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| Ruby Sunday is followed by a mysterious woman who is always exactly 73 yards away. |
1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 47 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Dylan Holmes Williams. Produced by: Vicki Delow.
THE PLOT:
The TARDIS materializes in Wales, near the top of a cliff overlooking the sea. The Doctor exults in the view, waxing on about "the war between the land and the sea" - and gets so carried away with his own eloquence that he doesn't notice himself stepping on a fairy circle surrounding a makeshift shrine. Ruby pauses to read a couple of the prayers left by the locals, one of which references a "Mad Jack." When she looks up, the Doctor is gone, and a mysterious woman is watching Ruby from 73 yards away.
Ruby attempts to walk to her to ask where the Doctor went... but no matter what route she takes, the stranger remains 73 yards in the distance. After trying to get back into the TARDIS to no avail, Ruby starts walking to the local village. She asks a hiker to talk to the woman and the hiker agrees, only to flee as soon as she approaches. A man in the local pub also tries, with the same result.
Eventually, Ruby gives up and returns home. From the train, she sees the woman still watching her from 73 yards away, impossibly appearing in fields and towns every time she looks out the window. Her mother decides to put an end to this issue, striding forward to talk to her daughter's stalker... but she turns cold at once, abandoning Ruby.
Before the Doctor's disappearance, when he was nattering on about all things Welsh, he mentioned a future Prime Minister: Roger ap Gwilliam (Aneurin Barnard), whom he described as "terrifying." When Ruby sees ab Gwilliam giving a television interview, just beginning his political ascent, she decides that there's a purpose to what's happening after all. Whether it will solve her problem or not, she resolves to stop this man and "save the world."
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: He's barely in this episode. He drops a bit of exposition about Roger ap Gwilliam to set up later plot events. He's also instantly and deeply sorry about having broken the circle, with his first instinct to try to repair the damage he's done.
Ruby: By contrast, she doesn't care at all about breaking the circle, shrugging it off and proceeding to read some of the prayers left by the shrine. There's a running theme of abandonment, with every protector or potential protector deserting her: The Doctor, the woman who runs the pub, UNIT, even her mother. She feels these emotional wounds strongly, but she also pays close attention to the situation with the mysterious woman. She may not know what is happening or why, but she figures out some of the rules. By the second half, she learns to help herself - and when her lonely new fate intersects with the ascent of Roger ap Gwilliam, she uses her observations to greatest advantage.
Kate Lethbridge-Stewart: Briefly positioned as a potential savior for Ruby. She shows up with the offer a job, observing that UNIT has recently developed "a tradition of helping the Doctor's former companions." She also has UNIT's resources to bring to bear. Unfortunately, that's where it all goes wrong. Kate attempts to apprehend the mystery woman; and as soon as she and her soldiers approach, she turns cold and orders her forces to "disengage."
Carla Sunday: The Church on Ruby Road showed an alternate reality in which, without Ruby, generous and joyful Carla was instead selfish and bitter. We see that contrast again. When Ruby comes home, Carla is entirely supportive. She's the one who insists on confronting the woman, using walkie-talkies so that Ruby will be able to hear what the woman says. Then a switch is flipped. All at once, Carla stops seeing Ruby as her daughter, and Carla's manner transforms into... well, into the woman we saw in that one scene in The Church on Ruby Road.
Roger Ap Gwilliam: The closest this episode has to a villain, Gwylliam seems designed after modern populist figures. In the usual way of modern television, his actual politics are obscure. He is anti-NATO, however, and plans to buy a nuclear arsenal to keep the UK independent from the rest of the world. He's a nasty piece of work regardless, something the episode reinforces when he initiates an abusive relationship with Marti (Sophie Ablett), one of his campaign's young volunteers.
THOUGHTS:
"That's what we do, all of us. We see something inexplicable and invent the rules to make it work."
-Kate Lethbridge-Stewart drops a pretty big hint about the nature of this story.
73 Yards is deliberately ambiguous, providing questions and only ever giving partial answers.
That isn't to say that it isn't precisely structured. It sets up a problem for Ruby in the woman following her. It establishes rules: The woman is always 73 yards away, and anyone she speaks to is driven into an immediate panic and becomes particularly cold toward Ruby. It holds to both rules consistently and allows Ruby to use them to proactively to solve a problem. As a result, even with answers in short supply, there's still a feeling of completion. An end-of-episode twist provides sense of closure, even as questions are left to swirl around the viewer's mind.
The episode is a showcase for the character of Ruby in much the way Boom showcased the new Doctor. The result is, unsurprisingly, the strongest episode yet for the character. Ruby spends the first half trying to solve the immediate problem. She attempts to approach the woman. When that doesn't work, she enlists the aid of people she meets, hoping they can talk to her so that she can understand what's happening. Each attempt not only fails, but also leaves her more isolated than before. The second half then sees her fixating on a problem - Gwyllim - and relying only on herself to solve it.
I found the first half to be the stronger part, with plenty of atmosphere and a rising sense... not really of dread, but of something being "not right." The Gwyllim plot that dominates the second half is still well told, and it allows Ruby to firmly claim the "hero" role. But these scenes just don't have the same pull, and I think the script lifts a little too freely from Stephen King's The Dead Zone.
Millie Gibson impresses throughout. With Ncuti Gatwa gone save for a couple of minutes at the beginning and even less than that at the end, she has to carry the story, and she does so splendidly. There are moments of strong emotion, particularly in the scenes involving her mother's rejection of her, and she plays these in a way that makes them feel both effective and entirely natural. When she meets Kate, she shifts from relief at having found real help to dread when UNIT descends on the strange woman. Even as her isolation increases, she never loses her sense of humor or compassion.
OVERALL:
73 Yards is the second excellent episode in a row. It's atmospheric and mysterious, and it is further elevated by Millie Gibson's lead performance. I don't think the second half is quite as good as the first, which is why this falls just slightly short of full marks, but I'd still rank it among Russell T. Davies' best Doctor Who scripts.
This season's stumbling start had me seriously worried. After Boom and this, however, I am back to eagerly awaiting the next installment.
Overall Rating: 9/10.
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