I'm So Confused... | 73 Yards (Doctor Who Review & Analysis)
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- Опубліковано 28 тра 2024
- Reaching the midway point of Doctor Who Series 14 and it's time for one of the weirdest episodes I've ever seen. S14E04 "73 Yards" tells a Welsh folk horror story all about companion Ruby Sunday being followed by a mysterious woman after The Doctor disappears. It's a very surreal and bizarre episode, but is it any good? Well, as always, that's what I'm here to find out!
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#DoctorWho #Series14 #Review - Фільми й анімація
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This was 73 Tonnes of Trash, just join us true fans and refuse to accept Jodie, Tennant 2 and Gatwa
@@mattthesilent777REDI just looked at your other comments on this channel and I am embarrassed for you
No, she was telling Ruby to return the slab.
@@danielhenze8182 Excuse me? I am wiser than Russell T Davies
@@MarvelX42 I like to think she was scalding Ruby for trusting the Fifteenth Doctor, after all, he isn't canon
the fact that this was Millie's first episode she filmed is amazing. She's great
I feel like the odd one out...I found her kinda flat in this episode. I kept thinking how much more interesting Bill would have been in the role.
Oh 100%. I honestly think its just that its attracted an audience like riverdales. People that can stomach and even enjoy low quality crap.Everything she or Gatwa do feels forced and I'm not slating them, they just dont have the experience/ability. Such an odd casting choice, particularly for gatwa. You can get away with a flat companion with a charismatic doctor. I find that Gatwa and Millie just dont have the acting range.@johnpolishimpossible2say191
@@Arcadi4.44 Gatwa was good in the Moffat episode when he was given actual good dialog and characterization in the script and got to act like the Doctor, not just some cool nice guy. I don't think his and Ruby's chemistry is forced...just overdone if that makes sense. But I haven't been impressed by Millie yet not her character. I still think Gatwa was the right choice they just haven't given him any good Doctor-like scripts.
@johnpolishimpossible2say191 Yeah, and I attribute it to us not really having much of a background on the character. I mean, we're given the bullet points, but really aren't getting anything of how those points affect her. I think of how we got to really Rose in her daily life but we've not had the same privilege with Ruby, so I'm not really invested in her character enough to feel anything for what she's going through. I'm more thinking "That must be awful for her" rather than actually feeling something of the awfulness.
@@LapsedLawyer her life doesn't seem bad or awful. It sucks she doesn't know her parents but she was adopted by 2 ppl that are way nicer than a lot birth parents ppl get. So I don't really feel sorry for her. I think the prob with her and the Doctor is they both have zero flaws. When the Doctor is the smartest man alive, model quality handsome, all around cool and charismatic, friendly and charismatic with no flaws he's just boring. Ruby is a version of that too. I find them both boring except in Boom. They both felt like real ppl.
I think the woman was saying 'I'll make you binge watch the whole Chibnall era if you don't go away'
LMAO
really turning this dead horse into a bloody pulp now aren't we
I would be kilometres away within a few miliseconds
Series 7 is worse
That would be true horror! 😮
I don’t think Ruby was “meant” to stop Gwilliam/Mad Jack. I think she was a victim of abandonment, and that was the whole actual nature of the supernatural situation. She decided on her own to stop Gwilliam and decided that it gave her life meaning, it could have been anything the point was she made a meaningful life despite the tragic unexplainable abandonment of everyone around her
and also, if she didn't stop him, she'd have been caught by the nukes anyway.
Yeah i think Ruby why she thought she had this eninty and once she thought she finished the her goal she was telling the entity to leave her alone. but not her knowing that this was not the case.
As the lady in the pub said, we encounter things we don't understand and make rules to understand them. She decided it was there so she could stop mad jack and when that didn't work she instead decided to view it as a lifelong companion.
I think people forget this.
The doctor even starts saying the same but about him being a bad example of the Welsh at the end, which I believe implied he still didn't succeed in nuking everything despite the time loop closing.
I assume it really just meant that Ruby gave herself that meaning, she used that trauma and hurt towards something good, which I love about her character.
It's very Chibnally. It's using the tropes of a timey wimey Who story we've seen in the past, but uses random selection that don't fit together. It's very AI feeling. Why does old Ruby turn into a demonic entity that drives everyone away? Or more correctly, why does the demonic entity become Ruby?
I don't need to know the how, but the why makes no sense
8:24 Elderly Ruby to Roger: "Don't you think you look tired?"
THIS 😂
i was amazed by how well coordinated all those people in the pub were. either they've pulled that exact prank on a ton of other people already or they're all improv masters.
honestly i can imagine them having a history of doing so its like Hot Fuzz and their townspeople being all in on it
Both are equally believable to me as someone who has never been in a welsh pub
Small tight-knit community who constantly has to deal with outsiders' biased BS?
Yeah, they were all in on it the second Ruby tried to explain how to pay with her phone...
@@thekueken Well, maybe if when she said, "can I pay with my phone?", they'd said, "Yes sure,", we wouldn't have had to listen to all that BS about racism against the welsh. If you pretend to be a cave dwelling druid on purpose, is it anyone else's fault but yours if people treat you like one? LOL
@@PeterCamberwick I suppose having an own bias against outsiders often comes hand in hand with being a tight-knit community, especially if it's often facing such outsider bias. It's a hard to break circle once established... Not uncommon. And since the ppl in the pub knew each other on a first name basis, prolly regulars, too, easy to assume they pulled such bits often - and Ruby's attitude and stuttered story did give them an easy in. Still mean (since Ruby was clearly distraught), but sadly not unrealistic.
My main takeaway from the episode:
Rishi Sunak is secretly a hardcore Whovian and specifically called the election so it would tie into this episode
I second this conspiracy theory.
Official canon
So Davros has been hiding in number 10 all this time 😳😂✌🏻🔷🔷🔷🔷
@@CashelOConnolly
It would explain so much.
I can’t believe I didn’t notice! So THAT’S why!!!
The best theory i saw was on reddit, and i think i agree thats the best explanation.
Both the doctor and Ruby were cursed for breaking the circle. He was erased because he actually broked and Ruby was punished to be ever alone as she disrepcted the circle by reading the cards. The Fae are very vengefull creatures, but can be forgiven. We see along the ep that Ruby is always alone, she cant get help because the fae curse make people go away from her, and she also cant get any long term relationship. But, as the fae are forgiven, they gave her a second change when she used the curse to do something good, stopping mad Jack. As they cant just cant make everthing she went through, they waited her die to give her a change to never break the circle.
i dont know man, i love this episode but i feel like its bad writing when your audience has to theorise who the antagonist is, what their motives and actions are, and how they even work
@@db5094 You’d be surprised.
The horror audience in particular love it when scary stories are not fully explained.
Some people are afraid of the unknown.
@@HB-fq9nn judging by the amount of people upset by the lack of an explanation, many whovians seem to be afraid of the unknown 😄
@@HB-fq9nn No don't get me wrong, I love it when scary things are not fully explained, I love the unknown, but that's not the same when certain things that feel like they're being implied are still too vague that people are confused about it. Like for example when Ruby gets old and returns to the beginning with the doctor, why was she then present for the rest of young ruby's life? What seems like what happened was that Old ruby travelled back in time throughout rubys life to that moment to warn the doctor. There should have been a few shots of her going back through her life from that perspective to make it clear. It's about the writing and not the horror imo
That's what I wagered, but man, sometimes I think there's times where "tell, don't show" is necessary.
Took me a little while to adjust to the unanswered questions, but the second I theorised that the story was about Ruby's fear of abandonment without explanation, I completely fell in love with it. We don't hear what the woman is saying because the idea of Ruby having a secret so terrible that everyone she loves refuses to ever speak to her again is ridiculous and untrue, it's a rare example of not having an answer is more satisfying, for me at least. I think this has convinced me to hope the reveal of her parents is a meet the Robinsons style lesson where she's content never knowing who her birth parents are, rather than something gimmicky like she's the child of the Trickster or the Rani etc.
I don't even think it was a specific secret, just a spell or curse. The entity was overtly magical (it can teleport) so it could scare people off and make them abandon her any number of ways.
Iirc people didn't run after hearing the words of the woman, they looked back at ruby then they ran. Thats what sold it for me.
@@PsyrenXY I feel the woman is trying to show the irrationality of her fear of abandonment, "is there something wrong with me?". Sadly she may never know why her parents left her but she has people who love her and will stick by her regardless of her birth parents reasons for giving her up, letting that doubt consume her will lead to life of isolation.
I think the fear of abandonment theme works well with it but it still needs some kind of conclusion. Like if ruby uses her power as the 75 yards woman to reduce how young ruby deals with that issue in some way, then it would be a good conclusion.
The problem is the ruby from the episode gets no conclusion, theres lots of running themes but none of them go anywhere, the plot just sort of stops
@@emmiannon1266 Part of me wonders, the reason for the recurring snow is Ruby's desire to go to the church that night, if she can't get there she's instead bringing that place and time to her thanks to the universe having more fantastical supernatural rules, given old Ruby loses that power I feel like that was her finally making peace with it, thus being given her second chance with her younger self retaining some of the lesson and memories of the alt timeline even if only subconsciously which will likely come to play in the finale.
In mythological interpretations, if someone breaks a fairy circle, they would be transported to the fairy realm, potentially trapping them and subjecting them to curses, such as being forced to dance forever or being turned invisible and cursed to dance to death.
The doctor basically got murked in a really funny way lmao
Hey, remember when the Doctor was powerful and feared?
@@ChrissieBearWhat are u on about?
The 15th Doctor literally pulled an entire goblin ship down from the sky, spearing them with the spires of a church. He stopped a war despite being unable to move an inch and defeated two gods. Yet you call him weak because he accidentally step on a fairy circle
You remember when people gave the doctor at least a season chance before hating on them.
