Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 139 (click to see context) from:
to:
* YouLookFamiliar: Chipo Chung, who plays the Fortune Teller, played Chantho in [[DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia Utopia]].
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 135 (click to see context) from:
* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: Billie Piper apparently lost the accent she had used as Rose in Series 1 and 2, so she speaks with a noticeable lisp.
to:
* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: Billie Piper apparently lost the accent she had used as Rose in Series 1 and 2, so she speaks with a noticeable lisp. She also has a pronounced overbite that she never used to have, mildly affecting her speech (and possibly causing the lisp).
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* WideEyedIdealist: Donna is laughably naive in this episode, and ''severely'' overestimates how necessary secretaries are.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* FunnyForeigner: The walking [[NationalStereoTypes/WesternEurope Italian stereotype]] in the form of the perpetually cheerful-to-the-point-of-annoyance [[LargeHam Mr. Colasanto]]... right up until he shares a grim farewell salute with Wilf and drops his façade completely as [[MoodWhiplash he and his family are led off to what sounds like their deaths]].
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 64 (click to see context) from:
** Weirdly, Earth doesn't immediately [[spoiler: turn into New Pyrovillia with no one to cause the eruption of Vesuvius.]]
to:
** Weirdly, Earth doesn't immediately [[spoiler: turn into New Pyrovillia with no one to cause the eruption of Vesuvius.]]
Changed line(s) 84 (click to see context) from:
** Also how the Doctor died in the first place -- after killing all the Racnoss and without Donna to snap him out of it, he left it too late to get away from the flood.
to:
** Also how the Doctor died in the first place -- after killing all the Racnoss and without Donna to snap him out of it, he either left it too late to get away from the flood.flood or was so despondant with Rose gone, that he just let himself drown..
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
No trope potholes in page quotes.
Changed line(s) 4 (click to see context) from:
->''"Turn right and never meet that man. Turn right, [[ForWantOfANail and change the world!]]"''
to:
->''"Turn right and never meet that man. Turn right, [[ForWantOfANail and change the world!]]"''world!"''
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
** ChekhovsGunman: The haulage lorry seen passing Donna's car as she waits to decide which way to turn.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 128 (click to see context) from:
* TheStarsAreGoingOut: Wilfred sees the stars going out.
to:
* TheStarsAreGoingOut: With no Doctor there to stop them, the Daleks [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd set off the Reality Bomb]]. Which is why Wilfred sees the stars going out.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
Not this trope.
Deleted line(s) 132,135 (click to see context) :
* WhamLine: While Donna lamely wonders what sort of work Rocco Colsanto and his family will be doing with the massive unemployment situation Britain faces...
-->'''Wilf:''' Labour camps. [[WorldWarII That's what they called them last time.]]\\
'''Donna:''' ...what d'you mean?\\
'''Wilf:''' [[PuttingOnTheReich It's happening again.]]
-->'''Wilf:''' Labour camps. [[WorldWarII That's what they called them last time.]]\\
'''Donna:''' ...what d'you mean?\\
'''Wilf:''' [[PuttingOnTheReich It's happening again.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 63 (click to see context) from:
** Weirdly, Earth doesn't immediately [[spoiler: turn into New Pyrovilia with no one to cause the eruption of Vesuvius.]]
to:
** Weirdly, Earth doesn't immediately [[spoiler: turn into New Pyrovilia Pyrovillia with no one to cause the eruption of Vesuvius.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
**Weirdly, Earth doesn't immediately [[spoiler: turn into New Pyrovilia with no one to cause the eruption of Vesuvius.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
one quote is enough
Deleted line(s) 7,9 (click to see context) :
->''"Oh my God, Donna... {{the stars are going out}}.''
-->-- '''Wilfred Mott'''
-->-- '''Wilfred Mott'''
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
Deleted line(s) 129 (click to see context) :
** Possibly an unintentional one, but the plot of the middle half of this episode -- a series of disasters at home and abroad leading to Britain becoming a fascist police state led by a totalitarian government who are forcing minorities into death camps -- is remarkably similar to the backstory of ''ComicBook/VForVendetta''.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 78 (click to see context) from:
** Sarah Jane Smith never meets him again, but is able to resolve the situation at the hospital at the cost of her life, allowing the Judoon to return it to Earth.
to:
** Sarah Jane Smith never meets him again, but is able to resolve the situation at the hospital at the cost of her life, life -- and the lives of her teenaged son, Luke and his friends-- allowing the Judoon to return it to Earth.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 75 (click to see context) from:
** Also, because the events of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E04TheSontaranStratagem The Sontaran Stratagem]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E05ThePoisonSky The Poison Sky]] never happened, Ross the UNIT soldier and the two brainwashed soldiers are still alive in the altered universe.
to:
** Also, because the events of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E04TheSontaranStratagem [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem The Sontaran Stratagem]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E05ThePoisonSky [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky The Poison Sky]] never happened, Ross the UNIT soldier and the two brainwashed soldiers are is still alive in the altered universe.alive.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
* ChekhovsGun: Wilfred's military service is brought up halfway through the episode. This will be important soon...
* DeathByDespair: The Doctor, without Donna, wasn't willing to save himself during the business with the Racnoss. When the TARDIS finally appears, it's all but outright said she's going the same way.
** Also, because the events of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E04TheSontaranStratagem The Sontaran Stratagem]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E05ThePoisonSky The Poison Sky]] never happened, Ross the UNIT soldier and the two brainwashed soldiers are still alive in the altered universe.
Changed line(s) 100 (click to see context) from:
* MoodWhiplash: One minute, Donna and her family are singing along with their housemates, the first time they've been happy for a long time, the next they hear gunfire from outside.
to:
* MoodWhiplash: One minute, Donna and her mother are having a truly depressing conversation about their current condition, then Donna hears singing from the next room and goes to yell at them, until she sees Wilfred's joining. SmashCut to the entire family are singing along with their housemates, the first time they've been happy for a long time, the next they hear gunfire from outside.
Added DiffLines:
* TemptingFate: When the ATMOS starts poisoning the sky, Donna asks Rose how it could get worse. She finds out very soon.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
-> '''Donna''': Doctor, what is it? What's Bad Wolf?
-> '''The Doctor''': '''It's the end of the universe.'''
-> '''The Doctor''': '''It's the end of the universe.'''
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
It concerns this episode, explicitly affects this episode, and is a tie-in series. Unless you\'re gonna remove it on grounds of \'spoilers\' again, like you usually do.
