'73 Yards' Just Took Doctor Who to a New Level of Terror 

COULD BE IMPORTANT: Just rewatched the episode and noticed something no-one is talking about yet. When the people approach the old lady 73 yards away, they are not being talked to, the lady is not looking at them or saying anything to them, they get the terrible shock and start running away only AFTER they look back at Ruby. They are seeing something about Ruby that scares the life out of them, even from that distance. Ruby is not who / what she thinks she is.

Minor Irrelevant Fact Check - Sleep No More was not the most recent time Doctor Who went without titles. The Woman Who Fell to Earth was the most recent.

This is my first time watching (and now subscribed) and even though this is a different format from back and forth… it is VERY well done. The way he can preemptively know your thoughts is just so real. And now I’m going to go back and watch the ones in proper format. Thank you!

I loved this episode. Nothing needs explaining. It's entirely down to interpretation of the beholder. Like staring at abstract art or watching 'The Shining'. It requires a fertile imagination. Kudos to Millie Gibson.

I like the idea that the TARDIS is playing a part in the Story. In my Head Cannon maybe the breaking of the Circle and Ruby's Loop is able to happen because it took place just inside some predefined zone of the TARDIS. Maybe the Doctor accidentally turned off the "Butterfly Effect" Again? Or neglected Paradox advanced options like avoid crushing/breaking "Magic Circles". Then again maybe just didn't adjust the default timer allowing a timeline loop to run for far too long?

For me, it gave off a lot of "Midnight" vibes for me, in how mysterious, hopeless and isolated Ruby feels in this one. I'll grant it has aspects of Turn Left, (and in terms of the spinoffs, "Curse of Clyde Langer,") but that's just me. I thought the episode was a good change of pace, akin to the previous episode, "Boom." As a lover for horror and allegories, I thought Russel had added a lot of great elements into this one. (It's honestly surprising this is in the same season as bleeding Space Babies!)

Great episode. I lost my dad when i was 15 ( I'm 57 now) & that sense of abandonment that i carry & Ruby felt was just brought to life so well written & felt Also shot in my hometown & I'm Welsh lol ❤

For anyone confused about this brilliant episode: The lady in black was Ruby herself. She dies of old age at the end of the episode, but once she dies her ghost starts moving backwards through time (kinda like Tenet) staying at 73 yards from herself, up to the point she first arrives on the cliff with the Doctor. A recurrent theme throughout this season is how many superstitions have been given real power ever since 14 used the salt trick at the edge of creation. In the beginning of the episode, while speaking about a terrible prime minister from the future, the Doctor steps on a fairy circle which was apparently binding "Mad Jack", causing the Doctor to disappear. And Ruby begins to be haunted by her ghost which always keeps a distance of 73 yards from her but other people can approach but when they talk to her they begin to fear Ruby and retreat from her but also from the world. It is later revealed that this prime minister the Doctor was talking about goes by the nickname Mad Jack and is hell bent on launching nukes (whether the pm himself is Mad Jack itself or Mad Jack is acting through the prime minister is up to debate I think). Ruby realises she has to stop him and she does by placing her ghost next to him (by standing at 73 yards from him, the exact distance she was about to get shot by the PMs security), causing him to resign retreat from the world. In the end Ruby dies, but her spirit goes backwards through time, keeping the same distance from Ruby up to the point where she arrives on the cliff with the Doctor, and she makes her past self stop the Doctor from stepping on the circle, never releasing Mad Jack and stopping this whole alternate timeline from happening, in turn stopping her ghost from ever existing, causing it to disappear.

Its really a horror that Dr Who has descended into such depths...

I don’t think there’s anything you could possibly say to someone to have such a reliable change come over everyone who comes in contact with the woman. I think it has to do with the curse on whoever disturbs the circle. Everyone seems to respond with terror. If I walked to someone and just talked with them, I’d probably take anything they said with a grain of salt and told Ruby she’s probably mentally ill. What’s probably going on is an actual change to the person talking to her on a deeply psychological level. It’s not words but mental reprogramming. Why would Ruby do this to herself? I’m not sure she is. It could just be the curse on the circle or perhaps after 65 years it’s something she felt was necessary for her timeline without the Doctor. I don’t think she’s necessarily a fully conscious entity at that point because she keeps making the same gestures 24/7 for 65 years like she’s stuck in a time loop. So I’m leaning towards the curse hypothesis. I was getting “The Curse of Clyde Langer” vibes the whole time. The important bit is that Ruby apparently follows the woman back in time to just before they break the circle. Ruby hears “don’t step” and breaks the curse and keeps the circle intact. I think I’ve almost just convinced myself that Ruby isn’t the woman at all and she just used her to break the curse. But the point I guess I was trying to make is that this was probably a punishment for disturbing the fairy circle and not something Ruby was actively doing to herself.