@@greendiamond2604 what?
@@masstrash4609 was meant for the bear person, not you sorry.
Some random thoughts and asides:
- I don't think all this happened so Ruby could deal with Gwilliam, that's a meaning she assigns this "curse". As Kate Stewart states, "That's what we do, all of us, we see something inexplicable and invent the rules to make it work", this is what Ruby does in my opinion. She remembers the Doctor mentioning him, draws a connection to Mad Jack (who I believe is a completely different mad jack from Gwilliam) and thus assigns this curse a meaning and a purpose, which it ultimately doesn't have. I personally don't see this having any meaning. It's just a random unfortunate curse.
- I also personally believe that the Woman isn't Ruby all along. She becomes her/merges with her at the end of her life. I'm not saying this explains anything or makes any sense, but it's just how I view it, which then potentially opens up new ways to look at it.
Unrelated: This video made me realize I hadn't changed my DW calendar from April to May yet.
Sounds like the whole episode explanation - RTD purposefully threw some random shit at us and we are trying to make sense of it, which is the point of it all. I sure hope that this is not the case though.
I adored the fakeout in the pub. Both of them, in fact. It was funny, but it was also very isolating, both because it made Ruby the butt of the joke, and because it showed us that no one else was going to really understand the problem she was facing
It also sets the tone for a lot of the rest of the episode. Most episodes are about high-adrenaline, run-for-your-life, "come with me if you want to live" kind of fears. They're exciting, but they're completely divorced from everyday life. This episode was about the slow, creeping dread that haunts you all your life. Never close enough to trigger terror, but always close enough to cause unease. And the thing about that kind of horror is that you actually have to keep on living your normal life
Ruby has to live a normal life. She has to make money, she has to go on dates, she has to cook dinner and watch TV. And everyone around her is completely okay, and she's… trying to be. But that thing, it's haunting her
When everyone laughs at her in the pub, it's a reminder that she's in the real world now. Not an alien world, not a different time, and not some exceptional day. Ruby can't escape from this thing by going back to her normal life, because she's already _in_ her normal life and this thing is _still there_
The premise of a 'mysterious thing causing your loved ones to turn against you' was actually already done in the Sarah Jane Adventures (the episode is called 'Curse of Clyde Langer'), which also had RTD working on it as an executive producer, and tbh SJA handled the concept better I think so that also brought down 73 Yards for me a bit.
After recently finishing SJA myself I can agree with the similarities, I think what helped TCOCL is that with Clyde was there consistently for the entire series so we had more of a connection to him and his relationships, whereas we've hardly had any time with ruby and we've not had a chance to become attached to her like we did with Clyde. TCOCL genuinely left me quite sad, especially with the ending and the story with Ellie
If we're looking for similarities, there's also a lot with last of the time lords, with the companion going their own way for ages, taking down the prime minister and then all that time being undone again
@@amyshaw893Those onboard the Valiant remembered what had happened because it was at the eye of the storm when the paradox machine was destroyed. But apart from Ruby having a vague idea that she had been to Wales one more time than she had originally noone remembered anything of the alternate timeline in "73 yards"
The whole episode just felt like a worst turn left to me with a slightly different and far less explained premise.
@@thefishoffishall3395 The pacing so far is SUCH a problem. We've barely spent any time with 15 and Ruby yet episodes keep insisting on acting like we've known both for multiple seasons, a comic tie in, and several audio dramas. This also takes away from our chance to get to know them furthering the issue and the whole time it's felt like RTD is in a rush to check off the new companion boxes (and he did not even bother with the new doctor boxes). It's stuff like how he handle her phone in episode 1 that felt so rushed. And fine, he's going for a series 1 approach where we met 9 as an established doctor without any of the post regeneration "who am I" high, fine, but even then we desperately needed Rose as a lens to get to know 9 and 9 had a lot of solo moments that pushed him to the edge and showed his faults, strengths, and weaknesses. We barely get that and stuff like the pointless "as you know, Bob" exposition in EPISODE 2 (which aired alongside 1) does not help and neither does a 6 month off screen time skip between episodes.
I fucking loved this episode. Creepy, unexplained, timey-wimey: you don’t have to understand it to enjoy it
you've understood it perfectly!
Same, absolutely love the mystery surrounding it. Imo it would hurt the story if we knew everything. I think in a few years people will understand and love it more.
@@AuroraButterflyx can definitely see him coming back to it when he does his series review in a few years and agreeing!
@@murrayjoe7 yeah, if we get all the answers I think I will left unsatisfied, like "oh that is it" that shame I wasn't expecting that. eh, I think I am just the small group of people that like the mystery around it and I don't think it cheaps it, but rather riches it. but I do appreciate people wanting the answers.
In a few years they will remember this as a cult classic, but they are too busy nitpicking every single detail in this season
Lol at RTD saying this is the best thing he's ever written. I guess even he forgets Midnight wasn't a Moffat episode!
Midnight was great, but it follows a pretty simple algorithm. Ditto Hell Bent.
@@ftumschk - True, it is basically a play. But I think that's a big part of why some of these episodes work so well - they have good fundamentals, nothing's wasted. The big problem with 73 Yards is that it spends so much time going down what turn out to be dead ends, and unless I've *really* misunderstood it, they don't really contribute to the resolution.
@@FTZPLTC I don't have a problem with dead ends if, as I was with 73 Yards, I'm entertained. Sometimes the journey is more interesting than the destination.
@@ftumschk - Yeah, I was on the edge of my seat for most of it. Just disappointed by the ending.
Okay, so a few thoughts. First, about Ap Gwilliam:
I think Mad Jack was a sort of entity freed by the fairy ring being broken, and Ap Gwilliam either was Mad Jack manifested, or possessed by him or something. Meaning that when the Doctor *doesn't* break the circle in the "restored" timeline, Ap Gwilliam ends up never existing, or at least never becoming the dangerous man he was in Ruby's timeline. Him being a supernatural entity would also explain how he managed to win an election on a platform that seemed to be nothing more than "Wales is great, let's nuke the world." Now, why does the Doctor mention Ap Gwilliam even before he steps into the fairy circle? Because him stepping in the circle was basically predestined in this timeline.
As for the criticism of the woman not disappearing after Ruby stops Ap Gwilliam... well, that goes back to what Kate said to her: When we don't understand something, we invent our own rules to make it make sense. That's what Ruby did. She didn't know why the woman was following her, or how she can get rid of her, and came up with ideas how to make that happen. First, in the beginning of the episode, she thought it would be enough to just leave Wales, but that didn't work. She had no other clue, but then she saw Ap Gwilliam, remembered what the Doctor said about him (and he said it just before the whole thing with the woman started happening, creating another link between these two things in her mind), and figured that's what she has to take care of. But again: This is just Ruby inventing rules to make her weird situation make sense. Nothing more. There was never any guarantee this would work. And it didn't.
As for the questions of "Where'd the Doctor go?" or "What was up with the ending?" or "What was the point/message of this?"... look, again, this is just my personal interpretation (and I think the episode wants people to come up with their own interpretations), but I think it comes down to "the fey folk are dicks." The Doctor breaks the fairy circle, and Ruby reads the poems that are not supposed to be read. The folk in the pub even say that's a bad idea. And yes, they then laugh it off, saying it's just a superstition... but they're wrong! Kate makes it clear that more and more supernatural stuff has been happening, presumably since the Toymaker was banished. So, yeah, it was actually a bad thing to disturb the fairy ring in this way, and the Doctor and Ruby are punished for it. The Doctor by being erased from existence, or taken away to the fairy realm, or whatever. It honestly doesn't really matter, because this episode is about Ruby. Her punishment was simply to live through her own personal hell. Living her whole life being abandoned by everyone she even tries to get close to, and the reason for that abandonment always being just out of reach. Close enough that she can never fully ignore it, but far enough away that she can never really confront and deal with it. She lives her whole life like this, and when she dies... that's it. Her debt is paid. She's been punished, and that's it.
Now, assuming I'm correct in my interpretation, there are of course ways they could have done things better. Mostly, I think, having Ruby be the one to step into the circle instead of the Doctor. That way, it would have been fully her fault, and we could have just assumed that the fey didn't take the Doctor away, and instead they took *Ruby* away to live the next 70 years in her hell timeline. And yeah, maybe having Ruby remember the hell timeline a bit more clearly would have helped to.
But overall... I really don't get the criticism of "it didn't make sense" or "it didn't explain itself", because... that wasn't the point of the episode? It was a character study on Ruby, and her fear of abandonment, delivered through the lens of folk horror, fairytales, and weird fiction. It honestly felt more like a Twilight Zone episode, and a good bunch of those never explain their supernatural elements, either.
Really like your interpretation.
I think you nailed it. The one thing that threw it off for me was the Doctor still remembering Ap Gwilliam as the most dangerous PM in the restored timeline despite Mad Jack never being freed. Sure the "nukes" part of that was dropped but really it all should have been.
With that said, he remembered Ap Gwilliam while he was mid-step to breaking the circle, so maybe both Rubies stopping him erased the last vestiges of that timeline from his memory.
Great analysis 👏👏👏👏
I really wish I could just send this to anyone who keeps saying "Its so confusing" "how is the old lady making everyone run away". These questions don't need to be answered by the episode because like you said it isn't the goal of the episode. Does knowing the exact words "Old Ruby" is saying change what is happening? For all we know its not even words. After all we are dealing with "magic". If you are looking for any explanation... "MAGIC!" "MAD JACK -> M'JACK"
i agree with you in the first half, i love that ruby thinking the woman is to get rid of madjack, it probobly isnt, while madjack probobly is roger, the woman is probobly literally just to be there on the cliff to stop him from being created in the first place, so it wouldnt matter if ruby stopped him in the alternate timeline or not. ive posted my own theory here as a comment i hope youll check out but quick version is that the spell also contained a posotive force as awell as madjack to help stop him/it. so while madjack creates or possesses app gwilliam, the posotive force becomes a part of ruby to help stop him. whch is why the doctor and the tardis are taken out, the magic blocks anything that could stop ruby from forfilling her destiny to stop madjack being released.
