Day 749: Turn Left

The Doctor-lite episode was a concept developed by Russell T Davies in order to work around the main cast's shooting schedules. A typical Doctor-lite episode will only have the Doctor in it for a fraction of screen time, with most of the focus instead being placed on the supporting characters. What makes these episodes particularly interesting is the way in which they tell a Doctor Who story without the presence of the Doctor. Love and Monsters decided to take the angle of looking at people who were obsessed with the Doctor, taking the hole left by the Doctor's absence and filling it in with the new characters and their impression of the Doctor. Blink, on the other hand, opted for a different approach by instead showing a Doctor Who story that the Doctor doesn't happen to feature in very much, with the lack of the Doctor in the story not as noticeable thanks to Steven Moffat's strong storytelling. Turn Left feels as if it looked at both of those stories and instead chose to tackle the initial problem head on. Whilst the previous adventures tried to dance around the fact that the Doctor wasn't present, Turn Left openly asks the question of what would happen if you tried to tell a Doctor Who story without the Doctor.

The result is, of course, chaos. Every single event that the Doctor should have saved Earth from instead goes horribly wrong, with massive amounts of destruction and death taking place without his valued input into the Earth. It's an episode that's filled with horrific event after horrific event, and it feels absolutely terrible to watch. It's worth noting as well that Davies makes the clever decision to create all of the tragedy out of the lighter episodes of the series such as The Runaway Bride or Partners in Crime. It's a retroactive impact for all of those previous adventures because it suddenly reminds you that all of those stories had the chance to end horribly, for all of their rompy nature. It reinforces the importance of the Doctor to the Universe, creating not only a stronger episode but a stronger series overall.

And there's so much more besides this to create a frightfully good story. The scenes with Mr Colasanto go from being heart-warming to tragic, and Jacqueline King delivers an understated but perfect performance as Donna's mother. It's one of the best episodes that Davies has produced under his tenure and is, in many ways, absolutely perfect.