“You are not alone.”
Damn. That's it!
I guess that was the hook that Doctor Who executive producer Russell T. Davies used to draw attention to “Gridlock”, the third episode of Series Three that stars David Tennant as The Doctor and Freema Agyeman as his new assistant Martha Jones. Unlike Gareth Roberts’ “The Shakespeare Code” but like Russell’s “Smith and Jones”, some parts work when others don't.
Set in New New York, New Earth, The Doctor and Martha arrive for a supposed “last trip” together. The planet strangely resembles something out of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, where everything is technological, but ghetto. You can even purchase various emotions from “happy” to “anger” to “forget”. But before we know it, Martha is kidnapped by Milo and Cheen (Travis Oliver and Lenora Crichlow) who wish to use her to get a space in the Fastlane on The Motorway. Apparently they wish to get to another city, why isn’t completely explained.
But that’s unimportant anyhow because there’s an ancient monster lurking down there known as The Macra, an enemy previously encountered in the Patrick Troughton era back in the 60s. I didn’t see what the fuss was about, nor did they seem to serve a purpose except to probably give classic Who fans a nostalgia trip. So where’s the Doctor in all this?
For starters he goes in search of Martha by attempting to search The Motorway, which is filled with cars polluting the air and have no distinction between them besides a code number attached to each car. As The Doctor breaths in the smoke nearly choking to death on it, a cat man named Brannigan (Ardal O’Hanlon) and his human wife Valerie (Jennifer Hennessy) take him into their car. He requests that they help him, but they can’t, being stuck on The Motorway. The Doctor is directed towards the police, but the police don’t seem to be there. He asks Brannigan when they will be able to go faster, to which he answers that they’ve been going this slow for several years.
Article comments