Ambiguous Mystery or Half-Written Mess? | 73 Yards : Doctor Who Review
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- Опубликовано: 25 май 2024
- Doctor Who: 73 Yards is Season 1 Episode 4 and it was definitley something. Watch us Review and React to the episode as we break it down in depth and work out if its a Brilliantly Ambiguous Mystery Thriller or a Poorly Half-Written Mess of a Waste of Time.
The Doctor goes missing, What will Ruby do?
Dan and Steven are here to break it down for you.
#DoctorWho #73Yards #disneyplus 
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I am in the "Half-Written Mess" camp! I've seen far too many people making stuff up to try and explain away all of RTDs plotholes
Big day for lovers of Headcanon and filling in the blanks
I don't care about plotholes, as long as I'm entertained and engrossed in a story.
What plot holes ?
I came to the conclusion I don't care if I understand the monster but I care if I understand how the MC changed as a result of it. So Ruby only half-remembering it at the end ruins it. It rides on ambiguity up until it shrugs it off when that was the whole reason I cared.
@@sethidk6439 seriously lol? what plot wholes, come on my guy do you not think about what you are watching
The first 25 or so minutes are solid. I thought omg, am i actually watching a good episode of Who? And then the back half goes off on a tangent & then completely dies with the ending. Definitely needed to be a two parter or have an extra 10-15 minutes.
I was also in the same camp that staying in the village, with the other village folk disappearing could have been a more interesting move.
As someone who loves the Big Finish audio plays, i can confirm an older companion does work sometimes (6th Doctor and Evelyn is fantastic)
I love how you guys articulate everything I'm feeling.
I was perfectly willing to go along with 'okay, its season 1, i'll excuse the verbatim concept self-plagiarism" but now its so experimental that im like 'is it season 15 and we're changing it up or is it season 1 and we forgot to set status quo'
Why is it so rushed? We had a ruby focused episode and I dont know her at all. Maybe she's afraid of rejection but she didnt react at all when she lived 80 years and then got the doctor back.
"So little had happened" "instead we get a deus ex as always"
"It doesnt mean anything"
"Why?"
"Anything she learned on this journey is gone."
Richard Dawkins once sarcastically said of Jordan Peterson "It must be profound because I dont understand it." Thats how I feel about this episode. Ambiguity doesnt excuse an incoherent script.
Policy of Ap William to get nukes in a country that has had nuclear weapons on submarines since 1952.
It’s not even a fairy circle- which is a naturally occurring ring of mushrooms - for the fairies to sit at. 👎
looked more like a dream catcher placed on the ground.
The idea is supposed to be (I believe) that Mad Jack is the spirit released by the fairy circle and Roger ap Gwilliam is his manifestation. So with the fairy circle unbroken and the timeline reset, Roger ceases to exist as a threat.
That said, thank you for being the only people that I have seen so far who actually gave a negative review of this episode politely and rationally.
My explanation: The Doctor breaks the faerie circle and Ruby got stuck in an alternate dimension time loop. The Doctor was not there, so the Tardis does not recognize her and won’t let her in. Somehow the beginning and end of the loop are connected and Ruby is haunted by an echo of her future self. Why 73 yards? I don’t know. She uses her unique relationship with herself to stop Roger ap Gwilliam (Mad Jack) from escaping to the “real world.” Then she has to live until the end/beginning of the loop comes around again, where she sends a message back to her young self to prevent the Doctor from breaking the circle. It’s a bootstrap paradox of sorts.
The running away, I think, is because Ruby IS under a perception filter. She isn’t human. When people approach the old lady version it negates the filter on the young Ruby. The filter can’t handle the paradox of two Rubys existing simultaneously. It defaults to the older one when you actually focus on her. The filter makes her “look like she looks” as Carla says. The old Ruby never looks at or said anything to anyone, just continued to do the same gesture, but when people look back at the young version, what they see terrifies them. Carla feels betrayed that she was fooled. And everyone else is just terrified of what they see and run away. There are hypotheses running around that Ruby is the Trickster’s daughter from Sarah Jane Adventures. Maybe she is? Or perhaps something even worse. I doubt she even knows what she is. But she certainly isn’t human.
What's a faerie circle? And why did it make the Dr disappear? How is that connected to the old woman?
