Gridlock

Well, that was? odd. 'Gridlock' manages to be entertaining whilst deeply flawed, succeeding against the odds, but only just. I enjoyed it more than it deserved really, which is especially unexpected as I have several major criticisms of it.

The basic premise of 'Gridlock' manages to be simultaneously ludicrous and amusingly bizarre, with a world in which everyone is perpetually trapped in a traffic jam on an endless motorway to nowhere having merit as a novel modern urban nightmare. It doesn't stand up to any real scrutiny in terms of logic, and the total lack of explanation for why huge numbers of couples haven't gone mad from cabin fever and slaughtered each other seems less like an oversight and more like something that Davies has ignored purely because he hasn't got a good explanation for it. Still, it makes for an interesting if unlikely set-up.

Then there are the Macra. For anyone unfamiliar with 'The Macra Terror' or indeed the classic series as a whole, the inclusion of the Macra here as big scary monsters probably works quite well, but for two small points. Firstly, unfamiliar with the creatures or not, the line about them once being "the scourge of this galaxy" is yet another example of Davies' style of "tell not show" writing, upping the ante by using throwaway dialogue to make his villains/monsters seem like a more formidable threat than they otherwise might, and it's terribly, terribly lazy (and if you are familiar with the creatures, it's about as convincing as being told that the Krotons once ruled the entire universe). Secondly, they vanish from the plot, their function fulfilled, as soon the Doctor opens the roof of the motorway, and they aren't mentioned again. It would have been nice, and not I feel too much to ask, to find out what happens to them. Do they all die when the fresh air is let in? Do the inhabitants of New New York plan on clearing them out at a later date? Or are they just left to lurk in the under city like unusually big rats?

On the other hand, viewers familiar with 'The Macra Terror' get the cheap fannish thrill of a largely unexpected old monster making a comeback, but I ended up wondering why Davies bothered. Given their modus operandi in 'The Macra Terror', I was briefly expecting that the Macra were responsible for the traffic jam and were using it as a sort of battery farm/flying larder, so the revelation that they have devolved into mere beasts and have simply mindlessly taken advantage of an ecological niche felt like a wasted opportunity. Although it wasn't as disappointing as realising that Davies' obsession with Joss Whedon has now led him to rip-off bits of the plot of Serenity. And whilst the Macra aren't exactly revered as the best designed monsters in Doctor Who, their claws here are so disproportionately big that instead of wondering if the car carrying Martha would escape, I found myself wondering why the Macra don't keep toppling onto their fronts.

Speaking of Martha, she gets rather a good outing here, and Agyeman continues to impress. Despite the teeth-grindingly annoying "rebound" conversation, and Martha speculating on whether the Doctor really likes her or just enjoys company (which, incidentally, briefly makes her sound like a prostitute, which is amusing but presumably unintentional), she gets to show her intelligence again when she realises that the Macra won't be able to find the car if they power down its systems. Her brief anger at Cheen taking drugs whilst pregnant is a nice moment, since it is a perfectly believable reaction for a medical student, but her best scene comes at the end, when she forces the Doctor to tell her what happened to his people in a way that Rose would never have got away with. Given the direction that this series is rumoured to be going in, and with the Daleks returning in the next episode, this not only works as a good character moment, but provides a timely catch-up for casual viewers into the bargain.

It's also a good scene for the Doctor, with Tennant, continuing to show restraint, emoting convincingly as he talks about Gallifrey and the Time War. He generally gets a good episode too, especially when he's dropping from car to car, and he again gets to save an entire world. Some reviewers have already complained that throwing a big lever constitutes another Davis ex machina ending, but to be fair it feels more logical than some such finales, as repairing the city's systems seems like a sensible approach to the problem in hand. My main problem with the Doctor concerns Davies' typically unsubtle anti-drugs message, as the Doctor waltzes into a street of small businesses that he has no reason to believe are anything other than perfectly legitimate and high-handedly and pompously threatens to close them down. So presumably Russell, he'll be taking the same stance with off-licenses and pubs the next time he's in present day England, or don't you have a self-righteous axe to grind with that particular drug?

As for the supporting characters, only Ardal O'Hanlon's Brannigan stands out, and only because he's quite likeable, but at the same time all of the others work perfectly well here and the old ladies are nicely handled, with one of them cheerfully drawing on a passion for car-spotting to trace Martha for the Doctor. The actors playing the two people who die in terror in the pre-credits sequence also deserve a mention, for conveying fear very convincingly. Although the self-conscious eccentricity of the man in the bowler hat is irritating, and the idea of a woman giving birth to cats falls firmly into the bizarre category. In terms of production, Richard Clarke's direction is adequate: there's nothing especially outstanding, but I've seen worse and it gets the job done. And anyone reading this can take it as read that the music of Murray Gold, the twenty-first century equivalent of Keff McCulloch, detracts from my enjoyment of any episode in which it appears.

And then we have the Face of Boe. The third and final meeting between the Doctor and him promised back in 'New Earth' takes place and we learn his last great secret, which is that the Doctor is not alone. Which might have been a great dramatic moment were it not for the fact that the tabloids have already blown the big surprise in store later in the series, and had Davies not already revealed the Face of Boe's secret in the tie-in book Monsters and Villains some two years ago and decided that he wanted to use it in the series. Normally, I'd accept that as a fan I'm more likely to have picked up spoilers than the casual viewer, but lots of people (unfortunately) read the tabloids, and I'm assuming that many of the younger new viewers have read Monsters and Villains, so it does rather seem like an anticlimax rather than an exciting surprise revelation. Nevertheless, if the series is going in the direction that many of us have led us to believe, it does work in that context as part of the build-up. I just hope Davies doesn't do anything as witlessly stupid as the Bad Wolf revelation come the series finale?