In season 3, Gridlock is the first episode I've actually enjoyed all the way through. It reminds me of the Who episodes of the 70's I grew up with. A future society passively accepting the insanity of their situation as a normal way of life. To us as the audience it's a horrific exaggerration of elements of our own present we dislike and see immeidately that something is wrong and someone (i.e the Doctor) needs to fix this.
There's also many chances to link threads to other stories, but it doesn't really feel like a set up even though Gridlock does tie in to many other episodes. The cat-like race from season 2's "New Earth", the Face of Boe from season 1 & 2, the return of the Macra and of course some fairly obvious foreshadowing of the season's ending and the suggestion that perhaps the Doctor is not the only TimeLord left alive.
Freema's almost immediate removal from the Doctor brings back the classic missing companion plot, and the resolution of the future earth's problem is brought about by the Doctor's obsessive campaign to save the girl. The chase element of this allows a plethora of sight gags and quick jokes as our hero jumps through snapshot after snapshot of the future world where traffic has run amok.
Gridlock ends with the revelation that the Doctor is 'not alone' and while this is a very vague and lazy piece of writing (why wait so many eons to say just that?), it is followed beautifully with the Doctors very cinematic confession to his new companion as the camera pulls up and away from them. Visually this episode has the most style and least amount of 'busy-ness' to it compared to the others which have tried too hard to fit so much into the frame and the 45 odd minutes.
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