- 1 minute ago
The Woman's hand gestures might not mean what you think. Here’s our breakdown of Doctor Who Season 1's fourth episode - 73 Yards!
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Hello everyone and welcome to all of the easter eggs from the wonderful episode 73 yards of Doctor
00:05Who. I am of course Ellie Littlechild and I've been through some changes. Okay as it's pretty
00:10obvious, no I am not Ellie. Ellie is in fact slightly more than 73 yards away from me right
00:17now. She is, if I were to take a guess, something like 8,377,600 yards away. Basically she's in
00:25one
00:25country, I'm in another. It's the magic of cinema. So shall we get straight in with number 24, the fact
00:32that there is no opening titles for this episode of Doctor Who. That is a really, really rare thing.
00:38It happened before with the episode Sleep No More and then it happened as well with The Woman Who
00:42Fell to Earth and Resolution. Although I will say Sleep No More did at least feature the words Doctor
00:48Who on screen. Going straight into number 23 then and we get that um pretty out there outfit that
00:55the Doctor is wearing when he steps outside of the TARDIS. Basically he woke up one morning and
00:59went, do you know who I miss? I miss Nardole. I'm gonna dress like Nardole today. Or what he might
01:04have been thinking is that, well I did name drop Sarah Jane recently so maybe I'll dress like her
01:10like she did in the Sontaran experiment. Going into number 22 now, when the Doctor is enthusiastically
01:16describing the Welsh landscape, as well one should, he speaks these coming lines. The rocks and the water,
01:22it never ends. The war between the land and the sea. Now I read that out because I have the
01:26memory
01:27of a goldfish, but actually aquatic theme works here because The War Between the Land and the Sea
01:32is a long rumoured title for potential Sea Devils centred spin-off. Now that's been mentioned as
01:38recently as this year on ProductionList.com which is a website that tracks new and upcoming productions.
01:43So is this a clever name drop for an upcoming spin-off from the ever beloved episode Legend of the
01:50Sea Devils? Or is this all a massive red herring? Number 21 sees Ruby talking about the time she'd
01:56been to Wales previously, including going to see Shy Girl in Cardiff. Shy Girl is a real-life dance
02:01musician known for her experimental style. This also isn't Shy Girl's only link to Doctor Who,
02:06kinda. The cover art for her 2020 EP Alias seems to draw rather a lot of inspiration from a certain
02:14lady Cassandra. I mean, I don't see it myself. Number 20 sees the beginning of the darkness of
02:20this episode when the Doctor is telling Ruby about Roger Apguilliam and his disastrous turn as Prime
02:26Minister in the year 2046. Now 2046 had previously been an important year in the episode The Waters of
02:33Mars. In The Waters of Mars, the Bowie Base One biography for crew member Steffi says that she obtained
02:39her doctorate in solid-state physics in 2046. Number 19, of course, we would be terrified not
02:45to include because I really think Ellie would come after me with a knife. And that's when the Doctor
02:50stops telling Ruby the story of Roger Apguilliam and says, oh, spoilers. Now what on earth could
02:55that be a reference to?
02:59Spoilers!
03:00Number 18, and we reckon this one is a bit of a link back to Wild Blue Yonder, and that's
03:05the Doctor
03:05stepping into and breaking the fairy circle on the cliff top in Wales. It's very reminiscent,
03:11the power that comes out of it, with the Doctor disappearing, of the Doctor invoking salt at the
03:15edge of the universe. Now if that seems like a tiny little bit of a stretch, think about it. It's
03:20this
03:20use and connection to the supernatural within Doctor Who that has a direct, immediate response. As we
03:26will see later in the episode, even others are beginning to realise that, yes, we're seeing more and
03:30more supernatural in the show, and there's no way this is just a coincidence. Number 17 then deals
03:37directly on from the fallout of this, which is the Doctor disappearing, and this becomes our first
03:41Doctor Light episode of Russell T Davies' new era. Ruby then manages the entire rest of the episode
03:48effectively on her own. She deals with everything that happens around her. We have seen this in
03:52previous Russell T Davies projects before. First of all, take Turn Left, which is probably the obvious
03:57example. This is when the Doctor and Donna are separated and an entire new universe builds up
04:03around Donna. Thanks very much, trickster. Ya dick. The story then of Roger Apguilliam as the episode
04:10goes on seems very reminiscent of Russell T Davies' 2019 series, Years and Years, particularly that
04:16nihilistic sense of what's to come and how we may survive it. It's been mentioned, of course, in the ups
04:22and
04:22downs previously that there's a lot of comparisons between this episode and Years and Years. If you
04:28haven't watched it, I really recommend it. It's a very, very powerful series. Number 16 then is
04:33building on from this theme of inspirations for this episode, and particularly the works of Alan
04:38Garner. Garner is an English novelist known for his fantasy tales, but he's also dabbled in Welsh
04:43folklore as well, such as his 1967 book The Owl Service, which deals with the myth of Bledewit. She is
04:50a woman
04:50who was turned into an owl by the magician Gwydion. Russell was also inspired by the Mabinagion,
04:55which are old Welsh folktales he learned about while in school. Number 15 sees Ruby's stalker,
05:01if you like, making some very interesting hand gestures. I say interesting because we were sitting
05:06there in the episode going, what do they mean? And quite frankly, it's not all that satisfying.
