This article contains spoilers for Doctor Who’s second 60th anniversary special, “Wild Blue Yonder.”

The Big Picture

“Wild Blue Yonder” is as stellar Doctor Who horror episode filled with wonderful surprises and emotional character development. The episode showcases the incredible range of David Tennant and Catherine Tate as they face their own dark reflections. “Wild Blue Yonder” balances silliness with unsettling body horror and leaves audiences on edge, setting up the next special.

Doctor Who has returned with its second highly anticipated 60th anniversary special featuring David Tennant back as the 14th Doctor alongside Catherine Tate as Donna Noble. Joining the likes of “Midnight” and “The Waters of Mars,” showrunner Russell T. Davies has delivered another stellar horror episode with “Wild Blue Yonder.” With footage and storylines kept tightly under wraps, the episode features more than its fair share of surprises.

Doctor Who The show follows the adventures of a Time Lord “The Doctor” who is able to regenerate, and the Doctor’s human friends. The Doctor and companion’s journey through time and space in the TARDIS – a time-traveling ship shaped like a police box – saving the universe with a combination of wit, bravery, and kindness. Cast Jodie Whittaker, Peter Capaldi, pearl mackie, Matt Smith, David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Ncuti Gatwa, Jenna Coleman, Alex Kingston, Karen Gillan Genres Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi Rating TV-PG Seasons 14 Studio BBC America Streaming Service(s) Disney+

Written by Davies and directed by Tom Kingsley, this episode puts the Doctor and Donna through the emotional wringer and brings them through the other side of it stronger than ever. At the end of “The Star Beast,” Donna accidentally spills a cup of coffee onto the console of the TARDIS, activating its time and space capabilities and sending it into pure chaos as it explodes and whirls her and the Doctor off to worlds unknown. When they crash land on a spaceship in uncharted territory, they’re thrown out of the TARDIS, which has conveniently removed itself from danger, leaving the Doctor and Donna to fend for themselves.

‘Wild Blue Yonder’ Balances Terror With an Emotional Character Story

The episode opens on quite a light note with the Doctor and Donna landing in an apple tree in 1666 at the moment Sir Isaac Newton discovers the concept of gravity, or in this case, mavity. With a few lighthearted jokes, the TARDIS whisks the duo off once again only to land them at the very edge of the galaxy on a seemingly uninhabited spaceship. Chucked out of the TARDIS, which is actively repairing itself, the wibbly-wobbly time machine makes itself scarce as it realizes that there is a menacing force on board this ship.

Determined to find her way home, Donna and the Doctor march right into the action and set about figuring out where they are, finding nothing but a spooky old robot, and an unnerving ship’s log revealing that an airlock was opened and closed three years prior. When the duo separates for the sake of getting the ship back online, imposters appear for each of them pretending to be the other with convincing enough charm and enough of their memories until warped horror begins to give them away. From there, “Wild Blue Yonder” forces the Doctor and Donna into a deep character study that examines their duality, both together and individually, as they fight the copies of themselves and face some difficult truths.

The beings, called “No-things,” come from the darkness and are filled with a malevolent rage that they wish to unleash upon the rest of the galaxy. To achieve that goal, they go about turning themselves into perfect evil replicas of the Doctor and Donna, determined to trick the TARDIS into bringing them back to Earth upon its return. All the while they’re able to bend and manipulate their bodies into horrific shapes and terrorize the Doctor and Donna with secrets hidden in the depths of both of their memories.

Russell T. Davies Delivers an Excellent Horror Episode With ‘Wild Blue Yonder’
Image via BBC

Davies is well known for his dynamic range when it comes to writing Doctor Who, with stories from the silly and delightful to those that take unsettling concepts that sit with the audience long after the credits roll. With “Wild Blue Yonder,” he takes a hefty balance of silly and mixes it with the absolute horror of being known so completely by something, or someone, that wishes to destroy you.

