Second 'Doctor Who' 60th Anniversary Special "Wild Blue Yonder" Sees the Doctor and Donna Face Their Dark Sides

Doctor Who's extended 60th anniversary celebration continues this week with "Wild Blue Yonder," as David Tennant's second turn through the TARDIS rolls on. To be fair, this hour doesn't actually feel all that much like an anniversary special. (Save for the cameo in the episode's closing moments which was just the right level of emotional gut punch.) That's not entirely a bad thing, but it is rather unexpected, particularly after the overt nostalgia fest that was "The Star Beast".

While, it's a delight to simply spend time with Donna and this particular incarnation of the Doctor, very little about this hour feels like a continuation of what we saw last week, or as though it'll prove a connecting bridge to next week's third and finale Tennant-led installment. No new information is forthcoming about why the Fourteenth Doctor is suddenly wearing the Tenth's face again or the reason behind why the entire universe was being drawn to Donna Noble fifteen years after the events of "Journey's End". "Wild Blue Yonder" often comes across like nothing so much as a traditional midseason episode — solid and entertaining but relatively standalone.

Granted, it's hard to complain but so much about the fact that, against all odds, we're getting to have another adventure with Tennant and former companion Catherine Tate and, if anything, their chemistry has only grown richer and warmer since the last time we saw them together. And few performers understand the dark emotional depths of the Doctor better than Tennant does, a fact which he uses to devastating effect at multiple times within this episode. (The man is both a wonder and a menace.) But how — or even if — the various threads of this hour will ultimately come to impact the end of Fourteen's story remains unclear.