Day 793 - Turn Left

I've always loved "what if.." stories and here we have "What if Donna had never met the Doctor?"

Visiting a fortune teller on a far off planet Donna finds herself transported to a parallel world where the simplest of decisions changed the entire world. Donna is in her car having an argument with her mum about which job opportunity she should take. Instead of turning left and going for the interview at H C Clements which would lead to her fateful meeting with the Doctor, she instead turns right and instead applies for her mums chosen role of a PA in a small company.

The fact that Donna was not around during the events of The Runaway Bride meant that the Doctor was killed whilst attempting to defeat the Racnoss. As he is wheeled away on a stretcher, a certain blonde girl comes running up to him. It's Rose Tyler. She has finally made it back to our universe only to find the Doctor has died. Gutted!

We now see how the events of the next couple of years would have played out had the Doctor not been there to rescue us and it's pretty grim. Let's list off a few of the many disasters that befall the planet.

First of all Martha is killed when her hospital is transported to the moon by the Judoon.  Not only that but it turns out Sarah Jane, Luke, Clyde and Maria also went to investigate the hospital that day and were also killed. There's one spin off gone!

The Torchwood team are all but wiped out when trying to deal with the threat of the Sontarans. Captain Jack is taken hostage by the Sontarans and transported back to their home world.

The south of England is flooded with radiation when a replica spaceship of the Titanic falls on London completely destroying the city. 

Fortunately for Donna she has a guardian angel in the form of Rose who appears to her every now and then and gives her helpful hints in order that she can escape what is happening. It is thanks to a lucky raffle ticket that Donna and her family were enjoying a weekend away when the Titanic fell meaning that they escaped the explosion but were sent off to Leeds to live in a house with many other refugees.

Bernard Cribbins is bloody marvelous in this episode as Donna's uncle Wilf. He forms a strong friendship with an Italian man and his family whom they are forced to share a house with. Later on when the man is taken away to "labour camp" as country gets ever crowded and it's "Britain for the British", Wilf's comment of "labour camps...that's what they called them last time, it's happening again" makes you realise just how dark this episode is getting.

Only Donna can set things right and soon she is willingly handing herself over to UNIT so that things can be set right again. Before Donna is forced to sacrifice herself, Rose gives her two words to pass on to the Doctor....BAD WOLF! It's a warning of the return of a very old enemy.

This episode is awesome. I'm not sure how well it would go down if you hadn't seen all the previous episodes that it eludes to. It might all look a bit crazy! Also there seems to be some inconsistencies that we have to look over such as how come the Daleks didn't take over New York in the 1930s if the Doctor wasn't around. And in Voyage Of The Damned it was stated that the Titanic falling on the Earth would destroy it entirely, not just one city. But that's just nit picking. The thing about being a Doctor Who fan is that after 50 years there are bound to be such inconsistencies. The fun part is trying to. Are them make sense. Well I find it fun ok!!