Gridlock by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Richard Clark

 

“Gridlock” stars David Tennant as the Doctor and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones with Ardal O’Hanlon as Thomas Kincade Brannigan, Travis Oliver as Milo, Lenora Crichlow as Cheen, Anna Hope as Novice Hame, and Struan Rodger as the Face of Boe.  It was written by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: Richard Clark with Simon Winstone as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Saturday 14 April 2007 on BBC One.

 

The third production block of Doctor Who’s third series saw Russell T. Davies conclude what would be his New Earth/5,000,000,000 trilogy of episodes that begun with “The End of the World” and continued in “New Earth”.  Davies was particularly interested in peeling back the final mystery of the Doctor’s fate as the Last of the Time Lords, that he was in fact not alone in the universe after all.  This fact was originally meant to be revealed at the end of “New Earth” by the Face of Boe, the Doctor being summoned to his side, however perhaps due to the tumultuous production schedule of the second series, it was decided to hold it off for a third adventure to feature the Face of Boe.  Once again a time jump of approximately thirty years into the future allowed Davies to avoid doing a direct follow-up to “New Earth”, “Gridlock” only going through minor revisions before it was to be sent into production.  The large revision was shifting the setting of the Motorway, Davies always intending the claustrophobic setting but originally involving an underwater Motorway with aquatic monsters, to a standard science fiction undercity setting, shifting the unformed potentially eel-like monsters to a “evolved” form of the Macra from The Macra Terror.  The inclusion of the Macra is perhaps the biggest flaw in the episode, mainly from the perspective of a fan of the classic series as The Macra Terror is a serial where the Macra are giant intelligent overlord crabs and “Gridlock” just turns them into a generic monster that destroys the cars.  Direction of “Gridlock” and the other episode of the third production block was given to another newcomer to the series, Richard Clark, who does an excellent job with the redressed sets and fairly minimal location work (the New Earth senate briefly shows all the dead bodies), the redressing of the sets being incredibly effective at giving the very minor details to very minor characters.

 

Davies’ script also has moments at the very beginning where once again Martha Jones is confronted with being the rebound companion, once again being part of the point of the relationship between the Doctor and Martha, all while the Doctor should have moved on to at the very least respecting the woman he is currently traveling with.  It’s unnecessarily cruel and just out of character for the Doctor in general at this point, reflected especially when his motivation throughout “Gridlock” is rescuing Martha who has been kidnapped by carjackers, played by Travis Oliver and Lenora Crichlow, who wish to use her as an excuse to use the carpool lane.  The plot of the episode is really an exercise in worldbuilding as the Doctor has to be the one to unravel why there are Macra at the bottom of the Motorway and why the Motorway has been cut off from the rest of New New York.  The reveal is seeded early on with street vendors selling emotions, Bliss mutated into an addictive virus that wiped out the Overcity.  The runtime is filled nicely with the quirky characters, all having lived their lives on the Motorway, and slowly realize that nobody is coming, they are completely cutoff, so when the Motorway is open at the climax of the episode seeing the sun feels like an actual event.  This is all paired with the Doctor actually speaking of Gallifrey by name for the first time in the revival, Davies’ script pulling directly from the description in The Sensorites.  David Tennant plays the episode perfectly in these scenes, and the final sequence of saving the day and finding Novice Hame, played once again by Anna Hope, and the Face of Boe just seeds what the rest of the series with the message of “you are not alone”.  The episode in general is also a little difficult to discuss since the plot is simple but effective, Davies’ quirks as a writer allows some very fun character designs, and the occasional very odd one.  It’s the episode that also allows Martha Jones to be a full time companion and be in the Doctor’s full trust which is a very nice moment that sadly in future episodes will not drop Martha Jones as the rebound companion, not making full use of the wonderful Freema Agyeman.

 

Overall, “Gridlock” is a solid episode that misuses a classic monster, something most fans overlook since it’s a rather overlooked classic monster.  The character work, whenever the Doctor is not pining after Rose and underutilizing Martha, is wonderful for the Doctor’s character development after the Time War.  Richard Clark’s direction is wonderful while being a budget saver and the atmosphere of the episode just works from start to finish making this a highlight of early Series 3.  8/10.