'73 Yards' Just Took Doctor Who to a New Level of Terror

Isolation Game (HOT TAKE: "73 Yards"): It might sound like a really spectacular field goal, but 73 Yards is one of the most unusual episodes of Doctor Who to date. With the Doctor missing, Ruby Sunday must stand alone against… whatever seems to be stalking her. Simple enough, but thanks in large part to a tour de force performance by Millie Gibson, what results is a terrifying story - one that will leave you thinking about it long past the credits roll. “Spectacular field goal” indeed.
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Pull To Open: 73 Yards HOT TAKE
Season 5
Episode 21
Hosts: Pete Pachal and Chris Taylor
Music: Martin West/Thinking Fish bit.ly/3WagZRq
© AnyWho Media 2024

[@crabbitwife5463]

COULD BE IMPORTANT: Just rewatched the episode and noticed something no-one is talking about yet. When the people approach the old lady 73 yards away, they are not being talked to, the lady is not looking at them or saying anything to them, they get the terrible shock and start running away only AFTER they look back at Ruby. They are seeing something about Ruby that scares the life out of them, even from that distance. Ruby is not who / what she thinks she is.

[@PullToOpen]

That could be the most frightening thing of all: That everyone's reaction to Ruby is actually somehow reasonable or the right thing to do, given what she is

[@gene1131]

They actually see her true nature and that idea alone is terrifying

[@RayneArt]

Ok so how do you explain Kate suddenly doing the same while she was simply on the phone, as if she heard something that influenced her?

[@DEFGECD]

​@@RayneArtperhaps they described what was happening to her, of all the people who might freak out she would be the most likely from a description since maybe Kate knows exactly what Ruby is and there's a big possibility that it scares her

[@EvMill]

And that makes the PM resign because?

[@TheFunkyJawa]

I loved this episode. Nothing needs explaining. It's entirely down to interpretation of the beholder. Like staring at abstract art or watching 'The Shining'. It requires a fertile imagination. Kudos to Millie Gibson.

[@robinsparkies]

This is my first time watching (and now subscribed) and even though this is a different format from back and forth… it is VERY well done. The way he can preemptively know your thoughts is just so real. And now I’m going to go back and watch the ones in proper format. Thank you!

[@PullToOpen]

Thanks, Robin! Yes, I think this one shows might know each other a little TOO well at this point 😄

[@ethanmelton576]

Minor Irrelevant Fact Check - Sleep No More was not the most recent time Doctor Who went without titles. The Woman Who Fell to Earth was the most recent.

[@PullToOpen]

Good call!

[@AroAceGamer]

​@@PullToOpen​​​ Correction. It's the 2019 New Year special, Resolution, that was the most recent to go without a title sequence.

[@ethanmelton576]

@@AroAceGamer Thank you. Forgot about that one.

[@theauthor1238]

For me, it gave off a lot of "Midnight" vibes for me, in how mysterious, hopeless and isolated Ruby feels in this one. I'll grant it has aspects of Turn Left, (and in terms of the spinoffs, "Curse of Clyde Langer,") but that's just me. I thought the episode was a good change of pace, akin to the previous episode, "Boom." As a lover for horror and allegories, I thought Russel had added a lot of great elements into this one. (It's honestly surprising this is in the same season as bleeding Space Babies!)

[@PullToOpen]

For sure, very similar vibe to Midnight

[@lgoamity]

I like the idea that the TARDIS is playing a part in the Story. In my Head Cannon maybe the breaking of the Circle and Ruby's Loop is able to happen because it took place just inside some predefined zone of the TARDIS. Maybe the Doctor accidentally turned off the "Butterfly Effect" Again? Or neglected Paradox advanced options like avoid crushing/breaking "Magic Circles". Then again maybe just didn't adjust the default timer allowing a timeline loop to run for far too long?

[@PullToOpen]

Or maybe the faeries' power is amplified by the stray artron energy from the TARDIS, creating temporal effects that are far beyond what the circle normally could do.

[@lgoamity]

@@PullToOpen Exactly. Basically kicking off a sort of Star Trek "The Inner Light" story of Ruby Sunday's life from that point. Too bad they didn't allow her to retain a bit more of her Deja Vu? Maybe end with her "recalling" to the Doctor her working on the 2046 Election Campaign, giving him details about someone she should have no clue about? Ultimately brushing it off as some kind of Dream/Imagination...

