Gridlock

It was back in 1980 during the New York City Transit strike that the newspapers started to use the word "Gridlock" to describe traffic congestion in New York City. Sam Schwartz, NYC chief traffic engineer has admitted the internal departmental use of the word began as early as the 1970's. In GRIDLOCK the BBC's latest Doctor Who offering, we see the Doctor and Martha traveling back to the future to New Earth and rediscovering New New York as any good traveler should - when Martha is kidnapped and the Doctor enters on one of his most perilous quests ever to retrieve her.? GRIDLOCK is a high concept episode that wildly succeeds to entertain, while successfully bringing the "Face Of Boe" arc to a close, and reintroducing, a most unexpected return of a 1960's era Doctor Who enemy.? Riding shotgun in the backseat on a most unusual Doctor Who adventure is once again, the perennial favorite Russell T Davies, who pulls all stops and releases to deliver a whirlwind chase episode that had this fan on the edge of his seat and wondering just how would the Doctor ever be able to retrieve Martha Jones. And so GRIDLOCK begins!

The episode opens almost as a harbinger to the strangeness that would follow in a subterranean area of New New York .No apple grass and gleaming skyscrapers to be seen here.? The sense of d?j? vu that was notable in THE SHAKESPEARE CODE is present once again, only this time, explained away by Davies when Martha discovers The Doctor is taking her to the same places he took Rose. The Doctor and Martha work so well together that it's hard to imagine the Doctor consciously doing this to help him deal with Rose's loss. The Doctor is damaged goods and Martha is beginning to see his pain blistering through the cracks in the wall he has put up between them. Yet his dedication to her, is never in question. David Tennant's Doctor is one who seems to be increasingly angry at the universe and the way things are and he is self-assured to threaten anything that stands in his light. His reaction to the "Mood" dealers him and Martha first encounter sets the tone for the entire episode. There is no attempt to mask the anti ? drug theme of GRIDLOCK, but Uncle Russell's paradoxal script is designed to mask several themes being interwoven at once. The unfiltered anti drug message is perhaps the most noble element of any RTD script imparted as a moral lesson to youngsters and even adults watching the series. Of course Davies liberal left has crept in between the lines of scripts to deliver even stronger messages in a new age and time and once again GRIDLOCK is never as innocent as it seems.

Chris Rea recorded a song a song in 1989 called " The Road To Hell", a song about a never ending traffic jam., an" upwardly mobile freeway " that had become "The Road To Hell"? Chris Rea's "Road to Hell" was much more than just a highway, and Russell T. Davies? motorway beneath the gleam of New New York is a metaphor for something much greater? than just a Gridlock. Martha is kidnapped by Milo and Cheen; two mislead refugees from the motorway, looking to start life in the fast lane. With the Doctor in pursuit, it is here on the motorway where most of the story and much of the action takes place in GRIDLOCK. Entering the motorway, the Doctor, is quickly picked up by Thomas Kincaid Branigan, and his fair Valerie who has just given birth to a litter of very furry felines. The Doctor learns the couple has been circling on the motorway now for 12 years and suspects that something is amiss in New New York.? After realization and coming to terms that he lied to Martha, the Doctor sets out to find Martha amidst the Gridlock of spaced age mini vans in a dizzy, death defying search, leaping from car to car. Branigan and Valerie's remarks that the Doctor is "insane" but "magnificent" sums up Tennant's portrayal perfectly, even on a Wednesday afternoon. The Doctor, leaping from car to car with his sonic screwdriver in hand in the carbon monoxide fog is about as crazy as it gets in GRIDLOCK, and all this is executed very well and takes boldly where no DOCTOR WHO episode has taken us, or the Doctor before.