@@count69 Yeah this... the gimmick of the Doctor disappearing is core to the episode... and is a nothing burger.... utterly infuriating to think someone got paid to write this.
It’s about rejection: The tardis locks her out, doctor goes, mother locks her out etc. it’s penance for disturbing the web. Only when she uses the spell for good is she released from the curse. Hence the lady gets closer, facing away from her, ready to complete the bootstrap loop
interesting idea.... but.... where was any of that in the episode?
I actually quite liked this one. The ending was confusing, also was the reason people ran. Overall though I enjoyed this vastly more than space babies and devils chord.
Yea I weirdly liked the overall feel of this episode. I think if the ending made sense and explained the reasons for the events of the episode it would've been a great episode
I didn’t find it confusing at all. I think one of the biggest things people are missing is that the woman isn’t old Ruby (if she was then why weren’t they played by the same actress).
At Ruby’s death “the monster” or the woman, whatever you want to call it, is clearly assimilating her in her room. Old Ruby doesn’t go “back in time” as you say but instead she’s shown by the monster the moment in her life that caused a break in the timeline. She’s allowed the chance to reset the timeline before she dies. Pretty simple.
To me, the monster or the woman was a direct result of the doctor breaking the faerie circle, creating a new timeline and cursing Ruby with abandonment.
Who created fairy circle that created the hole plot story
but she is ruby. she even comments on how young she was when she's back on the cliff top at the end.
@@chrislawley6801that so much isn’t clear, But i have an idea that it could be the women from the pub with the red hat, she knew more than anyone else, and she was actually being factual when describing it.
I personally think Ruby handled the situation as best as she could. People often think that if you're put in a horrible situation that you'd "lose your mind" but once it actually happens, you realize there's just nothing you can do
There is no sense of urgency or concern the Doctor is missing. On her return to London, Ruby displays no grief, no concern the Doctor has vanished. The Unit leader doesn't seem that bothered.
Oh he's been absent for decades, who cares!
And where the heck did he go? 🤭
I wasn’t a fan of this episode mainly because the concept just wasn’t utilised enough. I think this would have been way more interesting in a weeping angel scenario where ruby and the doctor are in the past and ruby has to try to survive to meet her mother again. I don’t understand what the point of the Welsh guy wanting to launch nukes was. Felt forced into the plot to have a big dramatic moment that was just goofy. Maybe this will be better on a rewatch when rubys deal is fully explained but right now it’s just confusing for the sake of being confusing.
I keep telling myself that these episodes will look better from the future when we know what the season plot twist is but also does every episode need to feel like I need to finish the whole season to understand the episodes
@@jakejancook exactly! The episodes should be great on there own and made even better with the twists.
I think she showed the nuclear Prime Minister the nightmare vision of his future.
I really appreciate your content - I appreciate your civility, candor and always thoughtful insights - and I particularly appreciate being able to meaningfully engage with and learn from it, despite more often than not disagreeing.
That said, I don’t think a good metric with which to evaluate a monster of the week episode is ‘whether or not something happened that contributed to the season arch.’ I recognize there were a litany of other reservations, many I disagree with but all of which are totally inbounds.
Thank you for these conversations you guys - seriously, amidst a deluge of either derivative or vacuous drivel, you’re a quality and concrete dialogue that’s always intellectually honest.
I admit we have been a bit too focused on the season as a whole because of RTDs big mysterybox and the shorter episode count. We definitely plan to rewatch the season once it's all out and we can view the season as a cohesive piece. I think this episode more than the others is a victim of the more serial nature of the season.
And thankyou for your thoughts and appreciation. It really does mean a lot
Sian Phillips. She is 90 now.
I still don`t understand why everyone got scared and ran away when they spoke to the old woman.
I'm so happy I'm not crazy!! This is EXACTLY what I said in my review thank you for the sanity check.
Really makes you wonder what Sutekh was doing during the events of this alternate timeline. Was a beautiful vista in Wales all it took to modify the God of Death in this alternate time? If only the Doctor and Ruby knew (The Doctor wouldn't have needed to leash him into the time vortex, he could have just purchased him a timeshare Laugharne or Tenby). ;-)
So much of this episode was excellent in terms of building up mystery, and the cinematography, but the resolution (or lack thereof) might make it the worst episode ever in my book.The fact that the mother didn't just run away, and lock Ruby out, but was explicitly **mean** to her on the phone kind of demands explanation, or at least a hint at something. The whole undoing of the heroic resolution at the end was also a head scratcher.
