History Recap / DoctorWho60thASWildBlueYonder

-->''[[IronicEcho "Your arms are too long."]]''

[[Creator/{{BERNARD CRIBBINS}}]]\\

In one room, the Doctor removes his tie, letting it clatter to the ground -- the Not-Things may view clothes the same way they do skin, after all. After a bit of back-and-forth, both determine that [[SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay they need to provide knowledge that the Not-Things don't have access to,]] which is easier said than done. In another room, Donna asks where the Doctor's from, and the Doctor, naturally, responds "Gallifrey". [[WhamLine Except Donna knows that's not the truth.]] It turns out, when the Metacrisis reactivated, Donna gained all of the Doctor's memories and experiences from her departure, including [[ContinuityNod the events of the Flux and the history of the Timeless Child]]. The Doctor spills his guilt and goes in for a hug... and Not-Donna's form falls apart. The Doctor, heartbroken, runs off. Meanwhile, Donna goes on [[OverlyLongGag an extended monologue about the specifics of her birth]], noting that she's "definitely the ''real'' Donna", before observing that the "Doctor's" tie has gone -- ''completely'' gone, like it's stopped existing. Which it has. The Not-Doctor performs an act of extreme contortionism, spitefully asking why the Doctor would even consider travelling with someone as stupid as Donna, before crawling after her, [[Film/TheExorcist Exorcist]]-style. The Doctor then takes a moment for him to '''''finally''''' take in the pain and losses he obtained from his more softer previous incarnation (such as the fact that his own "species" were wiped out by the Master, the fact that said species abused him for years as a child, the Doctor himself not being an actual Gallifreyan to begin with, and finally, failing to stop the Flux from happening, resulting in half of the universe being nuked), as he painfully screams and throws an aggressive fit.

Both the real and fake Doctor and Donnas meet up in the same room, leaving them to figure out who's who. One of the Doctors sets off on a MotorMouth tangent, and Donna exasperatedly notes that she ''must'' be the real one, since she's so stupid she can't keep up. One of the Doctors notes she's called herself stupid, and both determine how very Donna that is. "Except," the Doctor says, "Donna does not think she's stupid." Or, rather, she ''does'', but [[{{Doublethink}} it's entirely possible for person to see themselves as stupid one moment, and the next believe equally strongly they're brilliant. People do it all the time.]] The Doctor and Donna hug and hold off the Not-Things by leaving a line of salt between them -- demons and monsters can't cross a line of salt without counting every grain. Yes, it's a superstition, the Doctor notes, but it's ''also'' true. After a tense moment, Not-Donna begins counting the salt. The Doctor, naturally, has questions -- the first being, if they came from nothing, as they claimed, why are they so ''mean?'' The Not-Doctor explains that they were drawn towards and moulded by the strong hatred, anger, and war emanating from the "normal" universe. With that knowledge, they plan to return to the universe and wage war -- one that they will "win". Donna protests that there's more to the universe than hate and war, but the Not-Donna simply responds that "love letters don't travel very far." "And neither," she adds. "Do your lies". She blows the line of salt away and the Not-Things [[MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily (now equipped with razor-sharp fangs)]] advance towards the Doctor and Donna.

As the Not-Things run to stop it, the Doctor changes the countdown to speed up, before the two set off after the imposters. Donna becomes embroiled in a fight with the Not-Donna, but the Doctor nearly catches up to his copy. Abandoning his attempts to copy the Doctor's form, the Not-Doctor drops to all fours, quickly outpacing him. Exhausted, the Doctor realises that, provided the Not-Doctor doesn't reach the robot, the danger would end the moment the countdown did. And a sentient TimeMachine would know that. Cue the TARDIS, quite literally like an angel descending from heaven, as it rematerializes. Jumping on board, the Doctor navigates it towards the two Donnas a-la [[Film/BackToTheFuturePartII Marty McFly]], and begins asks them two questions: "Who is Miss Bean?" and "Why is Miss Bean funny?" One Donna attempts to intellectualize it. The other responds that "It just is". The Doctor takes the latter aboard and takes off.

To be concluded in [[Recap/DoctorWho60thASTheGiggle "The Giggle"]].

--> '''Not-Donna:''' Two in total, or two on each leg?

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Either no one on the episode's production team seemed to know that the word "gravity" was already well known to Isaac Newton (predating him by thousands of years, as it was derived from the Latin word "gravitas", which means "weight") or the RuleOfFunny in regards to "Mavity" overruled it.