Added DiffLines:
* TheManBehindTheMan: The fortune teller and the beetle are working for [[Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures the Trickster]].
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
doesn\'t concern this episode
Deleted line(s) 93 (click to see context) :
* TheManBehindTheMan: The fortune teller and the beetle are working for [[Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures the Trickster]].
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 128 (click to see context) from:
* WhamLine: While Donna lamely wonders what sort of work Rocco and his family will be doing with the massive unemployment situation Britain faces...
to:
* WhamLine: While Donna lamely wonders what sort of work Rocco Colsanto and his family will be doing with the massive unemployment situation Britain faces...
Changed line(s) 132 (click to see context) from:
* WhatIf
to:
* WhatIfWhatIf: ...when Donna came to a certain intersection, she made a right hand turn to a photocopier business instead of turning left, to work at a security firm?
* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: Billie Piper apparently lost the accent she had used as Rose in Series 1 and 2, so she speaks with a noticeable lisp.
* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: Billie Piper apparently lost the accent she had used as Rose in Series 1 and 2, so she speaks with a noticeable lisp.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 131 (click to see context) from:
'''Wilf:''' [[PuttingOnTheReich It's happening again.]]\\
to:
'''Wilf:''' [[PuttingOnTheReich It's happening again.]]\\]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* WhamLine: While Donna lamely wonders what sort of work Rocco and his family will be doing with the massive unemployment situation Britain faces...
-->'''Wilf:''' Labour camps. [[WorldWarII That's what they called them last time.]]\\
'''Donna:''' ...what d'you mean?\\
'''Wilf:''' [[PuttingOnTheReich It's happening again.]]\\
-->'''Wilf:''' Labour camps. [[WorldWarII That's what they called them last time.]]\\
'''Donna:''' ...what d'you mean?\\
'''Wilf:''' [[PuttingOnTheReich It's happening again.]]\\
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 2 (click to see context) from:
to:
[[caption-width-right:350:Well, Rose, it's about time you actually appeared this season!]]
Deleted line(s) 9,10 (click to see context) :
'''WARNING! THERE MAY BE UNMARKED SPOILERS!'''
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
again spoilers
Deleted line(s) 76 (click to see context) :
** After series 6, one could even infer something even ''worse'' than the stars going out is going to happen. With the Doctor prematurely dead, Amy and Rory never became companions, thus negating the eventual birth of River Song. With the Doctor already dead and River never existing in the first place, his supposed "death" at Lake Silencio will never occur, thus a fixed point in time becomes irrevocably altered, causing the destruction of ''time itself''. Although it's a moot point, seeing as the Silence would have likely disbanded after the Doctor's death, thus rendering the fixed point of Lake Silencio non-existent.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
Don\'t spoil futures episodes
Changed line(s) 127 (click to see context) from:
* TheStarsAreGoingOut: With no Doctor there to stop them, the Daleks [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd set off the Reality Bomb]]. Which is why Wilfred sees the stars going out.
to:
* TheStarsAreGoingOut: With no Doctor there to stop them, the Daleks [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd set off the Reality Bomb]]. Which is why Wilfred sees the stars going out.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
'''WARNING! THERE MAY BE UNMARKED SPOILERS!'''
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 9,12 (click to see context) from:
The Doctor and Donna drop by the Chinese-inspired planet Shan Shen, a long way from Earth. The Doctor does some shopping while Donna lets herself be talked into a free fortune-telling session. But the fortune-teller is interested in Donna's ''past'', not her future... specifically, she wants to know how Donna came to meet the Doctor. Something creepy and crawly moves towards Donna and latches onto her back.
Remember [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]], when we first met Donna? She was marrying a guy she'd met at work. Flashback to Donna's first day at H.C. Clements. Her mum comes along, and harangues Donna about interviewing for a different job, a ''better'' job, with some guy she knows. All Donna has to do is turn right instead of left at a certain intersection, and she'll never have started at H.C. Clements, never have met Lance, never have been sucked aboard a TARDIS in flight, never -- and this is the crucial bit -- told the Doctor to stop when he was murdering a Racnoss nest. So, the Doctor drowned in the Thames and ''died'' that Christmas Eve, and Donna didn't much care, because she never knew who he was. To Donna, the only thing out of place seems to be the fascination her friends have with something on her back that they glimpse, and the young blonde woman who's suddenly turned up looking very distressed.
Remember [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]], when we first met Donna? She was marrying a guy she'd met at work. Flashback to Donna's first day at H.C. Clements. Her mum comes along, and harangues Donna about interviewing for a different job, a ''better'' job, with some guy she knows. All Donna has to do is turn right instead of left at a certain intersection, and she'll never have started at H.C. Clements, never have met Lance, never have been sucked aboard a TARDIS in flight, never -- and this is the crucial bit -- told the Doctor to stop when he was murdering a Racnoss nest. So, the Doctor drowned in the Thames and ''died'' that Christmas Eve, and Donna didn't much care, because she never knew who he was. To Donna, the only thing out of place seems to be the fascination her friends have with something on her back that they glimpse, and the young blonde woman who's suddenly turned up looking very distressed.
to:
The Doctor and Donna drop by the Chinese-inspired planet Shan Shen, a long way from Earth. The Doctor does some shopping while Donna lets herself be talked into a free fortune-telling session. But the fortune-teller is interested in Donna's ''past'', not her future... specifically, she wants to know how Donna came to meet the Doctor. Doctor, going all the way back to a single decision. Something creepy and crawly moves towards Donna and latches onto her back.
Remember [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]], when we first met Donna? She was marrying a guy she'd met at work. Flashback to Donna's first day at H.C. Clements. Her mum comes along, and harangues Donna about interviewing for a different job, a ''better'' job, with some guy she knows. All Donna has to do is turn right instead of left at a certain intersection, and she'll never have started at H.C. Clements, never have met Lance, never have been sucked aboard a TARDIS in flight, never -- and this is the crucial bit -- told the Doctor to stop when he was murdering a Racnoss nest. So, the Doctor drowned in the Thames and ''died'' that Christmas Eve, and Donna didn't much care, because she never knew who he was. To Donna, the only thing out of place seems to be the fascination her friends have with [[ArcWords something on herback back]] that they glimpse, and the young blonde woman who's suddenly turned up looking very distressed.
