* It’s hard to reconcile my residual dislike of Donna with the acknowledgement of her importance to The Doctor. My first reaction to the idea that he’d be dead without her is to scoff, but when I think back to The Runaway Bride, I have to concede that her function in that episode, when she was intended to be a one-off, is to snap the Doctor out of his post-Rose funk. It makes the question of whether it’s Donna that’s important, or if it’s just the Time Beetle, an interesting one, as you could interpret her original appearance as a case of being in the right place at the right time.
* In an episode all about the consequences of Donna never meeting The Doctor, one of the worst side-effects is her reverting to her pre-Series 4 personality for half an episode. And in an episode that revisits the recent past, it’s amusing that Donna’s beetle backpack evokes memories of Sarah Jane’s spider backpack. There’s also the return of Chantho, this time as a psychotic fortune teller, and the circle of mirrors being kinda like Kinda.
* I do like a big continuity-based romp, and it was easier to do back when there were only four series’ worth of things to remember. It’s always worth reiterating just how many times, and in how many ways, The Doctor has saved everyone’s arse. This episode tells us that also saves the lives of his former companions just by being around – he shows up to deal with the really dangerous stuff, so that they don’t have to put themselves at risk. Without him, they have to deputise, and they really don’t last very long.
* The depiction of a post-apocalyptic dystopia is stunning, adding an extra layer to prevent the episode from being just a continuity-based filler. Rather than just leaving it at bad things happening to characters that we know, it was great that they took the time to explore what happens in the aftermath of these disasters. It was grim stuff – people had to move to Leeds. It’s kind of how I picture the real UK will be after Brexit and five more years of Tories, and that was before they started rounding up immigrants. That was the darkest and most affecting part of the show, and it was neat how they didn’t need to explicitly state what happened at the labour camps, but you totally got it. Cribbins was amazing – his reaction should be shown to far right groups, as a warning of where their nonsense leads. Do you really want to make Cribbins cry? Do you?
* Lovely to see Rose, but why can’t she talk properly? She seems so different after just two years away, and it’s a bit sad – I can’t tell whether she’s supposed to have changed and developed off-screen since we saw her last, or whether it’s Billie not quite remembering how to play her. Rose has existed as an unattainable ideal for the last couple of series, so it’s hard to live up to the legend on her first reappearance. I tell you what though, that Bad Wolf stuff at the end was amazing – it was on the Pull To Open sign and everything!
RATING: 8