History Recap / DoctorWhoS37E9ItTakesYouAway

[[caption-width-right:350:[[IncrediblyLamePun Who's]] Feeling Froggy?]]

* BrandishmentBluff: When Ribbons puts a knife to Graham's throat, the Doctor gets him to back off by pointing her sonic screwdriver at him. This is probably why Ribbons took the risk of trying to grab it later, to defend against the flesh moths.

* AlternateUniverse: The Solitract, a parallel universe that has been separated from the main universe and become the subject of Time Lord bedtime stories.

* ForgotAboutHerPowers: When the Solitract asks the Doctor to describe the universe to it, she says there isn't enough time. The Doctor is ''psychic'' and should have been able to transmit her thoughts and memories to the Solitract without words (although the fact that she's interacting with a sentient ''universe'', rather than another person, may have something to do with this).

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E7TheRingsOfAkhaten "The Rings of Ahkaten"]], the climax had the Eleventh Doctor offer his memories to the parasite planet in hopes of appeasing it since no one else around has as many memories as he does. Here, the Thirteenth Doctor offers to stay with the Solitract because just having her, with all of her experiences, around will give it much more to work with than Erik would (which helps Erik realize his "wife" is an illusion). In both cases, the Doctor's solution doesn't work out, but there's an alternative — the Eleventh Doctor's memories can't compare to the ''infinite'' memories-that-never-were that Clara's leaf offers the parasite, and Thirteen can't stay with the Solitract after all because both universes will collapse, but she can promise to remember it as a friend and vice versa, which it accepts as enough.
** Pointed out by the AV Club review: As in [[Recap/DoctorWho2014CSLastChristmas "Last Christmas"]], a companion of the Doctor is tempted to stay in a false reality in which a deceased loved one is still alive. The main difference is that the Solitract doesn't intend to harm Graham, whereas the Dream Crab was slowly killing Clara Oswald.

** Two to [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E3Rosa "Rosa"]]:

* BadLiar: Hanne quickly suspects the Doctor didn't scrawl a map on her wall when Ryan fumbles through an answer to a question about where the house is most vulnerable, which is supposedly what the map is for.

As everyone looks around outside, loud roars are heard, which Hanne explains is the creature coming, as it hunts at this time every day. Searching the shed, Ryan and Yaz find bear traps, but the loud roars of the creature prompt everyone back to the cabin in a rush. Graham, sent upstairs to look out the window for signs of the creature, is distracted when he discovers the mirror at the other end of the room, Hanne's father's bedroom, isn't reflecting him. Ryan and the Doctor come up to see it too, and the Doctor, after taking a peek, deduces that the mirror is a portal of some kind. Hanne wants to come through to look for her father, Erik, but the Doctor won't let her, telling her to stay with Ryan while she, Graham, and Yaz investigate. Hanne isn't happy, disliking Ryan for his automatic assumption that her father ran off instead of having been abducted. The Doctor writes a message to Ryan on the wall, suggesting that he assume Erik is dead, but says aloud that it's a map of the house's vulnerable points. On the other side of the portal, the Doctor and company discover a dark, maze-like space, which the Doctor deduces is an antizone, a space between the two halves of the portal, created only at points where time and space is in serious danger.

** The Doctor says that her [[BizarreAlienReproduction fifth grandmother (of seven)]] thought that her second grandmother was a Z.
* CosmicFlaw: The Solitract and the universe cannot coexist; when the Universe was forming it ejected the Solitract from itself so it could finish doing that and the Solitract has to be convinced to be alone again because the presence of matter from the universe is destabilizing it. The Antizone exists solely as a buffer because the two cannot be in any kind of direct contact.

** The Doctor says that her [[BizarreAlienReproduction fifth grandmother (of seven)]] thought that her second grandmother was a Zygon spy.

* FreezeFrameBonus: In the Solitract universe, the Doctor's appearance is noticeably mirror-reversed, with her earrings and hair-part on the opposite side to the usual. It's even easier to spot with Erik's Music/{{Slayer}} shirt; the logo of the iconic ThrashMetal band is displayed in reverse when they find him.

* ForgotAboutHerPowers: When the Solitract asks the Doctor to describe the universe to it, she says there isn't enough time. The Doctor is ''psychic'' and should have been able to transmit her thoughts and memories to the Solitract without words (although the fact that she's interacting with a sentient ''universe,'' rather than another person, may have something to do with this).

* YouNoTakeCandle: Most of Ribbons's speech sounds like this, though he does have a few eloquent moments.

* ForgotAboutHerPowers: When the Solitract asks the Doctor to describe the universe to it, she says there isn't enough time. The Doctor is ''psychic'' and should have been able to transmit her thoughts and memories to the Solitract without words.

** To "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E5WarriorsGate Warriors' Gate]]", which also contains mirror portals in a collapsing labyrinthine VoidBetweenTheWorlds, though in this case the WhiteVoidRoom is on the other side of one of the portals, rather than the void itself.

-->'''Yaz:''' So why did you make the bear traps?
-->'''Erik:''' Because there are bears?

* YouNoTakeCandle: Most of Ribbons' speech sounds like this, though he does have a few eloquent moments.

* ForgotAboutHerPowers: When the Solitract asks the Doctor to describe the universe to it, she says there isn't enough time. The Doctor is ''psychic'' and should have been able to transmit her thoughts and memories to the Solitract without words.

* WhiteVoidRoom: When the Doctor is left the only visitor in the Solitract's universe, it drops the fake Norway for an appearance like this, leaving only a few beams mirroring those of the upstairs of the cottage, and a chair with the Solitract, in the form of a frog, sitting on it.

* DisabledCharacterDisabledActor: Hanne's actress, Ellie Wallwork, has been blind since birth.

* FreezeFrameBonus: In the Solitract universe, the Doctor's appearance is noticeably mirror-reversed, with her earrings and hair-part on the opposite side to the usual. It's even easier to spot with Erik's ''Slayer'' shirt; the logo of the iconic thrash-metal band is displayed in reverse when they find him.

When everyone is back in the normal reality, Erik and Hanne decide to return to Oslo instead of their lonely cabin. The Doctor and her friends head back to the TARDIS, to travel on and Ryan, for the first time, calls Graham "Granddad".

Talking the situation out with Yaz, the Doctor realizes that the reality they are in is a Solitract, a sentient universe that was exiled from the main universe because the universe couldn't hold together otherwise. She also realizes that the whole situation is a trap and that they have to get Graham and Erik out of there. Graham, talking with Grace, is initially skeptical that she's really her, but starts to believe otherwise after a long enough talk. However, the Doctor arrives and insists they have to leave. Ryan, after coming to, eventually catches up to Hanne in the antizone, and they head to the other side of the portal. However, they attract the attention of the flesh-moths. Hanne makes it through, but Ryan is left behind to hide. In the Solitract, Hanne realizes that the version of Trine isn't her mother and Graham realizes that Grace isn't really Grace, as she doesn't care about Ryan's safety. Eventually, the Doctor persuades the Solitract to send everyone out except her, and the humans flee back to the normal universe. The Solitract, taking the form of a frog with Grace's voice, talks to the Doctor in a WhiteVoidRoom. However, the reality is still collapsing because of the Doctor's presence, and the Doctor persuades the Solitract to send her back as well by explaining that friends try to help each other.