[@joannelively9934]

Great episode. I lost my dad when i was 15 ( I'm 57 now) & that sense of abandonment that i carry & Ruby felt was just brought to life so well written & felt Also shot in my hometown & I'm Welsh lol ❤

[@zemoxian]

I don’t think there’s anything you could possibly say to someone to have such a reliable change come over everyone who comes in contact with the woman. I think it has to do with the curse on whoever disturbs the circle. Everyone seems to respond with terror. If I walked to someone and just talked with them, I’d probably take anything they said with a grain of salt and told Ruby she’s probably mentally ill. What’s probably going on is an actual change to the person talking to her on a deeply psychological level. It’s not words but mental reprogramming. Why would Ruby do this to herself? I’m not sure she is. It could just be the curse on the circle or perhaps after 65 years it’s something she felt was necessary for her timeline without the Doctor. I don’t think she’s necessarily a fully conscious entity at that point because she keeps making the same gestures 24/7 for 65 years like she’s stuck in a time loop. So I’m leaning towards the curse hypothesis. I was getting “The Curse of Clyde Langer” vibes the whole time. The important bit is that Ruby apparently follows the woman back in time to just before they break the circle. Ruby hears “don’t step” and breaks the curse and keeps the circle intact. I think I’ve almost just convinced myself that Ruby isn’t the woman at all and she just used her to break the curse. But the point I guess I was trying to make is that this was probably a punishment for disturbing the fairy circle and not something Ruby was actively doing to herself.

[@holyome]

For anyone confused about this brilliant episode: The lady in black was Ruby herself. She dies of old age at the end of the episode, but once she dies her ghost starts moving backwards through time (kinda like Tenet) staying at 73 yards from herself, up to the point she first arrives on the cliff with the Doctor. A recurrent theme throughout this season is how many superstitions have been given real power ever since 14 used the salt trick at the edge of creation. In the beginning of the episode, while speaking about a terrible prime minister from the future, the Doctor steps on a fairy circle which was apparently binding "Mad Jack", causing the Doctor to disappear. And Ruby begins to be haunted by her ghost which always keeps a distance of 73 yards from her but other people can approach but when they talk to her they begin to fear Ruby and retreat from her but also from the world. It is later revealed that this prime minister the Doctor was talking about goes by the nickname Mad Jack and is hell bent on launching nukes (whether the pm himself is Mad Jack itself or Mad Jack is acting through the prime minister is up to debate I think). Ruby realises she has to stop him and she does by placing her ghost next to him (by standing at 73 yards from him, the exact distance she was about to get shot by the PMs security), causing him to resign retreat from the world. In the end Ruby dies, but her spirit goes backwards through time, keeping the same distance from Ruby up to the point where she arrives on the cliff with the Doctor, and she makes her past self stop the Doctor from stepping on the circle, never releasing Mad Jack and stopping this whole alternate timeline from happening, in turn stopping her ghost from ever existing, causing it to disappear.

[@corvus1970]

Well summarized. I see a lot of people are getting hung up on what Old Ruby could possibly say to drive off everyone who speaks to her, and that's where I point to the over-arching theme of this episode, and that's rejection and abandonment. It's that particular insecurity, the fear of abandonment, made manifest. After all, Ruby's birth mother rejected her for reasons unknown, and it's clearly something that weighs on her, and in this episode that fear becomes reality. Sometimes it's good to wrestle with ambiguity in a story, because we wrestle with ambiguity all of our lives, and have to find ways to make peace with it. And that is why we never find out what the old woman says to people to make them run away: it's inexplicable, unknowable, and it would be impossible for the writer to give us a clear answer that would be in any way satisfying, and knowing exactly what she said would risk undermining the narrative. The point is the ambiguity, the terror of the unknown.

[@PullToOpen]

Also well summarized, on a thematic level. Definitely agree that not getting all the answers was part of the point. Still makes me want those answers, but it's they could have diminished things if not handled well.

[@MKR5210]

What utter garbage. Exactly why did the Prime Minister want to use nukes? Explain that one.....! Can't can you, because it makes no sense. It doesn't benefit him, having some shadow character look unhappy and call him a monster is no explanation. This bull shit is solely for self loving head up their own arse cretins who think they're genius who knows better than anyone else.... The word salads I've seen telling people in that patronising way what they just looked at as if it made any fcuking sense at all is beyond the pale. You just sit in your self congratulatory smugness and enjoy, because there will be very few of these garbage self emollating episodes left with viewing numbers what they are.....

