Doctor Who: Turn Left...

[fajrdrako]

I think I am stunned by this episode. I don't think I was able to breathe for the last forty minutes of it.

1. I liked the way there was a symmetry with "Midnight", where Donna only appeared at the beginning and the end of the episode. In this, the Doctor only appeared at the beginning and the end.
   
   
2. I liked the title, "Turn Left", on several counts. There was the notion of "the road not taken" as in Robert Frost. There was the idea that it's a mysterious command to Donna, to do the right thing or the wrong thing, and the mundanity of its starting her mother's attempts to control her life by making her take the other job.
   
   
3. Could anyone look at Shan Shen, and not think of Firefly?
   
   
4. The fortune teller was interesting, and I thought I saw a sort of parallel between her and the much more benign (but eery) child in Torchwood's "Dead Man Walking" and "Fragments". But what was her agenda? Was she an agent of ... whoever is bringing the Darkness? Presumably she wanted the Doctor out of the way so the universe could be destroyed. But why? Is she someone like Bilis, whose motivation will be left for speculation?
   
   
5. So now we know what was on Donna's back, the thing she couldn't see. From the Tricksters' brigade. Great concept, from my favourite episode of Sarah Jane Adventures.
   
   
6. I liked the bit where the sonic screwdriver fell out of the Doctor's lifeless hand. Also liked the bit in the Confidential in which Tennant was worrying over whoever supplied the hand, and whether they did a good enough job playing it.
   
   
7. Coincidences? Hmm.
   
   
8. Hearing the Doctor say "she never existed, now", in reference to Rose (even if he didn't know it was her) - that was chilling.
   
   
9. And what Rose said - Bad Wolf - eeee! I thought what Rose had whispered to the dying Donna was "Rose Tyler", her own name, in a parallel to River Song's whispering the Doctor's own name to him in "Forest of the Dead". But it wasn't that, it was even better.
   
   I like Bad Wolf.
   
   I loved the way suddenly all the banners and posters said "Bad Wolf" as soon as Donna had spoken the words. Like... a dream or nightmare where you can't turn away from something because it is everywhere.
   
   I love the way this must all be heart-wrenching or heartbreaking for the Doctor.
   
   
10. And in the trailer... Daleks. This makes me very happy.
    
    
11. Loved the moment where Donna went inside the (dark) TARDIS for the first time.
    
    
12. Loved it that we saw Corporal Harris again. Just... that touch of recognition. Fun. But I wish we'd seen Ross.
    
    
13. Jack, prisoner of the Sontarans. Are we to infer that Jack did what Luke Rattigan did in "The Poison Sky", and went to the Sonataran ship to sacrifice himself to save Earth?
    
    
14. The scenes in Leeds made me think of Children of Men, with the distopian militaristic control, and Life is Beautiful, where a brave Italian (Rocco Colasanto in this case) pretends everything is fine even though he's being taken to a prison camp. Are we to believe that they were actually being taken away to be executed?
    
    
15. I found the scene with Donna and the mirrors very frightening. I liked Captain Marissa Magambo.
    
    
16. And what a treat to see Chipo Chung again! - Not that I'd have recognized her without the credits!
    
    
17. I see the write-up on Wikipedia mentions the cloister bell. I missed it again. Huh.
    
    
18. I know I have a lot to say about the episode that I'm too sleepy to think of now. commodorified, auriaephiala and raynedaze and I discussed it at some length, which was fun in itself: getting into the differences between the Ninth Doctor and the Tenth Doctor and how they felt about Rose and about themselves.
    
    I'll probably have more to say when I watch it again, which I will probably do again soon.
    

Comments

[fruitbat813.livejournal.com]

Maybe it´s because I´m German but I didn´t believe the labour camp story for even a nanosecond. Like maisedoat said, that´s the exact same thing the Nazis told the Jews. The family is not sent to an internment camp, Britain is not at war, they were not attacked by another country and these people are not a security threat.

However, they need places to live and most of all, food to eat. Half the country is an irradiated wasteland, lots of farmland lost, the borders are closed, no aid coming in and no one can leave. The Adipose decide to relocate to the United States which basically tells you everything you need to know. No more fat people in the UK. Not enough food for everyone. So you pick a group of people that no one will make a fuss about, spread a comforting lie that no one believes but will allow people to sleep at night and reduce the number of mouths to feed, either by firing squad, gas chamber or by simply taking them somewhere remote and out of sight where they can quietly starve to death.

Any doubters thinking it´s something more benign or rather slightly less evil should listen to the podcast commentary where the director talks about how he filmed Donna´s arrival in Leeds like "a WWII evacuation with Auschwitz just around the corner".

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, then - that proves it! As I thought, but nice to see it confirmed.