Doctor who 14x4 reaction!

[@przemekkozlowski7835]

This season is really trippy. The introduction of magic is messing with the established Doctor Who conventions. Our first instinct is to examine this episode as a time travel/ time loop episode but since the cause is supernatural, even timmy-wimmy rules do not apply.

[@jasonmarbach]

The old version of Ruby didn’t show up until *after* the doctor first stepped on the circle. So it wasn’t a self-fulfilling loop, it had a beginning point.

[@digdew]

This episode stands as one of the great “Doctor light” episodes

[@eh708]

The way I like to imagine it is like a boomerang. The old lady (Ruby) appeared only when the circle was broken as a safe guard for “mad Jack”. She then progressed through her life and stopped mad Jack, lived until she was old and then became the old woman. Then, she lived her life in reverse following Ruby in reverse throughout her life until she arrives in Wales with the doctor. She then crosses the point when Ruby first sees her and travels further back in time to just before the doctor steps on the circle and whispers to Ruby to subconsciously tell her to stop the doctor stepping on the circle. The reason why we don’t see her in that scene the first time around is because she hasn’t boomeranged yet. It’s difficult to comprehend but whoever this being is clearly can bend the rules of reality and time.

[@SunniestAutumn]

Millie Gibson tore out my heart and shattered it with a hammer.

[@ruggedascent]

I got the impression that whatever happened in this episode is a hint at Ruby's uniqueness and will be explored further down the line. My take is that Ruby was cursed for reading the messages in the fairy circle. For the duration of this timeline, she was cursed to be alone and to address the threat that is Roger ap Gwillem. Ruby didn't completely forget the events of this episode, she seems to have a bit of them in her subconscious. In any case, great reaction! Looking forward to the rest of the season :)

[@JayJ1095]

From an interview with RTD, it seems like this was less of a "time loop" story and more supernatural, in that breaking/disturbing the circle punished them both by banishing the doctor and forcing Ruby to "correct" her mistake by dealing with mad jack. Once she'd lived out her life doing that, she was allowed to return to the point where things went wrong and correct her [and the doctor's] mistake.

[@MichaelJohnson-kq7qg]

I got a very different idea from it. From what I can tell, the 'fairy circle' tries to restore itself - the purpose of the Stranger is to bring her to the point where she meets her own self eventually, and jumps back to the beginning. The stuff with stopping Mad Jack is her OWN idea, and would only really matter in the long term if she DIDN'T manage to restore the circle.

[@hotdog1214]

@@MichaelJohnson-kq7qg I tend to agree with your take on it. As Ruby herself thinks that by stopping mad jack, the woman will leave her alone but 40 years later, she's still there. So it superficially looks like the goal is to stop mad jack but its not. I'm still a bit confused as to how she travelled back in time once she died, maybe a sort of reset at the point of death? I dunno. Someone else suggested that the woman is actually travelling backwards in time, starting at Ruby's point of death towards the point where the Doctor steps on the circle. All very mysterious.

[@MichaelJohnson-kq7qg]

@@hotdog1214 my thought is that it being a circle is the clue. Once she breaks the circle, she's 'always been there' in both places until the circle gets rebuilt, so she doesn't go back in time, she just merges with the version that was already there. The orphaned timeline then collapses and she was never 73 yards away to start with.

[@HuntingViolets]

Her just standing at different locations as you look out the train windows is creepier than sprinting, though.

[@katieoshaughnessy8086]

Fair point , VERY unsettling !

[@Cerridwen7777]

Staving off anxiety by binging Doctor Who reactions and I have to tell you how much I love your clavicle tattoo. Gorgeous.

[@KingUbohYT]

okay so im assuming since The Doctor broke the circle, he was “put to rest” like mad jack was, and Ruby was cursed to live on? idk but another thing is why didn’t the Tardis let ruby back in? unless the Tardis knew she HAD to go through what she went through to restore everything to what seems like normal

[@jasonmarbach]

“This is where I have a panic attack and throw myself off the cliff” Sure did throw my head back and belly laugh at that. Thank ya 🤣

[@toniryan7285]

This episode had me feeling like a little girl again watching past my bedtime😅 loving all the different vibes this season and so excited to find out more about ruby, havent been this intrigued about a character since clara

[@AmaanKhan-d8m]