One of the most incredible moments in this episode comes when the Doctor and Donna must prove to each other that they’re real when, in fact, they are once again facing the No-things. The duplicate Donna corners the Doctor and confronts him about his own past, his unknown origins, and how he carries the responsibility for the creation of the Time Lords, and the immense guilt over the destruction of half the universe. It nearly works too, as the Doctor drops his defenses, admitting how much he missed Donna in the fifteen (but for him so many more) years since they’d seen each other. That spare moment of vulnerability makes the Doctor feel all too seen, and as difficult as it is, he wants Donna to see him, for someone to understand. He’s simultaneously all-powerful and completely helpless.

Meanwhile, things don’t get quite as deep for Donna, but she speaks about her family and the life she’s built since her time on the TARDIS. She wonders about how they’ll remember her if she never makes it home, knowing now that she won’t be forgotten in the slightest, not the way she was made to forget. Donna, in her original Doctor Who run, famously thinks fairly low of herself, saying things like “I’m nothing special” and “I’m just no one,” with the Doctor insisting that she is, in fact, brilliant. In this episode, it’s key to her survival that Donna believes herself to be both insignificant and capable of incredible things.

“Wild Blue Yonder” is an episode that audiences will want to watch again and again to fully understand the depth of its emotional story. On top of devastating character moments, the episode is filled with unsettling body horror as the duplicate Doctor and Donna twist their limbs and crack their bones in the pursuit of terrorizing the real versions. The direction of the episode by Kingsley is also top-notch as it puts the viewer on edge, leaving one not entirely sure who’s who and what’s real. While the CGI might come off somewhat silly in the light of day, it quickly turns into true horror as it becomes much more real the longer the episode goes on. Filled with fantastical things and running almost entirely on the chemistry between Tate and Tennant — along with their incredible range as actors — “Wild Blue Yonder” is an outstanding episode.

Tennant and Tate Flex Their Dramatic Range in ‘Wild Blue Yonder’

Once again, Tennant and Tate prove that they are one of the best acting duos on television. Together, the Doctor and Donna look right into the darkness in this episode, and they find it staring back at them with their own faces. In “Wild Blue Yonder,” Tennant takes the Doctor across the full range of emotions, from silly and wondrous to earthshakingly vulnerable to filled with rage and genuine terror. On the other hand, Tate has Donna’s signature charm back in full force now that her memories are intact. At the same time, she brings a much-needed balance to the Doctor, keeping him grounded and helping him to process the parts of himself that he doesn’t want to face. While they’re able to pick up exactly where they left off with each other it’s also clear they’re creating something new, as well as laying the groundwork for Ncuti Gatwa’s era as the fifteenth Doctor.

As their duplicate versions, Tennant and Tate are wildly unsettling, with a menacing undertone to everything that they do. The No-thing versions are capable of replicating the well of emotion that they have for each other until they pull the rug right out from under each other. The two actors give their duplicates subtle differences in crucial moments, leaving the audience guessing until it’s nearly too late. They prove that whenever these two actors are on the same page with each other, they’re completely unstoppable. Tate and Tennant work in perfect sync with each other on double time in this episode, delivering dual performances that make them both endlessly watchable.

As they realize that they need to destroy the No-things entirely to protect the rest of the galaxy, the Doctor and Donna fall into a race against time that very nearly sees them both dead. Following a last-second rescue from the TARDIS and a much-needed double take from the Doctor, he and Donna make it out by the very skin of their teeth, clinging to each other in the now-repaired time machine. Finally, this episode reveals a sweet surprise after putting the viewer through emotional turmoil. When Donna and the Doctor arrive back in London, they find themselves face to face with none other than Donna’s grandfather Wilf (Bernard Cribbins). The reunion with Wilf is perfectly delightful, his pure spirit lifting our hearts after everything we’ve watched the Doctor and Donna go through. However, moments later, it’s revealed that all of humanity has gone mad as shops explode and planes fall from the sky, setting up the third and final special still to come.

Rating: A

Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder is available to stream on Disney+ in the U.S.

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