Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 2, Christmas Special - The Runaway Bride
It's
Cue title sequence...
Donna is confused, The Doctor is confused, I'll admit the reasons behind her appearance in the TARDIS have got me a little perplexed. As Donna shouts a bit, The Doctor explains about the TARDIS and space and stuff, though he still can't explain her appearance here. He tries to get her back to the church. At the venue, the guests are trying to figure out what's happened to her. The Doctor isn't having much luck getting her there though, and she tries to run when she realises the whole bigger-on-the-inside thing. The Doctor isn't doing a very good job of reassuring her or calming her down, as she tries to hail a taxi to get to the church. They can't get through on the phone either, as The Doctor nips to a cash point to get some money out, though he looks more like he needs to pee. As he heads back to Donna though,, he notices some brass band players with Santa outfits and strange masks, that look strange. They freak me out a little bit, I'll be honest. The one driving a taxi that takes Donna away freaks out The Doctor a bit, too. He forces the cash machine to give people free money as a distraction, legging it back to the TARDIS.
This taxi driver isn't paying much attention as Donna shouts about them driving the wrong way. Then she knocks his mask off and realises, 'Oh, robots now. Then the TARDIS appears, flying alongside the taxi, and The Doctor eventually manages to convince her to jump across the motorway to him. Finally safe, they sit on a rooftop as he broods about Rose, and she about her missed wedding. They also debate what the robots, space scavengers, want with Donna. Well, it's time to get her to the wedding reception anyway, and back to the man who loves her, and-oh I wouldn't want to be in his shoes right now, as she catches him happily dancing with her arch nemesis, Nerys. Still, she brings out the waterworks, and next thing we know she's enjoying the party anyway.
The Doctor takes the time to look up her employer, H C Clements, because they're a security firm and therefore a bit dodgy. Turns out it's owned by Torchwood. The wedding videographer's tape also reveals that Donna was surrounded by Huon particles, an energy that doesn't exist anymore, and it also can't be hidden by a bio damper which The Doctor had used to try and hide Donna from the scary Santas. The nasty robots show up on cue, and then try killing people with Christmas trees (the baubles are bombs, and one guy does a spectaculr leap over a table into the cake). The Doctor uses the sound system to magnify his sonic screwdriver and destroy them. He finds a remote control inside one of the heads, meaning that someone is directing them, so he heads out to search for the controller, learning that it's in the sky. Appears to be a raspy-voiced giant spider in need of a throat sweet, in a star-shaped ship.
Heading to H C Clements, The Doctor theorises that when Torchwood was destroyed someone else came in and took over operations at the firm. Someone naughty. They head down to the secret floor of the lower basement to investigate, which excites the spider in her spaceship. Turns out they're in part of the Thames Flood Barrier. Whoever took over the ownership of H C Clements has been using the power of the river to manufacture Huon particles in liquid form, and then saturating them using Donna's body. Though as the Time Lords got rid of the particles in the first place because they were deadly, Donna's feeling a bit worried.
They get interrupted by raspy-spider-lady shouting at them, Lance disappearing in fright. A large hole revealed behind them, raspy-spider-lady has been drilling to the centre of the Earth, before teleporting down in front of them. It's the Empress of the Racnoss, the last of her kind, and she ate Mr H C Clements. As Donna argues with the Empress, Lance turns out to not have been scared, but actually trying to save the day with the axe! Oh, Lance is our hero! He's-oh no, he's a dick who was working for the Empress all along. He'd been putting the liquid Huon particles into her daily coffee. What an utter dick! True, he names every single thing that would drive me nuts about living with Donna, but he's still a dick. The robots guarding the Empress draw their weapons on The Doctor, who does his patented babble-at-a-hundred-miles-an-hour tactic to buy some time, bringing the TARDIS and safety to them. Not so good for Lance though; if she can't have Donna, the Empress plans to make him the new key.
As Donna mourns her romance, The Doctor takes them back to the creation of the Earth. He's looking for the first rock to draw others to it to create the planet, and it turns out it's a Racnoss ship. They're dragged back to the present before they can observe it much, managing to diver the TARDIS to a corridor away from the room with the Empress, who has been getting all raspy with Lance. Donna gets kidnapped as The Doctor explains her role as the key, reactivating particles that the Time Lords deactivated. The Empress starts the process, purging Donna and Lance of the particles, and starting the extraction of the Racnoss ship and her children from the Earth's core, sending Lance down to them as their first meal.
Above the skies of London, the Racnoss ship appears, delighting everyone with it Christmasness, until it starts firing lightning at everyone. One child even screams as a piece of lightning moves SO SLOWLY IT'S ALMOST STANDING STILL towards her, in a move of stupidity worthy of a place on the crew of the Prometheus. The Doctor releases Donna from her web-prison, allowing her to swing out of the way, and then he offers the Empress one last chance to surrender, and allow him to help her and her children find their own planet. She's all like, 'no way dude, listen to me rasp and quiver with fearrrrrrrrrrrrr', but The Doctor uses the remote control he nicked to turn the robots off, and then throws Christmas tree bombs around the building, flooding it and drowning the children in the drill hole. Donna has to remind him that he's being a bit genocidal and scary, and that he can stop flooding things now. They escape as the Empress teleports to her ship, threatening the Earth. The army then blow up the ship, proving once and for all that the British Army would counter the Empire in Star Wars, as they can actual hit things unlike Stormtroopers. Also, the Thames has been drained, but that should just alleviate the worry of flooding for a while.
