Holistic Review: An unusual but effective plot, in which the Doctor stumbles into a regrettable tragedy rather than a villainous masterplan, which gets an extra lift from a surprise appearance by one of my all-time-favorite monsters.

Well, what do you know - a mere week after I get to scratch a writer off my most-wanted list, here I get to pull out another most-wanted. I'll just put this out front: I like Gridlock, and it improves with each repeated viewing, but I'm not sure I would really love it if it weren't for the fact that RTD fulfills one of my deepest fan wishes and secretly brings back the Macra. Honestly, on my list of monsters-I'd-most-like-to-see-return, the Macra would probably have been right up at the very top. This is partly because I think they're ultra-cool (giant crabs! that breathe toxic gas! and lurk in the shadows controlling the scenes and forcing people to acquire it for them!) and partly because barely any footage of them exists these days, aside from a few brief glimpses of claws waving about menacingly. So, in the days before Gridlock, I would have liked nothing more than to finally have some actual footage of my beloved Macra, even if it couldn't be the original. Plus, I think they're one of those underrated monsters that really deserved another chance to come back. Now, back during the run-up to season 3, somewhere - and I wish I could remember where - I read an article in which the special effects teams briefly mentioned that they'd been asked to create giant crabs for an upcoming episode. So, of course, being the massive fan of them that I am, my first thought was "Macra???" Ever since, in the back of my mind, I've been idly (desperately?) hoping that I was right, and waiting for them to appear, if indeed they were going to. I wish I could remember the exact moment when I twigged that they were going to feature in Gridlock, but I know that I got a big clue when Milo declared that outside the car, "It's all exhaust fumes out there, nothing could breathe in that." And then, as the Doctor gazed down into the mist, those lights... could be eyes? Crab eyes? ...crab eyes belonging to crabs that could breathe those fumes and oh my goodness it must be the Macra! And then the air started to clear, and... there were claws! And then there were whole crabs! And then the Doctor growled: "Macra!" and I whooped and jumped up and down in my seat. I couldn't quite focus on what happened after that for about a minute, such was my joy at seeing my beloved crabbykins return. (I can't even imagine how hysterically happy I'd have been if I hadn't had any inkling they were returning!) And almost on-the-dot for their fortieth anniversary - The Macra Terror went out from 11 March - 1 April 1967, and Gridlock follows forty years and two weeks later, on 14 April 2007. How cool is that?

Of course, part of me wants to say: the Macra hardly get anything at all to do! They're not secretive or manipulative, they're just big lumbering beasties taking advantage of a chance opportunity and crushing a bunch of cars. (Does it really matter whether your car is crushed by a giant crab or a giant homicidal radish? Then again... radishes wouldn't have survived in that exhaust...) And they don't look much like they did before, being among other things much much larger than previously, and composed of not-so-hot CGI. Fortunately, most of these points can be explained by the Macra's current de-evolved state (they must have gotten dumber as they got bigger, which does actually make sense), so they're not much of an issue. And anyway, the complainy part of me is relatively small compared to the part of me that is screaming "The Macra are back!!! And they still breathe poisonous fumes!" And really, it is an interesting change that they're basically presented as opportunistic parasites here - they didn't plan any of this, and they're not organizing the gridlock to get more food (it's not really clear that they're eating people anyway, although the Doctor does refer to them as being hungry)... there just happens to be a convenient environment in which they can thrive, so they're taking advantage of it. It's too bad they took out the crashed cars full of baby Macra and picked-clean skeletons, though - that would have been cool. Interestingly, the Macra get a retro-upgrade when we find out that they didn't just skulk about dark planets occasionally coercing the populace into mining gas for them, they were actively the scourge of the galaxy and apparently did such things as a matter of course. (One would think that settlers would wise up to their little tricks and either manage to avoid them or destroy them... or just not fall into the trap in the first place, as there probably wouldn't have been much the Macra could have done without having gas mined for them. One does wonder how they managed to take control of these planets in the first place? Did they sweet-talk the planetary leaders with empty promises? Like weekly all-you-can-eat crab-leg buffets?) And the fact that this is their de-evolved state billions of years in the future certainly does not rule out a return appearance of the vigorous Macra of old. I only hope that they won't be against bringing them back at least one more time. But really, I never expected that they would bring back a one-hit-wonder like the Macra before the Ice Warriors or the Sontarans or the Zygons. Wow. I hereby give RTD permission for one more Martha-has-a-crush-on-the-Doctor moment.

