Doctor Who Wild Blue Yonder’s Gravity Joke Explained By David Tennant & Catherine Tate
David Tennant and Catherine Tate break down the surprisingly universe-changing gravity joke seen in Doctor Who's second special, "Wild Blue Yonder".
Warning: This article contains spoilers for Doctor Who: Wild Blue Yonder.
David Tennant and Catherine Tate break down the surprisingly universe-changing gravity joke seen in Doctor Who‘s second 60th anniversary special, “Wild Blue Yonder” in incredibly specific, “timey wimey” detail. The 60th anniversary specials see Tennant return as an all-new fourteenth incarnation of the Doctor, reuniting with Tate’s returning companion Donna Noble for the first time in just over 14 years under mysterious circumstances. In “Wild Blue Yonder”, the Fourteenth Doctor and Donna are stranded on an abandoned spaceship in the furthest corner of the universe, facing a horror that even leaves the TARDIS needing to retreat temporarily.
While Doctor Who‘s second 60th anniversary special,”Wild Blue Yonder”, left audiences unsettled, Tennant and Tate broke down one of the episodes’ lighter moments in the latest episode of Doctor Who: Unleashed, explaining how the duo’s accidental encounter with Sir Isaac Newton (Nathaniel Curtis) leaves a permanent mark on the universe as the scientist names the concept of gravity “mavity”. While Tate was left somewhat unsure of how their tiny interaction changed history, Tennant broke down the course of events in incredible detail, explaining how Donna’s pun was misheard by Newton, leading to him using the different name in his workings. Check out Tate and Tennant’s detailed explanation below:
Catherine Tate: This is what I don’t understand, OK? I get that we meet Isaac Newton and he mishears us, and instead of gravity, he says mavity. What I don’t understand is, given that I was there… Why am I..? Why do I now think it’s mavity? Has he gone to me, “Look into my eyes, not around my eyes but in my eyes…”
David Tennant: No! It’s the time is linear, you see. Even though we zip around in it. So when you said gravity, that’s the word you’d learned. But then he mishears you, he changes it to mavity, and because he’s coining the phrase right there and then, he then changes history from that moment on… In that moment, when he changes it, it dominoes through… Temporal dominoes do that, and it affects everything from that moment on. You change… You change time. You change your own education system in that moment.
Tate: They’re going to have to cut this bit down a bit, aren’t they?
The Doctor & Donna Have Accidentally Rewritten History Before
With the nature of time travel, the Doctors and their companions throughout the years have had to be incredibly delicate when preserving the timeline, aiming to avoid rewriting fixed points and causing drastic alternate histories. Despite their efforts, this hasn’t prevented any interference on the Time Lord’s part throughout Doctor Who‘s 60 years of adventures, as even during William Hartnell’s tenure, the Doctor played a hand in both the Siege of Troy and the Great Fire of Rome. The Tenth Doctor (Tennant) would also unwittingly drop remarks that would inspire William Shakespeare’s (Dean Lennox Kelly) writings, though he would ensure that he didn’t copy anyone else’s works and cause further complications.
Donna has also found herself inspiring famous historical figures, as seen during her and the Doctor’s meeting with Agatha Christie (Fenella Woolgar) in season 4’s “The Unicorn and the Wasp”. Alongside naming several of her unwritten novels, Donna would inspire Christie to create beloved crime-solver Miss Marple, joking they should have joint copyright ownership. Even the Fourteenth Doctor isn’t immune to these errors, as his journey to Skaro in Doctor Who‘s 2023 Children in Need short “Destination: Skaro” sees the Doctor naming the Daleks and giving them their plunger arms.
As Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor once said, “Every great decision creates ripples“, but sometimes the smallest ones can leave a bigger impact, as seen with “mavity”. While Tennant’s explanation feels fitting for Doctor Who‘s complicated lore, it is clear that the scenario created a confusing paradox that could leave many who linger on it confused. However, with “Wild Blue Yonder” sticking with the joke even in its tenser moments, the “mavity” line could become a surprising running gag for some time, enshrining the Doctor and Donna’s blunder in Doctor Who history.
