Writer and showrunner Russell T Davies has described this week’s episode of Doctor Who, “73 Yards,” as one of the best things he has ever written. But just how did this moody adventure that barely features the Doctor turn out? Find out in my spoiler-filled recap of “73 Yards.”
The episode begins in an abnormal way, as there is no title sequence – something that has only happened a handful of times in the show’s history. The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) arrive on the beautiful Welsh coastline where he asks if Ruby has visited Wales before. He begins to talk about “the most dangerous Prime Minister in history,” Roger ap Gwilliam, before realizing he’s from 20 years in Ruby’s future. The Doctor then accidentally steps on what appears to be a tribute circle, with lucky charms and notes scattered.
Ruby begins to read some of the messages and turns her head to see that the Doctor has disappeared. After frantically looking for him, she notices a woman on a nearby hillside who appears to be shouting at her. Ruby asks if the mysterious woman has done anything to the Doctor, but there the strange woman stays, continuing to shout an inaudible message. As Ruby moves around, she notices that the woman appears to be following her – always at the same distance and making the same gestures.
While focusing on the strange woman, snow begins to fall around Ruby and her – something that has happened in every story thus far this season. A hiker then approaches Ruby, and it is the same woman who has mysteriously appeared in a number of different roles in the series thus far (played by Susan Twist). Ruby explains to the hiker that the lady is following her, and the hiker offers to go talk to her. When she goes over, the mysterious lady appears to say something to the hiker, who then runs off in fear.
Ruby runs off to a local town, still being followed by the mysterious lady, when she enters into a pub filled with some very unhappy people. Ruby explains her situation to the people, who really aren’t kind to Ruby – especially when she recalls the story of the Doctor stepping into the circle, and the patrons talk of a spell being broken, just to scare Ruby. A specific line is recalled – “Mad Jack is unbound” – a line that will have more meaning later on in the episode. One of the pub’s patrons talks to the mysterious lady as he leaves, and he also runs off screaming in fear after talking to her.
After staying at the pub for a while, Ruby returns to the TARDIS in search of the Doctor, but there’s still no hope. She decides to hop on a train back to London, where she returns home to her mother, Carla (Michelle Greenidge) and grandmother, Cherry (Angela Wynter). Ruby explains her situation and Carla concocts a scheme to try to talk to the mysterious lady. Unfortunately, this massively backfires, as she also runs off screaming, and as Ruby runs after her, Carla is seen in a taxi driving by, with a look of disgust on her face.
Ruby tries and tries to get ahold of her mom, before she ends up returning home and changing the locks on her. Carla, via a phone call, tells Ruby to “stop calling and go away,” before saying some pretty hurtful things about Ruby’s adoption. Cut to a year later, and Ruby meets up with Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), the head of U.N.I.T., as her latest effort to find out more about what happened to the Doctor and this mysterious woman. Ruby explains that the woman is exactly 73 yards away from her at all times, and when asked by Kate why she doesn’t try to go on a plane or something to potentially get rid of her, Ruby explains that she’s worried that the woman might possibly die.
Kate calls in the U.N.I.T. troops to approach the woman, instructing the specially trained guards not to interact. Even through the comms device, whatever is being said still gets through to Kate, and she calls off the mission, leaving an extremely frustrated Ruby to fend for herself. A montage showcases the passage of time, as Ruby meets people, goes on dates, and eventually ends up in her 40s, with the lady still 73 yards away from her at all times. She’s sitting on a date, where a man named Roger ap Gwilliam (Aneurin Barnard) pops up on screen, the same man the Doctor warned of at the beginning of the episode. In a televised debate, Roger explains that is a jack of all trades, and that he used to be called “Mad Jack.”
Breaking off her date, a brilliantly effervescent Ruby realizes what she needs to do, and looking back at the lady, tells her it’s time to save the world. She walks into a recruiting office for the Albion party, Gwilliam’s party, where she offers herself for volunteer work. Pretty quickly, she’s already by Roger’s side as he’s filming a TV interview – one that ends up being pretty problematica, as Roger essentially admits to wanting to fire a nuclear missile.
More time passes by, and as the Doctor said, Roger ap Gwilliam is elected as Prime Minister of Great Britain. Ruby and other members of the Albion party are at a football field a few days ahead of a big speech, where it's all-but-confirmed that Roger will fire a nuclear missile. She defiantly makes her way onto the field, where all were warned not to walk on. Grabbing her phone, Ruby measures out exactly 73 yards, in order to place the mysterious woman right next to Roger, who does as all others have when being put near her.
Cutting to some news bulletins, it’s revealed that Gwilliam resigned from his post as Prime Minister before being sworn in. After saving the world, Ruby looks across to the mysterious woman and wonders if she’s always going to be following her. We then jump 40 years into the future, to an elderly Ruby who goes to visit the TARDIS one last time, which still stands on the beautiful Welsh coastline after all those years. We then see Ruby in a hospital bed, where the strange woman appears in the same room, closer than she’s ever been before. She reaches out and her entire life flashes before her eyes, before she’s seen reaching out on the Welsh coastline. From afar, she can see her younger self with the Doctor stepping out of the TARDIS.
Yes, it turns out that the mysterious woman was an elderly Ruby all-along! Her message is finally audible, she’s been saying don’t step this whole time, which gets through to her younger self. We see the moment with the tribute circle again, but this time, the Doctor doesn’t step on it and neither reads any of the messages. The Doctor asks Ruby when the third time she went to Wales was, and Ruby ponders, saying “I don’t know, it must have been now” as the episode ends.
This was one of the strangest episodes of Doctor Who in recent memory to me. It felt akin to an episode of Black Mirror, something Millie Gibson herself has said quite a bit in media coverage for the series. Speaking of Millie, she puts on an acting tour de force here. If “Boom” was the episode for Ncuti to shine as the Doctor, then “73 Yards” is Millie’s opportunity. She makes the whole thing work, with the Doctor only appearing at the beginning and end of the episode.
I thought the mystery was set up pretty well, and paid off quite well by the end. The idea of the mysterious woman being Ruby might end up being a bit obvious, but it is done pretty well. I will say, the one thing I didn’t really understand was what caused the people near the mysterious old Ruby to run off, as I’m not really sure “don’t step” works well enough to cause people to act that way. Perhaps they’re just scared, or perhaps I just didn’t pick up on it. Something to delve into for a future rewatch!
Come back next week, as we enter a world that literally seems to be full of social media, as well as a terrifying human-eating slug creature, in “Dot and Bubble.”