I found that episode strange and confusing. I had no idea where it was going, what
sort of story it was supposed to be, or how it was meant to turn out. After the first
half-hour, I still had no idea where it was going, what sort of story it was supposed
to be, or how it was meant to turn out. Its structure was utterly unlike old-fashioned
Doctor Who, utterly unlike newfangled Doctor Who, and utterly unlike anything else
on television (the best summary I can come up with, for a comedy-drama about
people trapped in little boxes in the middle of a hostile CGI world, is “Harold Pinter
Gets Giant Crabs”… or possibly “Harold Pinter Re-Writes Attack of the Clones”,
which is even more interesting). In short: I thought it was fucking fantastic. I like
anything I canʼt see coming a mile off, and this was so bizarre that even I found it
surprising. God help the little children-stroke-fanboys, since it may have been a bit
non-monstery for their tastes, as with “Love & Monsters” last year. But speaking as
a grown-up, the sheer, relentless unpredictability of “Gridlock” made it even more
exciting than the preceding football match which determined whether it was
actually broadcast. I had problems with the Shakespeare runaround because it
was a cookie-cutter script that went everywhere youʼd expect a celeb-historical
story to go, yet this… this was just downright peculiar. I sat there not knowing what
was going to happen next, and at the end of the day, thatʼs the single greatest
feature of Doctor Who. If you can predict it, then itʼs rubbish.
And, kittens! There were even kittens.
