Review of Wild Blue Yonder
Warning: This review may contain episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Perhaps even more than usual, the second of RTD’s three 60th Anniversary Specials polarized the audience. Fan reactions I’ve seen online seem to be either effusive in their praise or full of vitriol. Little ground appears in between.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2023 BBC

I can certainly see why the detractors didn’t like Wild Blue Yonder—among other things, I suspect it didn’t meet some extremely high expectations in one or another particular way. But I found it to be interesting and entertaining, with no more than the usual flaws that make me grit my teeth and plug my metaphorical ears, singing, “La la la! I can’t heeeeear yooooou!” to drown out the objections my astronomer’s brain raises (which I’ll share later anyway, so you can suffer along with me).

One of the things that I found most intriguing, enjoyable, and downright impressive, really, was the fact that with the exception of an introduction and an epilogue, the entire episode was just Tennant and Tate. Much like Capaldi demonstrated his acting chops in Heaven Sent, when he put in a frankly stunning solo performance, our two leads carry the episode between them with their fantastic chemistry and considerable skill.

Building on the strength of RTD’s lines, Tate’s performance reminds me exactly why I love Donna so much. When she realizes that “there’s something on this ship that’s so bad the TARDIS ran away,” she doesn’t dither or wonder how they are going to escape. Instead, she declares the next move is to “go and kick its arse!”

This direct attitude is only part of why I love Donna. The very duality that the Doctor calls out to cause the Not-things severe cognitive dissonance, her simultaneous belief that she is stupid and brilliant, makes her utterly charming (and a bit pitiable, since I really only see the brilliance). And her deep compassion for the Doctor, the reason she can be such a strong and supportive friend to them, makes our hearts ache all the more when we realize one such moment is faked.

And perhaps that’s part of why I found the antagonists in this episode, these Not-things, to be so fascinating. We are all our own worst critics; only we know what cuts most. For our heroes—particularly the Doctor—to encounter an adversary that can reflect back their deepest pain and weaponize it is truly horrifying.

Their introduction was insidious, too. We have no reason to suspect the Not!Doctor is anything but what it appears when we first see it, but then Not!Donna walks into the spindle where the Doctor is working, and the clues begin to click appallingly into place. (That was my “oh, shit!” moment.) On repeated watch, the Not-things’ dialog is chilling, too. When Donna tells the Not!Doctor that she hopes they’ll get to know him, the answer of “I hope so, too” holds a mavity—and malice—that we didn’t understand the first time through.

And speaking of “mavity,” there appear to be a couple of clues to something larger bubbling in the background, but to which we won’t be privy until we’ve seen at least one more episode. The Doctor fails to bring to Donna’s attention that her knowledge of that particular word has changed, though they clearly notice it, even pausing to correct themself to match her perceptions before mentioning the possibility of being inside a “mavity well.”

Then there are their misgivings about having invoked a superstition at the edge of the universe*. Their unease is clearly a breadcrumb for us to follow, if only we knew how. We still don’t know why this Doctor’s face returned. Is this breadcrumb—or the explicit reminder that the Flux really happened—a clue to that mystery, too? Are those puzzles one and the same?

Our heroes have a very close call at the end, but all seems well, especially when they land back in Donna’s home time and place. Especially given the face awaiting them.

Although I knew that Bernard Cribbins had filmed for the Specials before he passed away, I didn’t know when to expect him to appear. To say that seeing Wilf on screen again knocked the air out of me would not be an exaggeration. I was frankly shocked at how emotional the scene made me, and although I managed to hold back my tears through the end of the episode, when the dedication to Cribbins came up in the ending credits, I sobbed. (I’m getting teary even as I write.)

I dearly love Wilf, and look forward to his continuing presence in the next episode, in spirit if not in image. (We know from this post from RTD that this is the only scene Cribbins was able to film.) I hope his character can contribute something meaningful as we see the world get saved, learn why the Doctor’s old face returned, and celebrate the arrival of a new one.

*I will confine this rant to a footnote so uninterested readers can easily skip it.

I recognize that RTD is trying hard to overcome objections of scientific-minded fans like myself who hate the phrase “edge of the universe” because it’s utter nonsense. He has engaged the idea of Camboolian Flat Mathematics to explain that we simply don’t understand things right now, and I can appreciate the attempt. But it’s not that “the concept of an everything having an edge is … kind of impossible.” Instead it’s more like the idea that a sphere has an “edge” is nonsensical.

It only gets more annoying when the Doctor tells Donna no one has ever “been this far out. … Not ever. Till us,” completely ignoring the fact that whoever crewed this ship was there before them. I can usually let one error slide in the name of storytelling, but several that compound each other just… make my teeth itch.