"Doctor Who" Finale Part 1 Recap: “Turn Left”

Rose smiles and says she knows Donna will come to her when she’s ready. Which she also knows will be in exactly three weeks and the decision will somehow involve Gramps’ telescope. Oh, and one more minor detail she passes on: Donna’s gonna die.

Then Rose just ups and disappears. She obviously has to get back to call girling. Those tricks aren’t going to turn themselves, believe you me.

Cut to Donna bidding Rocco and his family farewell. As foreigners, they’re now being sent to some sort of camp. And I have a feeling it ain’t the kind with a lake and lanyards. Gramps has the same feeling, remembering what being shipped off to camps has meant in the past.

Inside the house, things are even gloomier. Sylvia is almost catatonic, while Donna bemoans the fact that she can’t get a job given her lack of schooling. She fishes for compliments by speculating about how much of a disappointment she’s been to her family. Instead of avidly denying it, Sylvia robotically says, “Yeah.”

Backyard, at night. Donna and Gramps are looking in his telescope at the stars. Donna is still in wallowing mode, saying she’d always hoped to take care of Gramps in his old age but knows she is basically useless. She’s miffed Gramps doesn’t contradict this, but he’s too busy looking at something funky going on in the night sky.

He shows her how the constellation Orion was there one second and gone the next. And as they look above, they see the stars going out one by one. Clearly, this is not good. Donna, with newfound determination, says, “I’m ready.” She turns around to find Rose is already right there.

Rose escorts Donna via UNIT van to a huge warehouse. It’s filled with various redhats busily at work on top secret UNIT business. They, like Donna, don’t know Rose’s actual name, even the commander, who introduces herself as “Captain Magambo.”

Rose: There’s too many different realities. Trust me, the wrong word in the wrong place can change an entire casual nexus.
Captain Magambo (to Donna): She talks like that. A lot.

Rose takes Donna to see the TARDIS, which was retrieved from beneath the Thames. She tells Donna to enter the phone box. So we can once again get that bit this show never seems to tire of where somebody gets all giddy seeing how much space is inside despite its outer appearance, like the TARDIS is the Toyota Prius of the galaxy.

Inside, the TARDIS isn’t looking so hot, like it’s seriously hungover after a night of intergalactic carousing. I swear at one point you can hear it belch.

Rose fills Donna in on “Who the Doctor Is.” Blah blah “Time Lord.” Blah blah “Last Of.” Donna wonders what he was doing with someone average like herself. But Rose reassures her that he in fact thought Donna was “brilliant.” Rose says the Doctor made her brilliant, as he once did Rose. Donna can hear something in Rose’s voice that’s awfully “Hopelessly Devoted to You” sounding, so she asks, “Were you and him …?” And Rose just stares at her silently.

But maybe that’s simply because she’s become distracted once again by the thing on Donna’s back. She asks if Donna wants to be able to see it for herself. At first Donna says no. Then curiosity gets the better of her and she agrees.

Outside the TARDIS, Rose leads Donna to this area in the warehouse where they’ve set up a circle of mirrors interspersed by spotlights and all this complicated machinery. Excellent! Looks like somebody’s finally invented a “Check If Your Ass Looks Fat in Those Pants” device.

Actually, Rose explains that the circle can reveal the creature on Donna’s back, utilizing energy they’ve somehow harnessed from the TARDIS. After placing Donna at the center of the circle, Rose activates some machine and all the spotlights come up on Donna.

At first she keeps her eyes tightly closed. But after some gentle prodding from Rose, she opens them. TO FIND A HUGE F**KING COCKROACH CLAMPED TO HER BACK! Ewwwwww. Somebody please get to work inventing a Huon-powered Roach Motel.

Needless to say, Donna isn’t exactly thrilled by this. But Rose somehow gets her to calm down, which indicates to me — and not for the first time — that Donna is made of much, much stronger stuff than me.

Donna asks what the creature is, and Rose confesses they don’t know. Donna’s response is basically, “Well, gee, thanks a lot.” It’s actually the funniest moment in the episode because Catherine Tate’s reading is just perfect.