05:11Allow me to read out what we discovered in Doctor Who Unleashed.
05:13Bless you, thank you so much. That's so kind of you. When you gave me that little thing,
05:17it was just so precious. How am I ever going to repay you? What will think of something?
05:21Yeah, that seems like something terrifying that people would run away from in fear and never look
05:25at Ruby again, right? Obviously, these gestures were chosen just to have something that we could
05:29see from a distance. 14 sees Ruby bumping into a hiker who's played by Susan Twist, and we are up
05:37again with Twist Watch. Susan Twist has, to date, played six different characters in the last eight
05:42episodes. She played Mrs. Meridue in Wild Blue Yonder. She was the woman in a pub in the church on
05:46Ruby Road. She was serving tea in the Devil's Chord. She was one of the comms officers on Space Babies.
05:52She was the ambulance interface in Boom, and here she is as the hiker. Now, this is the first time
05:57that the Doctor or Ruby have properly come face to face with one of Susan Twist's characters,
06:02and there's even a moment of recognition when Ruby reckons that she might have met her before.
06:07Obviously, this is going to develop and build, so I would not be shocked if we see either the Doctor
06:12or Ruby or both interacting with her in Dot and Bubble. Who do you think she is? Because we have
06:18all of our theories. Let us know in the comments below. Number 13, and after chatting to Susan Twist,
06:24she comes across the pub of Eprenmaro, which was established in 1863. Eprenmaro also translates
06:30into The Dead Wood, which ties very nicely into the supernatural horror elements of this episode.
06:35While 1863 itself doesn't have a massive significance in Doctor Who history, it is notable to say that it's
06:41a hundred years before 1963, which is, of course, when the show properly started.
06:46Number 12, and speaking of horror, if you got some Torchwood vibes when Ruby walked into the pub,
06:52there's a very good reason for that. Firstly, the landlady of the pub is played by Maxine Evans,
06:57who played Helen Sherwood in the Torchwood episode Countryside. You know, the one about cannibals.
07:03Even better, if that's the word we want to go with here, is that the pub itself appeared in the
07:08episode
07:08Countryside. In real life, it's the White Cross in Groswen in Wales. It featured in Countryside as
07:13the Tap House. That's where Jack, Gwen and Owen barricade themselves indoors to save themselves
07:18from the aforementioned cannibals. Number 11, and this is when we do our kind of going through
07:23each of the frames that we can, and we settle on one of the taps, which is serving a drink
07:27called
07:27Hlanfer Keryog. Hlanfer Keryog was a village in Wales that was visited by the Seventh Doctor and
07:32Ace. While this didn't happen on screen, it did happen in the expanded universe in the prose story
07:37Cat's Cradle in 1992. That story involved a stone circle that allowed people to travel into another
07:43dimension, so you can kind of see where the parallels between that and 73 yards cross over.
07:49Number 10 sees the return of Mrs. Flood. Now, we haven't seen her at all since the last thing she
07:54said
07:54was, you've never seen a TARDIS before. We'd like some answers to that, Mrs. Flood, but we're not
07:58going to get them in this episode, so we reckon that this is a long setup for what will be
08:02probably
08:03delivered in Season 2. Still, nice to see you again, Anita Dobson. Nice to see you. Speaking of
08:08returns, number 9 sees the return of Kate Lethbridge. Stuart, delighted to see her again, because she's
08:14just kind of awesome. I love that this sets up and sort of expands upon what we've seen before. We
08:19saw
08:19with Mel and Donna that effectively, Unit is there to be like, oh, do you want a job after? And
08:23she
08:24effectively says as much to Ruby, and this section also discusses the perception filter that surrounds
08:30the TARDIS, as we know, seems to surround the woman that has been following Ruby, and we've seen so many
08:35perception filters across the franchise. The keys to the TARDIS have perception filters as well. We saw
08:40this back in Last of the Time Lords, Sound of Drums, and of course, Prisoner Zero used a perception filter
08:45when hiding from Amy in her house. Number 8, and we're sticking with Kate here, is that she says
08:50mankind saw a sunrise and invented God, or at least the arrival of a Sontaran. Sontarans are, of course,
08:57Doctor Who's very own little potato-headed aliens that were first introduced in the third Doctor
09:01serial, The Time Warrior, and we last saw them in season 13 in 2021. Also, I love how Ruby just
09:08chuckles. Haha, yeah, of course. Do you know much about Sontarans, Ruby, do you? Have we missed a whole
09:12bunch of adventures so far? We may have. Wibbly Wobbly. Number 7, it's both frustrating and funny,
09:18and it all relates to a QR code on the table that Kate and Ruby are sitting at. The first
09:22thing
09:22that's frustrating about this is that the QR code is incomplete. A lot of people, and quite frankly,
09:28possibly myself as well, would have gone, alright then, that doesn't work, let's move on to the
09:32next one. However, this is the era of the internet, and quite frankly, Danny had some spare time. If you
09:38do manage to complete the QR code and scan it, it brings you to stephenfielding.co.uk. Stephen
09:44Fielding has been a graphic designer for Doctor Who for a few years now, so fair play. He's
09:48obviously added the QR code as a little bit of cheeky self-promotion. No one would blame
09:52you. You can check out my two books, which are available on amazon.co.uk or amazon.com. Just
09:56check out Sean Farrick and it'll bring you straight to it. Let's see if this makes the
09:59edit. Someone at the BBC may have had a little bit of a, haha, that was funny, mm-mm-mm,
10:04to Mr.