Personally, I think the lack of explanation/introduction of *possible* explanations and connections is intentional because of Kate's line about "seeing something that doesn't make sense and finding ways to make it work". The Mad Jack thing is Ruby seeing what looks like a connection and thinking she finally understands, but she doesn't really and it just keeps going after she does what she thinks will end it. This doesn't mean it has to work for you of course, it's weird and obtuse, and kinda unsatisfying at the end.
Weirdly, knowing the ending wasn't going to fully come together in a way that explained everything made it easier to enjoy on a rewatch because I wasn't thinking about "how are they going to make sense of this", and because I noticed that line from Kate and realized why it was there. That's just my experience though.
"seeing something that doesn't make sense and finding ways to make it work"
...you're right, this line basically describes... Um, pretty much this and similar comment sections XD
(...did RTD wink at the imaginary camera documenting his life's work when he wrote this line?)
Well yeah, it's intentional. It's Russel doing what he said, making Doctor Who magic. ... It's also lazy and just means he can do whatever he wants, cos it's magic.
@@PeterCamberwick It's not "lazy" if it's done with deliberate intent.
Kate talks about how we always try to explain the inexplicable and come up with reasons for things we don't understand, when sometimes they just don't have an explanation. This episode plays on Ruby's fear of abandonment, and tbh I think it also touches on something everyone feels to some extent - that there's something specific abput yourself that, if the people around you knew, would turn them against you instantly. To have what that actually is be answered would really ruin a lot of the episode for me.
i think this episode goes to show the difference in genres (and expectations from respective fans) between sci-fi and fairy-tale horror. whereas lots of the mysteries and magical elements can be waved away and embraced as inherent to the story (in more fantastical genres), sci-fi fans tend to expect themes to be more grounded in concrete explanations, even if its technobabble. this discrepency certainly puts a divide down the middle of fans of doctor who. that being said, i don't think it's bad, just not everyone's cup of tea
I feel like it's gonna be similar to heavens sent like not everyone will like it because it came out but in a few years I feel like when everyone's had a chance to think about it properly more people will probably enjoy it
@@The-Busy-Beeeee absolutely! i also think this episode will age like fine wine and i’m super excited :)
@@qyntifex REAL me too I have so many theories about this episode it was an absolute doozy
This episode might pop as "you liked Black Mirror so we think you might also like this" recommendations...
This episode certainly caused more of a discourse, than just "like" or "dislike"; causing theories and deep dives into various aspects.
But... Yeah, like Harbo said, it does play a bit fast and loose on maybe the wrong / red hering "focal" points...
I enjoyed it and while the other episodes left me with "meh" after they ended, the loud "Huh?" at least lead to me dwelling on its plot and meaning for quite some time after, trying to figure it out or to figure out what is not meant to be figured out ;)
@@thekueken totally agree!
I think RTD was aiming for a kind of Twin Peaks vibe but fell short.
Imagine if Twin Peaks ended with Dale and Diane driving up to the motel and then cut to a scene of Dale as a younger man smiling in a coffee shop and then deciding not to go to Twin Peaks and investigate Laura's murder and just drives off. That would be very disappointing and confusing in the wrong way.
RTD actually gave a pretty good explanation for this episode. "Mad Jack" felt 'disrespected' and angry that the Doctor broke his grave/circle, so the entity erased/killed him, locked/killed the Tardis, and forced ruby to live a life of her worst fear and anxiety, always being abandoned. However, the entity forgave them both when Ruby not only didn't give up, but decided to use it to save the world and do something good. Its very much a more fantasy story instead of a sci-fi timey-wimey story. I think they should have put a little tiny bit more explanation about forgiving them or it being a punishment or something though.
This has been a theme of this series. The goblins had different tech with the knots. The toymaker and maestro seem to run on different rules to our universe. Ruby has snow. This episode felt very much in line with the previous episodes, and I'm sure it will all make much more sense once wrapped up along with Ruby.
I don’t want Russell to spoon feed us the answers, but I would like him to at least give us a spoon so we can feed ourselves
But he did give us a lot of cutlery! Forks, knives, chopsticks..... :P
Instead he gave us a butt plug and told us to fuck ourserlves
The first 20 minutes actually really got to me, i was invested but by the end i was like
'What? So this episode never happened" and it kinda sours it for me personally
It's one of those episodes that "happened" in a timey-wimey way. Because at the end when the Doctor is talking about Gwilliam again he doesn't mention nukes, and Ruby talked about visiting Wales 3 times when she said she visited twice at the beginning.
@@khfanboy666The Doctor only doesn't mention nukes again as Ruby cuts him off with the "don't step" thing. With the loop being broken and Ruby no longer living through the decades with the 73 yards influence, nothing will happen to scare Mad Jack away from office, therefore the nuclear threat isn't averted. Mad Jack remains unbound.
Something I've not seen mentioned but feels important is that in episode one, when Ruby steps on the butterfly and changes history, the Doctor allegedly fixes a setting in the TARDIS which is meant to protect against such things happening.
In principle that mechanism should have protected against this whole story.
So is the real story here that the TARDIS's ability to prevent paradoxical timelines is breaking down?
Or contrariwise, is the story that this is what it's like to be inside a timeline that the TARDIS is currently fixing? Maybe you can't get into the TARDIS in this timeline, and the Doctor has been taken out of it, precisely because the TARDIS is currently in the process of dismantling it.
You could even stretch the idea further. The mysterious woman is not so much turning people against Ruby as enlightening them that this is an incorrect timeline so they recoil in horror from it and try to flee.
And the ending is not that Ruby becomes the mysterious woman, but that after everyone else has been removed, the woman finally comes to Ruby to take her back to a correct timeline too.
Or, you know, maybe RTD tried to be too clever, stacked up too many ideas, and they don't quite add up.
Well, getting in to the whole stepping on a butterfly thing was a bit of a dumb thing to do in the first place, given that the entire premice of the show is that they travel in time and change things. If you start unraveling that particular ball of wool, the whole thing starts to become contradictary and pointless.
..hn, I think stepping on butterflies and interacting with bigger or within themselves timey-wimey things should be considered two whole different things. The Doctor can still fight and undo things and entities that changed the timeline (even his own missteps). But for more normal, natural and non-timey-wimey things, the Tardis can bubble them up in a way the timeline may fix itself around them (e.g.: when stepping on a mere butterfly another butterfly will take its path to lead back to the known timeline). And maybe there is an element of 'intent' to it as well.
I agree that the whole butterfly protection thing throws up more questions than it fixes things, since we know the Doctor and their companion can change things (which is why he's so often so careful and warns about not getting too involved... Only to get involved anyway. But, like, Waters of Mars or Fires of Pompeii. He at least cannot change the *known* timeline [read: "known to the Doctor"]). Yet we also know they run around in history and at least little things do not (usually) cause 'butterfly-effects' left and right. So, RTD threw in this being part of the Tardis' protection field (once activated), in an attempt to smoothe out this connondrum.
The circle nor Maestro are part of that, either way you look at it, tho. They are 'abnormalities' to start with, and the Doctor and companion can interact with them and such has its actual consequences (usually them succeeding in bringing things back to their natural order - even if history should now have like half a century of people having no or little music because it was never even marginally explored how defeating a later Maestro in the sixties retroactively-!- brought music back XD).
If I were to make a main complaint about this episode it would be this:
The episode (especially the ending) was Artsy, not Clever
Dr Who has historically gone with ‘Clever’ twists, one’s that have a ‘logical’ explanation which make everything make sense and give the audience enough clues and tidbits to possibly guess what’s actually going on. Heaven Sent for instance.
But this episode took an ‘Artsy’ approach where they make the twist very symbolic or vague or mysterious, like a lot of horror films do
Now, I don’t think there is necessarily anything wrong with an ‘Artsy’ twist
However, this episode set up so many things and left so many “clues” (such as the Madness, the apparent Sign Language and the Doctor disappearing) that when watching you expect a ‘Clever’ Twist, because it’s DOCTOR WHO why wouldn’t you? But then the episode leaves you with no answers and you feel somewhat disappointed.
So yeah, I’m summary I’d say that this episodes main problem was that the audience were (more than likely) expecting to get a ‘Clever’ explanation but since they did not deliver, it left us feeling disappointed
Glad we got a proper divisive ep in this era already. I really liked it.
As much is the pains me that the very things I love about this episode are what ruins it for other people like harbo, I adore how many conversations it has started and how passionately people debate on whether or not buckled under its own ambitions!
the fact there is so many discussions about it makes me love it even more
I'd have been okay with it if it weren't so early in the series TBH. I don't care enough about Ruby (we've had 4 on screen stories with her) or know her Enough as a character for the episode to have any impact on that level with her being unalienated. And then I just have no idea what's going on the rest of the episode. So I'm just completely lost without a character and character focused writing to ground me. Plus I'm bitter because it's episode 4 and we've not actually had a lot of adventures with 15 and Ruby. If this were deeper in the season or even an early season 2 episode I'd have been fine. Probably wouldn't have enjoyed it much, but I wouldn't absolutely hate it like I do now.
@@BEE-oz7ydLiterally my thoughts
@@vullord666I don't think I agree but definitely understandable.
