TODAY'S TWD: SLIDING DONNAS

For those who didn't tune in yesterday, this is a multi-part examination of "Turn Left", the latest episode of 'Doctor Who' to air in America. (I saw the two-part finale weeks ago, but I'm respecting the US broadcasting schedule so as not to spoil it for the majority of Inner Toob visitors.)

Don't worry - I won't be going over every last detail like I did with "The Unicorn And The Wasp"!
Due to some sort of time-munching beetle, part of the brigade following the Trickster (from an episode of 'The Sarah Jane Adventures'), Donna Noble was forced to make a decision in the past which kept her from ever meeting the Doctor. As a result, the Doctor died and the Earth was thrown into chaos. Throughout "Turn Left", situations from past episodes since the Christmas special "The Runaway Bride" were revisited so that we could see how the absence of the Doctor would have affected them.

Here's a rundown for most of those events depicted:
The Doctor was able to destroy the Racnoss Queen and her brood, but without Donna there to bring him out of his blood-craze, the Time Lord drowned underneath the Thames before he had the chance to regenerate. ("The Runaway Bride")

The British Army, perhaps UNIT, was still able to shoot down the star-shaped spaceship of the Racnoss.
When the Royal Hope Hospital was teleported to the Moon by the Judoon, Martha Jones gave her life making sure a young intern was able to survive. ("Smith & Jones")

Sarah Jane Smith and her three young assistants - her son Luke, neighbor Maria, and their schoolmate Clyde - also died in the Royal Hope Hospital due to lack of oxygen. ('The Sarah Jane Adventures')
Without the Doctor to correct the problem, the spaceship recreation of the Titanic crashed into Buckingham Palace and destroyed most of southern England. ("Voyage Of The Damned")

The United States pledged 150 billion dollars in aid, but couldn't deliver when 160 million of the population was destroyed by the "birth" of the Adipose babies. ("Partners In Crime")

Because of the destruction, France closed its borders and the seas around Great Britain were under blockade. Britain's emergency government declared "Britain for Britons" and set up labor camps to imprison those who were not of "British stock". (More details about what was happening during this time were lost to the American audience by the butchering of the episode by Sci-Fi channel in order to squeeze in plenty of commercials.)
The ATMOS devices that were attached to nearly everyone's cars didn't affect the UK so much since they didn't have much petrol anymore to begin with. But the rest of the world was being suffocated by poisonous fumes until Ianto Jones and Gwen Cooper of 'Torchwood' were able to get on board the Sontaran troopship and destroy it to save the atmosphere. They lost their lives in the process however, and their leader, Captain Jack Harkness, was teleported to the Sontaran homeworld. ("The Sontaran Stratagem"/"Poison Sky")
Of course, the American audience wouldn't know this. All they knew was that a small band of rebel fighters gave their lives to destroy the Sontaran ship. All mention of Ianto, Gwen, and Jack were snipped. Bastids.

And then the stars were winking out because Davros had put his plan to wipe out reality into effect. That's when Donna agreed to "make right what once went wrong."

So those are the re-imagined events from the parallel universe created by Donna's decision to turn right instead of left on the fateful day as seen in "Turn Left".

That doesn't address every episode of 'Doctor Who' which aired after 'The Runaway Bride', however. Tomorrow I'll list those events in Earth's recent history which would have resolved themselves in some way without the Doctor's interference.

And then after that? The fun begins as I take a look at those situations which lacked the Doctor's help and which needed some kind of intercession. And in typical Toobworld fashion, I have a few suggestions as to who would come to the Earth's aid....

BCnU!
Toby OB