Turn Left

Dear Gary—

Turn Left is a good story wrapped up in a bad one; or vice versa. Like so much of New Who, it hits all of the right emotional high notes which disguise the glaring flaws. So often New Who relies on sentiment and spectacle to carry the show, and when it gets it right I for one tend to forgive the flaws. Turn Left is a prime example.

It starts out wonderfully well with the Doctor and Donna in a fantastic alien bazaar. I do believe we have seen more alien planets this season than we have in the first three combined, even if we mostly get fleeting glimpses at best. The two are immersed in their surroundings, and that is the biggest gift Donna has given the Doctor—his rediscovery of the joy in travel. He paid it lip service with Rose and Martha, but it was a detached, vicarious thrill more than anything. With Donna he is genuinely having fun. He never would have thrown himself wholeheartedly into the tour bus adventure of Midnight during his tenure with those earlier companions.

Donna is also having fun. “I’m happy right now, thanks,” she informs the fortune teller. These first few minutes of the episode reveal a true and deep friendship that is more intimate than all of the puppy dog eyes and longing looks of the previous three years.

This is a great set up for the Sliding Doors plot to follow (or to go with the Christmas theme—It’s a Wonderful Life).  

“Turn right. Turn right. Turn right!”

Donna turns right, never meets the Doctor and an alternate reality is created around her; a reality in which the Doctor dies.

This is my first problem with the story. Not for a minute do I believe that the Doctor would have died that day if it were not for Donna, much less that he wouldn’t regenerate if he did happen to die. A far more interesting and complex tale would be told if the Doctor did survive only to follow a dark and lonely path that would reshape events in multiple ways. However this is Donna’s story and not the Doctor’s, and so I will suspend my disbelief and go along.

Following Donna we find her on Christmas Eve happy, among friends, and gainfully employed; her aversion to Christmas seems to have evaporated and she is content with her life, except for that annoying thing on her back that she can’t see but other people keep pointing to. Then the world starts going wrong.

Now I could point out that the Doctor might not have encountered the Racnos to start with since he never met Donna, but I’ll allow that he could have stumbled upon the plot in another way. His confrontation probably would have gone differently, and possibly his final solution, but again I’ll allow the latitude. The importance of this incident for the purposes of our current narrative is the effect it has upon Donna who is merely a bystander to events rather than the catalyst she was meant to be.

Donna’s immediate response is to run towards the action. She is a more interested and involved Donna than we would expect from a Doctorless Donna. Perhaps it is the influence of the bug on her back, or perhaps she has had it in her all along. Her curiosity brings her to a dead Doctor but a very alive Rose. Given my dislike of the character, I have to admit that I don’t mind her introduction into this parallel world in the making. I could go into all sorts of doubts about her sudden appearance, but I will resist those distractions. Instead I welcome the fact that Donna has someone to guide her through this tricky new reality.

 The next impact for Donna is she loses her job. Now Chowdry would have lost business and sacked someone regardless since the Thames is drained in both worlds.  However in this world Donna experiences it first hand and her reaction is priceless. I also love her disinterest in the stolen hospital and its aftermath, and the scene shift to the family circle is great. Bernard Cribbins, Jacqueline King, and Catherine Tate (Wilf, Sylvia, and Donna) are superb as they navigate through the increasingly bleak existence. It is on the strength of their performances that I turn a blind eye to the defects of plot.

Well, not totally blind. I still can’t help but wonder how and why Sarah Jane inserted herself into the Judoon adventure except that it makes for conveniently heart-tugging story telling. And since we are now inundated with all sorts of world changes due to the loss of the Doctor—wouldn’t the entire history of Earth have been affected by the Carrionites and the Pyroviles? By all rights, without the Doctor the planet should be left in ruins long before our fateful Christmas Eve. Donna, Martha, Sarah—they might never have been born. It seems that cause and effect is extremely selective in this new reality.

