Wild Blue Yonder

Chapter the 292nd, wherein the Doctor and Donna get all bent out of shape even though there's Not-Thing to worry about.

Plot:
The TARDIS is out of control after Donna split coffee on the console. After a brief stop in an apple tree and a hello to Isaac Newton, the time travellers arrive in a vast and empty spaceship at the edge of the universe. The Doctor sets his time and space machine to mend itself, and he and Donne explore; almost instantly, though, the TARDIS dematerialises without them. The Doctor realises that they have landed in a hostile environment, and the ship will not return until they have neutralised these hostilities. They find many mysteries aboard. Why does the ship reconfigure itself every so often after strange words are spoken over the ship's PA? Why is a rusty old robot moving very slowly down a corridor? And why was the airlock opened three years ago? Before they can find answers, the Doctor and Donna meet copies of themselves; these are predatory entities, the Not-Things, that can mimic people. Luckily, they find it difficult to get the shapes exactly right, allowing the real Doctor and Donna to know who's Who, but the Not-Things are quick learners. The real versions of our heroes get chased around by the fakes, and slowly piece together what is happening. The captain of the ship ejected herself into the vacuum three years ago to stop the Not-Things copying her, preventing their piloting the ship back to civilisation. She then set a slow trap - the ship is gradually instigating its self-destruct process, with the robot moving into place to press the final button; the strange words were a countdown. The Doctor speeds up the countdown; as it nears completion, the TARDIS returns. The real Doctor and Donna just manage to escape and the Not-Things are blown up. Back in London, Wilf has been waiting for the TARDIS to come back; the world around him is in chaos, with everyone having seemingly gone mad...

Context:

It feels like this one's only just been on TV; it was not long after my initial watch and even less time since rewatching it on the Blu-Ray which I got as a Christmas present from the fam. For this blog post, though, I got to experience it afresh in a different medium, as I was reading the novelisation (see Deeper Thoughts below). I read the book in a few days in February 2024, then had another look at the TV episode to make sure I remembered the visuals clearly enough for its write-up. 

Milestone watch: I've been blogging new and classic Doctor Who stories in random order since 2015, and I'm now closing in on the point where I finish everything and catch up with the current stories being broadcast serially. I have completed 20 out of the total of 39 seasons to date (at the time of writing). There are also specials in between those seasons (mostly in the new series years post 2005), and I've completed most of those too. With this one done, I only have two other specials to date to cover: The Giggle, last of the trilogy that saw Tennant and Tate returning, and Jodie Whittaker's swansong The Power of the Doctor.

First Time Round:

This story was watched on its debut broadcast in the UK on Saturday 2nd December 2023 live from the BBC iplayer by the whole family (Better Half and all three children, boys of 17 and 14, girl of 11). We'd put up the Christmas decorations during the hours before broadcast and I was feeling festive, so I poured myself a large cocktail to accompany my viewing. I probably made it too strong and/or I'd not eaten enough that day and/or I'd not had enough sleep the night before, but this drink went straight to my head. I could barely stay awake through the broadcast, and turned in for the night immediately after the story finished. Even through that fug, it was clear to me that I'd watched something remarkable. My early night alas led to sitting up wide-awake at 4.30am the next day. Unable to sleep, I crept downstairs to the living room and killed time until everyone else was up by watching something akin to a Doctor Who panto, then watching Wild Blue Yonder again.

Reaction:

At the time it was first shown, the immediate reaction from some fans was disappointment about what Wild Blue Yonder didn't feature, rather than what it did. In a cruel irony, the minimalism of the story meant it was marketed with more secrecy than the other two 60th anniversary specials around it (having little that could be shared without being a spoiler), and that left a gap into which overheated imaginings flooded. Before one could say 'Clown-face emoji', people were speculating that this secrecy was because Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi and all the other Doctors, companions, villains and monsters would be appearing. It's interesting that the nature of the Not-Thing creatures could have allowed some scope for cameos: the script says that the creatures can copy but they aren't as aware of shapes as us, and that they have access to the full memory of the Time Lord: they could have copied wrong and briefly ended up with some old faces of the Doctor. But the nature of the tale was minimalism not the maximalism of some fans' expectations. The production team had what they considered to be - and it's a feeling shared by a lot of us, to be fair - the dream team of David Tennant and Catherine Tate back, and they were going to make full use of them. I can see if you're more of a fan of Eleven and Amy, or Twelve and Clara, or whoever, it would be disappointing in an anniversary year to concentrate on just one team, but tiny cameos by those characters likely wouldn't have satisfied anyway (and this is assuming they'd have all been willing and available to appear). Creating a decent narrative with many returning characters is hard, and often leads to messy results. Wild Blue Yonder has a clean and elegant story that any additions would have muddled.