** The Not-Doctor removes his tie as a means of confirming his identity to Donna, but even though this is an idea borrowed from the Doctor's playbook (a trick used by the same incarnation of the Doctor that Fourteen is channelling, no less), he forgets to keep the tie extant. The Tenth Doctor [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones removed his tie in front of Martha Jones]] before they properly met to convince her ahead of time that he could go back into the past and sidestep the present.
** The Doctor encourages Donna "don't think", [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink two letters away from the advice this face gave Sally Sparrow]].
** Donna says that trying to decipher her and the Doctor's shared memories is like "looking into a furnace", keeping the motif of the Doctor being "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E9TheFamilyOfBlood like fire]]".
** Once again, the Doctor notices that someone isn't who they appear to be because they are ever so slightly the wrong size, as when he points out to the Master that one of his guards is one inch too tall in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]].
** The Doctor again ends up [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E10Midnight isolated on a craft invaded by eldritch creatures that copy and assimilate other beings]]. Thankfully, Donna came with him this time.

** The Doctor and Donna are stranded on the ship thanks to the [[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E4TheKrotons Hostile]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E8ColdWar Action]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E1TheMagiciansApprentice Displacement]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E2TheWitchsFamiliar System's]] reactivation. Thankfully, the TARDIS comes back on her own this time.
** When talking to the Not-Donna, the Doctor reveals to her that he's not from Gallifrey, something which he's dubbed "complicated" and has [[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E6FluxChapterSixTheVanquishers decided not to think about it for the time being]].
** The TARDIS has taken the Doctor and Donna, quite literally, to the edge of the universe-- which is only possible [[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E6FluxChapterSixTheVanquishers thanks to the Flux destroying a good chunk of it.]] [[ItsAllMyFault The Doctor]] [[MyGreatestFailure naturally blames himself]].
** Donna references the Doctor's ability to control his TARDIS via snapping his fingers, an ability he developed during [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E9ForestOfTheDead an episode]] within Donna's original tenure as companion.

--> '''The Doctor:''' I know 57000000205... but not this one.

* ExtremelyShortTimespan: In the time that the Doctor and Donna have been away ("a day or two out"), a HatePlague has somehow managed to take over the entire world. Granted, it's not surprising that the plague worked so quickly, given [[PhysicalGod who's]] revealed to be behind it in the next episode.

** Donna is able to [[SpotTheThread unmask the Not-Doctor]] because his tie vanished after he dropped it due to not realizing it would continue existing when separated from him.

* HumanoidAbomination: A deconstruction. The Not-Things are alien beings from beyond our universe... which means they have basically no understanding of it and a severely limited ability to act within it ("Oh, I see! When something is gone, it keeps existing"). The threat comes not from their eldritch nature, but from the risk of them ''shedding'' their eldritch nature and becoming a normal part of the world.
* HumansAreBastards: The reason why the Not-Things turned out so misanthropic-- echoes of our faraway universe influenced the Not-Things to emulate the worst aspects of humanity.
--> '''Donna:''' We are more than that!\\

* InSpiteOfANail: Had the Doctor and Donna not crashed on the ship, it still would have exploded-- it would've just happened [[ArcWords slower]].

* IsntItIronic: Discussed-- the contrast between the use of the bright, cheery melody of "Wild Blue Yonder" in Donna's school and its origin as a war song is brought up several times, and even manages to be a minor plot point.

** In-universe: The "Wild Blue Yonder" song becomes one for the [=TARDIS=], playing at the moment it crashes into the ship, and at the end when it reappears.

** The music at the episode's cliffhanger (which also doubles as the theme for [[spoiler:the Toymaker]]), when people start fighting each other in the street, is very reminiscent of Murray Gold's soundtrack for ''Series/YearsAndYears'', a show which featured similar depictions of a collapsing society descending into violence.

* MinimalistCast: Aside from Sir Isaac Newton and his maid in the ColdOpen and Wilf's appearance at the end of the episode, David Tennant and Catherine Tate are the only actors who appear.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: At the end, the Doctor speculates that invoking a superstition at the very edge of reality might allow something to get in. He then shrugs it off, but later learns that, by playing a game beyond the end of the universe, he created an opening for [[PhysicalGod the Toymaker]] to manifest in the physical world.

* SaltSolution: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]]. The Doctor stalls the Not-Things by briefly convincing them that the superstition that malevolent beings cannot cross a line of salt without first counting every grain (also invoking a [[OurVampiresAreDifferent common vampire weakness]]) is true at [[EldritchLocation the edge of the universe]].

** According to Donna, her husband Shaun has apparently complained about the science of the ''[[Film/Venom2018 Venom]]'' [[Film/VenomLetThereBeCarnage films]], questioning about where Eddie and the symbiote get the extra mass to transform.

