Running Time: Approx. 60 minutes. Written by: Rochana Patel. Directed by: Ken Bentley. Produced by: Noga Flaishon.
THE PLOT:
The Doctor receives a mysterious message containing dozens of space/time coordinates. She declares it an obvious trap - one that she and Yaz agree they should spring.
The first set of takes them to 2018 Afghanistan, just in time to watch as a dimensional rift appears, whisks away a US armored patrol carrier, and vanishes again. The next takes them back to Yaz's home town, Sheffield. This time, the Doctor has prepared a tracking device. Her plan is to throw it through the rift and follow its signal.
The plan goes awry. Yaz tries to wave an ambulance away to safety. But its driver is an her old friend Megan (Lauren O'Leary). When the rift opens, it shifts away from its predicted coordinates, seemingly intentionally veering off to engulf both Megan and Yaz.
The two find themselves on an alien world, where they come under attack from flying monsters. They are rescued by the very troops who were taken from Afghanistan. Corporal Chapman (Harry Ryan) informs them that they have been here for three years, and have spent that entire time at war with these "Banshees." He adds that Yaz and Megan are now conscripts in their army.
When the Doctor arrives, she's determined to rescue everyone. What she finds is a city of thousands, most of them multi-generational descendants of the rifts' original victims. This is now their home. The Doctor rejects the idea of fighting and winning a war. Instead, she sets her sights on an even more impossible goal: Peace!
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: At first, her insistence on not only communicating with a Banshee but even helping it to escape seems hopelessly naive. Thankfully, the script is smart enough to make her unsurprised by the creature's hostility. She uses the Banshee the way she used the tracker - to locate the alien soldier's superiors in order to make dialogue possible. Jodie Whittaker is particularly good when playing the Doctor's stubborn determination, and there's a certain energy when she openly admits that she's behaving recklessly that has me visualize the character with a mad glint in her eye as she takes action.
Yaz: When the soldiers announce that they are at war and order she and Megan to fire at the Banshees, Yaz refuses. She won't just start shooting when she doesn't know who the enemy is or what their reasons might be, and she's appalled when Megan does. She's no pure pacifist, though. When the Banshees attack her and the Doctor, her instinctive reaction is to want revenge, with the Doctor having to talk her down. Once she calms down, she notices discrepancies that start leading her and the Doctor toward the truth of this situation.
Megan: Yaz's old friend. She stood up for Yaz when she was bullied at her male-dominated job, and it seems as if the two were close. Then Megan developed feelings, which made things awkward (there are absolutely no parallels there). Megan's response to being thrown into an alien battlefield is to go along with what the soldiers tell her to do, because that seems like her best chance at surviving. My favorite bit of hers comes around the midpoint. She goes along with the Doctor's plan to let the Banshee free - but even as she runs for the release button, she cries out to the creature to please not kill her.
THOUGHTS:
After The Lionesses in Winter left me cold, I'm relieved to say that I thoroughly enjoyed Ride or Die. It's another fast-paced entry, but "fast" never descends into "rushed," with writer Rochana Patel's script keeping control of its plot, pace, and themes throughout.
The story has several potential pitfalls, and it neatly avoids all of them. During early scenes, in which the Doctor and Yaz separately protest the very idea of fighting the soldiers' war against the Banshees, I worried that this might be headed toward a simplistic morality play in which the evil, nasty soldiers were persecuting poor, innocent aliens.
That fear was allayed as soon as the Doctor managed to communicate with a Banshee. The creature is bloodthirsty, and the Doctor isn't surprised by that. As she points out, it isn't going to be best friends with them after a lifetime of war. Meanwhile, the lead soldier, Sergeant Johnson (Ako Mitchell), is willing to let the Doctor move forward with her plan, which is the only chance he sees for any kind of peace. I wouldn't go so far as to call it complex - at a mere 60 minutes, there isn't time for any serious depth - but there are at least nods to the inherent messiness of this situation.
Megan's mere presence pushes Yaz to begin to recognize that her feelings for the Doctor go beyond friendship. Reuniting with an old friend pushes her to confront the Doctor, who has seemingly avoided taking her back to Sheffield for any visits, perhaps out of fear that Yaz will decide to join Graham and Ryan in leaving her. One of my "wish list" items for this range was to actually see (well, hear) the development of their relationship that previously happened offscreen between seasons, and these moments go a long way toward delivering that.
The story arguably takes one plot turn too many toward the end, with a late story shift in setting accompanied by a drop in urgency. Even these scenes are enjoyable, however, and there's enough groundwork laid for them that it doesn't come out of nowhere.
OVERALL:
Though The Return of the Doctor remains my favorite entry in this range thus far, Ride or Die is a fairly close second. It balances good character moments and an entertaining story, and it manages to avoid a few potential pitfalls. It's the first of writer Rochana Patel's stories that I've heard, and it leaves me looking forward to her next story.
Overall Rating: 8/10.
Previous Story: Lionesses in Winter
Next Story: The Violet Hour
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