Rate And Discuss 3.3: Gridlock

[Paul Monk]

This series must have really re-awoken my inner child again so far because I loved this one. I've given it 10/10 again (crazy fool I am)
I had no problems with the pace of it and loved the whole traffic jam premise to bits. I thought it was very Mega City One.
The Macra were a little bit under used but I did give a little bit of a fanboy yelp when they were revealed! Tabby enjoyed it too. Especially the cats.

[Andrew Curnow]

...in the basement you've got the Macra, whose speciality - in their original story at least - is to con communities into complete placidity with music (which we got) messages from some sort of leader (which we got) and hypnosis (which we didn't get). Yet there was absolutely no connection between the Macra and the general situation, when to have forged one would have tightened the whole story... he devolves the crabs and makes them unintelligent monsters instead! Why? The stuff that killed the population of New Earth could have been a side effect of the Macra's gas related antics rather than a throwaway line virus. It's as if RTD had plotted everything around his monster and then severed almost every single link between them. Truly bizarre. If he'd used the Macra to full potential then it'd have been his most taughtly plotted episode.

Mr Bus makes some good points, as ever, but I do think that the problem some people have with the Macra is simply that they are the Macra, rather than 'anonymous monster #362'. The idea of having the Macra behind it all is a good one, but if they'd gone for that then I think we'd now all be complaining that the Face of Boe strand to the story felt shoehorned in - without that link to what's going on down there I don't think the story would have worked as a single cohesive whole. Because we know the Macra can/did do much more than just mindlessly eat flying camper-vans, we sort of feel cheated that they didn't - arguably, it was a nice touch having the Macra down in the fastlane, but it may have backfired. Any monster would have done, and perhaps (from a fan's point of view) it would have been better. It's a bit like if they'd made the Magma creature into an Ice Warrior instead - nice touch for fans with the namecheck, but why bother?

Personally, though, I had no idea the Macra were even on the cards, so it was just another moment of "wahey!" in an episode that I enjoyed enormously.

[Dave Tudor]

I still think it so bizarre yet wonderful that, here we are, in 2007, talking about the Macra in last Saturday's 'Doctor Who'!

[Dirk Gently]

I never had a problem with the Macra not being the main 'villain' in this episode. I just saw them as parasites that were just taking advantage of the situation, that's why they ''de-evolved''. They didn't need to think to live in that environment, I had more of a problem with vehicles having 'self renewing' fuel but still producing pollution.

[Andrew Curnow]

I suppose that's a good point. On the other hand, I was quite impressed by how every time I thought of an "ah yes, but..." the story tackled it. Wouldn't they need to keep stopping for fuel, I thought? Cue the reference to "self-renewing fuel". Why don't they just get off and walk? Cue the reference to being unable to breathe outside long enough to get to the sidewalk. Why doesn't Brannigan go down to the fastlane if he has three? Cue the scene making clear that he and Mrs B don't want to go down. What about food and water? Cue Martha's wafer biscuit.

It seems to me that there was a strong attention to detail, to tackling the obvious practicalities behind having people en route for years at a time, which really impressed me.

Did I mention, I really enjoyed this one?

[The Secretive Bus]

It seems to me that there was a strong attention to detail, to tackling the obvious practicalities behind having people en route for years at a time, which really impressed me.

Something very notable about RTD's scripts are that they tackle the little practicalities well - like those you mentioned - but often don't approach the wider issues (How did this entire situation arise? Why didn't people stick to the Undercity, which, judging by its name, must have had its own buildings and stuff? Why has nobody gone insane, especially those that are travelling alone like the businessman?).

I'll say again that I did enjoy the episode as I watched it but I just felt that with a rewrite it could have been so much better.

[Si Hunt]

It seems to me that there was a strong attention to detail, to tackling the obvious practicalities behind having people en route for years at a time, which really impressed me.

It's almost like he knew there was a whole load of nit-picky fans out there just waiting to pick holes in his plot!

Si.

[Carol Baynes]

Do we think we can look forward to a 'to scale' radio controlled Macra action figure for next Christmas ? That'll put the willies up Grandma on Christmas morning

What a great image!

[WhiteCrow]

What about food and water? Cue Martha's wafer biscuit.

Yeah but what about biomass - the car is recycling everything to make new food fair enough. However if people are having kids in their cars, then just recycling isn't enough. Recycling food for 2 people won't be able to feed a family of 6.

Also the traffic jams have been going for 20 years. So how did Branagan and his wife meet? How did Cheen and Milo meet? Actually how in hell do you have an Irish cat?

And to those women who like the idea of a male cat-humanoid husband ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat#Reproduction

The male cat's penis has spines which point backwards. Upon withdrawal of the penis, the spines rake the walls of the female's vagina, which may cause ovulation.

Ouch Valerie!