Donna’s next meeting with Rose is also a bit sketchy. How does Rose know Donna has a raffle ticket and that it happens to be the winning one? How does Rose know to warn Donna off from London next Christmas? How does Rose even know anything about Donna? But I will excuse it all because Christmas at the posh hotel with the Noble clan is highly entertaining.

Things only get better as they get worse.

Wilf: “Ah, well. We’ll settle in, won’t we? Make do? Bit of wartime spirit, eh?”

Donna: “Yeah, but there isn’t a war. There’s no fight. It’s just this.”

Just this—a world without the Doctor to save it and therefore vulnerable to every alien threat imaginable (except for the Master who no longer has a reason to continually hassle the Earth). The Earth does have its defenders, but with each attack they get fewer; Sarah Jane and Torchwood are just two casualties along the way. What this leaves is humanity—humanity nobly represented by the Noble family as they settle in and make do.

Sylvia’s slide into depression is eloquently and effectively portrayed and Donna’s impulse to shout at the world is amusing. However it is Wilf’s “wartime spirit” that so often prevails, even momentarily coaxing Sylvia out of her funk and appeasing Donna as they all join in on the sing-along. Ordinary humans finding pockets of joy in the weariest of worlds. At its best Doctor Who celebrates the ordinary, and in Turn Left this culminates in “nothing special” Donna.  My one quibble with this is that the program feels like it needs to hit the audience over the head with it rather than trusting us to get it for ourselves. (I suppose in a way that is appropriate; Doctor Who is taking a cue from Donna and shouting its point across.)

“You liar! You told me I was special,” Donna yells. “But it’s not me; it’s this thing. I’m just a host!” That’s what this all boils down to. Donna thinking she is nothing special and the plastic bug backpack she is wearing (they should seriously market that) tapping into her subconscious and causing her nightmare. And that’s what this is I have suddenly realized as I write; it might label itself a parallel universe but it is only a nightmare taking place wholly within Donna’s mind. The Doctor could come along at any time and pluck the bug off her back to snap her out of it. I mean, if it were a parallel universe and Donna had never met the Doctor, she never would have ended up in that bazaar, the bug never would have climbed on her back, and she would never have turned right; which means she would have turned left, met the Doctor, and ended up in that bazaar . . . all these paradoxes . . . shouldn’t the universe explode or something? No, it is Donna’s dream world as created by the bug, reminiscent of Tegan’s Mara induced dream (hence the circle of mirrors).

Somehow Rose has crashed through from her universe into Donna’s dream and is helping to shape it. How else can she know all that she does about Donna’s past, present, and future? But really, does she have to tell Donna that she is going to die? It seems needlessly cruel. Donna handles it well, though, and she bravely faces her destiny. It is a slam bang finish with Donna sacrificing herself to save the Doctor and restore order to the world. (Still, Rose’s “you’re the most important woman in the whole of creation” is a bit over the top.)

Then we have Rose whispering her Bad Wolf secret to the dying Donna. Now, if Rose could appear at will she could very well have made Donna turn left by herself, but I suppose this was all a big exercise in bolstering Donna’s self esteem for the spectacular season finale to come. And oh, Gary, I breathe a great big sigh of resignation.

So much good wrapped up in so much bad. But the good leaves its lasting impression on me. The ordinary moments making it extraordinary. Sylvia remembering forgotten souls in the candlelit confines of their galley kitchen bedroom; Donna and Wilf’s moment on the hill; Rocco Colasanto putting on a brave face as he leaves for the labor camp and Wilf’s heartfelt farewell to the ill-fated family; Donna’s open-mouthed reaction upon entering the TARDIS; Donna; overall—Donna.

“It’s the end of the universe.” Good in the bad; bad in the good. It is exciting, what with the music, the rushing, the ‘Bad Wolf’ signs everywhere, the tolling cloister bell. But not ‘end of the universe’ worthy. Not at this point. All the Doctor knows is Rose and Bad Wolf. He makes one giant leap to “end of the universe.”

Again, Gary, big sigh . . .