Gridlock
Who among us can say that they’ve never had the vague inclination to kill masses of people, just because they’re there? I know I have. Let me explain.
The people that I want to kill are in cars. More specifically, they’re in traffic jams. All I’ve got to do is get from A to B, and I drive out of my house to find out that everyone else also thought that B looked pretty interesting today. You get stuck, bumper to bumper, moving forward in tiny, pathetic jumps. Part of you wants to scream. Part of you wants to have a rocket launcher. It’s not really about killing people; just reaffirming that you’re the most important thing in the universe, and getting where you want to go.
There are two moments in ‘Gridlock’ that played to that feeling so strongly, that I was sold on the whole episode:
- When we zoom out and see the swathes of cars, lined up, vertically and horizontally, unmoving.
- When they finally move… about a metre, then stop.
It’s hard to capture a scary, fairy-tale fear in an adult, but the idea of an almost infinitely huge, near-stationary traffic jam works for me. Of course, you could also see it as just a daggy joke.1 One could be critical of the scenario. While some of the story is merely unlikely — and thus, surely perfect subject matter for Doctor Who — there is also some that is somewhat ridiculous. But more than most of Davies Who scripts, I’m ready to defend its blurred-over issues. This is because, more than most of Davies’ Who, it felt like poetry. It took a silly idea, took it seriously, and played with it.
The story is simple; millions of people on New Earth are stuck in the most amazing traffic jam you can conceive of. They quietly accept their fate, for their rate of movement is just fast enough to make them believe they can one day make it to their destination. This sheep like mentality disgusts the Doctor when he arrives, but not as much as the horrid truth behind their predicament.
What raises ‘Gridlock’ up another notch is the framing of the action with the Doctor and Martha’s discussions of Gallifrey. The Doctor’s lie at the start is beautiful, and ties Tennant’s Doctor to the loss of his planet more than any scene he’s had before.2 And in Martha’s best moment yet, her retort to the Doctor’s standard glossing over of the truth is to grab a chair and sit at him, aggressively.
My biggest beef is the pre-titles sequence, which sucked. I’m starting to despair of them. They should be awesome, intriguing, and make the most of that awesome lead-in to the title music. They should not just be Johnny Randoms getting killed off inside a box. Last week’s wasn’t much better. I happen to know that next week’s is worse, because I’m behind on reviews. Gah. Have we forgotten the awesomeness of ‘Bad Wolf’ already?
Ultimately, the story is beautiful, and very weird, and that balances out slightly implausible situations for me, any day of the week.
Oh, and there were Macra. Huh.
- I like daggy jokes, too, so the possibility doesn’t really bother me. ↩
- Season Two never really made me feel like the Tennant Doctor was as affected by the War as Eccleston’s. If it’s going to be important this year, then I’m glad of this story. And I think it will be. “You are not alone.” Nice one. For a show that actually said “There’s a storm coming” last year, this is mind-bogglingly subtle foreshadowing. ↩
Shannon
April 30th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Macra… huh??
Tom
May 1st, 2007 at 1:59 am
I gave you a link. What more can I do?
Chris
May 1st, 2007 at 9:14 am
I do not watch Doctor Who.Just thought you’d like to know.
andy
May 1st, 2007 at 7:51 pm
I was expecting more from the Face of Boe than just dying like Yoda. It seemed unlikely that he could keep things going, yet not tell everyone to laeve the undercity once the virus has gone and everyone up top was dead.
I liked that the action was arranged vertically this week, with not-Rose at the bottom, the Doctor climbing down to get her and the cat-nun following the doctor down.
Shannon
May 1st, 2007 at 9:13 pm
The link made me even more confused. To be fair, i only skimmed cos I was so darn boring. Something about missing the footage from an episode. I still don’t know what a Macra is or what is has to do with ‘gridlock’. But never mind.
andy
May 1st, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Macra is the plural of macro. One macro, two macra.
Tom
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:04 am
Now Shannon, if you refuse to listen dialogue in the episode or read text then this may get difficult. The crabs were referred to as Macra in the show. These creatures were in an old episode of Doctor Who in the sixties. That’s it. What’s a macro, Andy?
This isn’t a Doctor Who site, Chris, it just feels like it at the moment. One day it will be more interesting.
Davies loves his vertical action. As far as ups and downs go I thought it was much better than ‘New Earth’.
It’s a tricky thing, the Boe conundrum. If neither he or the nun know anything about computers then it seems eminently possible that they were helpless to open the roof of the motorway and save everyone. This is surprising though as Boe generally seems like a pretty cluey feller. I wish the Doctor had had to use power from the TARDIS; it would have felt a lot more sensible.
Shannon
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:42 am
Oooohhh – the crabs – that’s all ya had to say. This episode was weeks ago, I can’t remember what the crabs were called, pfft!! Now that you’ve explained it, thats actually quite cool. Creatures from the sixties reappearing. And no one can question their accuracy with the missing episode business – sneaky! I like it :)
I never really got the whole face of Boe thing… is that something else that happened in the time war thats another insider joke/plot? Or did they actually only meet in this series? Cos if so.. that whole business is just so vague as to be explodingly irritating. And I don’t mean his not-so-mysterious message about other time lords. Just the whole “it’s a giant head in a jar!” thing.
andy
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:45 pm
“We’re both alike, you and I, Doctor. Both the last of our kinds – except for you.”
Tom
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:40 pm
According to interviews, the Doctor not alone, but he is the last Time Lord. Ooooh confusing.
With the Face of Boe, what we’ve seen is all that there’s been. He was reasonably cool in ‘New Earth’ but given how little contact he had with the Doctor in ‘The End of the World’ I also find it odd that they seem to have such a bond at the end there. It is a cool looking head in a jar, as heads in jars go.
Yeah, sorry. Crabs. If you’re going to have gas-eating monsters, and they did them once in the sixties, then you may as well use the name and design. Though some fans have complained. As they will, always.
Shannon
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:54 pm
How can they complain if the episode is missing? How can inconsistency be claimed if there is nothing to compare it to?! No offense Tom, but sometimes Dr Who fans seem very moronic and juvenile.
Chris – one way to disipate the dominion of Dr Who-dom would be to write a review yourself of something else. Anything else. Please, dear god. Write a review of LuckyCoq or something. I would, but I’m lazy, see.
Tom
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Ah, lazy. Good excuse. I’ll be reviewing a few films in future if it makes people feel better.
There are many many photos of the episode, a complete sound recording, the script and the novelisation of the story. So there’s plenty to complain about. Still, the complaints were not of inconsistency, but of pointlessness.
Every group on the planet contains moronic, juvenile people. It’s just more obvious online because they can sneak up on you more easily.