Think they should have brought in whoever did the prosthetics and makeup for Karen Gillan in The Girl Who Waited - because yeah, 40 year old Ruby didn’t have me convinced
I loved this episode so so much, it reminds me of fairytales I read as a child where Fae would just curse you and u gotta deal with it. 🤷🏼 I feel like this episode finally pushes more what they introduced in ‘Blue Yonder’ - ‘a circle of salt at the edge of the universe’, now we have ‘a fae circle at the edge of a cliff’. The way I understand it - them two disrespected a Fae and she disappeared the Doctor and cursed Ruby to a lifetime of her worst fear - being abandoned. Ruby can never get close to anyone, she’s forced to be ‘73 yards away’ emotionally even if she tries to form new relationships. It’s brilliant. Honestly I can write a lot, I feel like this episode introduces ‘new rules’ and I personally am all for it.🤩☺️
I do understand why people would be divided, however. I used to devour hundreds of folk tales as it was something of a special interest, most people didn’t do that. 😅
Yes
I love all the comments here saying stuff like, "Why do you need to understand what's going on?". .. Well, if you don't need to, that explains a lot.
So glad I'm not the only one who feels off about this episode. The Roger stuff feels disjointed and the ending seemingly makes the whole episode pointless, yet the first half of the episode was great and Millie did an incredible job. I feel like this episode kind of exemplifies my opinions on this season as a whole: The actors are incredible and doing an amazing job, but the writing of the episodes are really letting them down (except Boom, that was great).
73 yards was an ok episode. It was interesting and creative.
The only thing I dislike about it is that it means absolutely nothing. We never find out what the old woman was saying to have that effect of people, including her mom, or how Ruby somehow upon death went back. And I could forgive all that, but the fact that Ruby is not aware of what happened or could have happened, nobody learns anything, and nothing changes. It makes it so the events of the episode might as well not have happened because they had zero impact on anybody. Even Ruby stopping Mad Jack meant nothing because now it will still happen.
The episode was literally a nothingburger in terms of impact or growth on the main characters or the universe as a whole.
Interesting to watch, and fun, but ultimately pointless.
In this episode: Ruby is forced to live the life of the average whovian
I enjoyed it most of the way through, but the ending ruined the whole thing. There's a big difference between mystery and confusion. If we *hadn't* been told at the end the old woman was Ruby, it would have been a great episode with loads of mystery. But because they told us that, we're just like "huh. How does that work?" A lot of questions that, before, I didn't want/need the answers to, NOW I do. For example, how did Ruby keep up with the moving train, how did she live another 60 years, what did she say to people, how did she find out what to say to people etc. Before, if we had no idea who the woman was, those questions don't need answers because we don't have any reason to think they *wouldn't* be able to do this. But by making it Ruby? Where did she find out what to say to people to make them run away? How did she keep up with a moving train? It just creates so much confusion, and *not* in a good way
Plus, it's implied that Roger ap Gwilliam is Mad Jack, somehow the Doctor and Ruby released his spirit, but Gwilliam still exists even when they *DON'T* do that, as the Doctor knows about him
Essentially, I think it either should have explained everything or nothing. Trying to give a half-arsed explanation that raises more questions than it answers doesn't work
Ruby didn't live for another 60 years, she died in the hospital bed, her life flashes before her eyes and we can also hear the heartbeat getting faster and faster until she flat-lines. She never had to find out what to say to people because that was just part of the magic of the spell. How did she keep up with the train... MAGIC!!! Its as simple as that is why there is nothing to be explained. I really didn't come out of this episode confused because I understood that we are now following a different set of rules from previous episodes or even seasons. If this episode was pulled out of doctor who no one would be confused, the issue you already have a formula for what this show should be and you are trying to compare the two. I was also high while watching and still somehow everything made sense.
In the spirit of Kate's "seeing something that doesn't make sense and finding ways to make it work" (as someone else pointed out here, may have been a key line of the episode):
Maybe it wasn't anything old/blurry Ruby said (as we never heard her even whisper), but the vibe and hum she gave off as an entity on their last breath unnaturally traveling back inside their own timeline is what scared people, confronted them with their own mortality? :D
OK, I’m just gonna say a few things that I know you got wrong wrong and it’s the fairy circles. If you remember what the lady in the bar said circles, protect the thin line between our realm and the realm of luminous spaces and what she basically was in the entire episode was the luminous space because the doctor broke the fairy circle, something that the old woman also says has something to do with spirits and her reading. The first parchment is a thing that took the doctor away. The second one was the way that magic was linked to the prime Minister. I don’t think I can bring up everything in this comment, but I hope you read this.
I saw someone on Reddit explain the plot as a time loop, which actually makes a lot of sense:
By breaking the circle, the Doctor unleashed Mad Jack. In this initial loop, the old woman didn't exist, Ruby went on with her life and never stopped Gwilliams, and the nuclear war actually happened.
Then Ruby is sent back as the old woman. It is this second loop we actually get to see. Because of her future self's presence, this time round Ruby does stop the dude. As a reward or whatever, this time when she got sent back, she could stop the Doctor from breaking the circle in the first place.
So it's not that Gwilliams was only stopped by Ruby and now that this version of events got undone the nuclear war is going to happen. The nuclear war wasn't going to happen in the first place (as the Doctor stated BEFORE breaking the circle), then breaking the circle made it happen, but Ruby stopped it and was thus able to return to the original timeline where the circle remained unbroken.
Anywho, it's definitely a failing of the episode that it's left SO ambiguous that literally everyone seems to have interpreted it differently. Leaving it to the fans to pick up the pieces to THIS degree is weak as fuck. However, I remain optimistic that we will get something later in the series that makes all of it make more sense.
In fact, things not making much sense seems a running theme this series. It could be bad writing, or it could be my pet theory that ever since The Giggle The One Who Waits (probably the god of television or stories in general) has been in control of the Doctor's universe and derailing things. The fact that all the episodes have played into different genres might tie into that. The fact there's been a ridiculous amount of fourth wall breaks might tie into that. The fact 73 Yards is seemingly just weird and scary to be weird and scary without bothering to really make sense might tie into that. I've seen a few other people who have reached this conclusion. The finale would thus be the Doctor essentially having to fight the show itself. However, I am less convinced of all that now than I was when I first came up with it during the final scene of The Devil's Chord. We'll see. In another month, we'll know if this series was a brilliant, misleading story that tied everything up in the end, or really just the disjointed mess of pretty bad writing it sadly appears to be right now.
I think RTD said in an interview that the entire episode was a punishment for Ruby for disrespecting the fairy circle. When she and the doctor disrespect the circle, Ruby suffers a lifelong punishment of people abandoning her and is able to end the punishment by stopping the prime minister. Then at the end of the episode her punishment is over and the loop is closed.
I also saw people point out that before stepping on the circle, the doctor mentions Mad Jack almost starting a neuclear war. Then at the end of the episode when the doctor mentions Mad Jack, he doesn't mention any neuclear weapons.
I loved this episode. But I agree the ending could've given the explaination of it being a punishment. Like, maybe just having Ruby remember the alternate timeline, even if just breifly like how Donna did in Turn Left and the doctor just being confused as to what happened. I also agree that they should never explain what the figure says. A view I personally agree with is that the entity doesn't actually "say" anything specific, it just transfers the feeling of hate and fear.
Maybe not even have it in the ending, include it in the welsh pub fearmongering. They made it seem like mad jack was the only threat about the circle after all
Seems a bit of a harsh punishment for doing something that any person or animal or strong gust of wind might do without even realising it. LOL. These fairies, or whatever they are (because we don't know), seem pretty spiteful and very powerful. It's a shame the Doctor doesn't have a clue they exist or what to do about them. LOL
Tbf, as far as fairy tales and folk horror go, this is pretty on brand for fairies. When they're pissed off, they commit to the punishment@PeterCamberwick
he mentions the nuclear war thing both times actually
@@PeterCamberwickFairies have historically been very harsh with punishments. Like tourturing a person to death for looking at them wrong
as a scp fan, that was some good shit. I love when stories get incomprehensibly confusing, so the community has to piece all of that together somehow.
When I enter a debate on Twitter,
people will be all like, "oh! but it's all part of a big plan, wait till the end!"
I'd rather just have a half decent story on its own myself
It was more than a half decent story, the fact that you don’t see it as that is definitely a you problem.
Exactly I don’t need every episode to have a mystery that I need to wait until the finale for where the reveal will most likely be underwhelming lol
@@JDPrice94He didn’t say it wasn’t decent, he says he wishes the episode was more stand alone answering the questions within the single episode rather than waiting for the threads to knot in a future episode
@@JDPrice94 It really wasnt
@@JDPrice94starts of promising, ends up pretty rubish
It’s a subjective thing, trying to make sense of this episode. Today, here is what I think.
A Fairy Ring is broken, and the impossible becomes possible, yet again.
The distant figure is waiting for Ruby to die, respectfully keeping her distance. Her silent mission requires that the spell is broken. She is not complicit in the isolating of young Ruby, but must simply wait. she is equipped with the capability to repel anyone who interferes. Ruby’s isolation is the condition of the spell, and of course propels the story. It may be that at this point, the distant figure is not Ruby. She may be an empty vessel, waiting to be made whole by the receiving of Ruby’s spirit. She is not malign, neither is she a force for good -she is merely waiting.
Ruby’s journey is compelling for the viewer. Her learning and growth is satisfying, and serves to highlight Ruby’s virtue and strength of character. This remains with the viewer, - even though the experience is lost to Ruby, we know so much more about her. Her utilising of the watching figure as a means of ending Ap Gwilliam’s evil scheme is testimony to Ruby’s creative mindset, and her resilience is huge.
Ruby becomes resigned to her isolation and the tragic circumstances of the broken Fairy Circle continue to limit her life. She is alone, even in death. At last the distant figure approaches and becomes one with Ruby, at the moment of her death. Ruby welcomes it in.
The watching spirit, now one with Ruby - is able to influence the young woman’s timeline by dropping a thought into her subconscious. Ruby may well have rationalised it as a moment of deja vu.
The resolution is neat, simple and shrouded in mystery.
