Story 181 - Gridlock

In which the Doctor decides to take Martha on a second trip. Once into the past, and now once into the future. He selects somewhere that he has been to recently - the city of New New York on the planet New Earth, some 30 years after his last visit. Martha is not impressed that he is taking her to a place where he took Rose. Nor is she impressed with the location of their landing - a rain-swept alleyway. She asks instead if they can go to see his home planet, but the Doctor shrugs this off. A number of wooden booths spring to life. They contain people selling Moods - drug patches which stimulate emotions. A young woman buys some "Forget", as she is sad that her family have gone away to the Motorway. The Doctor is puzzled as to why this should cause her such distress. Suddenly, a young man and woman appear and abduct Martha at gunpoint, dragging her away. They are apologetic, claiming they need a third passenger. The Doctor informs the people in the booths that they will close business immediately - or he will do it for them - before giving chase. He goes through a door and finds himself in the Motorway.

This is a vast tunnel, filled with identical van-like vehicles. The smog is overpowering, but the car nearest him opens and he is invited in. On board are Thomas Kincade Brannigan, a Cat Person, and his human wife, Valerie, along with their children. These kittens were born on the Motorway, and Brannigan explains that the traffic has been in a permanent jam for decades. Vehicles only manage a few feet per day if they are lucky. The Doctor tells them he needs to find the vehicle that Martha is on. Brannigan has friends on social media, and the Cassini sisters - really a married couple - identify the car she is travelling in. As it has three people on board, it is allowed to go down to the Fast Lane at the bottom of the tunnel. Brannigan and Valerie are frightened to follow even though the Doctor makes three, as they have heard disquieting rumours about this lane. Martha, meanwhile, has found herself captive of Milo and Cheen, a friendly young couple hoping to get work outside the city.
In the city itself, the Face of Boe knows that the Doctor has arrived. He is being looked after by Novice Hame, who had earlier tended him at the hospital of the Sisters of Plenitude. She sets out to find the Doctor.
He has decided to travel down to the lower traffic levels by dropping down through the intervening cars. He reaches the level above the Fast Lane.

Looking down into the dense smog, he sees that the base of the tunnel is infested by giant crab creatures, which he identifies as Macra. They thrive on the toxic gases. They also attack vehicles which use the Fast Lane. This is what is happening to Milo and Cheen's car. Novice Hame arrives in the car containing the Doctor and teleports him to the senate house in the city, where he is reunited with the Face of Boe. Hame explains that a new Mood patch was developed some years ago - called Bliss. It mutated into a virulent plague which wiped out the city. The Face of Boe was able to close off the Motorway - trapping everyone down there until the plague had abated. It is keeping the Motorway running, but is now dying. It uses the last of its energy to help the Doctor open up the tunnel, so that the cars can fly up into the now empty city - including the one with Martha on board. She goes to the senate house and meets the Doctor, Hame and the Face of Boe, whose tank has now shattered. Hame had once told the Doctor of a prophecy - that the Face would impart one final secret to a traveller without a home. The Face tells the Doctor: "You are not alone" before dying. The Doctor leaves Hame to help the Motorway people resettle the city, and takes Martha back to the TARDIS. He decides that she deserves to know the truth about what happened to his planet.

Gridlock was written by Russell T Davies, and was first broadcast on Saturday 14th April, 2007. It is the third and final part of a Year 5 Billion trilogy which began with The End of the World, and continued with New Earth, all featuring the Face of Boe. Davies was inspired by the traffic jams which typify a traditional British Bank Holiday. As a fan of the comic 2000 AD, he also wanted to show a cityscape similar to Mega-City One. The driver of the last car visited by the Doctor - a man in a business suit with bowler hat - is based on Max Normal from the same comic, and the computer interface who talks to the Motorway denizens - Sally Calypso - also derives from a 2000 AD character, in the Halo Jones strips.
Davies needed a monster to lurk in the bowels of the Motorway, and instead of coming up with a new one he found one ready made - the toxic-gas breathing Macra from the 1967 story The Macra Terror.

The main guest artist is Ardal O'Hanlon as Brannigan, best known as the dim-witted Father Dougal in Father Ted. There were no problems with covering his face in prostheses, as he has such a distinctive voice. He's now the head policeman on the most dangerous island in the Caribbean (having taken over as lead in Death in Paradise). Valerie is Jennifer Hennessy. Playing Milo and Cheen are Travis Oliver and Lenora Crichlow. He was a regular on Footballers' Wives (and has played a companion from the New Adventure novels for Big Finish recently), whilst she is best known as the ghost housemate Annie in Being Human.
Anna Hope returns as Novice Hame, and Struan Rodger once again voices the Face of Boe.

Story arc: Well, it is a sequel of sorts, so several links back to the two earlier stories mentioned above.
No mention of Harold Saxon per se, but the Face of Boe's last words will be prophetic for the concluding episodes of this season.
The Japanese couple have "Bad Wolf" written on a poster in their car - in Japanese.

Overall, I have always had a soft spot for this episode. Macra aside, the Doctor has a technical challenge to solve, rather than defeat a monster or villain. The plot is slight, but the characters are interesting, and the visuals are great. Often rather moving, it's hard to watch without getting a tear in the eye.
Things you might like to know:

• Doctor Who has usually shied away from religion, but in this the Motorway inhabitants have their resolve boosted daily with a hymn. We see everyone singing along to The Old Rugged Cross, and the episode ends with Abide With Me. To think that this comes from the writer who included a "No Religion" ban on Platform One, set in the same time zone. Interesting that a particular religion has survived 5 Billion years - specifically Christianity. Were other faiths covered on days we didn't see? More likely, some religions have set up on planets of their own.
• If you think New New York looks a bit like Coruscant from the Star Wars prequels then you'd be right to do so - the Mill took inspiration from these, as well as The Fifth Element.
• The couple who get killed in the pre-credit sequence might also look familiar - being the pair from the famous painting American Gothic (Grant Wood, 1930). Fans of the Rocky Horror Picture Show will certainly recognise this.
• The director is Charles Palmer, who is the son of actor Geoffrey Palmer, who everyone thinks is married to Judi Dench. Palmer pere was in The Silurians and The Mutants, and will be back at Christmas 2007 captaining the spaceship Titanic.
• Davies liked action to move up and down - hence the number of lift shaft scenes in his stories, and this inspired the Doctor's descent through the various cars. One of the cars contains the programme's first naturists.
• The Cassini sisters (Bridget Turner and Georgine Anderson) become the series' first gay married couple. Turner was married to Frank Cox - director of The Sensorites, and the second half of Edge of Destruction.
• Talking of The Sensorites, the Doctor describes Gallifrey just as Susan did in that story.
• The idea for the Mood patches came from one of the first new novel tie-ins for the 2005 series - Only Human, by Gareth Roberts.
• This was the 727th episode of Doctor Who - thus overtaking the 726 episodes of Star Trek. The Trek count included all of the franchise - DS9, Voyager and Enterprise as well as the original 3 seasons and their animated cousin.