Remember [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]], when we first met Donna? She was marrying a guy she'd met at work. Flashback to Donna's first day at H.C. Clements. Her mum comes along, and harangues Donna about interviewing for a different job, a ''better'' job, with some guy she knows. All Donna has to do is turn right instead of left at a certain intersection, and she'll never have started at H.C. Clements, never have met Lance, never have been sucked aboard a TARDIS in flight, never -- and this is the crucial bit -- told the Doctor to stop when he was murdering a Racnoss nest. So, the Doctor drowned in the Thames and ''died'' that Christmas Eve, and Donna didn't much care, because she never knew who he was. To Donna, the only thing out of place seems to be the fascination her friends have with [[ArcWords something on her
Changed line(s) 19,20 (click to see context) from:
And Donna and her family are forcibly moved to Leeds, while the minorities are shipped off to "labour camps". One night, when Donna notices that TheStarsAreGoingOut, she finally decides to follow the mysterious blonde woman.
to:
And Donna and her family are forcibly moved to Leeds, while the minorities are shipped off to [[ANaziByAnyOtherName "labour camps". camps".]] One night, when Donna notices that TheStarsAreGoingOut, she finally decides to follow the mysterious blonde woman.
Changed line(s) 23,24 (click to see context) from:
The time jump leaves her half a mile away with only a few minutes to get to the intersection, which is impossible. Without any other options, Donna throws herself in front of an oncoming vehicle, fatally wounding her, but creating a traffic jam for which her earlier, impatient self is unwilling to wait, and makes the left turn. As the alternative Donna dies the blonde woman appears again to her, and before she blacks out tells her a two-word message to give to the Doctor...
to:
The time jump leaves her half a mile away with only a few minutes to get to the intersection, which is impossible. Without any other options, [[HeroicSacrifice Donna throws herself in front of an oncoming vehicle, vehicle]], fatally wounding her, but creating a traffic jam for which her earlier, impatient self is unwilling to wait, and makes the left turn. As the alternative Donna dies the blonde woman appears again to her, and before she blacks out tells her a two-word message to give to the Doctor...
Changed line(s) 27,30 (click to see context) from:
'''Bad Wolf'''
The Doctor races outside to find every banner and sign, even the TARDIS doors, now saying "BAD WOLF". Upon running inside the TARDIS, closely followed by Donna, he hears the Cloister Bell has started tolling.
The Doctor races outside to find every banner and sign, even the TARDIS doors, now saying "BAD WOLF". Upon running inside the TARDIS, closely followed by Donna, he hears the Cloister Bell has started tolling.
to:
The Doctor races outside to find every banner and sign, even the TARDIS doors, now saying "BAD WOLF". Upon running inside the TARDIS, closely followed by Donna, he hears the [[ForDoomTheBellTolls Cloister
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 36 (click to see context) from:
* AndStarring: Music/BilliePiper makes it into the opening credits like this.
to:
* AndStarring: Music/BilliePiper Creator/BilliePiper makes it into the opening credits like this.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
Moving to proper recap title.
Added DiffLines:
[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/turn_left_16x9ar_7062.jpg]]
->''"Turn right and never meet that man. Turn right, [[ForWantOfANail and change the world!]]"''
-->-- '''Fortune Teller'''
->''"Oh my God, Donna... {{the stars are going out}}.''
-->-- '''Wilfred Mott'''
The Doctor and Donna drop by the Chinese-inspired planet Shan Shen, a long way from Earth. The Doctor does some shopping while Donna lets herself be talked into a free fortune-telling session. But the fortune-teller is interested in Donna's ''past'', not her future... specifically, she wants to know how Donna came to meet the Doctor. Something creepy and crawly moves towards Donna and latches onto her back.
Remember [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]], when we first met Donna? She was marrying a guy she'd met at work. Flashback to Donna's first day at H.C. Clements. Her mum comes along, and harangues Donna about interviewing for a different job, a ''better'' job, with some guy she knows. All Donna has to do is turn right instead of left at a certain intersection, and she'll never have started at H.C. Clements, never have met Lance, never have been sucked aboard a TARDIS in flight, never -- and this is the crucial bit -- told the Doctor to stop when he was murdering a Racnoss nest. So, the Doctor drowned in the Thames and ''died'' that Christmas Eve, and Donna didn't much care, because she never knew who he was. To Donna, the only thing out of place seems to be the fascination her friends have with something on her back that they glimpse, and the young blonde woman who's suddenly turned up looking very distressed.
But Earth, as it turned out, would end up caring very much. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones When Royal Hope Hospital was transported to the moon]] the Plasmavore was stopped, but the hospital was trapped on the Moon until it was too late. All but one person in the hospital ''died'' -- including medical student Martha Jones -- and the Earth escaped destruction only because one [[Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures Sarah Jane Smith]], at the hospital with Luke, Maria and Clyde, was able to deactivate the DeathRay before dying.
Without the Doctor around to stop it, the starship ''Titanic'' [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned crashed into London the following Christmas]], destroying the entire city with its nuclear engine. Donna and her family are OK, because they left London for Christmas on the advice of a mysterious blonde woman.
Mysterious blonde woman -- dimension-hopping Rose Tyler -- keeps popping up in Donna's life as [[FromBadToWorse it continues to suck]]. Aid promised from the United States to the victims of the nuking of London is cancelled after [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime the Adipose kill millions of them]]. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem The Sontaran stratagem]] very nearly succeeds, as well; it is stopped only by the Series/{{Torchwood}} Three team, at the cost of their lives and leaving Jack stranded on the Sontaran home-world.
And Donna and her family are forcibly moved to Leeds, while the minorities are shipped off to "labour camps". One night, when Donna notices that TheStarsAreGoingOut, she finally decides to follow the mysterious blonde woman.
The woman, remaining nameless, explains who the Doctor was and that he was never supposed to die. She takes Donna to a UNIT operations base where they have hooked up the Doctor's TARDIS to their equipment which includes a circle of mirrors. The blonde woman and UNIT use the equipment to show Donna the presence of a large beetle riding her back, though they can't remove it. Instead she tells Donna that they are going to correct the timeline, but it requires sending Donna herself back to fix it. After realising this might wipe her from existence, Donna agrees to do so, and is told to stop herself from turning right on that fateful day.
The time jump leaves her half a mile away with only a few minutes to get to the intersection, which is impossible. Without any other options, Donna throws herself in front of an oncoming vehicle, fatally wounding her, but creating a traffic jam for which her earlier, impatient self is unwilling to wait, and makes the left turn. As the alternative Donna dies the blonde woman appears again to her, and before she blacks out tells her a two-word message to give to the Doctor...