** At one point, the camera pays attention to the Doctor's feet as he skates the hovering TARDIS along the ground, a-la [[Film/BackToTheFuturePartII Marty McFly on a hoverboard.]]

* TranslatorMicrobes: Subverted-- without the TARDIS, the Doctor and Donna don't have them, so the ship's language is untranslated. This means that what the intermittent announcements are actually saying is unclear, providing the first mystery of the episode.
* {{Troll}}: The Doctor briefly pretends that the substance he licked briefly incapacitates him, only to bounce back and laugh. The Not-Donna is a much more malicious version of this, preying on the Doctor's insecurities surrounding his history as the Timeless Child and his failure to stop the Flux.

[[Creator/BernardCribbins BERNARD CRIBBINS]]\\

** Shawn has apparently questioned the science of the ''[[Film/Venom2018 Venom]]'' [[Film/VenomLetThereBeCarnage films]], wondering where Eddie and the symbiote get the extra mass to transform.

[[Recap/DoctorWho2023CiNSDoctorWhoChildrenInNeed 2023]] ''[[Recap/DoctorWho2023CiNSDoctorWhoChildrenInNeed Children in Need]]'' [[Recap/DoctorWho2023CiNSDoctorWhoChildrenInNeed Special]]\\
'''60th Anniversary Specials''': "[[Recap/DoctorWho60thASTheStarBeast The Star Beast]]" | "'''Wild Blue Yonder'''" | "[[Recap/DoctorWho60thASTheGiggle The Giggle]]"]]-]]]
'''2023 Specials, Episode 2:'''

'''Air date:''' 2 December, 2023

* BeyondTheImpossible: The TARDIS, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E11Utopia once again]], brings the Doctor and a companion to a place and/or time it isn't supposed to go. Previously, it was [[AfterTheEnd trillions of years into the future]], after all the stars have burnt out. This time, it's beyond the edge of the universe; so far out, light hasn't gotten out there yet.

'''Donna Noble:''' Then we go... [[LetsGetDangerous and ''kick its arse!'']]

--> '''Not-Donna:''' "Two in total, or two on each leg?"

--> '''The Doctor:''' "I know 57000000205... but not this one."

--> '''Donna:''' "We are more than that!"\\
'''Not-Donna:''' "Love letters don't travel very far."

** The Not-Doctor complains that the arms are the hardest for them to replicate perfectly. Despite having practically perfected copying her counterpart, the Not-Donna is exposed by the TARDIS scanner because her wrist was less than a millimeter shorter than its supposed to be.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Early on, the Doctor briefly posits that the untranslated speech coming through the loudspeakers could be a countdown.

* TheReveal: The cause of the intermittent banging noise is the body of the ship's captain, who sacrificed herself to trap the Not-Things on the ship long enough to kill them, occasional colliding with the windows of the ship.

** The music at the episode's cliffhanger, when people start fighting each other in the street, is very reminiscent of Murray Gold's soundtrack for ''Series/YearsAndYears'', a show which featured similar depictions of a collapsing society descending into violence.

To be concluded in [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/DoctorWho60thASTheGiggle "The Giggle"]].

One small snag: he's left the real Donna behind. The countdown reaches its end and the ship explodes -- just far away enough for Donna to helplessly watch the approaching fireball. Meanwhile, on the TARDIS, the Not-Donna slowly approaches the Doctor, only for him to turn and tell her that something showed up on the TARDIS scans -- [[IronicEchoHer arms are too long]]. The TARDIS promptly returns to the exploding ship and ejects the Not-Donna, picking up the real one moments before it's is fully engulfed.

--> '''The Doctor:''' "You know what my head's like, Donna. Once I start having ideas..."\\
'''Not-Doctor:''' "Then ''I'' have ideas."

--->'''Wilf:''' I never lost faith! I said, "He won't let us down, he'll come back and save us!"

->'''Donna Noble:''' "There's something on this ship that's so bad, the TARDIS ran away?"\\
'''The Doctor:''' "Y-Yes."\\
'''Donna Noble:''' "Then we go... [[LetsGetDangerous and ''kick its arse!'']]"

The year is 1666, and Isaac Newton has decided to go and have a sit down at a nearby apple tree. As he reads beneath it, an apple falls onto his head and he [[EurekaMoment starts to get an idea…]]

That is, until the TARDIS violently crashes into the tree above him.

The Doctor and Donna emerge and, in rapid succession, warn him to [[Recap/DoctorWhoS19E4TheVisitation stay away from London]], accidentally tell him he’s going to become a “Sir”, make an ObligatoryJoke about him understanding the “gravity” of the situation, and promptly pop off, leaving a confused Newton to try and remember that delightful word they used. Savity? Havity?