At first you really don't believe GRIDLOCK can pull it off, but as the Doctor goes from car to car in search of Martha, we are introduced to a carnival of Fellini-esque characters that could only turn up in one of Russell Davies scripts, or at one of his martini parties! Our hasty introductions are punctuated with some light heartened humor as the doctor encounters a nudist couple reading "Hanging Out" magazine amongst an array of strange characters. None stand out more prominently than the Cassini Sisters who are friends of Thomas Kincaid Brannigan, who after 23 years circling New New York have a log book of the journey and a 1930's period d?cor in their hyperspace aged mini van that would give "Old House Interiors "magazine a run for their money. Ironically each car the Doctor enters has a specific personality, from the man with the white suits to the Man in the Bowler hat who helped him get to the lower lanes to discover Ian Stuart Black's 1960's creation, the MACRA, tossing up one of the meanest crab salads ever seen on BBC TV. The characters the Doctor and Martha encounter in the GRIDLOCK are indeed memorable, if only for their brief appearance. A credit here to Mr. Davies, is that you genuinely do start to care about Branigan and Valerie and even Martha's unlikely kidnappers become likeable in their life and death struggle in the Fast Lane. Everyone on this motorway is on his or her own journey and somewhere in this GRIDLOCK Russell T Davies has parallel -parked a thought provoking commentary on the human race.

Davies has taken the threads of the "Face Of Boe' arc and woven them perfectly with a revisiting of "New Earth" as well as presenting to us a dazzlingly adventurous, fast paced story that also serves to hammer out the characters of Martha and the Doctor in the shape of the new series. By the time Nurse Javitt the Cat arrives to teleport the Doctor to the Senate at the request of the Face Of Boe, our minds have been flooded with the tapestry of souls who have been caught in the Gridlock. It is here in the Senate the Doctor learns of the Death of New New York. As Milo and Cheen's? car sits disabled at the bottom of the motor way in the fast lane, we learn a lot about Martha's character? and her resourcefulness as well.? It is unusual to say the least to find a spirituality woven through a Russell Davies script. The man is a self-professed atheist and is very outgoing in his distain of organized religion. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS treaded similar controversial territory but never even blinked an eye even as it bordered on blasphemy. Fortunately, Davies is much softer here than Daleks who discover religion. Trapped in their cars, for years on a freeway to know-where, we discover that the one thing this fellini-esque gathering of misfit refugee's had in common was religion. Faith, songs and hymns for a new age generation. The big difference is in Russell T Davies church of man, Everyone, people of all denominations, species, cats and dogs and men in Bowler hats are welcome, and maybe this is Davies secret message he would wish to bestow on us. In the middle of the GRIDLOCK, I think Russell Davies tried to tell us that whoever you are on a journey, the journey's end is worth the ride!?? When the Doctor with the help of Boe frees the cars from the gridlock and saves Martha from the scissor like claws of the Macra, he tells all the cars to proceed upwards. As the cars rise into the sky, we see the sunlight on the faces of this band of tired New New Yorkers for the first time in 23 years. The Senate scenes and the Doctor's reunion for the third and final time with the Face Of Boe bring all the ends of the story together perfectly. While the Macra in the story was a total hands down surprise, Boe's final words have been buzzing the blogs and forums for months now, with some speculation that Boe may very well be the Doctor himself. In fact, being billions of years old, he may very well have been the creator of the universe and as such, his death would be considerably more difficult to accept.? His death still left a lot of mystery still unknown about Boe, but what an enjoyable thread through the series he has been.

This episode was executed perfectly and once again; you cannot dissect the story without gaining a profound admiration for Russell T Davies and his unique ability at constructing literary vehicles capable of delivering so much without sacrificing believability and entertainment value. He is a true alchemist whose scripts elevate the characters portrayed in them. His one major failing lies in his inability to free his scripts from modern day pitfalls. Davies takes great pains to make the motorway journey of Milo and Cheen, believable- he does it with science and technology that will long be outdated by the time New New York is built. But then again, not everyone is Isaac Asimov either. It was indeed a funny moment when Martha was chewing on a cracker while being told the waste along the journey is recycled back into a food product.? His ability to revisit past character, places and stories successfully is never more apparent than in this particular story.? The Doctor's explanation to Martha about his home world and him being the "last" of the time lords smacks a bit to similar to Chris Eccleson's Doctor's soliloquy to Rose in the First Season.? When Martha offers her solace that he has her and maybe this is what Boe meant in his final words to the Doctor, the Doctor is too quick to steely deny this. His coldness to Martha is surprising-almost as if he is defending his heart.? Again however, it is going over ground already established in season in a far too similar way.

The Doctor leaves New Earth and New New York with "just what every city needs?. cats in charge" and once again another strong outing for Russell T. Davies that leaves one wondering if Janis Joplin is ever going to want her coat back!