Donna wakes up in the fortune teller's room, the Time Beetle having fallen off her back dead. The fortune teller scurries away as the Doctor arrives. Donna explains what she saw, and the Doctor explains that the Time Beetle is part of the Trickster's Brigade. Donna wasn't picked for any special reason: stealing timelines is just what the Trickster's Brigade does, and it usually has no major effect. Donna just happened to be a bit more involved in time-shattering events than the usual victim. The Doctor casually comments all the coincidences around Donna, when she suddenly recalls the blonde woman. The Doctor, instantly alert, asks Donna for more information, and Donna repeats her last words:
'''Bad Wolf'''
The Doctor races outside to find every banner and sign, even the TARDIS doors, now saying "BAD WOLF". Upon running inside the TARDIS, closely followed by Donna, he hears the Cloister Bell has started tolling.
----
!!Tropes:
* AdultFear: Great Britain devolves into a police state and things get increasingly bleak with economic depression. It turns out it was a parallel universe, a nightmare realm, and Donna manages to return history to its old, proper course. But still. It's made all the worse by the obvious Holocaust parallels at one point. The government sends foreigners away to "labour camps" as they're unable to simply deport them. Donna, while agitated, clearly doesn't grasp the situation in full. Her grandfather, Wilfred, lived through WWII and cries as he watches history repeat itself.
* AmericaSavesTheDay: Subverted. They were going to send aid money to help Britain, but the Adipose disaster was relocated to America and ended up killing 60 million Americans, so they focused on recovering from that instead.
* AndStarring: Music/BilliePiper makes it into the opening credits like this.
* AnyoneCanDie: Taken to ridiculous levels in the alternate dimension. An entire hospital killed with only one survivor, the entirety of London killed when the Titanic crashes and 60 million Americans killed and converted to Adipose. Among the ''confirmed'' dead are Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Gwen Cooper, and Ianto Jones. Jack cannot die, so he was taken to Sontar after the alternate path "The Poison Sky" took.
* ArcWords:
** The arc words from series 1, Bad Wolf, appear on every sign.
** And the bees disappearing.
** And we find out what exactly the "something on [Donna's] back" is.
* BadFuture: Without the Doctor there to stop several of the Season's events, the state of the Earth gets worse and worse.
* BerserkButton: Donna is so broken down by the alternate universe that when Rose tells her she's [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre brilliant]], she gets angry.
* BestOfAllPossibleWorlds: The alternate universe in this episode is very much a worse place. We have it created when Donna [[ForWantOfANail turns right]], which causes the Doctor to die at the Thames Barrier when he defeats the Racnoss, and several contemporary attacks on Earth to cause mass casualties, and/or wipes out several of the Doctor's allies (including Martha, whom he never met here). Naturally, Donna set her time-line back on its proper course at the end of the episode.
* BlackBox: Well, Blue -- the TARDIS.
* BorrowedCatchphrase: Rose borrows the Doctor's, "I'm sorry... ''so'' sorry..."
* BritainIsOnlyLondon: Averted, as the latter sections of the story take place in Leeds, in West Yorkshire OopNorth.
* ButterflyOfDoom: As the title indicates, all Donna does is turn right instead of left. This plunges the world into a dystopian hell.
* CallBack:
** Donna needs to kill herself to reset a timeline -- the same way Rose's dad went out. In both cases, it's suddenly running into traffic and being comforted by Rose in the end.
** Rose hates being saluted by UNIT, sharing a quirk with the Doctor.
* ContinuityNod:
** The Cloister Bell (the TARDIS' OhCrap signal, first heard in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E7Logopolis "Logopolis"]]) ringing at the end.
** The Trickster is a time-altering villain in ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures''.
** Metropolitan Magazine was indeed Sarah Jane's former employer in the classic period (as mentioned in her first story, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E1TheTimeWarrior "The Time Warrior"]]).
** Also, revisiting the events of [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones "Smith and Jones"]], [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned "Voyage of the Damned"]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime "Partners in Crime"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem "The Sontaran Strategem"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky "The Poison Sky"]]. And references to ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' and ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures''.
** The bug on Donna's back is confirmed to be a nod to the spider on Sarah Jane's back from the classic series episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E5PlanetOfTheSpiders "Planet of the Spiders"]]. The idea of it consuming the time she could have spent is straight from the Weeping Angels.
* ContrivedCoincidence: The one in "Partners in Crime" was {{Lampshaded}}.
* CosyCatastrophe: The middle part, at least -- before the Emergency Government starts "relocating" immigrants, almost certainly to their deaths, and the stars start going out.
* CrapsackWorld: Without the Doctor there to do his thing, the world gets worse and worse. Although at least we avoided the Master's reign of terror (though that was cosmic-retconned away anyway) as without the Doctor's intervention he presumably died at the end of time.
* DeaderThanDead: The Doctor is apparently too dead to regenerate. Though we're pretty sure that drowning in the Thames can't bring a Time Lord back. It's also implied that the Doctor was feeling so depressed and alone after of the events of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday the previous episode]] that he doesn't really care whether he lives or dies, which would explain why he is killed so easily and doesn't regenerate. Meeting Donna eased that loneliness and allowed him to reconnect with the world, which is why Donna was able to snap him back, so he wouldn't die with the Racnoss.
* {{Deconstruction}}:
** Rose basically stands in for the Doctor in this episode, including the dimensional comings and goings, name obfuscation, misplaced enthusiasm, {{technobabble}} and hints of an OmniscientMoralityLicense. But when you live in a CrapsackWorld like this one and you're not used to the Doctor's shenanigans, all these attributes would probably make the Doctor seem like a ''bit'' of an asshole... and Rose ''does'' come off as a bit of an asshole.
** Also deconstructs the idea that ''Series/DoctorWho''-level disasters could be common in an otherwise familiar human world, showing the level of human suffering, death, economic depression, and downright boredom that would result if the Doctor weren't there to stop every last one of them, resulting in the aforementioned CrapsackWorld.
* DistantReactionShot: The ''Titanic'' crashes into London, resulting in an enormous mushroom cloud visible from Donna's hotel.
* EverybodysDeadDave / KillEmAll: Doctor, Martha, [[Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures Sarah Jane, Maria, Clyde, Luke]], [[Series/{{Torchwood}} Gwen, Ianto]]. With Donna and Rose the main characters of the episode and Jack immortal and Owen and Tosh already dead, that's every character that's ever had billing in all three series. Since this all gets reversed by the end of the episode, it's also an example of the SecondLawOfMetafictionalThermodynamics.