Oh that's right. [[CosmicRetcon Mavity.]]

The TARDIS’ next stop is a derelict spaceship. Since the faithful Time Ship is still very much in the middle of blowing up (and playing "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_U.S._Air_Force_(song) Wild Blue Yonder]]" for some reason), the Doctor sets the ship to start regenerating itself. As the Doctor opens the TARDIS's key cover, Donna notes that she sang "Wild Blue Yonder" in choir, with Miss Bean teaching. Bean loved the song because it sounded cheerful. Her grandfather, Wilf, didn't; it was a war song. The Doctor takes note, leaving his Sonic in the latch before the two leave to explore the ship's ''very'' long corridor, just like the old days. Before they can get too far, however, they hear the TARDIS dematerializing and rush back to see their ride quite literally vanish before their eyes.

As Donna panics, the Doctor tries to calm her down, theorising that the TARDIS reactivated the HADS (Hostile Action Displacement System) as it repaired itself -- the HADS, of course, being a system which causes the ship to flee in the midst of extreme danger. [[ExplainExplainOhCrap Which, as Donna notes, means they've landed in the middle of extreme danger.]]

Realising that they need to deal with whatever is on the ship in order for the TARDIS to come back, the two head back into the hallway, which seems to shift and change around them, timed with a loudspeaker occasionally speaking strange words they don’t understand due to the lack of the TARDIS’ translation circuit, while the Doctor can only theorise it might be a countdown of some kind. They also find an old, rusted robot which is walking very slowly down a long corridor, also in time with the words.

Arriving at the bridge, they realise that the ship has seemingly fallen through a wormhole to the very edge of the universe. No starlight reaches them there, and getting back to Earth would take a hundred trillion years, at ''best.'' More disturbingly, the ship registers no life signs, the last known activity was when the airlock door opened and closed three years ago, and there is a strange banging they can’t find the source of.

The Doctor and Donna separate to repair individual components of the ship. While Donna works, the air chills and the Doctor re-enters the room. The two talk about her family -- Donna wonders how long Rose and the others will wait for them in the alleyway and when exactly they'd stop, but notes that Wilf would likely never give up on them. The Doctor responds that he can’t wait to meet him, before cryptically stating that his arms are too long.

At the same time, the Doctor is... still working away. The air chills. Donna enters. The two talk about Gallifrey, and whether he misses his old home. The Doctor notes that it’s complicated and asks her if she's ''sure'' she's finished her work in the other room. Donna only notes that [[MeaningfulEcho her arms are too long.]] She’s not wrong; [[BodyHorror her left arm is massively disproportionate, stretching out from her body]]. Horrified, he quickly tries to comfort her before considering that, just maybe, she isn't the real Donna.

The Doctor calls for her, leading Donna to briefly wonder just how he's managing to throw his voice before the "Doctor" stands... and reveals that his arms are, likewise, oversized, with his knuckles dragging the floor. She rushes out to find the real Doctor, both cornered by their duplicates.

The two fakes introduce themselves as the Not-Things, beings from beyond the universe who are trying ([[GlamourFailure and failing]]) to copy the pair's forms. Although the Doctor tries to reason with them, the Not-Things become more and more hostile, until he and Donna are forced to flee down the corridor, with the Not-Things in hot pursuit, slowly growing in size until they become tangled, wedging themselves between the corridor's walls. The Doctor, being the Doctor, takes a moment to inspect them before a hand -- Donna's hand -- plops to the floor. They're getting loose.

The two try to escape into a nearby vent when the ship's walls shift, separating them yet again. One Doctor reunites with one Donna in two separate rooms and, now knowing what they're up against, they attempt to interrogate each other.

In one room, the Doctor removes his tie, letting it clatter to the ground -- the Not-Things may view clothes the same way they do skin, after all. After a bit of back-and-forth, both determine that [[SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay they need to provide knowledge that the Not-Things don't have access to,]] which is easier said than done.

In another room, Donna asks where the Doctor's from, and the Doctor, naturally, responds "Gallifrey".

[[WhamLine Except Donna knows that's not the truth.]]

It turns out, when the Metacrisis reactivated, Donna gained all of the Doctor’s memories and experiences from the last 15 years, including [[ContinuityNod the events of the Flux and the history of the Timeless Child]]. The Doctor spills his guilt and goes in for a hug... and Not-Donna's form falls apart. The Doctor, hearbroken, runs off.

