Thursday, December 7, 2023

Doctor Who Special 2, “Wild Blue Yonder”, Review!

“Wild Blue Yonder”, the second Doctor Who special, takes The Doctor and Donna Noble to a mysterious spaceship without the Tardis! The Fourteenth Doctor has regenerated into the likeness of the Tenth Doctor! He has an adventure that reunites him with Donna Noble who had merged with a Time Lord. The Doctor had wiped out all of her memories together to spare her. They are caught in the plans of The Meep, though lil’ and furry, he is being hunted by the insectoid Wrath Warriors. 

The Doctor, Donna and her family, help The Meep escape the Wrath Warriors and U.N.I.T. soldiers in a two way battle! The Doctor bring the Wrath to hold an impromptu trail with The Meep. The Wrath explain that the living sun went mad and turned The Meep into maniacs. The Meep is the last of his kind and the leader. The Wrath are killed by The Meep and they are captured by the possessed soldiers. The “double-bladed dagger drive” of The Meep’s ship will destroy London to launch into space!


The Doctor, Donna, and family are saved by U.N.I.T. scientific advisor, Shirley Anne Bingham, with her weaponized wheelchair! The Doctor and Donna enter the engine room of the ship. The dagger drive is about to tear apart London sending chasms of magma through the streets! The Doctor begins reciting the code words. Donna says the final code word, “Binary!” This has her burst with Time Lord energy! Donna shuts down the engine and the chasms close. Then, she collapses. The soldiers are about to shoot them, but the psychedelic energy dissipates. 


Donna revives! It is Donna’ daughter, Rose, who has saved them. The Doctor realizes that the Time Lord energy is split between mother and daughter! The Wrath Warriors take The Meep away to prison for ten thousand years. The Meep threatens to tell “the Boss” about the Doctor. The Doctor and Rose release the Time Lord energy. He takes Donna for a last trip on the Tardis to see her granddad, Wilfred. The mystery of the return of the Tenth Doctor’s face is ongoing. Donna with her coffee cup and accidentally spills it on the Tardis’ controls! 


It sends them dematerializing and the control room on fire! “Wild Blue Yonder” is written by show runner, Russell T. Davies. It is directed by Tom Kingsley. He is the director for the supernatural comedy show, Ghosts. It is a peaceful country house in England, 1666. Under a tree is young man (Nathaniel Curtis) who is struck by an apple. The Tardis flies into the tree and the man is pelted by apples! The Doctor explains the situation and realizes he is seeing Sir Isaac Newton. Donna and The Doctor have to chime in with the “gravity of the situation”! 


Newton ponders this and calls it “mavity”!  Director Tom Kingsley. The Tardis suddenly appears in a spaceship and The Doctor throws Donna away as a torrent of fire bursts from the Tardis. They hear “The Wild Blue Yonder” The Doctor has a peek into the damaged Tardis. He takes out his sonic screwdriver and a non-sonic screwdriver. He uses the screwdrive to reconfigure the Tardis. Donna says that the song was the military going to war. The Doctor puts the sonic screwdriver in the doorway for the Tardis to rebuild itself. 


DOCTOR WHO - - “Wild Blue Yonder” - - CATHERINE TATE, DAVID TENNANT - - James Pardon/ BBC Studios/ Bad Wolf/ Disney.

They enter the rounded corridors of the ship and The Doctor wants to investigate the ship. They hear the Tardis dematerialize and rush to see it leave! Donna panics and The Doctor promises that he will get her back. He brings up the HADS, Hostile Action Displacement System, introduced in “Cold War” (2013) with the Eleventh Doctor. Donna is ready to confront whatever scared away the Tardis. They are being observed by something hidden. 


The ship reconfigures itself with a word spoken in the corridor, “Fenslaw.” An unknown language to the Doctor who usually relies on the Tardis to translate. The Doctor activates a panel to bring up a hover vehicle. They drive over to a robot, a rusted, rounded type with several eyes. Donna drives the hover craft to the end of the corridor and a door. They enter and find an empty room, a cockpit, The Doctor works out ten numbers on the console to translate the rest. There is no other lifeform aboard and an airlock was opened three years ago. 


The Doctor says that the ship entered a wormhole and then says they are the edge of the universe! He says he has never traveled that far, a silent, dark universe. They hear, “Corliss”, before the corridor reconfigures, repairing itself? The Doctor takes Donna to computer room and opens a drawer to replace filaments, a memory card like a gold, thin, license plate holder covered with a honey-like substance. The Doctor has entered a room with several tubes. Donna speaks to the Doctor about what would happen with Rose. 


We see the Doctor at the watery room when Donna sees him. There are two Doctors and two Donnas. The ship might react to their presence with duplicates. At the other room, The Doctor tells the other, silent Donna about the Tardis ending up over the ages with a city built around it and then falling. He says it is the only thing he has left! Donna is starting to get hungry and The Doctor clone says his arm is too long. The Doctor hears Donna clone repeat that her arms are too long. She shows him her long, giant arm that flops down. 


DOCTOR WHO - - “Wild Blue Yonder” - - DAVID TENNANT, CATHERINE TATE - - James Pardon/BBC Studios/ Bad Wolf/ Disney.

Donna sees that the Doctor now has two long arms and hears her Doctor shout for her. She runs to find him and they are confronted by their duplicates. The other Doctor retracts his arm and then his jaw drops to the floor. They say that they come from nothing, the Not-Things. The Doctor races for the hovercraft and they take off pursued by the Not-Things! Donna realizes that the Not-Things have grown massive crawling in the corridor. 


The Not-Doctor reaches for the hover craft, but Donna bashes his hand with a pipe! Not-Donna bashes the hover vehicle and it spins! The Doctor has torn off the steering wheel and they come to stop. The Not-Things have grown too much, squished in the corridor. It is a surreal ep with touches of horror, a time twist, and a cameo by Bernard Cribbins who died after filming the specials. We have not seen him since the second part of “The End of Time” (2010). The ep is dedicated to him.


Four Sonic Screwdrivers out of Five! 


#DoctorWho, #WildBlueYonder, #RussellTDavies, #TomKingsley, #DavidTennant, #CatherineTate, #BernardCribbins, #NathanielCurtis   

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