Of course, RTD may well weave Ruby Sunday's legend in such a way as to lift the veil on 73 yards.
In any event, we are being made witness to the story, and just as in real life, where sometimes the oddest inexplicable things defy explanation - we may never know the details, and they don’t really matter. it’s a masterpiece.
the doctors disappears after ruby reads the "miss you" note. Just like her reading mad jack, brings him into existence. I'd imagine reading those letters is what caused it all
i was watching another video that postulated 'if u require the audience to invent the contrivance you need to make a story make sense, you failed as a story writer'
Your comment proves that theory.
@@GrumpyMunkyGameDesign Anyone who needs to cite UA-camr's opinions in place of their own to try and dunk on other's is an artless dumbass.
@@GrumpyMunkyGameDesign No, not really. It's a faerie circle, a charm that must be broken, when it is broken the reading of the notes conjures up the reality for the person reading them.
What broke Ruby's particular curse was her eventually meeting herself on her deathbed.
I'm surprised that the usually astute Harbo completely failed to pick up on this.
Ruby suffered a lifetime of abandonment that started when she was left outside the church and only stopped when she died.
@@GrumpyMunkyGameDesign thank you for saying this, like, the story just doesn't make that much sense at all
Yeah, but how though? LOL
I feel like a lot of people's enjoyment of this episode was hampered by trying too hard to understand what happened in a literal sense, which really isn't the point. It's an emotional character piece that uses abstract horror rather than real-world logic to tell its story, a method of storytelling that's quite common in fantasy or fairytales (especially in older literature) but something Doctor Who has never really ventured into before. My only problem with the episode had nothing to do with the ambiguity of the whole thing, it was rather that I felt the political stuff was a little underdeveloped. Overall, I really loved it and it's also the episode which has won me over to Ruby Sunday as a character.
I don't think people are wrong for finding this hard to adjust to but I would suggest that the amount of deliberately unanswered questions is a result of Doctor Who experimenting with genres and trying different methods of storytelling rather than it being something the episode does wrong. Whether or not it's to your personal taste will vary from person to person and everyone is entitled to their preferences but I really love how brave and experimental this series is being so far.
It's not been done in Doctor Who, because that's not what Doctor Who is. That's why it's annoying. If it was just a horror film, it would have been great, because that's what horror films are. As to the political stuff, did we really need to develop it? It's just the umpteenth version of Trump. I think everyone has got the idea of that by now. "Right wing man bad and wants to start nuclear world war". Yeah, we get how that plot line goes. I mean,... Trump never did that, but never mind. LOL
@@PeterCamberwick hmm... yeah I disagree. I don't really think Doctor Who 'is' any one thing, it's a show with pretty much endless possibilities which has allowed limitless creativity over the last 60 years. That's part of what makes it so brilliant and how it has lasted so long. And it always had a broad range of genres be it sci-fi, horror, fantasy, comedy or historical. And with regards to the political storyline, obviously what I mean is that it's underdeveloped in a narrative sense. If you think it shouldn't have been included then that's valid but they chose to write it into the episode then ended up not having time to really do anything interesting with it. I personally thought there was a lot of potential within that subplot but the entire thing started and ended within the space of 9 minutes meaning that it felt kind of wasted. Whether or not it's been done lots of times before, writers are perfectly entitled to address political issues which they feel are relevant and important, it just wasn't done terribly well in this case.
I think you’ve managed to articulate my entire feelings about this episode perfectly. For me the whole mystery and interest of the story was the woman, who she was and what she wanted. The Roger bad prime minister stuff was bland and completely not set up and done better with the master in s3 and we’ve never heard of him before a brief mention at the start of THIS episode. The lady was the interesting part, she was what we all speculated about in the trailers, the whole horror vibe was emphasised so much but the bland non scary Roger stuff killed the horror vibe, and then the ending didn’t give any explanation of the woman. Why she existed, why she was Ruby, why the doctor disappeared, where he went anything. Exactly like you said at the end of the episode I literally was questioning what the point of the episode was
When I watched the episode I was sure that The Woman was saying something in Sign Language because she kept repeating the same movement with her arms and hands all the time
I asked someone I know who does speak some sign language and they were pretty confident that it was Sign Language but couldn’t make out what it was she was signing
But thing is I’ve not seen anyone talk about it, so am I wrong?
I like to think the doctor just got scared by the old lady and decided to hide from Ruby in the TARDIS for... However many years that was
The doctor was definitely killed. Ruby's abilities to reset time fixed that. The doctor wouldn't have LET the TARDIS rot
I thought her abilities were a light spattering of snow, where did the ability to reset time come from
This!!! This is ABSOLUTELY how I felt after… I don’t mind connecting some dots but lil your original thoughts, I felt empty and would have liked to have walked away going ‘wow, that’s clever’ not having to go to Twitter to find answers. Great review.
4 episodes in and the doctor hasn’t actually “defeated” a villain
I honestly loved the whole episode on the premise that as RTD always does, we'll get a round about explanation with future episodes and I'm very excited for it
9:33 he was name dropped as a bad example of the Welsh, not a bad example of a prime minister (from what I remember)
I was thinking that Ruby was whisked to an alternate pocket universe
Or as Kate said, their timeline might've been suspended.
For my 2 pence, I don't think the ending works because the episode itself very quickly abandons fear and instead pivots to mystery. That's a perfectly valid thing to do and I actually like the idea of "what if the monster just becomes an everyday thing" however, that means that the tension of the episode is no longer Ruby's fear but instead the mystery of who/what the woman is. Horror films that keep the threat hidden or unexplained usually get away with it because the tension is released through the defeat of the monster or the failure of the protagonist. You don't feel cheated out of an explanation because you have the relief of not being scared anymore. By contrast, "73 yards" completely drops the tension of fear within the first half of the episode and from then on the only thing the audience has to latch on to is the mystery aspect. This means that, when nothing is explained at all by the end there is no catharsis for the viewer and makes it more likely that a audience will be disappointed.
Also, I get what they were going for but its disappointing that 'being reckless with nuclear weapons and the future of humanity' isn't considered enough to flag a character as "the bad guy" on its own, and they had to make him a sexual predator as well. Also, I was so disappointed to discover that the 73 yards rule was apparently arbitrarily chosen by RTD since its so close to 66.6 meters recurring.
Agree with ur 2nd para fs.
I thoroughly enjoyed this ep, and still do upon rewatch (I just watched before starting this),
I like that you included the addendum and talked more about that full picture and additional context, that’s really great you took the time to do the additional content,
I have my own headcannons I’ve assigned to this story because of my interpretations and I think that’s why I like it so much, it left enough room for me to make my own ideas fit into the narrative like the story sort of writes and how others have provided that commentary on this vid too :)
idk if anyone else has had this idea but something I would do to fix some of the unanswered questions would be for old ruby to be the one who made the fairy circle
so say in the flash forwards ruby is researching the fairy circle and witchcraft (maybe Kate's comment about witchcraft and the supernatural gets her thinking?), maybe she has a research board that grows with the time jumps, and we get the idea that she now knows how they work to 'bind someone to rest in peace' (like the pub lady says)
then have a more older ruby be the one to bring down gwilliam, and after that happens she doesn't see the woman again until she's in hospital dying
then old ruby goes back in time to wales and this time she makes the circle to seal the time loop (?), fulfilling her purpose and this time the circle isn't broken
there could still be a mystery in there but not too much that people wouldn't get it
I think the issue is that this episode is in a completely different genre than usual for Doctor Who. 73 Yards is not a science fiction episode. It is a supernatural folk horror episode so it doesn’t need an explanation, however because Dr. Who is a science fiction show it primes the audience to always expect some kind of answer or reason for the events to happen which is why it falls flat to some.
Agreed, and let's be honest, sometimes the "scientific" explanations are pretty lame. I really don't mind if mysteries are sometimes left unresolved.
Welcome to Doctor Who lol. You must be new, because Doctor Who has been doing non-science fiction stories since the 60s. Hartnell had The Celestial Toymaker, Troughton had Mind Robber, and heck Tom Baker had several years in a row where the show just became gothic horror with hardly any hard sci-fi, and those were the most successful/popular years of classic Who. Science fiction has always been incidental to Doctor Who, not at all core.
I think the two "random" things, the circle and the scene at the pub, are actually connected and part of the "explanation": The lady in the pub did point out the position of the fairy circle, on top of the cliff, between land and sea - which in Irish / Gaelic / Celtic folklore often pops up; gateways, portals or caves at the sea or lakes that take the protagonists through time. Some "truth" in between them leading Ruby on.
Based on that, the circle (which had this weird denting effect when stepped on/into) is like a mini-portal in time. The circle and its messages/notes are from the future, a future where "Mad Jack" had wrecked havoc...
The Doctor stepping on it did not change the future (he knew about Mad Jack Gwilliam before that in both seen timelines), but it caused the baby portal to bleed out, affecting the ones closest (Ruby and the Doctor).
The Doctor maybe got the full brunt of it for disrupting it and had gotten pulled in, into a future where the world had just been bombed...
And Ruby... My take is, that she got sucked into a timeloop, but we only got to see the loop where she managed to stop the war, survive and to live to an old age. Without the Doctor(?) she needed to grow old and only unlocked on her death-bed the ability to go back in time and warn her younger self to prevent the Doctor from harming the circle.
(The Doctor's reaction might even fit my theory; a baby time portal, too small for the Doctor to realize / recognize it for what it is, but taken over by an endeared fascination. It's "small scale" might also explain why there was a delay before the Doctor vanished.)
All of this does not explain the 73 yards or whatever old Ruby whispered (or was it just a hum or vibe she gave off? In her unleashed or displaced new form/abilities) or where exactly the Doctor went for the Tardis to go inert.