Meanwhile, Donna goes on [[OverlyLongGag an extended monologue about the specifics of her birth]], noting that she's "definitely the ''real'' Donna", before observing that the "Doctor's" tie has gone -- ''completely'' gone, like it's stopped existing. Which it has. The Not-Doctor performs an act of extreme contortionism, spitefully asking why the Doctor would even consider travelling with someone so stupid, before crawling after her, [[Film/TheExorcist Exorcist]]-style.

The (real) Doctor then takes a moment for him to '''''finally''''' take in the pain and losses he obtained from his more softer previous incarnation (such as the fact that his own "species" were wiped out by The Master, the fact that said species abused him for years as a child, The Doctor himself not being an actual Time Lord to begin with, and finally, failing to stop The Flux from happening, resulting in half of the universe being nuked), as he painfully screams and throws an aggressive fit. ''Alone.''

Both the real and fake Doctor and Donnas meet up in the same room, leaving them to figure out who's who. One of the Doctors sets off on a MotorMouth tangent, and Donna exasperatedly notes that she ''must'' be the real one, since she's so stupid she can't keep up. One of the Doctors notes she's called herself stupid, and both determine how very Donna that is.

"Except," the Doctor says, "Donna does not think she's stupid." Or, rather, she ''does'', but [[{{Doublethink}} it's entirely possible for person to see themselves as stupid one moment, and the next believe equally strongly they're brilliant. People do it all the time.]]

The real Doctor and Donna hug and hold off the Not-Things by leaving a line of salt between them -- demons and monsters can’t cross a line of salt without counting every grain. Yes, it's a superstition, the Doctor notes, but it's ''also'' true. After a tense moment, Not-Donna begins counting the salt.

The Doctor, naturally, has questions -- the first being, if they came from nothing, as they claimed, why are they so ''mean?''[[note]][[SurprisinglyCreepyMoment "Why-yyyy?~"]][[/note]] The Not-Doctor explains that they were drawn towards and moulded by the strong hatred, anger, and war emanating from the "normal" universe. With that knowledge, they plan to return to the universe and wage war -- one that they can and will "win". Donna protests that there’s more to the universe than hate and war, but the Not-Donna simply responds that "love letters don’t travel very far."

“And neither,” she adds. “Do your lies”.

She blows the line of salt away and the Not-Things [[MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily (now equipped with razor-sharp fangs)]] advance towards the Doctor and Donna.

The two escape back to the bridge where they block off the Not-Things approach with a glass wall. Here, Donna begins asking questions: If the Not-Things really wanted to become perfect copies of them, why come out and scare them? Why not just sit in a corner observing them, never making their presence known? The Doctor realises that the Not-Things need them to be afraid -- adrenaline keeps them thinking, even makes them think faster, making them easier to copy. The way to stop them is to not think. Simple, right?

Unfortunately, the Doctor and Donna are on a ship full of mysteries: Who opened the airlock? What’s with those words on the loudspeaker? What’s with the robot? And what… is that banging? The Doctor, after some resistance, ultimately gives in as the Not-Things encourage him to [[MadnessMantra "THINK THINK THINK THINK THINK THINK THINK!"]] in chorus.

The Doctor opens the moonroof to reveal... the ship's captain. Or, rather, her corpse caught in the Gravity Field (sorry, Mavity Field). It turns out she was responsible for the airlock door opening three years ago, having thrown herself into the void. Looking into the Not-Doctor’s face, the Doctor realises that neither of the Not-Things actually know why she did this. The Doctor begins to figure the mystery out, verbalizing every discovery (despite Donna's obvious displeasure, she knows what his brain is like). If the Not-Things don’t know why she did it, that must mean they weren’t done copying her, and knew she had a plan to stop them that they couldn’t know about.

With the Not-Things egging him on, the Doctor puts the pieces together. The captain knew the Not-Things couldn’t understand slowness, so she programmed everything to be slow. The words, the robot, even the ship has been slowly changing itself to become a very slow... bomb.

The Doctor was right all along, it is a countdown, and that robot is only a few numbers from blowing the whole ship to hell.

As the Not-Things run to stop it, the Doctor changes the countdown to speed up, before the two set off after the imposters. Donna becomes embroiled in a fight with the Not-Donna, but the Doctor nearly catches up to his copy. Abandoning his attempts to copy the Doctor’s form, the Not-Doctor drops to all fours, quickly outpacing him.

Exhausted, the Doctor realises that, provided the Not-Doctor doesn't reach the robot, the danger would end the moment the countdown did. And a sentient TimeMachine would know.

Cue the TARDIS, quite literally like an angel descending from heaven as it rematerializes.