Because the simplicity of the arrangement of elements in the piece is its key strength, I'd almost be tempted to lose the pre-credits sequence where the Doctor and Donna meet Isaac Newton. It's fun though, and sets up a running gag in this story and those shown after it that the Doctor and Donna have inadvertently changed history so that gravity is instead dubbed 'mavity' by its discoverer. Is this just a piece of ongoing silliness, or will it pay-off as some clue to future traversing of the multiverse? Time will tell. The other aspect of the pre-credits sequence that had an impact was the colourblind casting of Nathaniel Curtis as Newton. He was great, and it was fantastic to see him in Doctor Who; it also annoyed some inflexibly-minded people on the internet (whether you see this as another plus is entirely up to your own judgement!). These few, mild controversies aside, the story was the sort of straightforward narrative that it must be incredibly complicated to write and to direct. The later duty fell to Tom Kingsley, and on the basis of his work here, it would be great to see him return to the show. The story relied on two very different types of scenes: quiet and emotional interactions between the Doctor and Donna (or their doubles in different combos - some of the most heartstring-tugging moments turned out to be when one character was baring their soul to an imposter), and big effects scenes with contorted fairground-mirror versions of our heroes attacking. Kingsley and crew handled both with aplomb. There was some magnificent production design on display here, with use of elegant bubbling hydraulics or organic goo as set dressing in various of the spaceship's chambers, courtesy of designer Phil Sims, all of which were lit beautifully.

Then, there were the sets that weren't even really there. Will we one day look back on the effects work used here to put the Doctor and Donna into vast metallic spaces, and think it looks dated? Will green-screen technology improve in future such that this work looks rudimentary by comparison? I can't see how myself, as I could not see any join. Every detail seemed to have been considered from the design of the alien captain floating outside the ship to the alien numerals on the control panels, from a cute rusty robot to the majestic vista of the ship floating alone in the inky blackness. It all looked amazing, but the material had the depth to mean it wasn't all just shiny surface. Even the smallest moments, like Donna and the Doctor stopping themselves from bickering when things start to go wrong, or the haunted moment where the Doctor talks with not-Donna about his newly discovered Timeless Child status - it all resonated. The early scenes of the two characters just hanging out are a joy, finding the name Mrs. Bean unfeasibly funny. If all that wasn't enough for you, then at the end it played the last magnificent card of its hand, and we got a scene with Bernard Cribbins as Wilf. The actor's final scene in any production, so we were so blessed to get it. Wilf's joy at seeing the Tennant Doctor, despite the chaos going on around them, could melt the frostiest of hearts. Maybe none of the concepts in the story are exactly revolutionary: Doctor Who has done the regulars alone on an abandoned spaceship many times, and the mimicking Not-Things are like a rerun of the creature from Midnight. The story is much more optimistic than Midnight, though, and that's because in that story the Doctor and Donna were separated; the joy of Wild Blue Yonder is seeing them together.

Connectivity:

Both Wild Blue Yonder and Full Circle feature crafts situated outside of the area of space in which the Doctor normally travels (the edge of the universe in the Tennant special, a different universe in the Baker serial). In both ships, activity is happening at a somewhat slow pace, the original crews are long gone, and the ships are instead inhabited by interloper creatures who are adept at developing to suit their new environment. 

Deeper Thoughts:

Target Acquired: Further Novelisation Collection. The original Target imprint, owned by a number of publishers over the years, was the home of novelisations of almost all the Doctor Who television stories. Starting in the 1970s, it kept going until the early 1990s, when the available pool of stories to turn into books ran out. For a number of years before 2024, a relaunched Target range has been running. It published all the stories that hadn't been available for whatever reason first time round, closing the gaps, published alternate versions of previously novelised stories, and it started on converting the new series stories from 2005 onwards too. In fits and starts, batches of books have come out for readers and collectors to enjoy. This latest batch of three are a bit different, though. Even in the old days, television production and book publishing timelines rarely aligned; the Target novelisations were on their own schedule, often covering a story many years after it had been shown on the TV. Now, because the production schedule of the 60th anniversary specials and Ncuti Gatwa's stories is substantially ahead of transmission, it is possible to have synchronised tie-ins. The three book versions of the 2023 anniversary specials starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate were available in audio form immediately after broadcast, with the paperback versions coming out in January 2024, only a few weeks after the television showings. The authors picked to write the books all seem aptly chosen. Gary Russell takes on the most traditional script, The Star Beast, Mark Morris covers the horror-inflected Wild Blue Yonder, and James Goss the fast-paced and camp finale of the trio, The Giggle.