* ExpospeakGag: "Keep the jacket on at all times, it's insulation against temporal feedback. ''This'' will correspond to local time wherever you land. ''This''... is to combat dehydration" (offers ordinary glass of water).
* ForWantOfANail: Donna turns right instead of left, and the whole world -- probably the whole universe -- changes.
* FromBadToWorse: Supreme example of this trope, in spades. As bad as the Doctor's universe can be, Donna's World is downright horrifying by comparison. Everything that could KickTheDog does in this episode. Worse still when you consider what the Doctor's would-be companions go through:
** Martha Jones never meets the Doctor, and sacrifices her life to save one man when the Royal Hope Hospital is stolen by the Judoon.
** Sarah Jane Smith never meets him again, but is able to resolve the situation at the hospital at the cost of her life, allowing the Judoon to return it to Earth.
** Without the Doctor's expertise (or Martha's UNIT connections), Torchwood is forced to deal with the Sontarans, ending with Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones igniting the atmosphere by blowing up the Sontaran mother-ship from within it.
** And of course, Donna Noble. In the year following her father's death she is fired from her job, narrowly dodges the nuclear explosion of London, is shoved into the kitchen of a home housing dozens of people with no money and no identity, only for the United Kingdom to start shipping immigrants to "labour camps" in a desperate attempt to save their own. Oh, and there's this time-travelling blonde stalking her...
** After series 6, one could even infer something even ''worse'' than the stars going out is going to happen. With the Doctor prematurely dead, Amy and Rory never became companions, thus negating the eventual birth of River Song. With the Doctor already dead and River never existing in the first place, his supposed "death" at Lake Silencio will never occur, thus a fixed point in time becomes irrevocably altered, causing the destruction of ''time itself''. Although it's a moot point, seeing as the Silence would have likely disbanded after the Doctor's death, thus rendering the fixed point of Lake Silencio non-existent.
* GilliganCut: Wilf says America is sending aid money, so everything will be fine soon. Cut to a news report saying that 60,000,000 Americans have been converted to Adipose.
* HeroicBSOD:
** Rose goes blank and silent when Donna says the Doctor has died.
--->'''Rose:''' I came so far...
** Also how the Doctor died in the first place -- after killing all the Racnoss and without Donna to snap him out of it, he left it too late to get away from the flood.
* HeroicSacrifice:
** Martha gave her oxygen tank to her colleague.
** Sarah Jane and co. died stopping the malfunctioning MRI.
** Gwen and Ianto died exploding the Sontaran ship.
** Donna jumped in front of a lorry to cause a pile-up so her past self will turn left and undo all the damage.
* HumansNeedAliens: Lampshaded when the world starts to decay and even reality itself ceases to exist without the Doctor's intervention.
* InSpiteOfANail: It doesn't matter whether Donna turns left because she's being stubborn or because there's a traffic pile-up, or that she has a mysterious dead doppelgänger.
* ItBeganWithATwistOfFate: It's revealed that the only reason Donna Noble ever got embroiled in the Doctor's life at all was because one day, she turned left, not right. Good thing she did, too; that same episode reveals that turning right led to the Doctor's death, the nuclear destruction of London, and the end of reality itself. Yikes.
* ItsAWonderfulPlot: And just to evoke this trope even more, the point of incident takes place before Christmas.
* KickTheDog: Donna's mother calling her a disappointment.
* LateArrivalSpoiler: When the Sontarans attack, Rose spoils the series 2 finale of ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' by only mentioning Ianto, Gwen and Jack.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: After the line about the stars going out, Donna [[AsideGlance looks straight at the camera]] and says, "I'm ready." Cut to Rose, right there.
* LimitedWardrobe: Donna asks why Rose is always wearing the same clothes; presumably Rose is doing all this time-hopping in the same day, like in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E4TheGirlInTheFireplace "The Girl in the Fireplace"]].
* TheManBehindTheMan: The fortune teller and the beetle are working for [[Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures the Trickster]].
* MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight
* MindScrew: Once you get over the disaster and the sadness and the temporal weirdness and try to work out what the hell just happened, it becomes this to some degree.
* MissingTheGoodStuff: Donna missed the crash of the ''Titanic'', bringing the total to [[RuleOfThree three London-based disasters she's somehow managed to miss]].
* MoodWhiplash: One minute, Donna and her family are singing along with their housemates, the first time they've been happy for a long time, the next they hear gunfire from outside.
* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The "England for the English" law, passed by the new emergency Government.
* OhCrap:
** The Doctor from the second Donna mentions that Rose was blonde. Then it gets worse not once, but twice.
** The Cloister Bell rings. It only ever rings when something ''really bad'' is going to happen.
** Even before Donna goes back in time, the conversation with Rose where Donna realises that dead is dead:
--->'''Rose:''' Good luck.\\
'''Donna:''' I'm ready.\\
'''Rose:''' One minute past ten.\\
'''Donna:''' 'Cos I understand now. You said I was gonna die, but... you mean this whole world. It's gonna blink out of existence. But that's not dying, 'cos a better world takes its place. The Doctor's world! And I'm still alive!\\
(''Rose doesn't answer'')\\
'''Donna:''' That's right. Isn't it? I don't die, if I change things, I don't die, that's... that's right, isn't it?\\
''Rose remains silent until...''\\
'''Rose:''' I'm sorry.
** The look on Donna's face (and her immediate reaction) mirrors just about every fan watching the episode.
* PlanetOfHats: Shan Shen is basically FriendlyLocalChinatown.
* ProphecyTwist: Donna will die... well, she did. In a way. Although the next episode suggests that wasn't it, and Donna is ''still'' a bad insurance risk.
* PuttingOnTheReich: The '''British government''' seems to do this, if Wilfred's comments when the Colasantos are taken away are to be believed:
-->'''Wilf:''' Labour camps. That's what they called them last time.\\
'''Donna:''' ...what d'you mean?\\
'''Wilf:''' It's happening again.\\
'''Donna:''' What is?\\
::Cut to the perpetually optimistic Mr Colasanto, who is hugging his wife and breaking down in tears as they are hauled away.[[note]]This is all Unfortunate TruthInTelevision as well: During the Second World War many Italian families were put to work in labour camps due to Italy being allies with Germany.[[/note]]
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The reason Donna doesn't have anything to make her cling to her life in this alternative universe is that Creator/RussellTDavies gave up on his original idea of her having children during the middle of this havoc, since she already had a good marriage and children in Creator/StevenMoffat's episode, which would air two weeks earlier. Also, the Doctor hints that there's something strange about the multiple alternative universes popping up around her because Russell and Steven were both using the same idea. It was worked into the plot after they exchanged e-mails about the episodes.