[@akshaytrayner1960]

Great review

[@PullToOpen]

Thanks! ☺️

[@gregjones8412]

It was an unmitigated overblown pile of sh!te! That is exactly how not to write a horror story.

[@WhiteDragon689]

Its really a horror that Dr Who has descended into such depths...

[@alistairetheblu]

7:00 Completely agree. This was great fun to watch, but the details don't add up. And I get the details; I just don't think they explain what happened. So Old Ruby says what exactly? ..that would turn people against her like it was a magic spell, affecting both her mother and UNIT soldiers "with full psychic training" and who almost definitely didn't even really know her? This needed something like Ruby causing nuclear war then needing to undo it, or something like that (edit:if she had been the one to break the fairy circle, then you could say doing that moved her to another timeline, explaining the Doctor's disappearance as well), and even that still wouldn't really explain how absolute that ghost's influence was. So yeah, eerie "need to turn your brain off" fun.

[@PullToOpen]

Yes, I think one or two more connections and explanations would have made it more satisfying, and it could have been handled without getting to bogged down.

[@paulhammond6978]

Excellent review, under the circumstances. I immediately noticed something was "spooky" about it, because you guys are the wrong way round - Pete usually sits screen right. I think this was my favourite episode so far. I immediately made a connection with Years and Years, which makes sense because Years and Years was in many ways Russell doing "Turn Left" expanded into a mini-series with more details filled in. So the second half of this with the crazy nationalist Welsh Prime Minister was like a re-compressed version of Years and Years. I didn't think of "Small Worlds" even though I have been rewatching Torchwood on the iplayer.

[@PullToOpen]

Good eye! The flip-flop came about for 2 reasons: Chris set up his angle so he was facing left, and then - purely coincidentally - I (Pete) had the video playing on the left side of my screen, so I was looking right. Or maybe it was the faeries...

[@ethanmelton576]

I hate to be negative, especially seeing some of the comment in this section praising this episode, but this legitimately made me angry. I've been lukewarm on this season so far. The previous three episodes haven't been bad or anything, but they've been nothing special, and they all suffered from tonal whiplash at certain points. One compliment I can give this episode is that it at least has a consistent tone throughout. Another I can give is that the mystery it sets up is quite interesting. Ruby's time in the Welsh pub set up a great atmosphere that really drew me in. Unfortunately, that atmosphere slowly drains away as the episode goes on. Every interaction that the people helping Ruby have to the mystery woman is exactly the same, and neither the audience or Ruby learn anything new about her until the very end. It doesn't help that the episode get distracted by following this political side-story. I'm not against the idea of political messages being in Doctor Who. I love Oxygen, after all. But it's irrelevant to Ruby's situation, only superficially related to current world politics, and a bit tactless in some cases. Four episodes ago, Davies had an episode about talking babies and booger monster. Now he's implying situations of sexual assault. Pick a tone and stick with it, Davies! And I hated the twist at the end. Not only is it possibly the most basic and treacly solution possible, but it leaves so much unanswered. Why does the Doctor know what a fairy circle is when he didn't last time? Where did he go? If he was in the TARDIS to get away from Ruby, which was implied but not confirmed, why didn't he just fly away? Why were people scared of the old lady? Why was she making those arm movement patterns? Why was she always 73 yards away? I guess that last one's not important, it's only the TITLE OF THE EPISODE! I turned off this episode so angry. I'm still shaking as I type. I just hate episodes like this. I also hate The Girl Who Waited and Listen for similar reasons. These are episodes that think pandering to base emotions can let them get away with huge gaps in logic. Doctor Who is better than this. It should be better than this. If I had shown this to friends of mine that don't watch DW, I would have been so ashamed of my favorite TV show. I'm sorry to the people that like this, I don't want to be a hater, but I just don't get it.

[@paulhammond6978]

Why she's always 73 yards away has an explanation that came out in the "Unleashed" episode. It's purely a practical thing for making the conceit of the spookiness work - RTD picked a distance at which with modern camera technology you would be able to recognise that the figure is a person, but you wouldn't be able to see their face clearly enough to know who it is. And he measured it out on a pier where he knew the distance of the railings on the fence before he pitched the idea to the director of the episode who had to make the concept work technically. I guess if you hate the logic, or lack of logic of the episode as much as you seem to, knowing the minor issue of how RTD decided on 73 yards is not going to make a great deal of difference to you.