Jumping on board, the Doctor navigates it towards the two Donnas a-la [[Film/BackToTheFuturePartII Marty McFly]], and begins asks them two questions: "Who is Miss Bean?" and "Why is Miss Bean funny?" One Donna attempts to intellectualize it. The other responds that "It just is". The Doctor takes the latter aboard and takes off.

One small snag: he's left the real Donna behind. The countdown reaches its end and the ship explodes -- just far away enough for Donna to helplessly watch the approaching fireball. Meanwhile, on the TARDIS, the Not-Donna slowly approaches the Doctor, only for him to turn and tell her that something showed up on the TARDIS scans -- [[IronicEcho her arms are too long]].

The TARDIS promptly returns to the exploding ship and ejects the Not-Donna, picking up the real one moments before it's is fully engulfed.

Returning to the alley a day or two after they left, they are overjoyed to find none other then Wilfred Mott waiting for them. Happily reuniting with the Doctor and Donna, Wilf exclaims that he had always had faith that he would return, just in time to save them all.

[[SuddenDownerEnding Wait, what?]]

Right on cue, the shops around them begin exploding and people on the street start running around and fighting each other at random. Wilf explains that everything’s “going mad”, and begs the Doctor to save them. As a plane crashes above them, the trio rush behind the TARDIS for protection.

As creepy child-like singing is heard in the background, one could assume that this might be the doing of a childish, giggly foe that the Doctor fought [[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E7TheCelestialToymaker all too long ago]]... [[Recap/DoctorWho60thASTheGiggle a foe that the Doctor will be going up against one more time]].

->'''Donna Noble:''' There's something on this ship that's so bad, the TARDIS ran away?\\
'''The Doctor:''' Y-Yes.\\
'''Donna Noble:''' Then we go... [[LetsGetDangerous and KICK ITS ARSE!]]

JustForFun/{{The one w|ith}}here the Doctor and Donna help Sir UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton discover mavity,[[note]]Gravity? What are you talking about?[[/note]] and discover that [[BodyHorror their arms are too long.]]

This is the second episode of the 2023 Specials Trilogy created to celebrate the 60th Anniversary, and the second episode to be broadcast on the Creator/DisneyPlus streaming service. Notable for not having many details revealed prior to its broadcast and "very slightly" following up on several elements of the Chibnall era, including the Flux and the Timeless Child arc.

Oh that’s right. [[CosmicRetcon Mavity.]]

* AmbiguousSituation: Donna claims that while she did see all of the Doctor's memories, it was far too overwhelming for her to get any details. On the other hand, she's very gentle in asking if the Doctor is okay, which raises the possibility that she ''did'' understand the memories but knew that the Doctor isn't ready to talk about everything that's happened.

--> '''Not-Donna:''' Two in total, or two on each leg?
* ArcWords:
** "Slow" for this episode, as it ties into the Captain's ultimate attempt to stop the Not-Things.
** "Creation" returns from Donna's arc in Series 4, calling back to her destiny as "The Most Important Woman in the Whole of Creation".
* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Either no one on the episode's production team seemed to know that the word "gravity" was already well known to Isaac Newton (predating him by thousands of years as it was derived from the Latin word "gravitas" which means "weight") or the RuleOfFunny in regards to "Mavity" overruled it.
* BaitAndSwitch: After licking some goopy machinery parts, The Doctor gags and chokes, leading the audience to believe that he's poisoned (with the background music making sure you believe it). He then reveals that he was pranking Donna, and goes back to investigating the machine parts.

** The Not-Thing impersonating Donna reveals that she's still got a lot of self-worth issues going on.

** Donna uses the Tenth Doctor's "Allons-y" ([[InsultOfEndearment "as the idiots say"]]) catchphrase.
* BrickJoke:
** Donna says she figures while her mother and Rose will just move on if she doesn't come back, Shaun and her grandpa will camp out in the alleyway for the rest of their lives. On their return to the modern day, she finds Wilfred is, in fact, there waiting for them.

** The Doctor once again [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E2TheEndOfTheWorld names a robot "Jimbo".]]
** The Not-Doctor removes his tie as a means of confirming his identity to Donna, but even though this is an idea borrowed from the Doctor's playbook (a trick used by the same incarnation of the Doctor that Fourteen is channeling, no less), he forgets to keep the tie extant. The Tenth Doctor [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones removed his tie in front of Martha Jones]] before they properly met to convince her ahead of time that he could go back into the past and sidestep the present.