Who else would be on my most-wanted list, I wonder, now that the Nestene and the Macra have been checked off? I'm going to say, in order... the Weed creature (another one-hit-wonder with very little extant footage), the Mara (one of the best monsters ever, crying out for a repeat visit), the Wirrn (drooooooooooool), the Ogri (I love my bloodsucking rocks!), the Tractators (gravity-wielding pillbugs are awesome, and creepy), the Zygons (well, you know they have to do it at some point... although now that the Zygons are making their new-series début in the book Sting of the Zygons, that probably rules out an appearance until after Martha's gone, or else they'll have to explain why she already knows them even though the audience does not), the Nimons (c'mon, it'd be fun!), and Mandragora (a sequel was so well-set-up and I want one. Comic strips do not count!). Others, like the haemovores, the Fendahl, the giant maggots and the Vervoids, would present problems since they're very much one-shot monsters, so I won't include those. And if we can do villains, I want the Toymaker and the Rani back. Mmmmm.

Now, even though the Macra are the main source of my enjoyment for this episode, it's certainly a solid little story, if a rather unusual one. I felt a little... off-balanced, I guess, by the reveal that the dilemma in the undercity wasn't orchestrated, it just happened, for a completely different reason which seems to come at us from left field, and which is only glossed over anyhow. It's both the episode's weak point and its strongest point, because it's a surprisingly original idea, in Doctor Who stories, for the villain to be, well, a virus that's long dead and/or simple human weakness. Part of me really likes the idea that here, the Doctor and Martha have just stumbled into a very unfortunate situation, but then manage to put right what's been wrong for almost 25 years. And the only real monsters in the story are essentially victims of circumstance too, they just happened to adapt to it better than anybody else (particularly if we assume that RTD's theory that these Macra have escaped from a zoo is canon).

There are some perplexing plot holes:

• For one, when the motorway first opened, how did passengers like the Cassinis know to be prepared for such a long journey? Do all cars come equipped with these features? (Perhaps New Earth is a far larger planet than we've realized, and most journeys are done by motorcar?) I mean, for goodness' sake, where do you get enough yarn for 23 years of knitting? Ooh. Sudden realization. Perhaps they'd brokered a deal with Brannigan - they groom him, they get to keep the fur. (Or there could be hairballs involved, but that's much less pleasant to consider.)
  
• Also: if the motorway is a closed loop, and the only people who are ever getting out of it are the ones who are being killed by the Macra, then how is there ever space for all these people to keep getting on? (To take one notable example, how is it that Milo and Cheen are able to get off, grab Martha and zip right back on?) Especially when it's apparently so very difficult to get a third passenger and get into the fast lane. (And, why is it so difficult to get a third passenger, anyway? Don't these people ever carpool?) Perhaps some people actually do get tired of waiting and go back to live in the undercity.
  
• On a smaller note, how is it that the car following Milo and Cheen have somehow managed to make an entire circuit of the fast lane alive (since they're aware that all the exits are closed), yet get caught the moment they warn Milo? And, if they realized something horrible was living down there and trying to get them, why on earth haven't they gone back up themselves? If the driver - Javit, I assume? - had practiced what she preached, and driven the car up herself instead of just screaming at Milo to do so, maybe they would have survived too.
  
• At one point, Milo says that they can't go up because they're only authorized to go down, so how is it that they're eventually able to escape the Macra? Is it only because the Doctor opens up the undercity at the end? Because it sure looks like his car is bobbing and weaving up and down as they try to escape the Macra, and if they just could have elevated the car to the upper reaches of the fast lane, they'd have been beyond the reach of the Macra's claws.
  
• If the Doctor, with his respiratory bypass system, needs at the very least a purple bandana to help him breathe, and if the fumes make Brannigan cough, why is it that Hame is able to climb down to the Doctor without any visible breathing apparatus at all?
  
