In the last few days, I’ve watched both some of the most infuriating and best Doctor Who there is. Not only that, but I’ve also been listening to it and learning more about Evelyn Smythe who I’m ranking up there with Martha as far as companions go. Yes, that’s what you need to please me: A trainee doctor and a historian old enough to be in the history books that she studies. I’m a very simple man of very few pleasures, and this episode is one of them. However, it is a hard one to summarize without either sound boring or un-Doctor Who-like.

I’ll be honest, I liked “New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York” back when it had a hospital run by evil cat people. Though not as evil as Tom Hooper and Andrew Lloyd Webber, that drivel deserves to be thrown in the river like the bag of kittens in that very poorly-constructed way my high school English teacher used to imbue the lesson “killing the young is bad.” Jokes about horrific abominations of cinema and abhorrent facts about a disgusting education system made to indoctrinate views into teens aside, we’re back on New Earth! Well, it’s not new anymore, it’s been 30-years.

Yes, the city has moved on some since then. This time, The Doctor takes his companion to the slums of New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York, deep below the city to an area ravaged with a new form of drugs. The best drugs money can buy, pure chemical moods. You know how it is when you’re in the slums of an alien world billions of years into the future, your companion always gets kidnapped by a couple that are expecting. Obviously said couple wants to jump on the superhighway to the city, it always happens. That’s where it all collapses as a typical episode of Who, yet somewhat feels formulaic.

The Doctor spends most of his time threatening people for selling drugs that help people forget their parents died on the underground superhighway, where Martha was kidnapped in order to get on. If not that, he is talking to some 80-something lesbians that have been on the highway for about 23-years, as well as telling Brannigan he can go scratch himself silly if he thinks The Doctor isn’t going after Martha. I love Brannigan. He is the best Catkind I’ve ever met, top man… or Top Cat. It is all very much, The Doctor plays the hero and Martha is the damsel in distress, but she’s not in that much distress in the first place.

Sure, people have kidnapped her, drugged her into sleeping, and she is now trapped in a tin can being clawed at by the Macra (Giant space crabs;) but at least she’s not dead. That’s mostly it for about 30-minutes of the episode. The Doctor jumps from car (floating tin can of bolts) to car meeting all sorts of strange creatures: Redmen, white men, extremely white men, nudists, Nigel Farage’s twin (also listed as an extremely white man), J-pop fans, a black Cheetah Person (like Karra), and several other humanoid creatures. Oh, and while that devil is off hunting for Martha, Novice Hame is hunting down The Doctor with a gun so she can get him back to the Face of Boe.

This is what I’m finding troublesome when trying to summarize the episode, The Doctor isn’t the one to save the day. For the most part, he’s not even thinking about that goal. He’s trying to save Martha because he’s already lost Rose, now he’s brought Martha to where he took Rose, and he’s lost her to kidnappers. In fact, the entire episode is best summed up as a lot of action-based waving of the hands to distract until The Face of Boe reveals to The Doctor “But know this, Time Lord. You are not alone.” It takes 40-odd minutes to hint at one thing, and if it was done poorly I’d be complaining.

Sure, the Macra are the definition of what I was on about last time; A villain that’s just an inconvenience rather than an actual threat. However, the entire episode is done with Davies’ brilliant ability to create something out of nothing. A 23-year-old traffic jam because politicians got high on a drug that caused the one-day plague should not be exciting or fun, but Davies’ keeps the episode above water. No one is being punched in the head, no one is being blown to bits either. It is just a big claw reaching out from the depths, and that’s not what’s scary about it. What’s scary is the dread that you will be stuck in this gridlock for the rest of time, dying in a tin can hardly larger than a disabled cubicle in a rundown train station.

Look at the episode in any way you like, it is not meant to be fun or exhilarating. The entire episode is to get that one line out of The Face of Boe with his dying breath. It is (in fact) a very dark sci-fi episode full of grimy brown colors as the smug of the underground superhighway turns everything mucky. Yet for all that, for all my useless prattling on about preferring colorful backdrops and fun episodes, this is the one that breaks that and I enjoy it. That and Lenora Crichlow of Avenue 5 (oh, how wrong I was on that mess!) and Being Human with Russell Tovey, she’s great!

Next week, I’ll be talking about a housing crisis, an economic downturn that was described as “great,” and something about the 31st president being the cause. That or something about space Nazis trying to evolve. It’s one or the other.

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Doctor Who "Gridlock"

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Lenora Crichlow's Cheen
• Catkind are always great!
• The Cassinis are great to see.
• "and all waste products are recycled as food."

Cons

• Most of it is just filler.