But as far as folklore stories go... They also do not offer a "why" and leave bystanders baffled when the protagonists seemingly just vanish (while their journey continues elsewhen).
And the thought that Mad Jack is just a man, an inevitable future no matter what we've seen... Kinda makes it creepier.
...oh, like the other ppl Harbo pointed out at the end of the video explored... (Already typed out the above b4 watching the video to the end, so I will still post it XD)
Hn.. I still personally think it's the better episode of the season so far, most intriguing, even if it tries to be a folklore crossover of Midnight and Turn Left, and can't quite live up to it. It was the first episode that I spared some thought after the credits rolled, so there is that.
I have a theory that when Ruby stopped the would be prime minister she changed the timeline which changed the course of events or something like that.
It’s very interesting to hear your critique of the ambiguity of this episode, because it’s pretty much how I react to most ambiguous storytelling. I am usually of the belief that, if you want to tell a story, you should tell that story, and not leave a bunch of holes that the audience needs to fill in themselves to understand what the story is.
That being said, 73 Yards is my favourite episode of the new series thus far. I *love* the ambiguity of it, the open questions of what the old woman was saying, how she came to be there, what happened to the doctor, how Roger Ap Gwilliam and Mad Jack fit into it all. I love speculating about it, and seeing fan speculation about it, and all of that jazz. I’m curious to see if any of it will be answered as we come to understand more about Ruby and who or what she is - but even if we don’t get answers, I still adore the episode.
As it stands, it’s an excellent story about Ruby’s fear of abandonment, as she goes through her life being abandoned - first by the Doctor, then her mother, then UNIT. I also think that, thematically, the old woman is a stand-in for Ruby’s mother (or at least the woman who left her at the church on Ruby Road), being “semper distans”, close enough to know she exists, but far enough that she’s unidentifiable.
I think that’s why I love the episode so much; its themes carry it, making the ambiguity interesting, and not frustrating - at least to me.
the thing you gotta remember is that the masters term effectively got ctrl+z'ed, so most of the bad shit that he did never actually happened
True
The Doctor and UNIT do remember it though, as we saw with 12 in Before The Flood. Martha and Torchwood do too
@@PsyrenXY However ruby wouldn't remember it, The doctor brings up Ap Gwilliam as a "Hey do you remember this crazy guy" Forgetting Ruby was from pre 2046, The doctor knows Ruby doesn't remember Masters Alt-Timeline (Because only a very small handful of people remember it) so he wouldn't of bought it up.
Yeah, RTD does love a reset button :/
8:45
No it isn't. He just came up with a extremely intriguing mystery that he had no idea how to conclude, so he just refused to come up with a convincing explanation
yep he seems to be putting lots of ideas into episodes hoping a few of them will stick and maybe through chance some will even make sense and work with each other, if they don't then they come under 'it's for the audience to decide themselves', bit of a cop out as it's so blatantly done..
OR... the episode makes perfect sense. Clearly this season is no longer following the rules in terms of the physics of the universe. In past seasons this would all be explained by some alien creature that took over ruby's timeline or something. "he had no idea how to conclude" what did he not conclude? I thought the ending allowed everything to come full circle. All the important questions were answered. It doesn't matter where the doctor went, it doesn't matter what exactly old ruby is saying, thats not what the episode is trying to answer.
@@platonymousimagine if In the episode Dalek the dalek kills rose at the end of the episode and then it turns out that rose travels back in time and she was the dalek all along and she sends the distress signal out again but this time the doctor ignores it and doesn’t land. That’s basically what happens this episode
@@platonymous "All the important questions were answered." Can you point to any? You point out two relatively unimportant questions that weren't answered, correctly saying that they don't need to be. But this doesn't tell us anything about the questions that were allegedly answered, according to you and, from the hundreds of people I've seen commenting on the episode, only you.
I agree that the setup and first half were amazing but the end8ng just ruins a lot. But I have my own theory. The doctor and Ruby set Mad Jack free and he took the form of Roger. As punishment the ‘protectors of the circle’(the woman) made the doctor disappear and Ruby was cursed with this. The curse took the form of her fear of abandonment(being abandoned as a child) and so everyone left her. Now Ruby stops Roger and therefore mad jack and therefore as a reward at the end of her life, she is given a chance to change it and make it so that it never happens(Ruby’s concciousness is in the woman, not she is the woman) But to change that Russel should have taken out that bit about Roger at the end and The doctor never should’ve said his name.He also could’ve had the woman explain this partially to Ruby in a dream like the fact that she is punished and stuff. Also for a little character beat have Ruby have a fight with her mum on phone to have some development in the sense of seeing everyone abandon her, she sees how much she needs and cares for them. And in the end of the episode she apologises to her mom.
I think this whole Ruby Sunday standalone episode was just a consolation prize for Millie Gibson because she was being rushed out of the series to make way for Varada Sethu, her replacement.
That was just a rumor, there’s been footage of Millie filming for series two.
So, I think the Doctor stepping on the circle is what angers The Fae, but the letters that Ruby read are the specific curses that she has to deal with. You can see the in the episode, The Doctor disappears and the lights of the Tardis go out exactly when Ruby reads out “I Miss You”, meaning that that letter held the spell to keep her alone. Whatever entity ‘Mad Jack’ actually is, the letter that said “Rest In Peace Mad Jack” was the one that kept him sealed in the circle that was now broken. We know that The Tardis landing next to the fairy circle gave the curse a perception filter, so I think The Doctor mentioning Roger Ap Gwilliam is what caused Mad Jack to manifest in him. I think in Ruby’s timeline, Gwilliam being ‘possessed’(?) by Mad Jack is what gave him the edge to win, whereas in the normal timeline he doesn’t actually manage to nuke everything, hence the Doctor saying he “nearly created worldwide nuclear destruction”. So the curse works as a dual punishment and way of preventing the circle from ever being broken; in actual Fae lore, they have control over time, and Kate mentions this timeline being suspended along Ruby’s event. Ruby choosing to do something good, is what meant she was eventually freed. But also, since that timeline loops back to the start, it is in and of itself a fairy circle that once again traps Mad Jack within it. I also think the story in the pub was only half a red herring; while they didn’t know Mad Jack themselves, they WERE actually explaining the rules of the fae, and Ruby and the Doctor did actually accidentally free an entity called Mad Jack. Anyway those are my two cents! Like Kate said, we invent rules to explain the inexplicable, and I think that’s part of the whole point of the episode, and trying to look for concrete answers just overlooks the point imo
I think Ruby has some kinda reality warping powers, and that's why I think the pub scene is actually important. To some extent, what she thinks will happen, or what she's scared of happening, seems to end up occurring. (scared of people abandoning her, and that's why the 73 Yard woman causes this to happen). Specifically for the pub scene, the first time the Doctor sees the circle he just calls it "a circle", at the end of the episode he calls it a "fairy circle", something that the woman in the pub is the only other character to call it. I think Ruby internalises the fear that the Welsh people instill in her and it's THIS that actually causes the Fairy Circle to be "real". That's why I think the pub scene is going to end up being there.
Think all I think the ending needed for me for it to not be feeling unsatisfying is
1. for it to feel like Ruby earned the stopping the doctor standing on the Fairy circle, (Donna Turn left - Good, The Doctor inside the exploding Tardis with Clara - Bad).
2. The doctor to say a 1 sentence about what could have happened if he stood on it, a list of a few things that includes what probably happened to the Doctor and Ruby. Seems like the kind of thing the Doctor would have done if it was the start of the episode.
The Ending. Why did it happen? Fairies. How did Ruby become a super entity with the ability to teleport and terrify people? She didn't. The Woman following Ruby is simply Ruby caught in her death echo, watching her own life flash before her eyes. She didn't come back to warn Ruby to stop the Doctor. She just so happens to warn her to stop him by I would imagine recounting the story of what happened. When we first go back, she's apologizing for taking to long (the length of her life) and then she proceeds to acknowledge that's herself she is looking at and talking about how young she was. Then we don't get to hear the rest of what she's saying, but she was very clearly starting to reminisce about her life, starting with that moment. If you need a solid reason as to why her death echo was able to travel back it likely had something to do with Ruby having spent time in the Tardis. The series has mentioned multiple times about how traveling in the Tardis changes people, how they've touched the time stream and such. Mayhaps I'm just filling in the blanks myself, but it made sense to me. On an initial viewing I've moved this into my top 5 episodes.
I think the old woman was basically Death, always at a distance and waits to come closer in your final moments so when it was Ruby’s time, she welcomes it with open arms, becoming one with Death, and resetting the timeline and was able to put a thought in her younger self to not step into the prayer circle
I really look forward to your reviews because you break the episode down and explain the subcontext, while adding in your own thoughts and jokes. It's really enjoyable.
I also watch Council of Geeks for DW reviews, and both your opinions are on such different sides of the spectrum. I was honestly expecting you to praise it given that previous video you made on 73 Yards.
In a way, this episode really appeals to the speculative side of the fandom. Which (given the 4th wall breaks this series has had so far) is pretty meta in itself 😉
Also, the pub scene isn't pointless to the wider story. It aligns with the themes of Ruby's fear of abandonment, that aren't only present in the mysterious woman. The people in the pub excommunicate her immediately, a reality she doesn't realise she's going to have to face for the rest of her life. Yet the people are also dismissive of the fairy circle, claiming it's just a 'piece of string.' This gives the episode's themes of beliefs far more nuance, as Davies doesn't just boil it down to 'respect native culture' because even the natives in the pub don't take the fairy circle seriously. Instead boils life down to a surrealist escapade which none of us can ever make objective sense of, and breaks down everyone's perceptions and beliefs to help them cope with the relentless chaos of life, which is conveyed perfectly by the genre mixing.
Okay here's my personal theory on the plot. I have to make a lot of logical leaps here, and I'll also be using the fact that RTD has said they'll be more folklore-esque magical elements.
