October 2: "73 Yards"

Only eight episodes this series and we still have a Doctor-lite episode?  (Actually it's because Ncuti Gatwa is off finishing up his commitments on Sex Education, not because they're trying to run two production blocks simultaneously.)

It's been a bit surprising, this series; normally it felt like you got one or two "experimental" episodes that push the boundaries of what the show is like and can do, things like "Love & Monsters", "Midnight", "Heaven Sent", or "It Takes You Away".  But so far it's felt like 3 of the last 4 episodes have been pushing those boundaries, with the craziness of "The Devil's Chord", the basically single small set of "Boom", and now the pure ghost story of "73 Yards".  It even starts unusually, with no opening credits for the fourth time ever.

The beginning is seemingly innocent enough: for the second time in as many episodes, the Doctor steps somewhere he shouldn't, this time accidentally breaking a fairy circle on a clifftop in Wales (well, the episode calls it a fairy circle, but this seems to be something constructed by people with string and messages, rather like a spirit trap, instead of a ring caused by mushrooms).  When Ruby bends down to read some of the messages, the Doctor apparently disappears, while in the distance a woman can be seen talking and gesturing.  But Ruby can neither approach her nor get her to leave her alone: instead the woman is always 73 yards away from Ruby.  And this set-up leads us into one of the stranger episodes of the entire series.

One benefit of the Doctor being gone is that the focus can now shift to Ruby, and Millie Gibson rises to the occasion.  On her own, she has to try and get to civilisation and then live her life while this woman constantly keeps following her, and you can see in Gibson's performance how confusion gives rise to annoyance, then to terror, and finally acceptance.  She has some wonderful moments throughout, such as her uneasiness in the pub, her anguish when her mother disowns her, or the way she apologises to Marti for not doing something sooner.  She also does a good job of aging the attitude of the character; Ruby in her 40s is less lively than Ruby in her 20s, seeming a bit older and more careworn -- not just because of the hair and makeup but also just in the way Gibson carries herself.  It's a really lovely performance that does a lot to deepen our understanding of Ruby and her character (even if it ultimately turns out none of this happened, at least in this way).

The script also does a good job of slowly building up the mystery, from a weird phenomenon of being followed to the first time Ruby asks someone to talk to the woman -- in this case, a hiker played by, you guessed it, Susan Twist.  "I haven't met you before, have I?" asks Ruby, in the first acknowledgement of Twist's repeated appearances.  "I don't think so," the hiker replies, confused.  "Have you?"  But in any case, when the hiker goes to talk to the woman she flees in terror.  This is the start of the pattern, as a pub-goer flees, then Ruby's own mother, and even Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (in a nice cameo), despite her claims that UNIT have training against psychic, telepathic, mesmeric, and witchcraft forces.  It serves to make Ruby increasingly isolated and powerless to stop this woman or get rid of her, something that the show reinforces by showing her distracted on dates and alone on her birthday over the next 20 years.

Amol Rajan interviews Roger ap Gwilliam. ("73 Yards") ©BBC

This time lapse, as we move from 2024 to 2046, moves the episode from creepy to something slightly different, as Ruby hears about a Welsh politician named Roger ap Gwilliam that the Doctor had mentioned right before he disappeared was a future Prime Minister who led the world to the brink of nuclear destruction.  Ruby decides to inveigle her way onto Gwilliam's campaign team, so that she can be just close enough to him to use the woman against him.  To be fair, Gwilliam does show that he's pretty terrible -- seeming to claim that he wants to fire a nuclear missile during an interview or whatever he's doing to Marti that causes her to declare that he's a monster -- so Ruby's actions aren't only based on an off-hand comment the Doctor made.  But when it's officially announced that Gwilliam will be Prime Minister, Ruby makes her move just by walking out onto a football pitch so that she's exactly 73 yards away from Gwilliam, which means he can talk to the woman, leading him to flee in terror.  Ruby has saved the world.

Except then the episode keeps going, and we see Ruby eventually turn into an old woman, who goes to visit the TARDIS one last time (now covered in moss) before somehow becoming the woman who's been keeping her distance, at which point she's transported back in time to the TARDIS's arrival in 2024 or so, where her presence distracts Ruby long enough to then distract the Doctor, so that he doesn't break the fairy circle.  So, er, does that mean the future isn't saved then?  It's only saved in that one divergent timeline that no longer exists?  And how did Ruby become the old woman, and did she just stay the same age for the next 60 years?

There's a slight feeling of a shaggy dog story at the end of this, where we get led on this journey that ultimately doesn't matter.  It's not even like Ruby remembers the events or anything.  We also don't get any sort of explanation for why any of this is happening -- although, to be fair, that seems to be part of the point.  Russell T Davies slyly lays his cards on the table at one point, as Kate remarks that "We see something inexplicable and invent the rules to make it work," but in this case he doesn't provide us with the rules; we're on our own as to come up with theories about why this is happening.  The first time around, I found that very frustrating when combined with the ending: we don't know why any of this occurred and none of it mattered anyway, so what's the point?  But this time around, knowing what kind of episode this is and where it's going, it was easier to see its virtues.  This is a ghost story about a haunting at a distance, and the tone and the mood is the driving force behind all this, more than any explanations or rationales.  In some ways airing at the end of May instead of like October does this episode a disservice.  This is a story designed to exude a certain spooky atmosphere, and on that front "73 Yards" is a clear winner.