• How did the virus replicate so fast among the people who were Blissed-out? Hame says that it mutated and became airborne and killed the whole world in a mere seven minutes, which sounds highly incredulous. Did the Bliss contribute to its mutation, and if so, how? Were people less able to fight it off because the relaxation suppressed their immune systems? And if it killed people that quickly, you would think it wouldn't get a chance to spread from host to host, unless the virus was on a sort of timer, and spent a while spreading throughout the populace until a preordained time at which it "turned on" and eradicated the population. But that sounds ridiculous. Hame also says that people closed down the walkways and the flyovers to seal off the undercity, which makes you wonder, who did that if everybody was strung out on Bliss? And didn't the undercity use it? And are there other undercities all over the planet, with people who have been trapped for years?

Overall, though, I have to say that the culture of New Earth feels quite well thought through. There are lots of little details throughout that make this feel like a realistic (if warped) world that people could actually live in. I love that the people of New New York have such a strong faith, that they all find comfort in singing hymns together to make their long journey more bearable. And I think the magic of this plot comes from its scope. The mystery of what's going on is quite nicely teased out in the beginning, and when we learn the truth, we feel a bit sucker-punched, much like Martha does. Being stuck in unmoving traffic for an hour is horrible enough; being stuck in unmoving traffic for six years, with NO way off because you can't even step out for a walk, is pretty near hell on (new) earth. Then of course, we have the death of the entire surface world in a mere seven minutes.

Watching Gridlock, I did find myself getting a bit bored with the constant repetition of elements from New Earth... looking back, it really wasn't all that much, but there are so many in the first few minutes that it begins to feel a bit like a 'greatest-hits' compilation. I think that the repetition of the green-moon symbol, Cheen's mention of apple grass and the Doctor desperately name-dropping the Duke of Manhattan are actually handled quite well, while the Doctor's offhand-casual mention of "New New New New" etc. York and the vidscreen shot of the overcity (both of which sound/look just like they did the first time around) grated a bit more. I don't really know why... I certainly didn't dislike either of them the first time around, but I guess it's the same feeling you get when you have to listen to a relative telling the same joke over and over again. (Yet I still find myself hoping that we'll get a chance to return again someday and see more of the overcity!) Now, two repeated elements that are very welcome here are the Face of Boe and the lovely Anna Hope, making a most delightful return as Novice Hame (though surely not a novice any longer?). I was particularly thrilled to realize that it was Hope underneath that wimple; though she sounds surprisingly different (an excellent job channeling an older, more hardened Hame, although I did really miss her sweet gentle delivery of last year), it was still quite a great performance, and hopefully not the last we'll see of her, now that it sounds like Hame is going to be partly in charge of New New York (yay!). I love the moment when the Doctor squeals with delight and gives her a big embrace, only to realize that he's essentially bearhugging a serial killer (aww): "No, hold on, get off!" I'm really thrilled that she was able to redeem herself in this episode; I always knew she didn't bear anybody any malice, really!

That's another of this story's strong points: a uniformly excellent guest cast, from the largest part down to the smallest. I was utterly delighted when I first heard that this was the episode Ardal O'Hanlon was going to be in, and that he was going to be the one behind the cat-man makeup. To be honest, I wasn't especially enthused about Gridlock initially - or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I was understandably wary, not being sure whether it would land on the Rose / Aliens of London or the Doomsday side of the RTD-penned episode scale. But the sole fact that I could anticipate seeing O'Hanlon's performance raised my expectation of enjoyment considerably. And, indeed, he did not disappoint at all - I didn't get a single "Oh, right, yeah" but otherwise it was indeed like watching a (much smarter version of) Dougal inside that car. What a fantastic voice (I'm sure I'd have recognized him straightaway even if I hadn't known he was going to be in this), and such a recognizable face even under that mask. He delivered so many great lines... "Twenty yards! We're having a good day.", his awesome laugh in "Medical man! Ha-ha!", and my favorite line of the episode, which I'll mention below.

