052 – Turn Left

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What would happen if you changed one small thing? What if you ate healthy for breakfast this morning? Well, apparently the world would basically end. Maybe it’s a good thing you ate that cereal!

Welcome to Episode 52 covering Season 4 episode 11: Turn left

Super-short Recap

This is the one where the Doctor dies because Donna didn’t take a temp job. The Doctor and Donna are walking around a Chinese market when Donna decides to get her fortune read. Instead of telling her future, the fortune teller is asking a lot about her past and something strange starts happening.

Donna finds herself back in the past on a mundane day. She turns right instead of turning left, and apparently, that changes everything. The Doctor dies, Sarah Jane and posse die fighting the Judoon, Martha dies because of the Judoon, the Titanic II nukes London, 60 million Americans turn into fat, and the whole Torchwood team dies fighting off the Sontarans.

The good news is that Rose keeps showing up. She’s able to send Donna back in time to make sure her past self turns left. She dies in the process, but that erases everything, so suddenly she’s back in the fortune teller’s place and the time beetle falls off her back and dies. Everything is fading like a weird dream except two words some blonde girl told her: Bad Wolf.

The end…

Production notes

• Story # 197
• Originally aired June 21, 2008, to 8.09 million viewers
• Written by: Russell T Davies
• Directed by: Graeme Harper

Cast

• Fortune teller – Chipo Chung
  • Chan-tho!
  • She also guest starred in an episode of Into the Badlands (AMC) as… The Master

Checklist

• Baddie of the week
  • Time Beetle
• I’m sorry
  • Episode count: 1
    • Rose said it about Donna dying
  • Running count 8+3
• Existential horror
  • Sure

Who’s Who?

• Who was Rose
  • Billie Piper said she forgot how to play Rose and had to go back and watch old episodes to remember the character.
  • Rose did seem different. More confident?
• Who was Martha?
  • She dead
• Who is Donna?
  • She’s no one, just a temp. Not even that.
  • Rose says she’s the most important person in all creation
  • She supposes she’s always been a disappointment to her mom. Her mom says “yeah.”
  • The fortune teller says she is so strong, what is she?!
• Who is Wilf?
  • He’s seen a lot. He was fighting back tears when Rocco Collazzo and his family were being taken to a “labor camp.”
• Who is The Doctor?
  • He dead

Classic Who Connection

• Jared tries to sound more beardy and the covers
  • Running into a companion again
  • The Trickster Brigade
  • The Cloister Bells

Overall impressions

• Overall rating out of 10
  • Austin – 9 right turns
  • Corbin – 8 Chan-Thos
  • Tripp – 9.5 beetles touching your hair
  • Jared – 8.5 crazy shops

• Creep Level – out of 500
  • Austin – 175
  • Corbin – 200
  • Tripp – 178
  • Jared – 200

Theories

• Is Mary Poppins a Time Lord?
  • Umbrella is sonic
  • The bag is bigger on the inside
  • Tub transports them to a different world
  • Comes when there’s trouble leaves when it’s fixed
  • Weird fixation on London
  • Nearly ageless or
  • Came back with a different face
  • Theory section of the theory. Is it possible that the woman at the end with the balloons is Mary Poppins?
    • She has magic balloons. Only other person to show magical skills
    • Knows Mary Poppins by name
    • Knows a lot about everyone else
    • Helps solve Michael’s problem

Listener Input

• New review on iTunes from BIGBONE smallbone
• Thanks for the kind words, BIGBONE. We’ll try to stay consistent with our release schedule!

The Game Plan

• Next week – Series 4 two-parter finale!
• Minisode (hopefully a .5 bonus episode) – Music of the Spheres
  • This minisode feature the Graske, who was also featured in an interactive episode called Attack of the Graske.
  • Maybe we’ll cover that one too!
• Series 4 recap
• Classic Who Rewind – Series 1, Story 2: The Daleks
  • For this one, you’ll need a BritBox subscription from Amazon.
  • Use our affiliate link for a seven day free trial to BritBox where you can watch it. When you use our link, we get some of the money, but it doesn’t cost you anything extra.
• David Tennant Specials – Things get a bit wonky here, so we’ll outline it for your here.
  • The Next Doctor (Christmas Special)
    • This one is on Amazon Prime as Series 4, Episode 15.
  • Planet of the Dead (Easter special)
    • On Amazon Prime, this is the beginning of Doctor Who: The David Tennant Specials. The rest of these specials are included in this collection.
  • The Waters of Mars (Autumn special)
  • The End of Time Parts 1 & 2 (Christmas/New Year’s special)

Next Time…

Join us next time for Season 4 episodes 12 & 13 Stolen Earth & Journey’s End

Closing

Noobs and the Whovian is a production of Master Closet Studios, where it’s always smaller on the inside. Your Senior Producer is Austin Reason. Our Audio Engineer is Tripp Reason. Corbin Reason is our Production Editor. Special thanks to tardis.wikia.com for the trivia, Jared for the Classic Who Connection, and Big Bone Small Bone for the iTunes review!

You can find us at facebook.com/noobsandthewhovian and email us at noobsandthewhovian@gmail.com. Please subscribe and leave a rating wherever you found us, and share us with a friend not because we’re a great show but because we watch one.