* CharacterCatchphrase: "Don't, really, don't" makes a return here, with the Doctor attempting to discourage dropping her [[{{Pun}} "Appreciate the gravity of the situation" pun]] before [[NotSoAboveItAll ultimately joining in on it himself.]] Donna also [[BorrowedCatchphrase borrows (and mispronounces)]] "Allons-y", tagging on "As idiots say".

* {{Cliffhanger}}: The episode ends with Doctor and Donna making it back to Earth, although the TARDIS misses it by a day or two. Sounds fine, right? ''Wrong.'' Wilfred complains about the world possibly coming to an end (again), as chaos ensues all around them. Considering the child-like singing that plays at the very end, it only implies that this is the doing of [[spoiler:The (Celestial) Toymaker]]...

* CosmicRetcon: One of the most trivial examples in the series-- the Doctor and Donna accidentally alter history so the word "gravity" is instead "mavity".

--> '''The Doctor:''' I know fifty-seven billion two hundred and five. But not this one.
* DramaPreservingHandicap: Thanks to the HADS, the TARDIS takes off, taking the Sonic Screwdriver and its translation circuits with it, making things difficult for the Doctor and Donna.

* ExpositionBeam: Turns out when Donna became the [=DoctorDonna=] again, she also got all the memories of ''everything'' the Doctor had happen to them between "Journey's End" and the previous episode, all at once. She claims she was unable to make out any details, though the Not-Thing's questions to the Doctor earlier cast at least some suspicion on that.
* ExtremelyShortTimespan: In the time that the Doctor and Donna have been away ("a day or two out"), a HatePlague has somehow managed to take over the entire world. Granted, it's not surprising that the plague worked so quickly, given [[PhysicalGod who's]] implied to be behind it.
* FailedASpotCheck: Both the Doctor and Donna are a bit too busy working on the ship's mechanisms to note that the person they're talking to has a problem with their arms being a little too long (and Donna thinks the "Doctor" saying this is just him griping about his current appearance).

** The ship's captain set the self-destruct to detonate extremely slowly with the implication that if it had run at normal speed the Not-Things would've stopped it, but the long pauses between steps of the detonation prevented them from understanding what was happening.
* FauxAffablyEvil: The Not-Things. When the Doctor and Donna encounter them, [[DissonantSerenity they speak quite conversationally about trying to understand the forms they're imitating]] but then immediately grow in size and attempt to kill the Doctor and Donna. Later on, they reveal their true, nasty colors.

* FreeWheel: The hovercart doesn't have wheels, but when it falls apart, the effect is achieved by one of the headlights falling out and rolling away.

* GrandfatherParadox: Donna and the Doctor introducing the word "gravity" to Isaac Newton leads to him misremembering the word as "mavity," so for the rest of the episode they say "mavity" instead.

* HeroicBSOD: Donna goes through one as she tries to FaceDeathWithDignity, and the Doctor and Donna have a very understandable one following this adventure.
* HeroicSuicide: The unnamed original captain of the ship [[ThrownOutTheAirlock airlocked herself]] to prevent the imposters from copying her and learning her plan to destroy them via the ship's time-delayed self-destruct mechanism.

--> '''Donna:''' We are more than that!\\
'''Not-Donna:''' Love letters don't travel very far.

** Not-Doctor forgets to keep his "tie" in existence when talking to Real!Donna. This is what clues her in to his fakery.

* IronicEcho: Meets a CallBack to [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime Ten's last adventure]] when Not-Thing Donna taunts the Doctor by describing the Doctor as 'having owned' the universe. Ten expressed the opposite sentiment to the Simms Master.

* JawDrop: '''PlayedForHorror.''' The Not-Thing Doctor's "jaaaaaw" drops onto the floor when he's still getting the hang of taking the shape of The Doctor's body. Given that this is a realistic show (and ''not'' a cartoon), this jaw drop is incredibly uncanny, let alone ''nightmarish'' to begin with.

* LamePunReaction: The Doctor tries to stop Donna making a "the gravity of the situation" pun when meeting Issac Newton... [[SubvertedTrope and joins in when she finally makes it.]]
* LampshadeHanging: When the Doctor and Donna find themselves in Isaac Newton's time, Donna asks him if he's got the TARDIS' destination set to "famous" or something.

* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Possibly. At the end, the Doctor speculates that invoking a superstition at the very edge of reality might allow something to get in. He then shrugs it off.
** Confirmed in [[Recap/DoctorWho60thASTheGiggle The Giggle]]; by playing a game beyond the end of the universe he created an opening for [[PhysicalGod The Toymaker]] to manifest in the physical world.

