -- but while it's generally fun and amusing, it's a bit excessive
here.
Americans wiped out by the chubby Adipose from "Partners In Crime", the planet's
ATMOS-powered cars smoking out the population (see: "The Sontaran Strategem"),
there's barely a moment that isn't referencing past new Who and its spin-offs
(Torchwood's Jack, Gwen and Ianto are mentioned, while Sarah-Jane Smith and her
kiddie gang bite the dust according to a news report.)
Away from the onanism of RTD's script, the basic idea behind Donna's situation
eventually gets on-track and builds to a fairly exciting climax (via a makeshift time-machine,
courtesy of UNIT) and a last-minute sting of recognition from The Doctor when
a "two word" message from Rose is delivered in an agreeable, spine-tingling
echo of season 1's big revelation.
However, the underlying mechanics of "Turn
Left" turn to mush under scrutiny, the return of Rose wasn't explained (she
just appears from an off-camera blue flash), and it made no sense that Rose
would even know what's going on with Donna let alone how to put things
right! Well, unless the next two episodes add some vital information we're
missing here.
So, suspension of disbelief is required and nitpickers will have a field day
with the all flaws in its logic. But, even so, "Turn Left" is punchy and
entertaining on a basic level and Catherine Tate shoulders this Doctor-lite
episode incredibly well. Indeed, Tate's well-judged reactions to this "what if?"
scenario are good compensation for the storytelling deficiencies, and she overshadows
the much-trumpeted return of Billie Piper who gives a comparatively two-dimensional
and bland performance.
In her first scene finds Piper even has problems deciding
on the right accent! Piper herself admitted finding it hard to remember how to
play Rose, and her inability to get back in the saddle is apparent. I just hope
she pulls herself together for the last two episodes.
Overall, there's a lot of stuff I had issues with, but "Turn Left" certainly had
a sense of pace and built to a decent, effective conclusion. Rose's big
return was underwhelming, but I liked the idea of an invisible parasite that
can change its host's personal history, some of the call-backs to old episodes
earned a good reaction, and there was plenty of juicy foreshadowing (not least
for Donna's strange relevance in The Doctor's life). However, like "Utopia" last
year, this is really just a stretch and flex before the two-part finale next
week.
A finale that throws everything and the kitchen sink into events, judging from
the trailer...
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Series 4 Boxset:
Synopsis:
While visiting an alien planet, a beetle-like insect attaches itself to Donna's
back and alters history, throwing her into an alternative existence where she never met The Doctor...
Donna wanders through this horrific parallel existence with numb, tearful
confusion perturbed by mysterious appearances of a blonde woman shortly
after each disaster a girl recognisable to audiences as Rose Tyler (Billie Piper).
It seems Rose has inexplicably found a way back to our universe (after the
events of "Doomsday") and apparently has a plan to correct Donna's timeline
and save the world using The Doctor's unused, dying TARDIS...
So, suspension of disbelief is required and nitpickers will have a field day
with the all flaws in its logic. But, even so, "Turn Left" is punchy and
entertaining on a basic level and Catherine Tate shoulders this Doctor-lite
episode incredibly well. Indeed, Tate's well-judged reactions to this "what if?"
scenario are good compensation for the storytelling deficiencies, and she overshadows
the much-trumpeted return of Billie Piper who gives a comparatively two-dimensional
and bland performance.