SO,
First, let's make one small assumption. Roger ap Gwilliam being 22 when he becomes PM in 2046.
It'd be a very young age to become PM, but it isn't out of the question. The actor is 37, so that's not too much of a stretch.
My reason for this is as follows:
- Ruby's mobile banking works, so they must be in the present day at the Welsh village.
- 2046 is 22 years after the present day.
SO!
When that Faerie Circle was made, it was made to stop the second coming of some kind of monster - a warlord, perhaps. That being Mad Jack.
The Doctor breaks the Faerie Circle while talking about Roger ap Gwilliam, and when that happens, Roger ap Gwilliam is born for real. Another instance of superstitions being evoked.
The Doctor is punished for this by the Faeries displacing him somehow. The Doctor is gone.
The Old Lady appears, as a sort of warning to Ruby, to guide her path in a sense. She has to do this alone, so the Old Lady gets rid of anyone who may help her using the influence of the Faeries.
Ruby lives her life, and meanwhile, Roger ap Gwilliam is growing up with the influence of this Mad Jack. The already mad, tyrannical Roger now has the charisma and knowledge to do what he plans to do.
Ruby uses the Old Lady's faerie influence to get rid of Roger, stopping this nuclear war from happening, and driving out Mad Jack. And thanks to that, the Faerie Circle can be repaired.
So, when Ruby is old and dying, the Old Lady approaches her, and through the Old Lady's body, Ruby is brought back to the day the Doctor broke the Circle.
Old Ruby gives her younger self and the Doctor a warning not to break the Circle, and it works.
As for why the Doctor knows who Roger ap Gwilliam is but doesn't know who Mad Jack is?
In this repaired timeline, Mad Jack was never released from the Faerie Circle. Mad Jack was never reborn. Roger ap Gwilliam was born, and became Prime Minister, but this Roger was never Mad Jack, and without Mad Jack's (possibly supernatural) charisma and warmongering, Roger isn't able to cause this nuclear war that he would have caused if Mad Jack had been freed.
I don't like how many logical hoops I had to jump through to get to that conclusion, and I think that even if I'm right, this could have been done a lot better.
But I'm pretty happy with my theory.
I think Mad Jack will still be stopped in the main timeline simply because the Doctor is around. The reason Ruby had to take him on by herself was because the Doctor was banished from existence. Now that he’s around again, there’s no way he wouldn’t intervene with the nuke threat when it eventually ends up happening.
22:31 *"As fans we shouldn't have to do a lot of heavy lifting to connect dots the episode did not even put on paper to begin with."*
My god yes. This isn't a problem with just this episode in DW or this show or this medium. If fans need to come up with theories on their own, do PhD reading, and have someone else explain to them in several paragraphs is a problem. "Not healthy" is also probably the best explaination for it. It's not the job of fans to make sense out of something. It's just lazy writing. I say this as someone whose used to this so much with adaptions. I know the "required outside reading" and often things that aren't explained in the adaption and it's still a trash concept.
It honestly feels like watching someone in a toxic abusive relationship make excuses and explain why their partner's behavior is reasonable. Its not and above all it's certainly not anyone else's job to explain their actions.
This explanation makes the most sense to me:
This season has been about, following "Wild Blue Yonder" and "The Giggle," the supernatural bleeding into our world.
When the Doctor breaks the fairy circle, he's trapped in it and swaps places with (the yet unseen) Mad Jack. As a means of setting things right, Ruby is selected to not only be punished for the Doctor's actions, but prevent Mad Jack from wreaking havoc on the world.
What Ruby sees her whole life is a projection, replayed over and over, of the moment she finally appears and sets thing right at the end of the episode--indeed, the moment when she actually hears herself. It's not until the end of the episode that old Ruby is *really* the old woman; up to that point, she's a projection of that future moment. (Someone in another review pointed out that the words old Ruby says at the very end line up pretty well with the strange gestures we see repeated).
This projection is imbued with perception powers that only lets people see it when Ruby points it out to them, but also (as penance for breaking the circle/releasing Mad Jack) punishes Ruby by having the projection make anyone who approaches it fall under a spell that makes them fear/hate/run away from Ruby--because it punishes by taking that person's worst fear and turning it against them. So, ironically, they don't hear her final words from the episode; they telepathically hear whatever it is that would most make them abandon Ruby.
Now, I also believe this episode is meant to be open to interpretation on purpose. RTD makes that plain when Kate says to Ruby that we often will take things we don't understand and try to apply an explanation that does... which is exactly what I'm doing now.
As for no proper intro--I'm on board with it, since it immediately gives the episode an off-kilter feeling, AND serves as a meta hint that Ruby will be without the Doctor (and so too are we without that intro).
Yeah I admit, not having the Doctor in it was definitely a plus point.
If you look at experimental time travel films that don't make sense on first watch, the Donnie Darko is the gold standard. But Donnie Darko, when dissected, and re-watched, had a logic to it. 73 yards is missing that as a story. I know I'm comparing a film to a TV episode but it's about story structure.
It's frustrating for me that no'one is talking about (including you Harbo) how Ruby could somehow travel back in time instead of dying.
If it's not established later on that Ruby can time travel with her emotions, (hence the snow) '73 Yards' is going to age much worse.
She did die, there is a reason they used different actors for the two characters. I see it more as her soul is living out in this immortal never aging folklore character. It is already explained, the fair circle is actually a fair circle. I personally took the fake out in the pub to be half real. Yeah the people in the bar thought it was just yarn but clearly it has real power. I think that is something alot of people are missing here. Mad Jack literally is just M'Jack (sounds like Magic).
@@platonymous even if your theory is correct, The Doctor and Ruby arrived approx. 65-years before Ruby dies.
This is why I enjoy your analyses of the episodes. I'm not crazy for missing something. Like you, I felt there was something missing, some through line that would have made it all make sense. I haven't gone out and looked at whatever threads you found that explains what happened with various mythological tales and ideas. So... I am still in the dark. And if a writer puts together an episode that obviously has deeper things in it that make sense, but only with this other underlying knowledge, that is assumed... well, I'm sorry. It's a fail.
I believe that the entire point of the episode is laid out by Kate:
The idea that us as humans put rules and guidelines to make sense of things we don't understand.
It's focused on the human mind, Ruby specifically and her inner-confidence to do things for herself (when she says everyone's abandoned her her whole life, but has never been alone, literally being followed by herself.)
So I think the entire point of the episode is to put it in our perspective of something like this. Why is it happening? How does it work? We'll never know the answers.
It's similar to Midnight in that instance, with a creature we don't know what it looks like, how it can survive, what it wanted all that time, ect.
Because it's the opposite of what you mentioned,
The episode isn't focused on NEEDING to know what this entity is.
It's focused on Ruby, just like Midnight is focused on the people.
okay, so to answer your questions: The Doctor stepping on the circle invokes The Mad One, another friend of the Toymaker, also known as Mad Jack, this sets a timeline shift to an alternate reality where Ruby is placed as focus and the characters in this timeline somewhat realise they are in an alternate reality, and Mad Jack is twisting the story to play out in set ways (that's why the Welsh pub people prank her) and why Kate says "this timeline" referring to the Doctor being gone. Ruby, a child of coincidence and fate, must work through the timeline until she can solve Mad Jack's puzzle or defeat his human form in the Politician. Doing this resets the balance, banishes Mad Jack, and sends Ruby back to her original timeline. It's fairly easy interpretation, and basically the plot to Donnie Darko too.
Also the old woman represents Ruby's guilt for not helping Marti at the time, you can hear that in the words she's saying. And the hand movements echo that, like she shrugs when she says "I didn't know what to do". This character is an echo from across the timelines and realities mixing. She doesn't need to stop Mad Jack again because not stepping on the circle means he never comes into existence. The Doctor likely knows this an invoked the Coincidence rule with Ruby and purposefully stepped on the circle to start that timeline and remove Mad Jack from their world. Ruby's entire story is coincidence and fate, as are most Doctors companions, Donna appearing in the Tardis, and Clara the impossible girl, they are destined to be together, and we know too that a being called The Ancient One was likely present for Ruby's birth (told by Maestro) and so Ruby's existence is tied with these supernatural beings. My working theory is that when the Toymaker was summoned into reality as an engine of chaos, it equally summoned in a being of balance and order, and this good entity is the reason Ruby exists and how they both succeed in these storylines. You're telling me a game of catch truly stopped the toymaker, all those lucky catches? I think a supernatural being is helping them in bringing balance to the universe from these Toymaker friends.
If defeating the human form was the puzzle needing to be solved, why did the curse continue for another 40 years? I mean, I'm absolutely open to the idea of another supernatural being messing with someone till their game is solved, but it carried on after the finish line. Perhaps it is some entity, and Ruby needed to die before the time line could restart. Like the game board collecting dust on the dining room table before life starts again and you clear it away to have dinner 🤷
This was a brilliant bit of work by RTD. I guarantee you'll change your take once this entire wonky opening series once all of this season is made clear. I think you're always looking for what's wrong with Doctor Who instead of actually seeing what's so right.
I feel like everyone keeps missing the point this season. During the 60th specials the doctor accidentally invoked a superstition on the edge of the universe and since then, things have been going haywire. The laws of time and space are in flux. Doctor who has always been grounded in the idea that seemingly inexplicable things are just science we haven’t seen before, but what if the laws of physics as we understand them are no longer the only governing principles of the universe? What if it was game logic like we saw with the Toymaker or emotion?