* NoOntologicalInertia: An interesting exploited example. The real Donna identifies the Not-Doctor when it takes off its tie to distinguish itself from the real Doctor only for the tie to wink out of existence. When Donna notices this, the Not-Doctor curses itself for not realizing that things that are separated from a whole will continue to exist.

* {{Novelization}}: The anniversary trilogy is being adapted into Target novelizations due to be released in January 2024, with this one being written by Mark Morris.

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Since the crew and captain are dead, the robot's true name is lost to time. The Doctor dubs it "Jimbo" and the name sticks.
* OntologicalMystery: The Doctor and Donna find themselves in a very large, very empty spaceship where weird things are happening and have to figure out why. Except they realise too late that, if the Not-Things know what they know, they ''shouldn't'' work out what's really happening.

* TheReveal: The cause of the intermittent banging noise is the body of the ship's captain, who sacrificed herself to trap the Not-Things on the ship long enough to kill them.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: The ''TARDIS'' does this, thanks to the HADS function. The Doctor explains that the HADS is a defense mechanism that ensures the TARDIS's safety in the event they land in hostile territory and that he disabled the function when he was stuck in a planet's orbit for three years. HADS is reactivated as the TARDIS begins rebuilding itself and is absent for most of the episode until the very end.

** Shawn has apparently questioned the science of the ''[[Film/Venom2018 Venom]]'' [[Film/VenomLetThereBeCarnage films]], wondering where Eddie and the symbiote get the extra mass to transform. Assuming that ''Film/{{Morbius}}'' also exists, [[CelebrityParadox that raises the question of who played Milo in the Whoniverse.]]

** The Doctor appears to have come up with one that works at the last minute, asking the Donnas why "Mrs Bean" is funny. One comes up with a rather lame explanation, the other says "It just ''is''!" Unfortunately, while that appears to be a perfect Donna response, it turns out the real Donna was overthinking it.
* SpotTheImposter: Done numerous times throughout the episode once the Doctor and Donna become aware of the Not-Things' abilities, with each attempting to discern whether the other is real when they're separated, or when confronted by two versions of the other. It culminates at the finale when The Doctor fails to pick the real Donna, briefly taking Not-Donna aboard the TARDIS, only to realize just in time that her wrist is a fraction of a millimetre too long, letting him travel back and save her just in time.
* ThanatosGambit: The unnamed ship captain sets a self-destruct sequence at an incredibly slow rate in order to kill the Not-things, and to prevent them from learning through her, she kills herself by jumping out of the airlock.

* TransformingConforming: The Not-Things begin to experience this drawback as they become closer to perfect copies of the Doctor and Donna. Initially, they can grow to gargantuan size and are too dangerous to face directly, but by the end of the episode Donna manages to deck her counterpart with a single punch.
* TranslatorMicrobes: Subverted-- without the TARDIS they don't have them, so the ship's language is untranslated. This means that what the intermittent announcements are actually saying is unclear, providing the first mystery of the episode.

* TrustPassword: {{Subverted}}. When attempting to determine why "Mrs Bean" is funny, one Donna attempts to intellectualize why "Mrs Bean" is funny and the other responds "it just is". The Doctor takes this Donna aboard the TARDIS... only to reveal that he's left the ''real'' Donna behind.

--> '''The Doctor:''' You know what my head's like, Donna. Once I start having ideas...\\
'''Not-Doctor:''' Then ''I'' have ideas.

* WhamLine:
** "My arms are too long" sounds like a silly non sequitur. It's not.
** After the Doctor seemingly figures out which Donna is real and leaves the other to die:
--->'''Donna:''' Doctor, come back! She's not me! I'm me! ''You've got the wrong one!''
** At the end, when the Doctor and Donna meet Wilf again. It's all very heartwarming as the Doctor catches up with his old friend, and then:

* WhamShot: As the Doctor and Donna work on separate bits of the ship, the Doctor (apparently) returns to Donna's section to chat with her. Cut to the Doctor, still in the other room, just as another Donna enters.

The TARDIS’ next stop is a derelict spaceship. Since the faithful Time Ship is still very much in the middle of blowing up (and playing "Wild Blue Yonder" for some reason), the Doctor sets the ship to start regenerating itself. As the Doctor opens the TARDIS's key cover, Donna notes that she sang "Wild Blue Yonder" in choir, with Miss Bean teaching. Bean loved the song because it sounded cheerful. Her grandfather, Wilf, didn't; it was a war song. The Doctor takes note, leaving his Sonic in the latch before the two leave to explore the ship's ''very'' long corridor, just like the old days. Before they can get too far, however, they hear the TARDIS dematerializing and rush back to see their ride quite literally vanish before their eyes.