I have to admit that Gridlock is where I stopped writing reviews on my first viewing of Season 3, because I found it incredibly boring. And I don't know what was different this time except that possibly I'm a bit emotional (hormones) but this time I really enjoyed it.
Yes, the couple who kidnapped Martha were still very wet, and all the car stuff was a bit boring, and I still want to know where the hell they came from if they had only just started travelling and yet everything but the motorway had been sealed off for 24 years, and how no-one had seen the sky when there was definitely sky in that alley with the street-sellers – it was raining, so there must have been sky! – but yeah. I enjoyed it.
Especially the Doctor. DT gives a stellar performance in this episode. From the bit at the beginning where Martha's asking him about his home world and he's pretending it's still there, to his desperation when he loses her only three episodes after losing Rose, to the fun of his interaction with the various passengers of the cars he passes through, to the sheer ache of his meeting with the Face of Boe, to his exhilaration at saving everyone, to the pathos of Martha finally making him talk about Gallifrey. I cried. He is a very good actor.
And then there's the Face of Boe. I deliberately went into the episode this time with an open mind about the Jack/FoB stuff, and actually, the idea that that's Jack, looking after the people of (New) Earth in the Doctor's absence (yeah, that sounds familiar) and giving everything he has to save those people… that idea is definitely growing on me. There's even the fact that, as Nurse Hayne tells us, he wired himself into the mainframe and 'gave his lifeforce' to power it. Hmm. That sounds distinctly familiar, doesn't it?
Anyway. Definitely better than I remember. 7.5/10
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