* ResetButton
* ShoutOut:
** Possibly an unintentional one, but the plot of the middle half of this episode -- a series of disasters at home and abroad leading to Britain becoming a fascist police state led by a totalitarian government who are forcing minorities into death camps -- is remarkably similar to the backstory of ''ComicBook/VForVendetta''.
** The whole JustBeforeTheEnd meets KitchenSinkDrama feel also hearkens back to ''Film/TheWarGame'' and Davies's own ''The Second Coming''
* TheStarsAreGoingOut: With no Doctor there to stop them, the Daleks [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd set off the Reality Bomb]]. Which is why Wilfred sees the stars going out.
* StepfordSmiler: Rocco, who puts on his usual cheer as his entire family is being set off to a "labor camp".
* TookALevelInJerkass: It's made extremely clear Donna's mellowing out was due to the Doctor -- she's just as stubborn and obnoxious as she was in the Christmas special.
* WhatIf
* WistfulAmnesia: Kinda-sorta. When Donna denies knowing anything about the Doctor, she's visibly crying.
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Rose and the Doctor tell Donna she's brilliant, even though she insists she isn't.
----
->''"Turn right and never meet that man. Turn right, [[ForWantOfANail and change the world!]]"''
-->-- '''Fortune Teller'''
->''"Oh my God, Donna... {{the stars are going out}}.''
-->-- '''Wilfred Mott'''
The Doctor and Donna drop by the Chinese-inspired planet Shan Shen, a long way from Earth. The Doctor does some shopping while Donna lets herself be talked into a free fortune-telling session. But the fortune-teller is interested in Donna's ''past'', not her future... specifically, she wants to know how Donna came to meet the Doctor. Something creepy and crawly moves towards Donna and latches onto her back.
Remember [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]], when we first met Donna? She was marrying a guy she'd met at work. Flashback to Donna's first day at H.C. Clements. Her mum comes along, and harangues Donna about interviewing for a different job, a ''better'' job, with some guy she knows. All Donna has to do is turn right instead of left at a certain intersection, and she'll never have started at H.C. Clements, never have met Lance, never have been sucked aboard a TARDIS in flight, never -- and this is the crucial bit -- told the Doctor to stop when he was murdering a Racnoss nest. So, the Doctor drowned in the Thames and ''died'' that Christmas Eve, and Donna didn't much care, because she never knew who he was. To Donna, the only thing out of place seems to be the fascination her friends have with something on her back that they glimpse, and the young blonde woman who's suddenly turned up looking very distressed.
But Earth, as it turned out, would end up caring very much. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones When Royal Hope Hospital was transported to the moon]] the Plasmavore was stopped, but the hospital was trapped on the Moon until it was too late. All but one person in the hospital ''died'' -- including medical student Martha Jones -- and the Earth escaped destruction only because one [[Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures Sarah Jane Smith]], at the hospital with Luke, Maria and Clyde, was able to deactivate the DeathRay before dying.
Without the Doctor around to stop it, the starship ''Titanic'' [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned crashed into London the following Christmas]], destroying the entire city with its nuclear engine. Donna and her family are OK, because they left London for Christmas on the advice of a mysterious blonde woman.
Mysterious blonde woman -- dimension-hopping Rose Tyler -- keeps popping up in Donna's life as [[FromBadToWorse it continues to suck]]. Aid promised from the United States to the victims of the nuking of London is cancelled after [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime the Adipose kill millions of them]]. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem The Sontaran stratagem]] very nearly succeeds, as well; it is stopped only by the Series/{{Torchwood}} Three team, at the cost of their lives and leaving Jack stranded on the Sontaran home-world.
And Donna and her family are forcibly moved to Leeds, while the minorities are shipped off to "labour camps". One night, when Donna notices that TheStarsAreGoingOut, she finally decides to follow the mysterious blonde woman.
The woman, remaining nameless, explains who the Doctor was and that he was never supposed to die. She takes Donna to a UNIT operations base where they have hooked up the Doctor's TARDIS to their equipment which includes a circle of mirrors. The blonde woman and UNIT use the equipment to show Donna the presence of a large beetle riding her back, though they can't remove it. Instead she tells Donna that they are going to correct the timeline, but it requires sending Donna herself back to fix it. After realising this might wipe her from existence, Donna agrees to do so, and is told to stop herself from turning right on that fateful day.
The time jump leaves her half a mile away with only a few minutes to get to the intersection, which is impossible. Without any other options, Donna throws herself in front of an oncoming vehicle, fatally wounding her, but creating a traffic jam for which her earlier, impatient self is unwilling to wait, and makes the left turn. As the alternative Donna dies the blonde woman appears again to her, and before she blacks out tells her a two-word message to give to the Doctor...
Donna wakes up in the fortune teller's room, the Time Beetle having fallen off her back dead. The fortune teller scurries away as the Doctor arrives. Donna explains what she saw, and the Doctor explains that the Time Beetle is part of the Trickster's Brigade. Donna wasn't picked for any special reason: stealing timelines is just what the Trickster's Brigade does, and it usually has no major effect. Donna just happened to be a bit more involved in time-shattering events than the usual victim. The Doctor casually comments all the coincidences around Donna, when she suddenly recalls the blonde woman. The Doctor, instantly alert, asks Donna for more information, and Donna repeats her last words:
'''Bad Wolf'''
The Doctor races outside to find every banner and sign, even the TARDIS doors, now saying "BAD WOLF". Upon running inside the TARDIS, closely followed by Donna, he hears the Cloister Bell has started tolling.
----
!!Tropes:
* AdultFear: Great Britain devolves into a police state and things get increasingly bleak with economic depression. It turns out it was a parallel universe, a nightmare realm, and Donna manages to return history to its old, proper course. But still. It's made all the worse by the obvious Holocaust parallels at one point. The government sends foreigners away to "labour camps" as they're unable to simply deport them. Donna, while agitated, clearly doesn't grasp the situation in full. Her grandfather, Wilfred, lived through WWII and cries as he watches history repeat itself.
* AmericaSavesTheDay: Subverted. They were going to send aid money to help Britain, but the Adipose disaster was relocated to America and ended up killing 60 million Americans, so they focused on recovering from that instead.