The first few pages of The Star Beast are loaded with continuity in-jokes and references (calling back to the original comic strips, the classic series, and the new series) and it got a bit overwhelming for this fan. One starts to fret that every detail must link to something from Doctor Who's past, and if that happens to be a Virgin New Adventure novel one hasn't read, or a Big Finish audio to which one hasn't listened, then one's missing out. It settles down after a while, though, and it wouldn't be intrusive to someone less steeped in lore. The book is structured into seven longer chapters, separated by fun epistolary interludes. From experience of the novelisations of recent stories, an hour long special usually provides enough material for an 150-page paperback without the need for the author to create too much extra. There's even a couple of omissions, probably because the action didn't work in book form; the reporter at the steelworks is missing, as is the intercut flashback late on of Rose chanting "Non-binary" over and over. The small amount of action added (an early scene where Rose sees the Doctor use his sonic screwdriver, more scenes featuring the character of Fudge) is almost certainly material cut from the TV version before broadcast. Beyond this, Russell uses the tried and trusted technique of adding a POV character that provides a perspective of certain scenes as they play out (something Malcolm Hulke often did in early titles in the Target range). This character Stew Ferguson is one who had fleetingly appeared many years before in TV Doctor Who, but you'd never guess where in a million years. All told, this is an entertaining version of the story, satisfyingly getting into the characters' heads (you'll come out with a fuller understanding of Sylvia Noble for a start).

Morris's prose in his adaptation of Wild Blue Yonder is more unobtrusive and economical, in keeping with the story's minimalist feel. The tale is told briskly without any significant changes, capturing the characters' emotional reactions without lengthy paragraphs about their inner life. No in-jokes here (or at least none that I noticed), no new material (I half expected a prologue featuring the original captain of the craft ejecting herself into space, but this is left as backstory) and no new characters. The cast list is so small that Morris has no choice but to get inside the Doctor's head occasionally, which could be a risky endeavour - the character still has to retain some mystery. When it's done, it's done well: there's a wonderful moment of the Doctor summoning up new resolve after a moment of vulnerability (when he pummels the walls in frustration, as seen on TV).  Given the visual nature of the setting and the monstrousness encountered there, the success of the book lies in how well the descriptions capture the images; again Morris keeps things simple and effective with the occasional comparison to a slug or a scorpion, but nothing overblown. Good chosen nouns and verbs, not too many modifiers. The only gesture at ornamentation is making the chapter headings the alien words for the numbers in the countdown in descending order, Fenshaw, Coliss, Brate, etc. The overall approach might be too functional for some readers, but it is in line with the material it is adapting, and allows the strength of the story to come through.

Goss's The Giggle is at the other end of the spectrum, rainbow-hued, sugar-rich and quirky, again as befits the tone of the original TV version. The chapters (listed as a set of moves as in one of the Toymaker's games) are told from an omniscient viewpoint, the narrator of which turns out to be the Toymaker himself. There are hints of this early on, but it's revealed in full about a third of the way through. Steven Moffat did something similar with a different narrator in the novelisation of The Day of the Doctor a few years back, and I found it too mannered and distracting for that story. Here, it works because it fits the character and plot of endless game-playing. It allows the action to occasionally be punctuated by parodies of games and puzzles, or bits of concrete poetry illustrating the action. The book even takes on the structure of a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book when Donna is exploring the corridors behind the Toymaker's shop. Elsewhere there is meta humour, where the Toymaker breaks the fourth-wall (if books indeed have four walls). I think the only time these alienation devices get in the way is during the more emotional moments. At the end of the story where the Doctor is born anew but still exists in his old version too, getting to do his therapy out of order, the narration returns to the normal style; all the time I was reading it I was therefore distracted by wondering who was narrating this if not the Toymaker, and if it was him, why he was suddenly being so respectful. It's the most interesting of the three books, and probably my favourite overall; but all three are worth reading. I hope to see more from the Target range soon. These are definitely not the last tie-in books being released close to the time of broadcast, as next story on The Church on Ruby Road has already come out in hardback. I expect a paperback edition will come out sooner rather than later.

In Summary:

If you think about it, it was a multi-Doctor story with familiar monsters and multiple returning companions. I don't know what people are moaning about!