Turns out tension is really easy to build if you, as the writer, have no resolution in mind while doing it.
p.s. Towards the end you riff on how neat it would be to see the age dynamic inverted between the Doctor and their companions. We saw this, albeit in ensamble form, with Jodie and Graham.
I liked this one, a puzzle where you dont get all the answers and have to work it out yourself.
It feels really half baked, it was the first episode of The Daemon’s mashed up with bits of Turn Left but I don’t know what it was about or what the point was.
Actually really liked it loved the creepy vibe & thought it was really well written & great acting by Millie. I need to watch it again though because lots was shot in my hometown & it takes me out of the episodes
'73 is a significant number in Welsh folklore... It was the year Gareth Edwards scored That Try for the Barbarians vs the All Blacks at the Cardiff Arms Park and we unofficially adopted Englishman David Duckham as an honorary Welshman, thereafter known as Dai Duckham.
But seriously, an initially intriguing episode that descended into a confusing mess.
😂
From the Doctor Who unleashed episode the only significance of the 73 yards is it was Russell T Davies estimate of the distance at which someone with 20/20 vision wouldn't be able to make out a face. (Would someone in Britain as young as Ruby actually be measuring things in yards rather than metres ?)
Yeah- why didn’t they just have the doctor talk to lady in beginning- and then run away? First draft writing. 😂
I like 73 Yards. Only that and Boom are episodes I liked. And I think Millie Gibson / Ruby Sunday was the only character I actually I really liked.
Sometimes ambiguity is the point. Here it absolutely works!
Works at what? making me have no reason to want to see this episode ever again?
It works at making many other people want to watch it again.
I generally agree with you. I’ve watched all the episodes so far of RTD’s Second Coming, but I don’t expect to rewatch any of them. They seem to me slightly better than the Chibnall era (which I stopped watching after a while), but that’s not saying much at all.
Wouldn't UNIT have turned up at some point
Perfectly possible that Ap Gwylim was in the real timeline always going to be a PM who nearly caused nuclear war and the triggered and averted alternate timeline is one where he did.
A lot of people are adding up the captions on the time lapses but forgetting they weren't all captioned. Any cut shot could have been another skip forward. Younger viewers (understandably) can't tell that the older actress is in her 90s, not her 80s. This suggests to me that the 73 yards equals the 73 years between young Ruby and the apparition at the time it's created. Therefore, at the time of her death - when she becomes the apparition - she's 91.
Again conjecturing, the message in the circle isn't intended to be read, but reading it binds someone to the event it warns of and provides them with the means to prevent it - the future self, which is a ghost and therefore terrifies everyone into running away. It's a self creating and self solving curse. Ruby's "reward" for this, after stoically living out her alternate life is the chance to warn her younger self so none of it happens and, in a sense, she can undo that alternate life and have another chance.
The story requires a belief in some kind of supernatural force but once you accept that it actually all locks into place - far more logically in fact than many ghost stories. And people being haunted by their future selves is as old as the genre.
I don't think it's lazy writing to leave room for the reader/viewer to do some thinking and come to multiple different interpretations. Some object to it in sci-fi (which I don't think quite accurately describes Dr Who) but there's been plenty of "just because" in the show before and it hasn't seemed to cause so much fuss.
More or less what I was thinking, a good explanation of why 73 yards. I assumed the old woman was Ruby and couldn't occupy the same space in time.
It was obvious from the begining that we were in a different timeline and old Ruby came to show Gwilliam what his future was going to be.
@@Walesbornandbred Tell you what wach, that pub scene was very North Wales. I've yoghurt and toast and that's it...
Do people not realise the UK already has nuclear weapons?
@@chrislawley6801 Many Dr Who fans maybe don't. But it's possible that a future UK would have given up CASD.
@@chrislawley6801 It was the power to use them without NATOs consent he wanted.
My biggest issue with the episode is that nothing is consistent or explained. The biggest of these is obviously her future self, why she started in the first place, why is she 73 yards away, why when she dies is the 73 yards thing no longer a thing, why does meeting her send her back to the past, why in the second loop can ruby now see and hear her, did ruby even do anything to break the loop. I have many other things that bug me about the shit writing of this episode but the old woman ruby part makes no logical sense.
Where did the Doctor go?
