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Gridlock Format Reviewed: TV Review Gridlock contains a story arc that spans all three of the new television series of Doctor Who, involving the Face of Boe. The main essence of this story arc was set up in the second series story, New Earth, in that the Face of Boe would meet the Doctor once more to impart his final message before dying. Items sadly leak out these days, such as what the final message of the Face of Boe, which inevitably made it out into public knowledge long before transmission, sad really. Gridlock has the Doctor returning to New Earth, this time taking Martha. A very different picture is seen now though, with a grubby city and an apparantly lawless state and a mysterious moterway. Martha is then kidnapped, and taken to the motorway by a couple eager to get into the fast lane as they want to get to a nicer part of the planet to raise their impending child. The motorway is a congested airway where cars move mere yards in months. Marthas car gets clearance for the fast lane and they make their way towards their destination. Meanwhile the Doctor is making his way down through the traffic to the bottom layer. This he does and discovers that the Macra are down there in the fast lane devouring anypne vho ventures in. Novice Hain then finds the Doctor and transports him back to the senate where he discovers that the city is dead as a virus transmitted by a drug wiped out the surface population. Whilst the surface is now contageon free, the Face of Boe sealed in the remaining population in the motorways and set up automatic systems to keep them alive, unable to free them. The Doctor manages to trigger the opening mechanism of the motorway thereby freeing all the people, including Martha who joins him in the senate where the Face of Boe gives his final message to the Doctor and dies. Gridlock is another of those stories that will likely be remembered more for the connection to the overall series arc rather than the story itself. The fact that the message of the Face of Boe and periphery occupies the last five minutes or so is likely to be far more debated than the prevailling story. This is again rather sad as Gridlock proves to be a pretty good story in its own right. On the surface, it appears to be a social commentary on the state of a failing infrastructure, something we can all relate to in modern times. It is however more of a social commentarty on how fragile a society can be through an epidemic transmitted through recreational drugs. The themes that can be seen here are handled very subtly, and the writing is very good in this regard. Both Freema Agyeman and David Tennant appear to be settling in to this series very well, and both give decent independant performances here with Agyeman perhaps outshining Tennant. There are several striking performers amongst the guest cast in this story, principally Ardal O'Hanlon as Brannigan who gives an upbeat performance as a cat. A lot of the incidental characters breathe life into the story and the realism of the situation on the motorway, so all really deserve credit, but probably themost credit should go to the casting director. One aspect of this story that is quite puzzling is why the Macra are used. They appeared in a now lost early TV adventure featuring Patrick Troughton. They are really irrellevant to the story and merely seem to have been shoe-horned in to give a nod to the shows roots. This kind of thing i Quite disagree with, as it really seems like an appeasement measure for the aging fans, sort of 'we'll include old monsters to make up for the farting new ones'. This aside, the story does stand up on its own, even bearing in mind the all important final message of the Face of Boe. Overall, Gridlock is a decent commentary on various aspects of current society in England. Alongside this we have the final message from the Face of Boe, and the reaturn of an old adversary, the Macra. The message turned out to be what was leaked early to the press, but novertheless it is an interesting one that gives the series a new direction it can go in. The return of the Macra though is completely unnecessary, and takes some of the gloss off a decent episode. Rating:  |