At the end he’s having to create a new lie to believe in, that the Face of Boe is wrong and ‘I’m not just a Time Lord. Just for a bit, I could imagine they were still alive, underneath a burnt orange sky.’ The Doctor lies to Martha because even he needs to believe in something more. There’s no dictator to overthrow or monster to defeat, even the Macra are mindless beasts, no longer ‘using humans as slaves and mining gas for food.’ Moffat will make a habit of these “broken system” stories, like Sherlockian logic problems. The survivors of the motorway are not the lost, they’re the saved, sustained both by the Face of Boe’s sacrifice and by their own belief in each other. There is someone else: the Face of Boe has been giving his life for the people on the motorway. Forever.’ And yet, on this occasion, he’s wrong on just about everything. ‘You are not alone.’ The Doctor’s bafflement as the New Earthers unite to sing The Old, Rugged Cross is palpable, and he’s the one who asks, ‘What if there’s nothing? Just the motorway, with the cars going round and round and round and round, never stopping. Up above, the heavenly spires of the overcity and, I suppose, God – or at least the Face of Boe, making sure the world still turns even if he can’t intervene to save individual lives. Below the motorway, lurking in sulphurous gas, are the Macra, waiting to consume the greedy or the liars or the thieves who try to cheat their way into the fast lane. ‘They all go to the motorway in the end.’ If you wanted to look for religious metaphors, you wouldn’t have to look very hard. But, like the motorway, it has layers upon layers, of blind faith and true faith, and the difference between a belief and a lie, of sacrifice and redemption, and of the undercity rising up to inherit the (New) Earth. ![]() ![]() Not while we have each other.’ A story that’s superficially a Ballardian (or Stephen Wyattian, I suppose) black comedy about a global traffic jam.
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