Doctor Who’s latest season was quite the rollercoaster, wouldn’t you agree? Whether you refer to it as season 14 or, as Disney Plus likes to call it, season 1, Ncuti Gatwa’s debut as the Fifteenth Doctor truly marked a fresh beginning for this timeless time-traveling series. Each week felt like a bold new adventure, none more so than the spine-chilling standout, “73 Yards.”
In this ‘Doctor-lite’ episode (because Gatwa was busy filming Sex Education), “73 Yards” thrust Millie Gibson’s companion, Ruby Sunday, into the eerie depths of rural Wales. The Doctor’s accidental entanglement in a local superstition—a “fairy circle”—left Ruby alone, haunted by a mysterious figure that trailed her at a precise distance of 73 yards.
Unlike the typical Doctor Who formula, which often ties up loose ends, “73 Yards” embraced the ambiguity of classic ghost stories, leaving viewers pondering unanswered questions. Thankfully, the season finale eventually shed light on some of the episode’s enigmatic elements…
What happens in Doctor Who: “73 Yards?”
“73 Yards” delves into its own alternate reality, where Ruby experiences a complete lifetime in a world where the Doctor has vanished, haunted incessantly by a mysterious woman who stays a consistent 73 yards away. Curiously, anyone Ruby sends to approach the woman ends up fleeing in terror, refusing to divulge what was said.
Despite her eerie existence, Ruby finds a semblance of peace with the woman’s constant presence. In her forties, driven by the Doctor’s warning about Roger ap Gwilliam, she infiltrates his inner circle and uncovers his diabolical plans for nuclear warfare. Using her unique curse, Ruby positions herself exactly 73 yards from ap Gwilliam, prompting the woman to speak to him, causing him to collapse and resign as Prime Minister.
Decades later, on her deathbed, Ruby finally confronts the truth: the woman haunting her is her older self. In a poignant moment of time-travel intricacy, elderly Ruby guides her younger self to prevent the Doctor from entering the fairy circle, thereby averting the alternate timeline altogether.
“Empire of Death,” the season finale, unravels the significance of the 73 yards distance, linking it to the TARDIS’s perception filter. It’s revealed that the woman, and by extension Ruby, possesses TARDIS-like abilities, explaining their time-traveling capabilities.
While many mysteries of “73 Yards” persist, including its complex time-travel logic, the episode hints at deeper origins for Ruby yet to be fully explored. As Doctor Who gears up for its next season in 2025, fans await further revelations, with a novelization of the episode set to release in August to tide them over.