10:05Fielding, because now you'll see the QR code redirects directly to the Doctor Who website. Number
10:10six, and we're going to talk about Roger Apgwilliam and the Albion party. Albion is an alternate
10:15name for Great Britain, and it's ancient, it's really not used anymore. The phrase
10:20perfidious Albion, which means England cannot be trusted, is something that's been used over
10:24the centuries as well. I'm not putting a judgement on that, I'm just telling you what
10:28it means. Now what we do know is Russell T. Davis' well-known stance on conservatives and
10:35conservative governments, so this is hardly accidental. Bigger, better, bolder Britain feels
10:40like a pretty obvious nod to an other well-known slogan in politics over the last few years as well.
10:47Number five, and we're going to continue with Albion for its in-universe connections too. Albion
10:52Hospital appeared in series one, no not this series one, and no not the Hartnell series one, but the
10:59series one that was in 2005, which was of course also showrun by Russell T. Davis. It appeared in the
11:04episodes Aliens of London, but also The Empty Child and the Doctor Dances. In the latter story,
11:10it was the hospital that Dr. Constantine worked at. Furthermore, the logo for Apguilliam's Albion party
11:15bears a striking resemblance to Harold Saxon's party logo from season three. It's unclear yet what the
11:23connection, if any, between these two is, but in theory it could simply be the same political party,
11:28just separated by time. After all, Harold Saxon was in power in 2008, whereas Roger Apguilliam was in power
11:34in the 2040s. Number four, we're sticking with Albion again. We're on a bit of a roll here.
11:38We're going to talk about Ruby's appearance at Albion HQ. Here, when Ruby walks in, we can see
11:43a list of corporate sponsors on the far right of the screen. One of those sponsors is AMNN. AMNN is
11:50a
11:50fictional American news broadcasting company that was famously hosted by Trinity Wells during Russell T.
11:55Davis's first run as showrunner. As revealed in The Giggle, Trinity has left AMNN and she's gone on to
12:01strike out on her own. So by the 2040s, Albion and AMNN are in bed together, showing that as soon
12:08as Trinity leaves, it all goes to pot. Number three, Roger Apguilliam is being interviewed as part of
12:13this election cycle. Now the interviewer is named Amal Rajan. Now he is played by Amal Rajan. We can
12:20only imagine that this role might not have been too difficult for him to play because in real life he
12:24is
12:24also an interviewer and broadcaster and at the moment is probably best known as the host of University
12:29Challenge. During Russell T. Davis's first era, he was known to cast real life celebrities as
12:35themselves. Think of Paula Grady in The Stolen Earth and Andrew Marr in Aliens of London and World
12:40War 3. So we reckon there's going to be a lot more faces popping up like this throughout this run
12:46of
12:46the show. Number two, and as Ruby makes her way over to Marty Bridges for the Albion Celebration Party,
12:51you can just spot two blurry images there in the background. These are Assistant Graphic Designer,
12:56Sophie Cowdery and Set Decorating Assistant, Lowest Rage. I'm going to be full disclosure,
13:00if I had the chance to pop myself into an episode of Doctor Who, I'm doing it and I do
13:04not feel one
13:04bit of guilt about it. So fair play to both of them. Number one is actually a really cool production
13:09detail that would have been pretty easy to miss. As you see Ruby jumping forward in time, you know,
13:1520s, 30s and then into her 40s, you can see the city outside of her apartment begins to reflect
13:19those changes in time as well. At one point we can see futuristic car chargers on the street and when
13:24we
13:24get as far as her 40s there's drones and holograms in the sky as well. It's that kind of attention
13:28to
13:29detail that really kind of makes the difference. You can pop somebody in old age makeup and say time
13:33has passed by or what you can do is do that and add to the rest of the scene as
13:37well to show that time
13:39has passed by. What did you spot that we didn't spot? Pop it into the comments below and then let's
13:44just keep the conversation going. Let's keep our wild speculation going. Who is Susan Twist? Will we see
13:49Roger Apguilliam again? What did that guy do that Ruby said? Oh it was all his fault because I mean
13:56I think there's a spin-off that could happen there. You're awesome. You're brilliant. We will see you
14:00again. We've got lots of stuff coming up. We've got a discussion video for this episode coming up. We've
14:03got our ups and downs for the next episode as well. We are going to be inundating you. I would
14:08say I'm
14:09sorry but I'm having too much fun. Thanks very much folks. Keep things wibbly wobbly and I'll see you soon.
Comments