[Pip Madeley]

Never let it be said that Doctor Who fans take things too seriously.

[Andrew Curnow]

Perhaps the feline penis evolved as well - after all, they've picked up the ability to speak, dress, and attract beautiful women in the millenia between now and the year 5 billion...

[Si Hunt]

We couldn't watch without imagining that nice girl with Brannigan giving birth to all those cats.

As Dame P-Bal pointed out earlier, the plot hinged around the motorway being isolated to save the people years ago, yet the girl in the early scene had "just" lost her parents to it...

Si.

[Martin Penny]

I must admit I didn't really understand why the people in the slums weren't dead, or why none of them seemed to know about the virus. They cant have been that out of touch surely?

[Andrew Curnow]

Surely the point was that the motorway was 'sealed' in the sense that once you were on it you couldn't get off it - ie, the junctions and exits were all closed off. Not just the girl's parents, but also the two 'kidnappers', had just got on it. I didn't take it that the motorway was sealed off to stop the virus getting in, but to stop the motorists getting back out, and going back up to the city where the virus was (or, would have been).

[Anthony Williams]

it was also stated that the walkways were sealed off, too? surely this would have meant the slummy bits?

Ant x

[Jason Thompson]

Having been away all weekend for Emma's birthday (we went to Longleat), I have only just been able to watch this episode. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yeah, OK, it has plot inconsistencies, but I must admit to being more able to forgive them if they don't leap out at me while I'm watching the episode and only occur after a bit of thought.

It was a shame we had to have a retread of the stuff from The End Of The World re: Martha realising the Doctor is someone she doesn't really know and the insisting he tells her about himself. Can we have some originality when starting from scratch please?

Macra! Woo! Who cares that they weren't the main villain. They were pretty weak when they first showed up, and let's face it, only us fanboys would even know enough about them to care that they weren't made more of.

A pretty solid 8/10 from me then.

[Pip Madeley]

How's this for obscure:

As the Doctor is jumping from car to car on the motorway, he passes through a car with two Asian girls inside. On the wall is a poster which can be read in Japanese as Akurō, the Japanese for Bad Wolf.

[Kaybee Bailey]

Lol... clearly Rose is coming back. Or Rose is The Face of Boe. Or Martha is the Rani. Or something. But it's definitely obvious.

[MacNimon]

I just saw this last night, and once again I enjoyed it. I think it's the weakest story of the season so far, but I loved seeing the Macra again (and to think that I didn't believe for a minute the rumour that they were returning)...it's the first time the new series has managed to really surprise me with something unexpected! 7/10.

[Dave Lewis]

My solitary gripe... well, the only one that struck home last night when I finally watched it (in bed, I was... in bed!)... is that the Doctor was rambling on about who he was, and what he was, and the camera decided that he'd finished and panned up to the cars flying around New New York... except, to me, he hadn't finished, he was still talking.

Oh well, that's not much of a moan really. I gave this eight out of ten for making me more pleased by the cat costumes than I was last year. And for not automatically hating Ardal O'Hanlon. And for the gloriousness of the Face Of Boe.

My critical faculties have gone askew, but I don't care. I've got a million questions suddenly arising in me about all sorts of things, but who cares? I'm a Torchwood fan really.



PS As regards to Bliss, I thought about Red Dwarf too. I am sad.

[Andrew Curnow]

I actually quite liked that bit at the end - the suggestion being, to me anyway, that he was ready to talk for hours and hours while Martha just listened to him. I thought it a really nice touch.

[Logo Polish]

I think Dave possibly means he would have liked to have heard all the rest of what the Doctor said in the same way that Martha (presumably) goes on to. Or I could be mistaken.

[Andrew Curnow]

But isn't it always better left to the imagination, that sort of thing? I wouldn't really want 10 minutes of "the tourist guide to Gallifrey"...

[Logo Polish]

Oh indeed, and I'm being a bit presumptous here, cos I've no right to speak for Dave at all and could be well out, but I remember him saying once that he liked Tennant's Doctor, and so perhaps he meant it in a sense of "I was enjoying their company so much I wish I could have been there just for that bit"...

I think I'd better stop digging. Sorry Dave.

[Dave Lewis]

It's a bit of both, actually... As Logo says, I would have been interested in the Doctor's chatter, and to see more of the intimacy of the scene as Martha is brought closer into his world, but in relation to Andrew's interpretation of my comments, I can see your point, and I guess that that was what they were trying to do, but I felt it didn't quite work in that way.

The Doctor: "Yes, back on Gallifrey, in the old days of the Empire, the twin suns never set and there was always tea on the table by five. And as for the chicks, well..."

Music soars, camera pans up, cars whizz by. Fade to black.

It just didn't quite work for me, technically. It could have been done better. But it's only a little thing, really.