Review of Turn Left / The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End

With this set of three episodes, we have reached the end of our Series Four journey (see what I did there?). While, if I’m being honest, I didn’t remember as many details from them as I thought I might, they are definitely, as a collective whole, the episodes that made the most lasting impression on me from this series.

In particular, Turn Left, the nominal single episode that leads directly into two-part series finale, stands out to me as one of the best episodes of the entire RTD1 era. Although it still has some flaws, like some regrettable Asian stereotyping (and at least one Chinese character that I’m pretty sure was only half a character, but I had to stop myself from further research to confirm my suspicion after the first fifteen minutes), it is overall a brilliant piece of television.

The whole premise is another take on the butterfly effect, this time focusing on how extremely important Donna is to the universe—or, in fact, the multiverse—as a whole. By changing one tiny decision, Donna alters the fate of all reality.

Before I talk about that cascade of events, I want to mention that one of the things I’d forgotten was how much the fortuneteller got Donna to spill. Without Donna verbally guiding her to the specific inflection point that could prevent her from ever meeting the Doctor, the fortuneteller never could have implemented her plan. (And here we find another flaw: what was the fortuneteller’s motivation? Was she hired by someone? Who?)

All that aside, we see right away how things go sideways if Donna is out of the picture. Without her to make him leave after killing the queen of the Racnoss on Christmas [2006], the Doctor dies below the Thames. When the Judoon transport the hospital to the moon [Smith and Jones, 2007], the only survivor is medical student Oliver; Martha has died, along with Sarah Jane and her gang of teens Luke, Maria, and Clyde. The next Christmas [2007], Donna and her family are conveniently out of town when a replica of the Titanic crashes into Buckingham Palace, destroying all of London in the resulting nuclear explosion.

Throughout this altered timeline, we watch Donna and her family navigate ever-worsening conditions. Just when they think the US will come to Britain’s aid, some 60 million Americans dissolve into fat. The family is still in their refugee barracks when ATMOS-equipped cars across the globe begin spewing poisonous gas (until the Torchwood team give their lives to stop it), and when their immigrant housemates are sent to “labour camps.”

Even then, it’s not until weeks later that Donna is finally ready to pay heed to the crazy blonde woman who keeps showing up at random times, telling her of another timeline where Donna traveled with an amazing man who would have stopped all this. And then shit gets weird.

Despite the fact that the plot of this episode is fascinating, and it is chock full of Easter eggs for fans of the extended universe—and reminders for us now that there used to be spinoff programs—the performances of the cast are at least as worth the watch as the plot. As the family’s situation deteriorates, Donna’s mother Sylvia (played by Jacqueline King) sinks further into a depressive state. Watch for the shot of Donna walking in to talk to her mum, where the camera focus remains on Sylvia’s face the whole time.

The star of the episode, though—in every way, as this is the first Doctor-lite story—is Catherine Tate as Donna. Tate has some impressive acting chops, something that isn’t always obvious in her comedy work. Here, though, we see her skill over and over again. I find the moment when she is finally able to see what is on her back to be particularly moving.

When Donna finally escapes the alternate reality, she tells the Doctor what she’s experienced. He is quick to dismiss it all as strange but harmless—and definitely all over now. Except then Donna tells him about what the blonde woman whispered to her as that other self was dying: Bad Wolf!

The Doctor’s panic at hearing those words propels them into the next adventure, where they discover that… everything is fine? on Earth? Until the moment when Earth disappears out from under the TARDIS, of course.

What follows is a convoluted set of intertwining story threads. Along one line, we follow the Doctor and Donna as they try to track down Earth, from the Shadow Proclamation (which I still maintain should have been a document rather than an organization) through a collection of 27 missing planets (including three missing in time) along the trail of Earth’s missing bees and into the Medusa Cascade, where the trail goes cold.

Along other lines, we follow the Doctor’s various friends on Earth, as they look for him and do their own parts to try to save the planet from—who else—the Daleks. (I must pause here to note that there is a throw-away line by Tennant about someone having tried to move Earth before, long ago. That’s one of those deep-dive Easter eggs for fans of the Classic series—specifically, of Hartnell’s era!) Martha is at UNIT in New York City; Jack and his team are at Torchwood in Cardiff; Sarah Jane and her son Luke are in Ealing; Wilf and Sylvia, Donna’s family, are in Chiswick; and Rose bamfs in from her alternate universe with a badass gun to roam London looking for the Doctor.

Eventually the Doctor’s friends, or the “children of time,” as Davros himself later refers to them, all connect, thanks to Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister (yes—we know who you are!). They find a way to contact the Doctor, who pilots the TARDIS across the temporal divide and is then able to join the video call with “everybody except Rose.” Fascinated by this technology, Donna declares, “It’s like an outer space Facebook!” Or, y’know… Zoom. Whatever. Ah, for the innocence of pre-pandemic days.

Of course, as the gang all does their best to find the Doctor, things go downhill. Torchwood (minus Jack) are besieged by Daleks, and Sarah Jane practically runs into a couple in her car. But Rose finds the Doctor. As they run joyfully towards each other, though, he is shot by a Dalek (thereafter itself destroyed by Jack, who teleports in just after the nick of time).

The Companions drag the Doctor back into the TARDIS, Jack and Rose explaining to Donna about regeneration, and all of them standing mournfully out of the way as light shoots out of the Doctor’s body.

I remember all the wild speculation that happened in the week between The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End. We were all so thrilled with the idea that maybe the production team had hidden something really big from us, and there was a new, unknown Doctor on the way!

We really should’ve known better.

I don’t think I’ll ever entirely get over being mad about that abortive regeneration. RTD insisted it didn’t count, while Moffat later made sure that it did, just so that he could be the one to solve the “twelve regenerations are all you get” problem. Whatever the case, I found the cliffhanger resolution supremely disastifying at the time. I still do, in fact, even knowing what comes next.

Some of that next includes the addition of Mickey and Jackie to the mix, and the effective sidelining of Gwen and Ianto. (I think we’ve now had three Joneses and three Smiths, if we include the Doctor among the latter…) It also includes a classic-RTD over-the-top evil plan by the antagonists, and the culmination of the series-long arc.

For me, this is one of the better arcs in that the seeds are clear in retrospect, but not obvious. There are parts of it I still don’t like, and others I don’t know what to make of (my feelings about Handy / Doctor 2.0 / the metacrisis Doctor have fluctuated wildly over the past 15 years), but I like the shape of this narrative.

Until the end.

The way the situation is resolved for Donna is heartbreaking. It’s not just that all the personal growth she’s undergone has been erased, or that any memory of her wonderful experiences would kill her; it’s that the Doctor solves her problem for her, without getting her consent. In fact, she actively rejects his solution, repeatedly begging him to stop.

I have yet to forgive the Doctor (or, more accurately, RTD) for that decision. It’s the one thing I want out of these 60th anniversary specials: a retroactive fix for this shitshow. Donna was an amazing Companion, who all these years later still ranks extremely high on my personal list of favorites. That she was robbed of any say in her own future still infuriates me.

The most important woman in the universe deserves better.