Milo and Cheen, played by Travis Oliver and Lenora Crichlow, also make a surprisingly positive impression as kidnappers with hearts of gold. They're both utterly sweet and very devoted to one another - and not, for once, in a creepy Spike/Drusilla kind of way, but genuine malice-free adoration, with lots of big adorable smiles and a baby on the way. I really liked the two of them. The Cassini "sisters", played by Bridget Turner (who I could swear I've seen somewhere before) and Georgine Anderson, were also awesome. "You know full well we're not sisters. We're married!" I love that May is such a dedicated carwatcher, which is a brilliant notion that serves a very useful plot function (and there's also her great delivery of "I can't keep a note of everything!" when the Doctor forces her to realize that, in fact, she hasn't ever seen a single official vehicle on the roads). Nicholas Bolton as the businessman reminded me very much of Trevor Sigma from The Happiness Patrol, although I feel sure it was just a bowler-hat similarity I was reacting to. I was also quite fond of both Natasha Williams as the pharmacist (who has a great accent and came across as surprisingly sweet, given her unsavoury job) and Lucy Davenport as the appropriately-named Pale Woman (who looks like an undead waif before she takes the forget, but seems to glow when she smiles afterwards). I loved Davenport's delivery of "That's nice", a moment which made her remind me a lot of Amber Benson, actually. Last but not least, Erika Macleod as the smiley American Sally Calypso, whose "everything is okay, just be happy all day long" persona is a brilliant echo of the "There is no such thing as Macra" Controller from The Macra Terror, even if ultimately the two are unrelated.

Our regulars both get some great things to do here. Tennant gets to reach into the "furious-over-potential-harm-to-companion" pot again, and as always, delivers it with great intensity. I absolutely adore each time he says the word "Macra!" (biased much?), and his delivery of "And this is Hame. She's a cat. Don't worry." And in this episode, we get to see a side of the Doctor that I don't think we've ever seen before, as - overcome by his wistful white lie to Martha and the beauty of the city singing hymns - he sits down for a heart-to-heart and bares his soul to her. He looks as if he's on the verge of tears when he says "You should've seen it, that old planet. The second sun would rise in the south and the mountains would shine." Fantastic performance, just when I thought I'd seen all the tricks that Tennant had up his sleeve.

Meanwhile, I think Freema really starts to shine here. I love her breathlessly wide-eyed delivery of "Can we go there?", "You're taking me to the same planets that you took her?", her sarcastic "What do I do now, congratulate my kidnappers?", her angry "You don't talk. You never say! Why not?" (reminiscent of Ace in Fenric, and nice to see she has that backbone in her), and the way she indignantly rips off Cheen's honesty patch when she finds out that the woman is pregnant, which is a very nice use of her backstory. It's also interesting to see that Martha seems to have some kind of religious faith (although, between her implying that she has faith in other things than a religious deity and the supportiveness of hymns, and yet her knowing the words of The Old Rugged Cross well enough to sing along, and even shed a few tears, it's hard to say for sure one way or the other), and it's cool that her faith in the Doctor is already so very strong. But, whoops! After just last week expressing my relief of sorts that Martha hadn't freaked out over hopping into the TARDIS like Rose did, here we do indeed get pretty much the identical scene in which she worries about dying in the far future and leaving her parents wondering whatever happened to her. Granted, it's certainly one of those things that every companion must have gone through, but coming on the heels of so much other repetition, it feels a bit less interesting than it did the last time around with Rose. Maybe this is one of those realizations that you only get with year-five-billion culture shock?

Effects-wise, the CGI backgrounds overall look great, even the slightly-unnatural-looking shot of the Doctor walking out onto the lay-by in the middle of the motorway, although the Macra are a bit less convincing (maybe it's just that the image looks so dark, you can hardly see any of the detail that must surely be there). There's a super effect that accompanies Hame and the Doctor's teleport, and the shot of the motorway opening up to let the sunlight in is gorgeous, as is the scene of the cars flying back up into the city for the first time in years. These are probably also partly thanks to the director, which gives me a nice segue.