I dont know about the woman's hand gestures and why exactly 73 yards, but i do have other theories. Where did the doctor go: he was the one who broke the fairy circle, so maybe his disappearance was a type of punishment. And why didnt Ruby disappear? She was the one who took the scroll about Mad Jack and read it, so taking down the PM had become her mission alone, although she didnt know it yet. Why did the woman make everyone hate Ruby: I feel like it was a defence mechanism, coz nothing should hamper Ruby's mission of dethroning the PM. If Unit, for example, successfully intervened and captured the woman, Ruby would have never been able to deal with the PM. So, its like: you try to approach her or talk to her, then you are repelled by her and driven away from Ruby, so that Ruby's mission can be completed without impediments or distractions. Nobody tried to approach the woman after Ruby dealt with the PM, so we don't know if this theory holds. Unfortunately the PM took advantage of Marti, and Ruby feels guilty coz she introduced them. This adds to his villany and why we are motivated to see him dethroned. So Marti is esctatic when the PM runs away and resigns. There is no loop or paradox. The episode occured in an alternate timeline, like Kate told Ruby. And in that timeline, Ruby stopped the PM from leading the "the world to the brink of nuclear war", to quote the Doctor. So there is no actual nuclear war. When the timeline is reset in the final scene, Ruby does not live a life where she will stop the PM, so it isnt a paradox. Her original timeline is restored when she dies in her deathbed and united with the old woman. In the final scene, the doctor again tells Ruby about the dangerous PM. It is a fixed event in time that cannot be changed. Going by the exact words of the Doctor, the PM will indeed come to power in 2046, but clearly doesn't do any catastrophic damage. He simply acquires the weapons for symbolism. This entire episode was in an alternate timeline and trying to be all meta coz in this alternate timeline, Doctor Who does not have a title sequence.

[@NankitaBR]

My guess is that the Doctor also went through something similar, because they both messed with the fairy circle, and their "punishment" was according to their "crime" so each of them had a different "punishment" hence why they were separated (like 2 different time-lines were created so that each of them could ho through whatever they had to go through)

[@ftumschk]

5:33 "How d'you knock the door if your hands are full?" - I guess he kicked the bottom of the door with his boot; either that, or he knocked the door _then_ picked up the box.

[@halcroj]

The Doctor stepped on the Fairy Ring and Ruby read the scroll about Mad Jack. Those two things broke the spell releasing Mad Jack into the world, he just didn't appear till 2046. Ruby saved the day then. When the Doctor and young Ruby reappeared in front of Old Ruby, the Doctor didn't stand on the Ring and Ruby didn't read the scroll. They didn't break the spell and Mad Jack rested in peace and didn't try to blow up the world. Therefore there was no time loop. That's what I assumed.

[@HuntingViolets]

Yeah, I've seen some people saying it's okay for the pub people to treat Ruby like that because she's English. I don't think it's okay.

[@ChadBlevins]

Ambiguity is ABSOLUTELY OK! In fact, sometimes it is the point!

[@IsiahBradley]

Katie!!!! Waited for you!!!! I'm so glad you are on KZbin with your "Doctor Who" passion and observation!!! THANK YOU!!!! I think RTD says the fairies had forgiven her and the Doctor after she dispatched Jack. So I guess she had to die for the cycle to start over again?

[@landonwyndham979]

The first time the old lady doesn't appear until after the doctor vanishes the second time she is able to appear before the doctor steps on the string. Why this is the case? In might have something to do with Ruby atoning for her trespassing by defeating Roger Ap Gwilliam allowing her to break the loop but that's just a theory.

[@csmadisun]

It's kind of a fairy-tale, I think. (No, not fairy TAIL, autocorrect) The Doctor breaking the fairy circle caused him to be punished by disappearing, and Ruby reading the messages caused her to be cursed with a physical manifestation of her abandonment issues, which is why anyone full-on encountering it abandoned her. When Ruby ended up using that as a weapon to stop Gwilliam (thus saving countless lives), the fairy circle essentially forgave her, and when she passed away it allowed her to replace the 73 Yards entity and stop the Doctor breaking the circle (which meant he could stop her reading the messages). That's how I view it, anyway.

[@regsmith-xr4eh]

I liked your thoughts on the time loop.

[@Termi325]

You're not wrong at all! The episode was just terrible writing, it's a paradox bcuz her old self wouldn't be able to grow old and warn her young self not to step on the thing, bcuz if she did the events that allowed her to grow old and warn her young self wouldn't have happened, the new season of DW cares more about promoting certain political views more than actually making sense.

[@ChadBlevins]

Another GREAT EPISODE

[@WastedPo]

I think in time travel stories like this, things aren't a perfect loop. Things change slightly every time. It's like in Back to the Future. Spoilers follow: Marty went back to the past, did stuff, then went back to 1985 and thought that things were the same. He even saw himself go back to 1955 again. However, he discovered that things were now slightly different. In "73 Yards," we saw the loop in mid-progress. It wasn't the first time that Ruby went through this timeline, because she could see her older self 73 yards away. (Sort of like seeing Marty on that hill at the Lone Pine Mall at the end of BTTF.) However, she may have done things slightly differently during this loop than she did in a past loop. This resulted in the end of the episode in which her older self actually went back to that hill a bit earlier than before. Now her younger self saw the apparition, heard "Don't step," and could warn the Doctor before he broke the fairy circle. I assume the fairy circle is what ultimately unleashed Mad Jack onto the world. (Though the logistics of that I'm still not quite clear on.)

