Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder review: Fun yet familiar territory

Pre-release buzz around the second Doctor Who 60th anniversary special, “Wild Blue Yonder,” hinted that it would break new ground for the long-running sci-fi franchise.

The hype started with star David Tennant, who got the ball rolling when he described the “Wild Blue Yonder” as “unlike any Doctor Who episode ever” in an October 2023 interview.

Then there was the BBC’s “Wild Blue Yonder” media blackout – a surefire way to stoke speculation if ever there was one. After all, when a broadcaster is so eager to keep a lid on spoilers, that’s typically a sign that there is indeed something worth spoiling.

Yet, now that “Wild Blue Yonder” is finally here, it’s hard to see what all the fuss was about. Sure, it’s a gripping enough hour of TV, but nothing in this Doctor Who special represents uncharted territory for the franchise. Warning: “Wild Blue Yonder” spoilers to follow.

A big little Doctor Who adventure

“Wild Blue Yonder” finds the Fourteenth Doctor (Tennant) and Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) stranded on a deserted spaceship at the edge of the universe. To escape, they’ll have to solve the mystery of what happened to the crew. And, if that wasn’t enough, a pair of malevolent shapeshifters show up who can copy the Doctor and Donna’s likenesses, adding an extra layer of paranoia to proceedings.

As such, the second Doctor Who 60th anniversary special is effectively a bottle episode. Or at least, it would be, if the BBC and Disney hadn’t clearly spent a fortune on mechanized corridors and body horror transformations. What’s more, it’s a pretty good bottle episode, giving Tennant and Tate the better part of an hour to showcase both their individual acting chops and their dynamite chemistry together.

Tennant in particular benefits from the stripped-down nature of the “Wild Blue Yonder” narrative, which gives us our first proper glimpse behind the Fourteenth Doctor’s cheery facade. Previous special “The Star Beast” teased that all is not well with the Doctor, but here Tennant, showrunner Russell T Davies, and director Tom Kingsley more fully lay the Time Lord’s pain bare.

The trauma that the Doctor’s been literally and figuratively running from is tied to his past – and an especially polarizing bit of franchise canon – so having him face up to it surrounded by evil facsimiles of himself and his best mate is an effective choice. It also allows Tennant and Tate to break bad, and you can see how much they relish playing opposite each other (and themselves) in villain mode.

If you’ve seen The Thing, you’ve seen Wild Blue Yonder

Unsurprisingly, these scenes are a blast, even when they’re let down by CGI so ropey it’s cringeworthy rather than creepy (or even cute). Not that the Doctor and Donna’s dodgy doppelgangers are the only offenders in this regard, though. For every dazzling shot of an exploding spaceship in “Wild Blue Yonder,” there’s several more of Tennant and Tate hoofing it down hallways obviously added via greenscreen.

But it’s not uneven visual effects that ultimately hold the middle entry in the Doctor Who 60th anniversary trilogy back – it’s a lack of innovation. We were supposed to get something new. Instead, we got a Doctor Who reskin of John Carpenter’s 1982 classic, The Thing. Heck, with its alien imposter-induced suspense, “Wild Blue Yonder” feels like Davies and Kingsley running back another Tennant/Tate Doctor Who outing, 2008’s “Midnight.”

That’s a real shame, not least of all after the previous Doctor Who special, “The Star Beast,” set the stage for Davies and co. to really cut loose.

Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder review score: 3/5

For that, it seems we’ll have to wait for the third and final Doctor Who 60th anniversary special, “The Giggle.” Certainly, that’s what the cliffhanger ending of “Wild Blue Yonder” wants us to believe. Yet if this second, overly familiar special has taught us anything, it’s that Doctor Who sometimes promises more than it can deliver.

Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder is streaming on BBC iPlayer (UK & Ireland) and Disney+ (everywhere else) now. For the latest Doctor Who news and updates, check out Dexerto’s full coverage here.