I find myself really liking Richard Clark's direction, which is both pretty and very useful - he really knows how to tell (or bolster) a story with his camera. After Milo clarifies that the fog outside is actually unbelievably thick exhaust fumes (or, at least, unbelievable for those of us who don't live in Los Angeles), and we wonder how on earth that much exhaust could build up, we then see a shot of Brannigan's car moving forward and belching out a completely opaque yellowish cloud of toxins. You'd think they would have found a better way to regulate automobile pollution in the future! But that shot actually made me go "ohhh!". Another very shrewd shot, which might have been stipulated by RTD but is still genius, is the touching shot of the Cassinis singing along to the hymn (which I interpreted as a pointed comment to those who would say that homosexuality and religion cannot mix) and holding hands, with a wedding ring clearly visible. Quite a lot of subtle political and social commentary going on there, without seeming at all preachy. Lovely shots toward the end of the New New York Senate and the sun rising over the city, too. I think the set decorators also deserve particular praise for their work on Gridlock; it was a delight seeing how they took one consistent space - namely, the interior of all the cars - and dressed it in such vastly different ways to indicate the personality of the different occupants. It was a delight watching to see what the inside of each car would look like! Makeup folks of course did a great job with the cat-person makeup on Brannigan and Hame - and note the shot, as the Doctor confronts Brannigan over his fear of what's in the fast lane, in which you can see Brannigan's nose glistening wetly! Brilliant! And Murray Gold gives us another pleasant score, including a rather nice use of some of his past themes, with a particularly nice track accompanying the Doctor's thrilling descent on the motorway. Love that they recorded some actual choir hymns, which lend a very sweet (and unusual!) feel to this episode.

Minor points:

• One thing I do love about RTD is his tendency to liberally sprinkle in references to the classic series, and here - among other bigger, more crustacean things - we get a lovely reference to Gallifrey, using the same classic description of its orange sky and silver-leafed trees, which I love even if it doesn't match a single part of the planet that we ever saw!

• The pharmacy stalls have a very Long Game feel about them, for some reason, despite being dingier, made of wood, painted different colors, being more abundant, and not selling food. But one does wonder, if the majority of the population (or is it a minority maybe?) are stuck on the motorway, how do these stalls ever get customers?

• I wonder how the Doctor had originally planned on closing Pharmacytown? Find Martha, then come back and wag his finger at them? Ask them to pack up and go home? Go all Jesus on them and turn their stalls over with a righteous anger?

• I love love this line of Martha's, and especially the way Freema delivers it:

  Cheen: "I wouldn't even know how to fire!"
  Martha: "No, nor me."

  But, um... if it isn't a real gun, then what is it? A toy gun that Milo bought his unborn son to play with on the journey? Or perhaps a really freaky marital aid? (in which case, Martha's going to wish she'd washed her hands afterwards. Make that a double whammy with the crackers made of recycled waste, eww.)

• I know this is going to sound silly, but aside from Ardal O'Hanlon, the one other thing that made me think Gridlock might not end up being so bad after all was the photo accompanying the episode preview in DWM. Of the Doctor, holding one of Brannigan's kittens. And I thought "Kittens!!!!!!!!!!" And then I thought, hey... the tenth Doctor is holding and petting the kitten and looking quite content! To be honest, I've felt a little hurt ever since he dissed cats back in Fear Her, so I'm overwhelmingly pleased to see that he seems to have gotten past that little foible and come to love kittens again. Maybe they were just so gosh-darn cute. As in the one he picks up, which then tries to clamber up onto his shoulder! Ha!!

• Another fave Martha line, thanks to Freema's delivery:

  Milo: "Rumor has it you can reach up to thirty miles per hour."
  Martha: "Wooow. That's, like, crazy."

• I love the growing sense of unease in the car as Cheem tells her scary fast-lane story and then Martha realizes that... the "official" truth can't be true, because the air vents clearly aren't working. So... if it's not the air vents, what is that scary growling sound out there in the fog?

• Why does Valerie refuse so vehemently to tell the Doctor what's in the fast lane? It's not like her kittens are old enough to understand and be upset by it. Perhaps she's heard tales of him, and knows that if he even gets a hint of a monster living down there, he'll insist on taking their car to investigate! Clever Valerie.

• This week's Line I Just Don't Get:

  Doctor: "If it's any consolation, Valerie, right now I'm having kittens."

• Oh, now, my favorite line of the episode... (well... after "Macra!", anyway.) It sums up Doctor Who so well!

  Valerie: "He's completely insane!"
  Brannigan: "That... and a bit magnificent!"

• I love the idea of the Doctor carhopping his way down to the fast lane - a really fun idea, well-executed from both an action standpoint and a humor one. If you're curious, despite the fact that traffic hardly ever moves on the motorway, in the 5 jumps that we see the Doctor make, he has to wait a moment for a car to pull into position below him during 3 of them. Suspense over plot realism, that's what I always say!

