It follows that I have a theory about Doctor Who’s supernatural sidestep 73 Yards

Folk horror and DOCTOR WHO is a match made in TV heaven and, of course, it’s something the series has dabbled with across the years, most recently in THE WITCHFINDERS and more classically in the likes of THE CURSE OF FENRIC, THE AWAKENING or THE DAEMONS. 73 YARDS, on the other hand, is unlike anything the series has attempted before. Russell T Davies loves playing with tropes and he’s in his element here as he unpacks the horror toybox to get fans guessing at what’s going on – because that’s his real design: to get fans guessing. This may end up being quite a divisive episode because it’s deliberately, mischievously inscrutable – potentially frustratingly so, but for those who have a mind to seek, there’s a beautifully intricate layering of storytelling that doesn’t just require further reflection but ultimately rewards it too.

Arriving in Wales, the Doctor accidentally steps into a fairy ring and, while Ruby is distracted reading some of the scrolls left inside the ring, vanishes. But Ruby finds she isn’t alone – a strange old woman watches and gestures ritualistically from a distance – a distance of 73 yards – and seems to follow Ruby wherever she goes, driving away anyone who tries to intervene or help her.

Even before anything happens, we can tell something’s not quite right – there’s no cold open, no title sequence, just a few discreet opening credits before the Doctor puts his foot in it. At first it seems like we’re in for the good old “Doctor Lite” episode even if it does feel a bit early in the series’ run for it but this time it doesn’t feel like the intrusion of real-world production workloads into the world of the series, it feels legitimately justified by the story, as well as an opportunity for Millie Gibson to really showcase what she’s capable of when given the chance to shine – and shine she does in this intensely emotionally demanding performance.

Two iconic season 14 elements are checked off in quick succession – we get a couple of instances of snow (although it may actually just be entirely weather-related snow the first time) and Susan Twist turns up as a hiker who tries to help Ruby deal with her sinister pursuer only to run away screaming. Is the Susan Twist thing something relevant to the in-universe plot or just a next-level pugnacious trolling by Russell T Davies? Here there’s a little nudge towards the former as Ruby remarks that she thinks she may have met the hiker before because she looks familiar. Later, we also get a blink and you’ll miss it appearance from the mysterious Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson) and while the episode puts to rest the speculation that she might be old Ruby from the future, it furthers her mystery by having the inveterately nosy character quickly distance herself from anything to do with Ruby’s current predicament – a sign she perceives that something is very awry?

Slogging onwards with her Whovian IT FOLLOWS friend in tow, Ruby soon encounters Davies’ spin on the pub from AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, replete with hostile villagers and archly gnomic pronouncements about witchcraft and liminal spaces and “the spiteful one who walks through the gaps”. There’s a great bit of casting here with Siân Phillips holding court over the saloon bar right up until the narrative rug pull where it turns out the villagers are just having a bit of mean-spirited fun at Ruby’s expense and she turns from Bene Gesserit to beneficent in a trice.

It’s here, though, that the episode abandons much of its eldritch atmosphere in favour of a more typical Davies style of storytelling, or so it may appear at first glance. We get our first of several montages to illustrate the passing of time, interspersed with Ruby’s semper distans companion driving away first her mother and then the combined resources of UNIT (which happens during a conversation positively dripping with clues) and boyfriend after boyfriend. Superficially, 73 YARDS borrows a great deal from TURN LEFT but where that episode dealt with an escalating series of global catastrophes, 73 YARDS measures its drama in personal tragedies, each and every one keeping Ruby alone – apart from her constant companion dancing her macabre Macarena.

The episode is at its most orthodoxly RTD when it properly introduces its token antagonist – yet another troublesome Prime Minister to join the hallowed ranks of Harriet Jones and Harold Saxon. Overt nationalist and covert sexual predator Roger Ap Gwilliam (Aneurin Barnard), mentioned in passing by the Doctor at the start of the episode as a threat in the near future, appears on the scene seemingly set to grasp the reigns of British nuclear power but Ruby, arriving in that future having taken the long way round, decides that perhaps this is what she’s meant to do and concocts a plan to weaponize her life’s burden to do some good.

It’s true that the episode loses some of its momentum due to the political tiptoeing around the rise to power of a political party that seems to only have one (decidedly nuclear) policy, although if you squint a little you can totally see who Davies is casting partisan shade at. But Ruby’s clever and ultimately successful plan is enjoyable nonetheless and there’s a warmth to the fact it brings her a degree of comfort that carries her through the rest of her life, a life that’s lived having been “abandoned by everyone her whole life” but never being alone. There’s even time to fit in a sly “sure, Grandma, now let’s get you to bed” meme reference before lights out and we’re into the long dark night of Ruby’s soul and what – initially – may seem like the most egregiously unexplained pressing of a reset button outside the Delta Quadrant.

Let’s go back, then, and examine some of the clues. The discussion with Kate Stewart is key. First off there’s her admission that everything’s leaning towards the supernatural these days as well as her seemingly idle speculation to Ruby that “this timeline may be suspended along your event”. There’s also Ruby’s perception that she and her follower are connected on a fundamental level, hence her reluctance to board a plane or ship lest one or both of them die. DOCTOR WHO is no stranger to time loops, of course, but 73 YARDS’ particular loop feels arbitrary and unexplained – along with the burning question of what the old woman was saying to people to scare them away from Ruby. The answer lies in the way 73 YARDS does not parallel (pun intended) TURN LEFT. TURN LEFT ends with an explicitly sci-fi explanation. It was caused by a time beetle and orchestrated by The Trickster, a recurring villain in THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES and a leading candidate to be a member of, if not the head of, The Pantheon. But 73 YARDS defies a sci-fi explanation. Nothing quite fits, and that’s the point.

The episode works so much better if you ditch *any* expectation of a pseudo-scientific explanation or some kind of extra0terrestrial intervention. The Doctor and Ruby don’t fall into a technological trap – they’re cursed. Sci-fi rules don’t apply – fairy tale ones do.

Breaking the fairy circle was a terrible act and the power that’s behind it punishes the Doctor and Ruby by condemning them to live out their worst fears. For the Doctor, it is being absent – unable to intervene or help anything or anyone ever again. For Ruby it is being abandoned, a fear that traces its roots to the circumstances of her birth. While this may seem disproportionate, Ruby’s transgression was worse (The Doctor’s was accidental, Ruby’s was deliberate. She chose to pick up and read those scrolls) hence her punishment is more severe.

Thus, anyone she asks to help her deal with her ghoulish groupie is bewitched into abandoning Ruby forever. It doesn’t matter “what the old woman says to them” because she doesn’t say anything – it’s magic. It even explains why strangers flee in terror but those with deeper connections (Ruby’s mother) or stronger constitutions (Kate Stweart and UNIT) react with a little more restraint. They’re powerless to resist the spell but their natures ameliorate its effects a little. Ruby’s penance is to live a life alone, but because she perseveres and lives selflessly, even figuring out a way to save the world from a nuclear holocaust which would have devastated the fairy circles and their creators as badly as everyone else, the Fae (who else could it be?) forgive her and give her the chance to go back and reset the loop by preventing the circle being broken, leaving nothing but a lingering awareness of life no longer lived.

Spellbinding stuff.