In Review: Doctor Who (S14 – Ep2) Wild Blue Yonder

Synopsis: In Wild Blue Yonder, The TARDIS takes the Doctor and Donna to the furthest edge of adventure. To escape, they must face the most desperate fight of their lives, with the fate of the universe at stake.

The Story

When Donna spills a coffee on the Tardis console. The Doctor’s famous time ship malfunctions and lands them on a mysterious spaceship at the very edge of the universe. As they head out to explore while the Tardis regenerates. Our intrepid time travelers get the shock of their lives when the Tardis seems to strand them on the spaceship. To make matters worse. The Doctor and Donna come up against an Alien entity, which has produced exact copies of them and these copies of the Doctor and Donna are determined to hunt them down.

The Acting

David Tennant and Catherine Tate put in a brilliant performance in this episode as not only do they give us the normal versions of The Doctor and Donna, but they also play the alien doubles of their characters. This episode sees the series digging into the realms of horror and suspense. As the episode pits the Alien Space Ship and the Alien doubles against The Doctor and Donna. Added to this is the fact that the Alien version of Donna reveals quite a lot to the Doctor when we learn that she has all of his memories, which include those memories that The Doctor has collected during the 15 Years that they have been traveling without Donna.

This episode also features our first look at the late Bernard Cribbins who reprised his role of Wilfred Mott just prior to his death earlier this year. To many like myself who grew up in the 1970s. Cribbins was an absolute legend when it came to his role in the Railway Children and his regular gig reading stories to kids on the BBC’s Jackanory program. Added to that he also co-starred alongside the late Peter Cushing in the second Dr. Who feature film Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. We only see Wilfred briefly at the close of the episode, but it looks very much like he may have a slightly bigger role in next week’s episode, which will be the last special we see until the Christmas Day episode. 

Overall

Wild Blue Yonder delivers a story full of suspense that had me on the edge of my seat as I was waiting for the next shock. The acting performances deliver the goods as we get to see The Doctor and Donna try to figure out what on earth is happening on the mysterious spaceship. As with the last series of specials that RTD did for the series. Each story has given us something different and kept us guessing. The set design and visuals for the ship are great and we see some fun CGI as we get to see the Doctors Double present us with massive hands and long arms, which is something that would likely have amused the younger viewers.