Huon particles all gone, The Doctor returns Donna home. He offers her the chance to travel with him, but she turns it down. Must be a first! Ah well, he'll find someone soon that he can travel with and complain about missing Rose to all the time. They bid each other farewell, and we preprare for Series 3.
Overall, this is a vastly improved Christmas special. It's absolutely hilarious, and right from the start I think Donna is brilliant. I know that Catherine Tate is very polarising. I'll admit that I'm not a fan at all of The Catherine Tate Show, and I think it's her 'forceful' performance at times that can put people off, but I love her as Donna. She's the perfect replacement for Jackie Tyler in many ways, and her delivery of her funniest lines is spot on. When she first arrives in the TARDIS, for example, when asked why she's dressed in a wedding gown, her reply of, 'I'm going tenpin bowling(!)...why do you think, dumbo?!'. It would be too difficult to write down every time she says something in that style that makes me laugh, because it's essentially her entire demeanour throughout the episode, but I love it. As far as I remember, this changes somewhat in Series 4 as her character grows, but those moments are still there (You want, to 'mate' is her greatest line)...Just like Jackie complaining about all manner of things is 'so Jackie', Donna's reversing of the truth about her engagement is 'so Donna'. And I love those 'so Donna' moments. Especially the bit where everyone starts asking her where she was at the reception, and she starts crying (winking to The Doctor as she does so), and everyone applauds her. It's no surprise that she was brought back as a companion; the interplay between them is brilliant.
I'll not beat about the bush; I think the Racnoss is rubbish. It looks like someone plonked in an oversized costume struggling to walk as one would in 10-inch stilettos, and has the most annoying raspy-voice and roar since the child in Fear Her. But that's basically the only criticism I can level at this episode. The bad guy has to be a major part of what mark you award an episode, sure, but if that's the only fault then it's got to be pretty good.
One of my favourite funny moments is the following:
Donna: (shocked) You had the reception without me!
Lance: Donna! What happened to you?
Donna: (more angry) You had the reception without me?!
Everyone looks guilty
Donna: (turning to The Doctor) They had the reception without me!
The Doctor: Yes, I gathered...
There's a real hidden gem of a joke that might easily get overlooked, but as Donna and The Doctor try to hail a taxi, as people are shouting things to her, she complains that people think she's in drag. The Doctor gives her a slow look up and down here as if he's wondering whether they're right, and it's brilliantly funny. It's over very quickly, without Donna commenting, so it'd be easy to forget it but I think it's one of the funniest parts of the episode.
The Doctor mentions the Battle of Canary Warf where the Cybermen invaded, and Donna is oblivious, saying that she was in Spain. He points out that they had Cybermen too, and Donna looks at him like he's stupid, as she was scuba diving. I really cannot emphasise just how much I love Donna when she's like this; she and The Doctor just work brilliantly together.
Something that Donna hits on that sums The Doctor up perfectly is when she says to him that he needs a companion so that there's someone to stop him. When he destroys the Racnoss children, Donna has to pull him back from the dangerous stare he gives as he watches everything crumble around him, and it's a terrifying (well, you know what I mean) reminder of the power that The Doctor holds. He gave the Empress a choice, then he did the only thing he could to save nearly 7 million people on Earth; kill a bunch of technically innocent children. That dangerous scare is a mix of guilt and anger, and we'll see it again most prominently in The Waters of Mars.
Excellent nod to Harold Saxon in Series 3 when the army are told he has given them permission to destroy the Racnoss ship. Doctor Who sure knows how to foreshadow things.
We know that The Doctor has a massive ego, not-so-secretly hidden at that, but I love it when little gems like, 'I don't understood it, and I understand everything' come up.
Oh, the final moments of Doomsday are still weighing heavily on his heart. Though Donna finding Rose's top is funny with the way she accuses him of having abducted lots of women before her, his expression as he tells her that it belongs to his friend is emotionally fraught. The anger behind his eyes when Donna asks him how Rose was lost is enough to silence her (no easy task), and it's perhaps the most murderous look we've ever seen him give. Later on, there's a little bit of healing for him as Donna asks whether Rose trusted him before he lost her, to which he repliest that she did, and she's very much alive because of it.
As The Doctor destroys the robots at the wedding party, the first hints that I've heard of The Doctor Forever theme play slowly. It's my favourite theme of all, and it gives me goosepimples hearing it now.
The re-use of corridors has always been a staple part of BBC filming, but I swear the corridor of the lower basement is the same that we saw at the Torchwood Institute in the Series 2 finale, and in Series 1's Dalek. It's a nice thing to see though, strangely. Comforting in a way.
Harold Saxon Mentions
The army are told that saxon has given orders to destroy the Racnoss ship.
Overall
An excellent Christmas episode, and possibly the best that I've seen if you discount the Tennant leaving specials. It's hilarious throughout, and Catherine Tate is fantastic as Donna. Let down only by the villain being beyond annoying, fake looking, and frankly rather rubbish.
9/10
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