I’m only about 14 minutes in so you may notice it later but this feels like a big call back to one of the best episodes of the Sarah Jane Adventures - The Curse of Clyde Langar. One of the kids that helps Sarah Jane gets cursed by a totem pole, and anyone who says or sees his name, abandons him like they do with Ruby

Great review

I hate to be negative, especially seeing some of the comment in this section praising this episode, but this legitimately made me angry. I've been lukewarm on this season so far. The previous three episodes haven't been bad or anything, but they've been nothing special, and they all suffered from tonal whiplash at certain points. One compliment I can give this episode is that it at least has a consistent tone throughout. Another I can give is that the mystery it sets up is quite interesting. Ruby's time in the Welsh pub set up a great atmosphere that really drew me in. Unfortunately, that atmosphere slowly drains away as the episode goes on. Every interaction that the people helping Ruby have to the mystery woman is exactly the same, and neither the audience or Ruby learn anything new about her until the very end. It doesn't help that the episode get distracted by following this political side-story. I'm not against the idea of political messages being in Doctor Who. I love Oxygen, after all. But it's irrelevant to Ruby's situation, only superficially related to current world politics, and a bit tactless in some cases. Four episodes ago, Davies had an episode about talking babies and booger monster. Now he's implying situations of sexual assault. Pick a tone and stick with it, Davies! And I hated the twist at the end. Not only is it possibly the most basic and treacly solution possible, but it leaves so much unanswered. Why does the Doctor know what a fairy circle is when he didn't last time? Where did he go? If he was in the TARDIS to get away from Ruby, which was implied but not confirmed, why didn't he just fly away? Why were people scared of the old lady? Why was she making those arm movement patterns? Why was she always 73 yards away? I guess that last one's not important, it's only the TITLE OF THE EPISODE! I turned off this episode so angry. I'm still shaking as I type. I just hate episodes like this. I also hate The Girl Who Waited and Listen for similar reasons. These are episodes that think pandering to base emotions can let them get away with huge gaps in logic. Doctor Who is better than this. It should be better than this. If I had shown this to friends of mine that don't watch DW, I would have been so ashamed of my favorite TV show. I'm sorry to the people that like this, I don't want to be a hater, but I just don't get it.

7:00 Completely agree. This was great fun to watch, but the details don't add up. And I get the details; I just don't think they explain what happened. So Old Ruby says what exactly? ..that would turn people against her like it was a magic spell, affecting both her mother and UNIT soldiers "with full psychic training" and who almost definitely didn't even really know her? This needed something like Ruby causing nuclear war then needing to undo it, or something like that (edit:if she had been the one to break the fairy circle, then you could say doing that moved her to another timeline, explaining the Doctor's disappearance as well), and even that still wouldn't really explain how absolute that ghost's influence was. So yeah, eerie "need to turn your brain off" fun.

Excellent review, under the circumstances. I immediately noticed something was "spooky" about it, because you guys are the wrong way round - Pete usually sits screen right. I think this was my favourite episode so far. I immediately made a connection with Years and Years, which makes sense because Years and Years was in many ways Russell doing "Turn Left" expanded into a mini-series with more details filled in. So the second half of this with the crazy nationalist Welsh Prime Minister was like a re-compressed version of Years and Years. I didn't think of "Small Worlds" even though I have been rewatching Torchwood on the iplayer.

Just a quick request Could you in future do the hot takes on Sun and random on sat? Gives us in the UK a chance to listen spoiler free after the episode has aired live.

This episode wasn't horrific, it was horrible. It was incomprehensible. It made no sense and as such isn't open to interpretation.

"Terror" and "horror".....?! You must get scared whenever you close your eyes!

It was an unmitigated overblown pile of sh!te! That is exactly how not to write a horror story.

How would it feel to have something about yourself where you fear everyone would abandon you over it? We queer people know.

I just watched it and thought it was a nothing episode.

🛶🎓⚪‍‍💕📖🚲👮

Insert "this was dark, even for star wars" meme (also the episode sucked)

This episode had NO PLOT, NO STORY, and NO RESOLUTION!!! This show is TRULY DEAD!!! #RIPDoctor Who

There is no terror, its just lame shit from RTD new era. Boring, no point of that story. Good for simping fans who will watch everything with proper title. Also, it is not even SF. Also, without Master's paradox machine, this episode shouldnt be even able to happen.