* AndStarring: Music/BilliePiper makes it into the opening credits like this.
* AnyoneCanDie: Taken to ridiculous levels in the alternate dimension. An entire hospital killed with only one survivor, the entirety of London killed when the Titanic crashes and 60 million Americans killed and converted to Adipose. Among the ''confirmed'' dead are Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Gwen Cooper, and Ianto Jones. Jack cannot die, so he was taken to Sontar after the alternate path "The Poison Sky" took.
* ArcWords:
** The arc words from series 1, Bad Wolf, appear on every sign.
** And the bees disappearing.
** And we find out what exactly the "something on [Donna's] back" is.
* BadFuture: Without the Doctor there to stop several of the Season's events, the state of the Earth gets worse and worse.
* BerserkButton: Donna is so broken down by the alternate universe that when Rose tells her she's [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre brilliant]], she gets angry.
* BestOfAllPossibleWorlds: The alternate universe in this episode is very much a worse place. We have it created when Donna [[ForWantOfANail turns right]], which causes the Doctor to die at the Thames Barrier when he defeats the Racnoss, and several contemporary attacks on Earth to cause mass casualties, and/or wipes out several of the Doctor's allies (including Martha, whom he never met here). Naturally, Donna set her time-line back on its proper course at the end of the episode.
* BlackBox: Well, Blue -- the TARDIS.
* BorrowedCatchphrase: Rose borrows the Doctor's, "I'm sorry... ''so'' sorry..."
* BritainIsOnlyLondon: Averted, as the latter sections of the story take place in Leeds, in West Yorkshire OopNorth.
* ButterflyOfDoom: As the title indicates, all Donna does is turn right instead of left. This plunges the world into a dystopian hell.
* CallBack:
** Donna needs to kill herself to reset a timeline -- the same way Rose's dad went out. In both cases, it's suddenly running into traffic and being comforted by Rose in the end.
** Rose hates being saluted by UNIT, sharing a quirk with the Doctor.
* ContinuityNod:
** The Cloister Bell (the TARDIS' OhCrap signal, first heard in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E7Logopolis "Logopolis"]]) ringing at the end.
** The Trickster is a time-altering villain in ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures''.
** Metropolitan Magazine was indeed Sarah Jane's former employer in the classic period (as mentioned in her first story, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E1TheTimeWarrior "The Time Warrior"]]).
** Also, revisiting the events of [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones "Smith and Jones"]], [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned "Voyage of the Damned"]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime "Partners in Crime"]] and [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E4TheSontaranStratagem "The Sontaran Strategem"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky "The Poison Sky"]]. And references to ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' and ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures''.
** The bug on Donna's back is confirmed to be a nod to the spider on Sarah Jane's back from the classic series episode [[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E5PlanetOfTheSpiders "Planet of the Spiders"]]. The idea of it consuming the time she could have spent is straight from the Weeping Angels.
* ContrivedCoincidence: The one in "Partners in Crime" was {{Lampshaded}}.
* CosyCatastrophe: The middle part, at least -- before the Emergency Government starts "relocating" immigrants, almost certainly to their deaths, and the stars start going out.
* CrapsackWorld: Without the Doctor there to do his thing, the world gets worse and worse. Although at least we avoided the Master's reign of terror (though that was cosmic-retconned away anyway) as without the Doctor's intervention he presumably died at the end of time.
* DeaderThanDead: The Doctor is apparently too dead to regenerate. Though we're pretty sure that drowning in the Thames can't bring a Time Lord back. It's also implied that the Doctor was feeling so depressed and alone after of the events of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E13Doomsday the previous episode]] that he doesn't really care whether he lives or dies, which would explain why he is killed so easily and doesn't regenerate. Meeting Donna eased that loneliness and allowed him to reconnect with the world, which is why Donna was able to snap him back, so he wouldn't die with the Racnoss.
* {{Deconstruction}}:
** Rose basically stands in for the Doctor in this episode, including the dimensional comings and goings, name obfuscation, misplaced enthusiasm, {{technobabble}} and hints of an OmniscientMoralityLicense. But when you live in a CrapsackWorld like this one and you're not used to the Doctor's shenanigans, all these attributes would probably make the Doctor seem like a ''bit'' of an asshole... and Rose ''does'' come off as a bit of an asshole.
** Also deconstructs the idea that ''Series/DoctorWho''-level disasters could be common in an otherwise familiar human world, showing the level of human suffering, death, economic depression, and downright boredom that would result if the Doctor weren't there to stop every last one of them, resulting in the aforementioned CrapsackWorld.
* DistantReactionShot: The ''Titanic'' crashes into London, resulting in an enormous mushroom cloud visible from Donna's hotel.
* EverybodysDeadDave / KillEmAll: Doctor, Martha, [[Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures Sarah Jane, Maria, Clyde, Luke]], [[Series/{{Torchwood}} Gwen, Ianto]]. With Donna and Rose the main characters of the episode and Jack immortal and Owen and Tosh already dead, that's every character that's ever had billing in all three series. Since this all gets reversed by the end of the episode, it's also an example of the SecondLawOfMetafictionalThermodynamics.
* ExpospeakGag: "Keep the jacket on at all times, it's insulation against temporal feedback. ''This'' will correspond to local time wherever you land. ''This''... is to combat dehydration" (offers ordinary glass of water).
* ForWantOfANail: Donna turns right instead of left, and the whole world -- probably the whole universe -- changes.
* FromBadToWorse: Supreme example of this trope, in spades. As bad as the Doctor's universe can be, Donna's World is downright horrifying by comparison. Everything that could KickTheDog does in this episode. Worse still when you consider what the Doctor's would-be companions go through:
** Martha Jones never meets the Doctor, and sacrifices her life to save one man when the Royal Hope Hospital is stolen by the Judoon.
** Sarah Jane Smith never meets him again, but is able to resolve the situation at the hospital at the cost of her life, allowing the Judoon to return it to Earth.
** Without the Doctor's expertise (or Martha's UNIT connections), Torchwood is forced to deal with the Sontarans, ending with Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones igniting the atmosphere by blowing up the Sontaran mother-ship from within it.
** And of course, Donna Noble. In the year following her father's death she is fired from her job, narrowly dodges the nuclear explosion of London, is shoved into the kitchen of a home housing dozens of people with no money and no identity, only for the United Kingdom to start shipping immigrants to "labour camps" in a desperate attempt to save their own. Oh, and there's this time-travelling blonde stalking her...
