Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder

The second episode of Doctor Who celebrating its 60th anniversary aired, becoming the first intergalactic adventure in fifteen years for duo David Tennant and Catherine Tate.

Following The Star Beast, where eager fans were able to piece together the possible story for the Doctor (Tennant) and Donna Noble (Tate) ahead of its broadcast, the second of three-anniversary specials, Wild Blue Yonder, had audiences pondering precisely what may happen, with minimal information shared across its channels.

Audiences, therefore, resorted to speculating about what could be involved, knowing it was to be the scariest of the three. One prediction assumed that the episode may include the return of Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi to play antagonistic versions of the Doctor within a corrupt TARDIS.

An alternative rumour suggested a multiple-perspective episode, where Wild Blue Yonder would be told through the Fourteenth Doctor and Donna’s eyes. The same story would be told in the next series but from the perspective of Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor and companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson).

Whilst both rumours pose creative ideas, the enigma of Wild Blue Yonder across its restricted promotional campaign undoubtedly captivated intrigue.

Even the showrunner Russell T Davies fuelled the theories by adding the comment “Beware the Garm!” to an Instagram post, referencing the four-part serial Terminus starring Peter Davison. In the story, the TARDIS is damaged and lands aboard a spaceship positioned in the centre of the universe. As a result of a spreading illness, companion Nyssa, as her last on-screen appearance, becomes contaminated with an infection, later saved by the Garm, a bipedal canine similar to the Lupari introduced in Chris Chibnall’s Flux story arc. Weirdly, despite fuelling the theories, there’s more truth to it than audiences were aware of, with the pilot of the abandoned spaceship looking to have a somewhat doglike skeleton.

Thankfully, though, its omission of details worked favourably when the episode kept its story to the bare bones of understanding our two principal casts.

Character	Cast
The Doctor	David Tennant
Donna Noble	Catherine Tate
Wilfred Mott	Bernard Cribbins
Sir Isaac Newton	Nathaniel Curtis
Mrs Merridew	Susan Twist

As the TARDIS lands recovering from spilt coffee, the Doctor and Donna explore an empty spaceship with moving corridors, discovering creatures at the edge of the Universe mimicking and emulating our leads in the hopes of getting enough information to leave and explore the universe on their own.

With some phenomenal direction from Tom Kingsley, how the actors shared the screen highlighted their ability to personify different moods and feelings as alternate versions of their characters. It became a real highlight of storytelling. Audiences are likely to recall similar aspects being done in Series 6’s The Rebel People & The Almost Flesh and The Girl Who Waited, but Wild Blue Yonder manages to become a celebration of what made those episodes so enjoyable.

Pitting the Doctor and Donna as both hero and villain allowed them to explore how each alteration behaves and how the actors would react to their on-screen in each differing mode.

Where Midnight, another body-mimic story written by Russell T Davies, became a metaphor for mob mentality, Wild Blue Yonder sits almost in adjacency: it becomes a story of trust and companionship.

This is best explored in its final sequence as the TARDIS remineralises to save the Doctor; he is given a choice: which Donna to save. Previously done in The Girl Who Waited, the Doctor puts it onto his companion to prove they deserve saving. Except in Wild Blue Yonder, the Doctor invites the wrong one onboard, leaving Donna to burn in the spaceship’s explosion.

However, despite the story excellently playing off the creepiness of doubt and unreliable information, its rushed conclusion, where the Doctor, at the last minute, realises his mistake and swaps them over, is swiftly brushed over. The pain and betrayal Donna would’ve experienced in that moment is ignored. A heartbreak of betrayal, left to die on a spaceship by your closest friend, all before he returns, tail between his legs, would’ve enraged her, and it was a shame we never saw that exploration more.

This omission of betrayal would have been an excellent parallel to a flawless sequence early on where the Doctor and Donna argue before the panic dawns, and the Doctor has to reassure her.

Odder still, this sequence follows the wrong cold-open for the script. For an episode tonally that’s creepy and meant to manipulate an audience to question the truth of what they’re seeing, the quirky and playful cold open introducing Nathaniel Curtis as Sir Isaac Newton becomes jarring when placed in conjunction.

Whilst the cold open is meant to replicate Destination: Skaro with the Doctor arriving at a location and being the precursor to a word’s invention, when less than a month has passed since the sketch, it feels annoyingly repetitive, as though hammering on the point of how the Doctor’s involvement in places is evidence of the ruptured canon.

There is undeniable talent on show throughout the episode. The direction is meticulous, and the performances from Tennant and Tate are exemplary, especially when reunited with the late Bernard Cribbins in the episode’s closure. Still, when the story was meant to explore the relationship between the Doctor and Donna, there should have been a more acknowledged resolution for them after this ordeal. Putting this into perspective, in Midnight, all it takes is Donna to repeat “molto bene” and the Doctor to respond, “No don’t, seriously, don’t,” and we as an audience understand everything.

Comparatively, in The Girl Who Waited, as Rory (Arthur Darvill) carries young Amy (Karen Gillan) to safety, the older Amy stands there heartbroken. Separated only by the doors of the TARDIS, their hands placed on its window, old Amy says to Rory, “The look on your face when you carried her…me. Her. When you carried her away. You used to look at me like that.” At that moment, she’s doing everything she can to be saved. And yet, in Wild Blue Yonder, it’s a flip of a switch, and the TARDIS entrance becomes a slide to evict the imposter, and Donna is picked up mere moments from death.

The intense emotional scenes are where Russell T Davies has always exceeded as a writer. Look no further than in the heart-wrenching moments of It’s A Sin, Years and Years, or his first tenure as showrunner. Wild Blue Yonder has profound, undeniable moments of heart, even if it doesn’t always succeed in what it tries to do, but the real gut punch was seeing Bernard Cribbins for one final time.

Wild Blue Yonder is available to stream on BBC iPlayer for those in the UK as part of the new Whoniverse collection. It is also available to stream internationally exclusively on Disney+.

Role	Crew
Writer and Executive Producer	Russell T Davies
Director	Tom Kingsley
Producer	Vicki Delow
Director of Photography	Matt Gray
Art Director	Phil Sims
Composer	Murray Gold
Executive Producer	Jane Tranter
Executive Producer	Julie Gardner
Executive Producer	Phil Collinson
Executive Producer	Joel Collins
Production Company	BBC Studios
Production Company	Bad Wolf Studios