[@adisakditantimedh331]

My mate has a great theory explaining this episode. It's all Old Magick, and Magick is about exchange. When the Doctor stepped on the fairy circle, it broke and the evil spirit of Mad Jack was free to be reborn into Roger ap Gwilliam who would grow up to become PM in 2036. In exchange, The Doctor wast taken - so he's dead. That's why the TARDIS stopped working. And Ruby comes under a curse for being with The Doctor when he stepped on the circle. She has to atone for incurring a curse, which she does by stopping Roger ap Gwilliam, but that doesn't doesn't life her curse. It's only at the end of her life that she finally has something to exchange - her own life - so that should could go backwards to warn her younger self to stop the circle from being broken so her tragic timeline can be erased.

[@fleason771]

I absolutely loved 73 Yards. I've not been feeling Millie's performance & character until "Boom" & now "73 Yards" but here she was incredible 👏 There was honestly 4-5 episodes worth of story here though that really could have been developed & expanded on. I seriously would have ended the episode when Ruby said she was going to save the world & told the old woman to come with her. That kind of ending would have created tons of suspense & a week of debate (maybe in the old 13 episode format maybe) You don't get many answers in the episode but it made me "feel" more than any Doctor Who episode has in a long time & left me shell-shocked after. It's an episode which stays with you & you really felt for Ruby. It's incredible to think what Old Ruby could possibly have said to make everyone run. Another appearance by Susan Twist but this time Ruby noticed her but it would seem that's now lost because of the aborted timeline? Can "Mad Jack" Roger Ap Gwilliam really be done? It would be a waste of a villain if so. Sooo many questions. The implied "Trumpian" abuse of "Marti Bridges" gave me shades of "Lucy Saxon" & do I need to remind people that Harold Saxon's party was "The Albion Party" Hmmm.. (but that could just be another kick to our British Conservative party AKA The Tory's) Kate said something interesting about Ruby's timeline " I think this timeline might be suspended along your event" too, it's always nice to see her but that wasn't a throw-away line! I have my theatre tickets for the finale in Britain & I hope some of the events here will make more sense in that 2 part finale. A captivating episode!! 🥰

[@Skeezer66]

The time loop idea usually works, but like Kate Stewart said, they've been dealing with lots more supernatural events. This isn't a time loop, it's a Curse!!! Now, to me, since The Doctor was the one to break the circle, he'd be cursed, not Ruby. Oh well. And I hoped after ap Williams left, it could break the curse. 65 years of being alone when you never wanted it is horrible!

[@wtimmins]

I'm also not a fan of episodes that erase themselves. It makes me think 'wow, so I just watched something that never actually happened.' I didn't think it stuck the landing and didn't end up making a lot of sense. But, well, it was executed so well I enjoyed it anyway.

[@elektralyte1]

Think magic not science. The doctor stepped in a fairy circle and got yoinked from reality, probably by the fairy-folk. Ruby took one of the scrolls and was cursed with her biggest fear: abandonment. The woman in the distance (her older self) kept scaring people away from her. Because Ruby eventually did a good deed (stopped Mad Jack from blowing up the world) and accepted her fate the fairy-folk gave her a second chance; her older self was able to warn Ruby and the Doctor not to make the same mistake. I think every other episode might be steeped in some kind of mythology while other episodes are more science-fictiony.

[@The_Scienceboy]

Multiversal init

[@peternolan5501]

On 73 Yards itself, I get that it's actually designed to make people question and discuss it. But for me I'm not sure about what to me looks like the central theme: if you feel like you're unlovable and everyone abandons you your whole life no matter what you do... maybe you *are* the reason. Maybe it's seeing you for what you are that repulses people. That seems like a very weird, un-Doctor Who message for this show. On the other hand, got to shout out to this other fanvid, combining Radiohead with this episode perfectly and feels like something Katie would like. kzbin.info/www/bejne/aXfWgZJuq9VojpY

[@Dunybrook]

If this Doctor would watch where he is stepping, they'd have a lot fewer problems. Just saying. Great reaction.

[@PJFrye]

There is nothing to explain, just poor writing. Why would she make her mother leave herself? It IS a creepy fun episode but the more I think about it the more it falls apart.

[@anniesharp4871]

The old Ruby isn't in control of her impact. People flee partly due to exposure to paradox and partly because the curse feeds Ruby's greatest fear: abandonment. It is masterful, clever writing.

[@joshuajoshua2732]

Not one of my favourites not the biggest fan of Doctor lite episodes.