Things I've Learnt from Watching My Favourite Doctor Who Stories: Part 10 - Turn Left

10. Turn Left

Don't trust Sat Navs or Fortune Tellers

"A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about " as the Master once said. This episode shows he was right. 

We're in the top ten now and to be honest, they could be in any order and it would probably change next week. There are four modern series episodes and six classic serials, some of which you'll agree with and some will baulk at the idea of one being so high up. Frankly all these are top tier Who to me and any of them should be number one. 

This one would be high on anyone's list. It's a well worn idea, "the what if..." used in everything from Sliding Doors to the Buffy episode "The Wish" but so brilliantly done. World shattering events caused simply by one person turning right instead of left. Even a lighthearted adventure with the Adipose has dire consequences. At least when Gwyneth Paltrow missed that train, London didn't get nuked by a spaceship crashing on it... 

I've already said about how brilliant I think Catherine Tate is, so let's talk about the legend that is Jacqueline King. I love the concept of the companion's mum and all three mums from the RTD1 era are wonderful. This episode makes a big thing of Sylvia nagging Donna that she's not good enough for a job she may as well turn the other way. But she is more than a harridan sniping at her daughter or telling her dad to go up the hill. We get to see her enjoying the surprise Christmas trip, with a brief and poignant moment where they remember Donna's dad. Then we see her smiling with the family, sat up in bed like Lady Muck. And suddenly her world ends... 

The plight of the Nobles being packed off to Leeds is well done and even in this dire circumstance there's laughs to be had ("Don't get all chippy with me, Vera Duckworth!") Joseph Long is delightful as Mr Collosanto; that false jollity hiding fear. The bleakness to the scene where the Collosanto family are shipped off to the labour camps is raw and upsetting. In fact it's chilling to think how easy we as a nation can become fixated on keeping our country for ourselves. (Sadly you've only got to look at the events of this Remembrance Day weekend to see how close we are to that!) 

There's an expert eye making the unthinkable seem plausible and realistic. Graeme Harper is on directing duties and we've had several of his stories on this list already, so this is obviously going to be a well directed and thoughtful episode. But he can't fail with this, one of Russell's finest scripts.  

It's rightly celebrated but the scene of Sylvia sat despondent while Donna is in the background is starkly brilliant. It's as though she's had the life sucked out of her and Jacqueline King sits there and says absolutely nothing apart from "Mmm..." in agreement that Donna's been a disappointment. It also shows Donna's bravado is a front for her lack of self-worth 

With a lesser actress, she would have been supremely annoying and you could say that about the other mums, but casting director Andy Pryor (one of the unsung heroes of modern Who) struck gold three times with Camille Coduri, Adjoa Andoh and Jacqueline King. I'm so looking forward to seeing Sylvia again in the Star Beast!

And then there's the legend Bernard Cribbins, who makes us laugh when he refuses to take off his Christmas antlers, warms our hearts as he and Donna have their fireside chats and breaks our hearts when he speaks of "...labour camps. That's what they called them last time." Doctor Who had never felt this bleak, this depressing certainly not since it returned in 2005. Our heroes aren't battling aliens and monsters, but bureaucracy, strife, depression and poverty 

Then Rose returned and there are wonderful scenes between her and Donna as we realise that for all this to change, Donna has to die. Catherine Tate is brilliant in the scene where Donna realises this and the raw anger and emotion is so real. Billie Piper plays Rose as a more mature and rather cynical, she even lies to Donna. Proof that without the Doctor, even Rose isn't the woman she was. Or should be!

As with Utopia the previous season, what seems like the cheap episode of the season, the offbeat amuse bouche before the exciting two part season finale actually is the devastating set up for it. The Bad Wolf is back and one of the Doctor's friends will die...

Suddenly Doctor Who became the biggest show on telly and it seems weird to say this, but it was such a proud moment to see this tv programme I had loved and championed for so long was being championed and enjoyed by more people than ever before. 

Next Time: Don't leave everything to the Eleventh Hour...