• LOL at the Doctor, as Hame jumps down into the car he's in:

  Doctor: "I've invented a sport!"

• An interesting point to consider, although Hame demurely refuses to bring it up, since she's sought redemption for it anyway: had the Doctor not sent the Sisters of Plenitude packing off to jail, they probably would have been around to combat the Bliss virus, and might possibly have been able to save the world with their miracle cures (although, seven minutes wouldn't have given them much time, so perhaps it's an irrelevant point).

• Grrr! More apparent Martha-Doctor crushage. Although it's hard to decide whether "Sometimes I think he likes me, but... sometimes I just think he needs someone with him" is meant to be read in the romantic sense of like, or the "I think he enjoys my company and wants to have specifically me around" sense. For now I'll go for the latter. If it's the former, does that already use up the get-out-of-jail free card that I awarded Russell for his use of the Macra? ...hmmmmmm... no, I think I can afford to be lenient, especially since I can't be 100% sure about what she means here anyway.

• It really is nice to see the Face of Boe again, and I'm very sad that he gives his whole life to save the people of New New York. What a sweet way to go, and even though I'd been expecting this outcome since New Earth, I'd been hoping that maybe he wasn't going to die after all, thanks to the tenth Doctor's steadfast refusal to believe the worst. What a sad shot of him lying on the floor as he dies.

• Awww! What a sweet moment as Valerie exclaims, "Children, it's the sunlight!" and uncovers their basket so they can see. And then we get this cuuuuuuuuuuuuuute kitten squinting up at the light. I think my heart about melted at that point... it's times like this that make me want to rush to the nearest pet store to furnish my apartment with felines.

• One assumes that, now that the undercity is being ventilated and there aren't tons of exhaust-spewing cars stuck in an eternal loop around the motorway, the Macra living down there will eventually die. But maybe not?? I rather hope they'll live to swat at passing minivans another day. It does seem a bit odd, though, that after all his indignance about their presence when he discovers them, he seems to forget all about them once he turns his sights to saving the undercity dwellers. I mean, I suppose that's understandable, but if he was that freaked out about the Macra in the motorway, don't you think he'd want to make absolutely sure they were cleared out? I mean, I guess there are still people living in the undercity, and what's to keep the Macra penned up on the bottom level if they decide they can get more food elsewhere?

• Nice, I like that they re-used a bit of the Temple of Peace (as seen in The End of the World) for the bit of architecture when the Doctor goes to look out the window at the city. Since both stories take place in the same time period, it adds to the whole "this is a cohesive culture" feeling. There's another nice bit of repetition from the same story when the Face of Boe tells the Doctor, "Everything has its time. You know that, old friend, better than most."

• I am amused that everyone seems to assume that the undercity-dwellers will immediately flock to the best apartments in New New York, when nobody even realizes that the city is deserted yet. That's going to be a nasty surprise, particularly if there aren't any utilities or anything available... even the best apartment would seem kinda shabby if the toilet and shower refused to ever work. But perhaps there are enough people coming up to the city now, that they'll sort of re-stock the depleted supply of plumbers, electricians, restauranteurs and drugstore employees.

• When the Face says, "I am the last of my kind, as you are the last of yours, Doctor.", Martha certainly seems to hear it too, judging by her reaction (and, um, the fact that she asks him about it later). So I guess the Face can transmit on general psychic channels that everyone can hear, too! Most interesting.

• And then we get the Face's final words: "You are not alone." What an intriguing message! And I guess we know what that means. Thanks, unavoidable spoilers! Very interesting look on the Doctor's face, as he tries to process what the Face might or might not be saying.

• Ouch! Have a little heart! (although at least he did sorta half-smile sympathetically)

  Martha: "You've got me. Is that what he meant?"
  Doctor: "I don't think so. Sorry."

• Nice, a bit of advance warning for Martha about the Daleks, since she's going to run into them next week. For now, she's just doing a little "yes, yes, I'm listening, ooh that sounds awful" nod upon hearing their name. That will soon change.

For a Russell-T.-Davies-penned script, Gridlock has got a lot of surprisingly subtle material. Overall, it's an intriguing and unusual story, surprisingly heartwarming, with tense and creepy moments and a lovely, sweet ending. Plus extra Macras. And who can ask for more than that?