Did he cease to exist when the older Ruby coexisted with the younger Ruby?
Was he trapped in time and space?
Zero explanations.
It was a mess of a story. Interesting ideas but zero coherence.
The new viewers I'm seeing react love it so far.
That's very interesting. Probably won't know just how well it's doing for a fair while like if s3 gets greenlit.
I'm glad they like it though, I definitely don't want it to end
I loved it. I think it was the best episode in at least 15 years.
For me it seemed to be heavily influenced by MR James. And I think it was better without a clear Sci fi explanation.
WTF is a faery circle?
A circle in grass that occurs due to fungal growth that in folk law became known as fairy circle of a portal or area where little folk play and access our world. Nothing to do with string
I really liked this episode
5:44 When you two hit your 40s, you'll be delighted to discover that there are plenty of 40 year-old women who still retain a youthful appearance. Indeed, I have a girlfriend who was asked for proof of age when she went to buy booze on her 40th birthday.
Yes. That is right.
I think their point was that we've seen Ruby at 19 and at 40 and she looks practically identical, not that all 40 year olds look old
@@jakejancook Well, I don't get that point either. For one thing, Ruby did look different, and for another, the girlfriend to whom I referred looked pretty much the same at 40 as she did at 20. She has fabulous bone structure and kept herself fit.
@@ftumschk ok but if you was writing for a character, and your story jumps in time by 20 years, and you're trying to convey that your character looks older, maybe they should look visibly older?
She looked different but not 40 years old
She wore glasses. That was the only difference. 🤭
Its gonna be grwat if the rani appears, as most of the fans who know who she is, will have stopped watching lol
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Look I disagree as this one one of Dr Whos best episodes in line with Blinlk. Yes the ending needed more clarity however it appeares to be a season finale explanation that likely awaits. Regardless great work from Russel who is very very brave to keep writing and producing this show in a maze of negative Nancys who most of them are not even sure what they want from this show for the past decade and continue to winge and winge for the sake of a winge. Tuning out from You tubers trying to get more followers and likes from using Dr who. I will continue to tune into the best and longest running scifi series!
This season was already written and filmed and they were working on the next season before the first episode in this season was shown. And they have just announced that filming on the next season has completed. So Russell T Davies had pretty much no feedback from the "Negative Nancies" until he was either writing or filming the episodes for next season.
That was brilliant because the twist isn't what you expected. One of the most brill stories I've seen in a will. While most of you sit staring at the cover of the book, some really cool stuff is flying by you're radar. Can't wait for the next episode because frankly it was essentially constructed during the Matt Smith era and it also sounds intriguing.
I have a lot of problems with this run so far but I think many of your criticisms are pretty cynical or straight up poor.
It feels like you've decided this season is shit and will do anything to confirm that prejudgement.
You need to be more introspective.
You'd be surprised how many people believe an old man can steal a time machine, come to Earth and with a succession of companions travel time and space battling countless alien species and regenerate to live over 1000 years.
And yet they dont have the imagination to explain one episode, when they have countless clues.
And it's not even the first one with a tenuous plot.
Yes, the first few were awful and Ncuti is not a good doctor but credit where it's due.
There are a section of reviewers who have already contemned this series so it's not even worth watching the reviews as they've made their mind up.
this is my least favorite episode so far.
OK good it wasn't just me. I liked this episode the best of the lot so far, but it didn't really make a lick of sense. BTW, I think they made Ruby bustier as a 40-year-old, so there's that!
Every loser on the net is a critic now
It’s frightening that we are at the half way point in the series and it’s this underwhelming, an underwhelming doctor, a shit companion and nothing but cringey or forgettable episodes
I think by now the series is going to be a washout, because RTD is determined to turn Doctor Who into lunatic fantasy and I don’t want lunatic fantasy. But I don’t blame the actors: Gatwa and Gibson are not my favourites, but they’re both doing a decent job of acting. It’s unfortunate that Ruby Sunday is so bland: she seems to have no personality. But I suppose the scripts are at least partly to blame for that.
If the show continues as lunatic fantasy indefinitely, I’ll stop watching it.
@@jonathan.palfreyGood fantasy requires world building where the rules by which that fantasy world operates are firmly established. That doesn't seem to have happened with this Doctor Who move into fantasy.
@@davidwebb4451 Indeed. I completely agree.