Doctor Who: 73 Yards

 “Everyone has abandoned me my whole life…”

Let’s just pause to get the praise out of the way before we start: this is a bloody brilliant bit of telly. Now that’s out of the way… yeah, this is going to be a long one. Make yourself comfortable. 

So the Doctor and Ruby land in what’s instantly recognisable as the South Wales cost to we long-running Doctor Who fans. The Doctor briefly mentions a future prime minister from the area, Roger ap Gwilliam, but it’s nicely downplayed, a throwaway remark and not obvious as Chekhov’s gun at this point.

Ruby disturbs an odd little new age shrine thingy… and suddenly the Doctor vanishes, for this is a Doctor-lite story. And suddenly the direction, the cinematography, the texture of the footage itself, suddenly start to look like the best of co temporary horror. And the central conceit is utter genius: a ghostly old female figure always follows Ruby, staring exactly seventy-three yards away. Others can approach her, but not Ruby… and when others approach, they run. This is deeply creepy and possibly the best horror idea ever in Doctor Who, in terms of both idea and execution.

Of course, I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought of the Watcher in Logopolis…

Anyway, we soon meet a hiker lady, played by Susan Twist, who was the AI ambulance last episode but, in hindsight, has played an awful lot of bit parts recently. And Ruby notices, at this point, that her face is sort of familiar… yeah, definitely a Bad Wolf sort of situation. Who is she? And, while we’re at it, who is Mrs Flood, who briefly appears again? Susan was mentioned last episode- could either of them be her?

There follows a quietly brilliant scene in a local pub where Ruby, at a loss with what to do, meets with an unfriendly reception, being English. Yet there is fault on both sides. The pubgoers are certainly rude, unjustifiably so, but Ruby is also guilty of stereotyping although, perhaps, “racist” is a strong word. I love the prank they play on Ruby about the fairy circle thingy and “Mad Jack”, and all that stuff about the cliff top being a boundary between land and seas and a “liminal space”… the first time that concept has been mentioned in Doctor Who. Oh, and yeah, up until the joke is revealed it’s all bloody terrifying.

It gets worse, of course. Ruby goes home, Carla goes to talk to the figure, runs… and abandons Ruby, shockingly. We get a nice, reassuring cameo with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart… but the same happens with her… although not before, as the explains UNIT to Ruby, complete with its habit of employing ex-companions, as an organisation that deals with extra-terrestrial threats and now also the supernatural as “Things seem to be turning that way these days”. Hmm. Since the Doctor did that thing with the salt in Wild Blue Yonder, perhaps?

Ruby, though, is alone… and the years and decades go by, the figure always there and Ruby never finding happiness, being dumped by boyfriend after boyfriend. It’s an extraordinary direction for the story to go in, much though we sort of know at this point that there’s going to be some sort of reset button.

And so we have the clever resolution. The decades going by and the slightly off near-future feels very Years and Years. But Ruby manages to save the world from a nationalistic nuke -happy maniac by using the figure as a weapon to get Ap Gwilliam to give up. Don’t you think he looks tired?

And so Ruby lives out her sad lovely, life, a life dedicated to saving the world but at a terrible cost to her. No snow, no family, no excitement, no love. And then… the final reveal. The Doctor. And Ruby suddenly has a second chance at life.

I suspect, if you look too closely. There may be the odd little plot inconsistency. I don’t care. This is more than just brilliant. It’s beautiful.