Doctor Who: It Takes You Away has the surprise return of a familiar face
By James Aggas
It Takes You Away begins with the Doctor and her friends arriving in a rural part of Norway.
(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.
Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)
In the latest Doctor Who episode It Takes You Away, the Doctor and her friends find a cabin seemingly attacked by an outside force. But is there something else entirely that they need to be afraid of?
It Takes You Away begins with the Doctor Who regulars arriving in Norway in 2018. They notice a cabin that’s been boarded up, as if to protect itself from something. Unlocking the front door with her sonic screwdriver, the Doctor and her friends enter and investigate.
They find a young blind girl, Hanne, hiding in a closet. She reveals that her father, Erick, has been missing for a few days, taken by “the thing”. She doesn’t know what it is, exactly, only that it comes to the cabin regularly.
Due to the death of her mother a few years before, she had been on her own in the cabin as a result of her father’s disappearance. This was also a key reason why her and her father moved from Oslo into the woods.
The TARDIS team initially do some investigating around the cabin, but head back inside once they hear the roar of “the thing”. However, stranger than the roar is what Graham and Ryan find upstairs: a mirror that doesn’t show their reflections.
The Doctor quickly discovers that it’s a portal, although she has no idea where to. Making Ryan stay behind to look after Hanne (despite the fact that Hanne doesn’t like Ryan, mainly due to him suggesting that Erick had left her behind deliberately rather than be taken), the Doctor, Graham and Yasmin go through the portal.
The anti-zone
On the other side of the portal is a dark, cave-like area. While using some string to help them find their way, they come across a very strange creature called Ribbons of the Seven Stomachs. Ribbons is really only interested in one thing: trade. He’s not interested in helping the TARDIS travelers with finding Erick unless he gets something in return. In this case: the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver.
While Ribbons apparently helps them to find Erick, with the promise that he will receive the screwdriver in payment later, the Doctor learns exactly where they are: an “anti-zone”, an area of space specifically created when something huge and threatening to the universe is about to happen. They also learn of the flesh moths – small creatures that will eat them alive in seconds if they’re not careful.
However, Ribbons stops acting so helpful once he takes them deep enough into the anti-zone and reveals that he cut the Doctor’s string. He tries to force the Doctor to give him her screwdriver, but instead, he’s eaten by the flesh moths. Everyone else manages to escape through the portal. However, once they land on the other side, they feel that something isn’t quite right.
Ryan discovers something equally strange when he finds that the animal-like roar they’ve been hearing was coming from speakers outside. When he tries to tell Hanne, she knocks him out and heads into the portal herself, locating the piece of string that the Doctor had left behind.
On the other side of the mirror, the Doctor and the others are shocked to see a familiar face…
(Image credit: Doctor Who/BBC.
Image obtained from: official Doctor Who website.)
The other side
Meanwhile, the Doctor, Graham and Yaz find out what’s so strange about where they are. It looks not quite like the cabin, but the cabin’s mirror image. They find Erick downstairs, and they find out that Ryan was right: he hadn’t been “taken”, but rather, he came here of his own choice. He had left Hanne behind while making her afraid of the outside to protect her.
The TARDIS team quickly discover why Erick had abandoned his own daughter when they meet Trine – Hanne’s long-dead mother, alive once more. But then they meet someone they’re even more shocked to see, especially Graham. Because Grace is also in this place, seemingly alive and well.
The Doctor soon works out exactly where they are and what they’re dealing with: the Solitract. A being of sentient energy, its main goal is to find a way of interacting with our universe, despite the fact that it’s completely incompatible with it. Instead, it only exists on its own dimensional plane. Wanting to appeal to humans, it took the forms of those who had passed away, and therefore, were hard to turn down.
The Solitract
Meanwhile, Ryan had woken up and gone through the portal, finding Hanne and protecting her from flesh moths along the way. Eventually, Hanne manages to locate another portal and goes through it, but Ryan is cut off from it.
More from Winter is Coming
- For All Mankind finally gives us information in Episode 405, “Goldilocks”
- Watch a stunning VFX breakdown of The Wheel of Time season 2
- Of course Steve Toussaint (Corlys Velaryon) thinks Eve Best (Rhaenys Targaryen) should rule Westeros
- Confirmed: The Last of Us season 2 will air in 2025
- Final season of Star Trek: Discovery will have “a lot of action, a lot of adventure, a lot of fun”
When Hanne sees the being that looks just like her mother, she’s not fooled for a moment. She knows that Trine is a fake copy, nothing more, but Erick still needs to be convinced. As the building shakes and the universe threatens to collapse, Graham is more easily convinced that “Grace” isn’t his wife re-born. He comes close to believing her, but her reaction to Ryan being in danger and not worrying about it is what convinces him to leave.
Almost everyone is forced back through the portal, with the Doctor and Erick left as the only real people there. Erick wants to stay, but the Doctor convinces the Solitract to keep her instead, due to all her experiences in the universe. Erick finally realizes that it’s not his wife when he’s forced back through the portal too.
Eventually, the only part left of the Solitract’s universe is the new form its taken – a frog with Grace’s voice. The Doctor appears ready to stay, but she knows that neither she nor the Solitract will exist if she’s there for much longer. Eventually, the Solitract lets her go, happy at least that it met the Doctor.
Just before it completely collapses, the Doctor and the others manage to escape the anti-zone back into our reality just in time. Erick has finally moved on from Trine’s death, and decides it’s time to take Hanne back to Oslo.
Ryan sees that Graham is visibly shaken about seeing Grace again, and talks to him to try and help. Eventually, Ryan finally calls Graham “grandad” – something Graham has been waiting to hear since before his first episode. On this more positive note, the TARDIS crew leave Norway.
Next. Gallifrey review: The Doctor Who spin-off begins with Weapon of Choice. dark
Did you enjoy It Takes You Away? What was your favorite aspect of the episode? Were you surprised to see Grace again? Let us know in the comments below.