** After series 6, one could even infer something even ''worse'' than the stars going out is going to happen. With the Doctor prematurely dead, Amy and Rory never became companions, thus negating the eventual birth of River Song. With the Doctor already dead and River never existing in the first place, his supposed "death" at Lake Silencio will never occur, thus a fixed point in time becomes irrevocably altered, causing the destruction of ''time itself''. Although it's a moot point, seeing as the Silence would have likely disbanded after the Doctor's death, thus rendering the fixed point of Lake Silencio non-existent.
* GilliganCut: Wilf says America is sending aid money, so everything will be fine soon. Cut to a news report saying that 60,000,000 Americans have been converted to Adipose.
* HeroicBSOD:
** Rose goes blank and silent when Donna says the Doctor has died.
--->'''Rose:''' I came so far...
** Also how the Doctor died in the first place -- after killing all the Racnoss and without Donna to snap him out of it, he left it too late to get away from the flood.
* HeroicSacrifice:
** Martha gave her oxygen tank to her colleague.
** Sarah Jane and co. died stopping the malfunctioning MRI.
** Gwen and Ianto died exploding the Sontaran ship.
** Donna jumped in front of a lorry to cause a pile-up so her past self will turn left and undo all the damage.
* HumansNeedAliens: Lampshaded when the world starts to decay and even reality itself ceases to exist without the Doctor's intervention.
* InSpiteOfANail: It doesn't matter whether Donna turns left because she's being stubborn or because there's a traffic pile-up, or that she has a mysterious dead doppelgänger.
* ItBeganWithATwistOfFate: It's revealed that the only reason Donna Noble ever got embroiled in the Doctor's life at all was because one day, she turned left, not right. Good thing she did, too; that same episode reveals that turning right led to the Doctor's death, the nuclear destruction of London, and the end of reality itself. Yikes.
* ItsAWonderfulPlot: And just to evoke this trope even more, the point of incident takes place before Christmas.
* KickTheDog: Donna's mother calling her a disappointment.
* LateArrivalSpoiler: When the Sontarans attack, Rose spoils the series 2 finale of ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' by only mentioning Ianto, Gwen and Jack.
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: After the line about the stars going out, Donna [[AsideGlance looks straight at the camera]] and says, "I'm ready." Cut to Rose, right there.
* LimitedWardrobe: Donna asks why Rose is always wearing the same clothes; presumably Rose is doing all this time-hopping in the same day, like in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E4TheGirlInTheFireplace "The Girl in the Fireplace"]].
* TheManBehindTheMan: The fortune teller and the beetle are working for [[Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures the Trickster]].
* MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight
* MindScrew: Once you get over the disaster and the sadness and the temporal weirdness and try to work out what the hell just happened, it becomes this to some degree.
* MissingTheGoodStuff: Donna missed the crash of the ''Titanic'', bringing the total to [[RuleOfThree three London-based disasters she's somehow managed to miss]].
* MoodWhiplash: One minute, Donna and her family are singing along with their housemates, the first time they've been happy for a long time, the next they hear gunfire from outside.
* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The "England for the English" law, passed by the new emergency Government.
* OhCrap:
** The Doctor from the second Donna mentions that Rose was blonde. Then it gets worse not once, but twice.
** The Cloister Bell rings. It only ever rings when something ''really bad'' is going to happen.
** Even before Donna goes back in time, the conversation with Rose where Donna realises that dead is dead:
--->'''Rose:''' Good luck.\\
'''Donna:''' I'm ready.\\
'''Rose:''' One minute past ten.\\
'''Donna:''' 'Cos I understand now. You said I was gonna die, but... you mean this whole world. It's gonna blink out of existence. But that's not dying, 'cos a better world takes its place. The Doctor's world! And I'm still alive!\\
(''Rose doesn't answer'')\\
'''Donna:''' That's right. Isn't it? I don't die, if I change things, I don't die, that's... that's right, isn't it?\\
''Rose remains silent until...''\\
'''Rose:''' I'm sorry.
** The look on Donna's face (and her immediate reaction) mirrors just about every fan watching the episode.
* PlanetOfHats: Shan Shen is basically FriendlyLocalChinatown.
* ProphecyTwist: Donna will die... well, she did. In a way. Although the next episode suggests that wasn't it, and Donna is ''still'' a bad insurance risk.
* PuttingOnTheReich: The '''British government''' seems to do this, if Wilfred's comments when the Colasantos are taken away are to be believed:
-->'''Wilf:''' Labour camps. That's what they called them last time.\\
'''Donna:''' ...what d'you mean?\\
'''Wilf:''' It's happening again.\\
'''Donna:''' What is?\\
::Cut to the perpetually optimistic Mr Colasanto, who is hugging his wife and breaking down in tears as they are hauled away.[[note]]This is all Unfortunate TruthInTelevision as well: During the Second World War many Italian families were put to work in labour camps due to Italy being allies with Germany.[[/note]]
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The reason Donna doesn't have anything to make her cling to her life in this alternative universe is that Creator/RussellTDavies gave up on his original idea of her having children during the middle of this havoc, since she already had a good marriage and children in Creator/StevenMoffat's episode, which would air two weeks earlier. Also, the Doctor hints that there's something strange about the multiple alternative universes popping up around her because Russell and Steven were both using the same idea. It was worked into the plot after they exchanged e-mails about the episodes.
* ResetButton
* ShoutOut:
** Possibly an unintentional one, but the plot of the middle half of this episode -- a series of disasters at home and abroad leading to Britain becoming a fascist police state led by a totalitarian government who are forcing minorities into death camps -- is remarkably similar to the backstory of ''ComicBook/VForVendetta''.
** The whole JustBeforeTheEnd meets KitchenSinkDrama feel also hearkens back to ''Film/TheWarGame'' and Davies's own ''The Second Coming''
* TheStarsAreGoingOut: With no Doctor there to stop them, the Daleks [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd set off the Reality Bomb]]. Which is why Wilfred sees the stars going out.
* StepfordSmiler: Rocco, who puts on his usual cheer as his entire family is being set off to a "labor camp".
* TookALevelInJerkass: It's made extremely clear Donna's mellowing out was due to the Doctor -- she's just as stubborn and obnoxious as she was in the Christmas special.
* WhatIf
* WistfulAmnesia: Kinda-sorta. When Donna denies knowing anything about the Doctor, she's visibly crying.
* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Rose and the Doctor tell Donna she's brilliant, even though she insists she isn't.
----