Presenting ‘73 Yards’ as horror is a really clever format for exploring Ruby’s character. The best explanation for what happens is that Ruby’s own emotions are being used to build this pocket universe she’s gotten trapped in. There’s nothing you could actually say to make all those people abandon Ruby - it’s emotional logic reflecting her fear of abandonment. Now bc the laws of the dw universe are all whacky right now, it’s entirely plausible she got trapped in a ‘fairy ring’ and this is what it looked like. Who’s to say the doctor didn’t go through something similar? The cyclical nature of it with one change at the end closing out the time loop reminded me of donnie darko, although in this case I don’t think there’s any particular ‘reason’ Ruby got trapped in the first place. It was a character focused story as all the best horror is - it didn’t need to have a plot independent of that. The ap Gwilliam plot line was more about Ruby’s character development than anything else.
Anyhow, this is a long winded way of saying RTD is taking big risks subverting established dw logic this season. I don’t know if he’ll be able to satisfactorily wrap it all up, but I applaud his efforts.
What I noticed about everyone's reaction to Old Ruby is that it's not just fear. They walk up to her, maybe talk to her, lool confused, look back at Ruby, and THEN they run. But it's not just fear. It's anger.
The anger is most evident in Kate. Because she showed no fear of Old Ruby but when she looks back at Ruby, she looks angry maybe even hateful. But not angry enough to try and arrest Ruby.
Another thing I noticed is in the end. When Ruby has grown old and was on her hospital bed. She falls asleep and this is the only time Old Ruby gets close to her. And it got me thinking, could it be possible that Ruby was dying of old age at that moment? If she was, isn't there another DW villain who can only interact with people at their moment of death? Where they save them and even change history?
I'm not a fan of the Ruby is the Trickster's Daughter theory but I can't help but make this connection.
You’re not the only one who was disappointed. Like you, my wife and I asked each other what happened and what did we just watch.
I’m starting to feel like RTD2 is making me miss Chibnall.
This felt confusing and deep in a classic newwho way and I loved it. This show is back. doctor’s personality is a little hard to get used to imo, it’s different. But I can deal with
Another idea they could have done.
The person who breaks the circle just disappears. The person who reads the notes is haunted by the woman.
In the 73 Yards timeline the Doctor breaks the circle so he disappears. And Ruby reads the notes so the woman haunts her.
Then we see Ruby use the woman to scare off Roger, except this time when the guns are on Ruby, they shoot her (which I thought was going to happen), and as she dies she sees the woman scaring off Roger.
Timeline resets with Roger never becoming imfamous for attempted world domination/nuking.
Because of is, the Doctor doesn't mention Roger at all and because he doesn't go into the tangent he is more aware of his surroundings and doesn't break the circle. Ruby doesn't read the notes so she is never haunted by the woman.
John Francis Vater: destroys capitalism to save daughter from the grave
Carla Sunday: abandons Ruby in a heartbeat
Why are people so confused it was pretty simple to me and the ambiguous makes it fun to theorise. Just people want all the answers and to know everything and sometimes the simplest answer is the right one
People are confused because of the massive plot inconsistencies and holes, not because its a hard concept to grasp. You are talking about hardcore doctor who fans here, they have seen their fair share of time crap lol.
A little nit picks - 19 year olds don't talk in yards. 66.6 meters is pretty close as 66.75m is 73 yards.
Or, if Ruby had read something giving the audience a clue to what was happening, the pay of at the end may have made more sense.
I thought the episode was great to watch but then it ended. It's a reminiscent of Chibnall era with better writing, great concept, started to build up, then ended without really understanding why.
Great episode. I absolutely loved it. I like the fact we are left to ponder it.
If it passed by you, I couldn’t even see it coming. I actually watched it to explain it to my daughter who was equally confused and found myself just as equally confused. Thanks for your video.
i think the argument comparing the semperdistans (what i’ve heard the old lady being called) doesn’t work for the reasons you stated, the midnight entity is about groupthink and the semperdistans is about abandonment. we see how the entity effects a group and we see how semperdistans effects ruby (and everyone around her).
it looks like it’s a bigger metaphor for ruby’s biggest fear/anxieties because she doesn’t seem that surprised the doctor randomly left her (other companions would’ve tried a lot harder to get them back), and almost accepts it as how it was always meant to be. it just goes back to her abandonment issues and not having any biological connections- and then when her mum leaves her it really cements the abandonment issues.
that’s why i think ruby becoming the woman at the end could signify that she only had herself, and accepting herself and her circumstances on her deathbed.
i couldn’t explain why the time loop happened but i’ve accepted other people’s theories about the fae and fairy circles🤷
to me the episode was mostly a character exploration rather than anything else
I’ve now decided that 73 Yards is Turn Left’s cousin from New York that thinks it’s cool because it’s unique and quirky.
RIP Nathan Gibson. Gone, but never forgotten.
I think the Doctor disappearing is meta-textual, Ruby and the Doctor violate the beliefs of whoever set up the fairy circle, so Ruby is robbed of everything she believes in, and we the audience are robbed of what we have grown to believe in: The Doctor
It's kinda like Blink, where the audience are somewhat involved in the story, as Weeping Angels can't move when we're looking at them too. Similarly, most audience members probably think very little of the fairy circle at first, highlighting our ignorance to its supposed power to bind the dead and let them rest in peace.
So we're then expected to see what an entire episode of having our own beliefs and expectations breached is like, so that when Ruby returns to the fairy circle by the end, we have a much less constrained idea of what the laws of reality, life, time and significance of symbols can be, and feel more impassioned against the idea of the two of them disturbing it.
I'm glad someone finally called out that Roger is still going to rise to power now that Ruby and the woman are not there to stop him. I wish they had it so the Doctor bringing up Roger is the reason why he is distracted and steps on the circle. That way when the timeline is reset at the end, Roger is never mentioned (as he never comes to power) and the Doctor doesn't step on the circle.
Another thing to think about. It makes you wonder how else Ruby used the woman over the years. Keep in mind this is 40 or so years this story takes place over.
Considering Daleks invade Earth every other year, and she is in a Doctorless world, I would love to see a scene where Ruby uses the woman to position her such that a group of invading Daleks say "exterminate", she says whatever she always says, then they flees.
I also guess nothing happens within the next 40 or so years that would require the Doctor to save the day.
So here is my best explanation for the missing story elements that would make this episode make logical sense.
When the doctor steps on the magic ward, a parallel universe is created, and because The Doctor is a multidimensional entity (as stated in boom etc.) he is not sucked in like Ruby. Ruby is cursed with having her exact moment of death hang frozen just out of reach for intentionally disturbing the circle and reading the messages within. This is why everyone subconsciously avoids this phenomenon unless they specifically look for it, our subconscious not wanting to face death acting as a natural perception filter.
Not to mention why whoever encounters it is scared out of their mind as they face that exact moment and experience of Ruby's death and thus their own mortality.
And why it closes in on her at the last moments of her life and she is then pulled right to the moment before the circle was broken and this moment suspended, and following the Ruby of this other dimension.
This also explains why everyone avoids Ruby after encountering it, as they have not just faced their own mortality, but also the exact moment of her death, making them feel a huge aversion for her not wanting to relive that moment and already discredit her as dead from then on. Something that must be even harder for her mother.
Now comes two more assuming I am going to make.
The easiest of the two:
Be it the due to the doctor sometimes having shown a small intuition about the future or the Ward intentionally made for the purpose after the fact using time travel, The doctor reveals to her about the mad man about to start a nuclear war. Giving her a chance to use this curse to accomplish something good by stopping him just in time.
Leading us to the more stretchy assumption;
Now why does the people who are brought aware of this anomaly or any photos or the like become so blurry, maybe because this is a cross dimensional moment frozen in time, thus out of sync with the both time and the dimension at hand. Opening up for the possibility this could appear in our dimension as well and being exactly intentionally placed on top of the madman at a set moment in time, stopping his nuclear plans in our dimension as well.
Finally! I honestly thought I was going crazy, this is exactly how I felt about the ending and it was weird to see so many people hyping it up as "perfect".
What was the point? Nothing essentially happened, and they didn't explain enough for me to care. I needed something, or for them to lean into the fairy magic thing to make it a more obviously plot point instead of "Side Pub Character: Says magic is dumb and its just string while Kate says supernatural is real now in one single line.
This was a solid, well thought out and reasoned review. Thanks for taking the time to make it.
Ruby is the Storymaker and a child of the Pantheon. She willed this entire timeline into existence. Her fear of abandonment unconsciously manifests as her future entity causing people to abandon her. The Doctor tells her about Mad Jack before they come across the circle and about the fact that he drops a nuclear bomb in the 2040s. I believe this is an echo shimmering back from a future she is about to create. She brings Mad Jack into being just by reading the notes about some 'Mad Jack,' which is further solidified by the villagers' fictitious story about him at the pub. She creates an alternate reality where she needs to utilize her power (strength in overcoming abandonment) to stop a foe which she also manifests. She disappears the Doctor, maybe because he believes the events in the 2040s to be true (and therefore, potentially a fixed point from his perspective). This is not the future she wants and therefore she unconciously creates a new narrative of what she hopes and dreams for (a peaceful and caring world fixed via her greatest power). She doesn't have control of her powers, so everything unfolds in this bizarre way.
I feel quite bad that the best episode of the series so far doesnt have the doctor in it.
An often occurrence tbh
imo Boom is the best episode of the series so far
Well the fan favourite episode is Blink and it’s a doctor lite episode. So no shame in loving the doctor lite episode.
Don't feel bad, or I need to feel bad as well.
But, an episode encapsulating the concept and idea of what Doctor Who can be is a more important factor than the Doctor themself (which might also explain the backlash to the timeless child?).
@@AuroraButterflyx I love how after the diabolical mess of Love and Monsters, they decided to take another shot at a Doctor Lite episode and ended up making one of the greatest episodes to date.
My prediction is that the old version of Ruby travels throughout her timeline and will be forced to persuade her mother to abandon her. Therefore…
perhaps a better explanation to the ‘how?’ is still coming…
I don't think the alternate timeline is meant to have been extinguished. Somehow she exists in two places at once.