[@ethanmelton576]

@@paulhammond6978 It doesn't, but I appreciate you trying. It seems like this episode resonated a lot with people, so I was reluctant to be negative, but I just couldn't stop myself.

[@PullToOpen]

All opinions welcome, and I think you're keying in on what I was saying when I mentioned it didn't fully satisfy the left side of my brain. I understand the writer's quagmire of coming up with a compelling storyline, then struggling to contort plot elements to make it plausible. Sometimes, you shouldn't bother with explanations because they slow things down and distract from what you're trying to do, but if you don't explain enough, it leaves viewers frustrated. Lost suffered from this quite a bit. Generally I think RTD strikes a good balance here, but he was probably more practiced at it during RTD 1.0.

[@paulhammond6978]

@@ethanmelton576 I understand the feeling. "Boom" is an episode which... well I enjoyed and thought it was quite good, but to go on line and find people raving about that episode like it was amazing and calling it the best thing Dr Who had done since "Heaven Sent" and the like. Hm. Well I saw a review from a Moffatt sceptic who pointed out how many Moffatisms it repeats, and that crystalised my feeling that it wasn't that great, actually. But, yes, in the current climate where there are people trying to jump on "RIP Dr Who" bandwagons for anti-SJW reasons, it feels wrong to be bringing other people down who did genuinely enjoy it and think it was that great.

[@ethanmelton576]

@@paulhammond6978 Oh, I totally get that. It's like how the Whitaker era has problems, but people will manipulate the arguement to fit their own agenda, and act like it's the worst thing DW has ever made. It's really gross.

[@Walkermatt3]

I’m only about 14 minutes in so you may notice it later but this feels like a big call back to one of the best episodes of the Sarah Jane Adventures - The Curse of Clyde Langar. One of the kids that helps Sarah Jane gets cursed by a totem pole, and anyone who says or sees his name, abandons him like they do with Ruby

[@PullToOpen]

Oh right! Yes, that's arguably more of an echo than The Dead Zone.

[@mauricehunt666]

Just a quick request Could you in future do the hot takes on Sun and random on sat? Gives us in the UK a chance to listen spoiler free after the episode has aired live.

[@PullToOpen]

I definitely understand the desire here, but part of the point of a hot take is to strike while the iron is hot. However, our schedules are a bit nuts over the next few weeks, so we may inadvertently be doing this anyway!

[@anthonyparkinson4517]

"Terror" and "horror".....?! You must get scared whenever you close your eyes!

[@PullToOpen]

You don't???

[@davidnowhere2637]

I just watched it and thought it was a nothing episode.

[@stevkyt2374]

This episode wasn't horrific, it was horrible. It was incomprehensible. It made no sense and as such isn't open to interpretation.

[@Aurora_Lightbringer]

The idea that someone can decide something isn't open to interpretation is kinda hilarious.

[@916hayabusa]

Looks like you’re on the wrong site to criticise people’s ‘holy cow’, from all the reviews I’ve seen outside of the echo bubble, aka ‘cope’ sites, they all speak of the flaws of this episode and the best thing about it, is that it doesn’t have the Dr Who imposter twerking his way through it.

[@ChristyAbbey]

How would it feel to have something about yourself where you fear everyone would abandon you over it? We queer people know.

[@natsmith303]

🛶🎓⚪‍‍💕📖🚲👮

[@PullToOpen]

Whomoji? Shada?

[@natsmith303]

@@PullToOpen Well dang, you got it in one!

[@kendrickl5913]

Insert "this was dark, even for star wars" meme (also the episode sucked)

[@Mark_E_M]

This episode had NO PLOT, NO STORY, and NO RESOLUTION!!! This show is TRULY DEAD!!! #RIPDoctor Who

[@TheFunkyJawa]

Maybe you just have no imagination or comprehension skills. How about that?

[@zanzazaar]

There is no terror, its just lame shit from RTD new era. Boring, no point of that story. Good for simping fans who will watch everything with proper title. Also, it is not even SF. Also, without Master's paradox machine, this episode shouldnt be even able to happen.