(727) Gridlock

Gridlock is one of those stories that I have always had a soft spot for. I don’t know why but I do and this series is going from strength to strength. The Doctor promising Martha with just one trip was never going to be just one trip and he breaks this rule pretty quickly. The first TARDIS scene is quite nice because it is The Doctor trying to tell Martha about Gallifrey is quite sad and it’s the first time that he’s stopped and thought about his home world since that little scene in The End of the World.

Gridlock is a very apt name because people move incredibly slowly. It takes 12 years to move 5 miles. I have days like that going to work.

Martha is kidnapped by Milo and Cheen because it means that their car has three passengers. Your not a Doctor Who companion until you have been kidnapped. This is the first time that Martha has been separated properly and Martha holds her own with Milo and Cheen. The Doctor spends the entire episode trying to find Martha and yet the episode works this way. It’s fun seeing Martha pretty much thrown in at the deep end and at one point comes to the realisation that she could die and her mum and dad wouldn’t know what happened to her.

The car that appears in different guises is the same set. Some credit needs to go to the set designers because it cant have been an easy task but they pulled it off. It helps that the different characters that feature in each car make it seem like a different home. Due to the speed that they are travelling at they are basically living in these cars. I don’t think I could live in them as there isn’t very much room in there and the lack of Bluetooth means that I couldn’t listen to any Big Finish on my phone.

Ardal O’Hanlon is a guest star in this episode and I know him best for playing Dougal McGuire in Father Ted. He is disguised as a cat and plays Thomas Kincade Brannigan. It’s hard not to like Brannigan because he is so cheerful. I think that the character could have featured more but I suppose the restrictions of the plot mean that he is stuck in the one car. It’s another example (Peter Kay being the first) of ideal casting been squandered.

The song Abide with Me is a wonderful addition to the episode and its lovely in the context of this bleak setting. Then again it’s not exactly an uplifting song because everyone (bar the Doctor) gets all emotional. A classic era makes a surprising return in this episode. There was no hint anywhere that this monster was going to return. The Macra last appeared in 1967 so it’s a monster that hardly anyone has ever seen. I don’t know what the point was really because they could have been nameless and it would have worked the same.

This episode sees the third and final appearance of the Face of Boe who as mentioned in New Earth reveals his secret and its that the Doctor is not alone. This is basically telling the Doctor that there are more Timelords. Although the Doctor is convinced he is wrong which will be explained in future episodes. There is a nice explanation about the Time War which is the first time that its been talked about any certain degree. This ending was perhaps a lot more downbeat than I had remembered in the past but overall I thought that the performances were strong and Richard Clark did a great job in directed what was largely a CGI episode and did a great job of making it seem like their were loads of cars instead of just one. The next episode is the first two parter of the series and from memory its not one of my favourites.