Turn Left

[gervase_fen]

Random thoughts:

*That was great stuff. I've got a weak spot for dystopian SF : we don't see enough mushroom clouds in TV drama these days, let alone on a Saturday evening on BBC1.

*The scenes set in Leeds pick up the thread from "Midnight" (and the Toclafane last year) - humanity is, at heart, petty, squalid, selfish, banal. Bernard Cribbins' delivery of the line "That's what they called them the last time" was heartbreaking. Solid work too from Jacqueline King trying to adjust - and failing - to the new reality.

*The Next Time... trailer - it's Doctor Who New Series Top Trumps, with the glimpse of a card from an Original Series deck.

*Random guess about next week: Richard Dawkins will appear as a talking head on a TV programme discussing the stars going out, one by one. He might not however quote Arthur C Clarke's "9 Billion Names of God" as a precedent, though.

Comments

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if Clarke's story had been an inspiration for the darkness, or whether it could have been an independent idea. What do you reckon?

[gervase-fen.livejournal.com]

I think it's a definite homage/blatant steal. There's an excellent analysis by Frank Collins over at the Behind the Sofa blog that pursues the allusion further:

"It's almost as if Davies is saying that Donna wipes out the very series and stories he created for them too. This destruction of history does have a final trajectory and it reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke's story, The Nine Billion Names of God which is in the same way about hastening the end of history as a result of recording the many names of God. In the story the stars go out, one by one, and in Turn Left, Donna understands that, as the stars go out, her own history and her death, have become unavoidable. She must go back into history in order to reclaim it for herself and the Doctor."

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Thanks for answering the question I left over at louisedennis's journal, as I again demonstrate that really I don't know very much about science fiction...