Episode #203 : Turn Left

"The Doctor is dead. Must have happened too fast for him to regenerate."

Episode #203:         Turn Left.
Companions:           10th Doctor and Donna Noble.
Air Date:                 21st June 2008.

On the an alien planet, Donna meets a fortune teller, who launches her into a world based on one question: "What would happen if Donna never met the Tenth Doctor?" Without the Doctor, the whole world is in ruin, and a mysterious blonde tries to warn Donna of the oncoming darkness... Now a simple refugee, Donna is the only one who can undo the damage. But how?

Turn Left is a "what if" story. In this case we see what happens to the Earth and to Donna Noble if the Doctor was killed defeating the Rachnoss without Donna there to save him. The events we see unfold without his interference are the SS Titanic crashing into London, the Adipos (in the US rather than UK), and ATMOS. Without the Doctor there to save us everything goes very very wrong. The episode is Doctor lite to make up for the previous companion lite episode, Midnight. What causes all this? It is strongly hinted at that it is the work of the Trickster (or his Brigade) although he has yet to ever appear in an episode by this time.

Rose Tyler makes another appearance in this story alongside UNIT trying to fix the time line before everything goes pear shaped for good. She drops hints about the possible events that have been cropping up all season and we see the culmination in the following episode. The ending of the episode gives me goosebumps watching it when everything is revealed to the Doctor.

As an episode it isn't fantastic but likewise it isn't a bad story either. Not a lot actually happens in it but rather we see a world without the Doctor there to save it and how Donna's life would turn out. The pay out is more where the story leads at the end of it and where we go next.