Doctor Who: The Runaway Bride

Doctor Who: The Runnaway Bride, aka, The one with Catherine “Am I bovvered” Tate, aka - The one where the Doctor flushes spiders down a plug hole, aka - The one where the Doctor tells someone the name of his planet, aka - The one without Billy Piper.

This is the first story with out Billie Piper’s Rose who had been until her departure an intergral part of the series. In some ways she’s a bigger loss than Eccleston, we all know Doctors come and go, but Rose was different, the series had been built around her; not as a supporting actor but as one of its main stars, she literally carried the first Xmas special with her strength and star power. How will the series continue with out her? Well Russell Davies (series show runner) has opted for a breakneck action packed Xmas extravaganza where he throws so much at you that you wonder why he didn’t throw in the kitchen sink as well, then you watch it again and realized he threw in the biggest one of the lot, the Thames river!

The story concerns Donna (the title’s runaway bride) appearing mysteriously and impossibly in the TARDIS screaming at Tennant’s bereaved and confused Doctor, accusing him kidnapping him. After some frenetic exchanges she realizes the impossible has happened to her and starts to calm down, well, slightly. She demands the Doctor to take her back to London, which he is more than happy to oblige. Well, she’s no Rose, and that voice, Christ, when you’re trying to recover from a huge loss the last thing you need is that piece of work deafening you. Typically the Tardis lands in the wrong part of London. They try to get a cab, prompting the Doctor to use his sonic screw driver to steal money from an ATM. Donna eventually grabs a cab and gets kidnapped by a robot Santa ensuing an amazing chase along the motorway with the Tardis skidding across tarmac and bouncing off cars, all done with some surprisingly outstanding production values. The mystery unravels with the frantic pace of a five year old ripping open their Christmas presents. Turns out that the Donna is saturated in particles of an ancient energy source which hasn’t been seen since the Dark Time, that is, before the creation of planet Earth. What follows is a rollercoaster, mystery, action and adventure story, that is rapidly become the show’s 21st century hallmark. Without going into anymore of the story I’ll just say that in the sixty minutes we have with the Doctor for Christmas, we get to meet the ancient Spider Empress of Racnoss, and a trip back to the formation of planet Earth, superbly realized by SFX team, The Mill. It’s worth mentioning that this is the first time we hear the word – Gallifrey in the new series, possibly hinting at later things to come in the third series.

It’s a great piece of Doctor Who story telling. Davies has been often criticized for some of his more outlandish, leftfield episodes. Lets face it farting aliens and Blue Peter competition monsters played by Peter Kay aren’t exactly new series highlights for most people – well actually I kinda liked the Kay one, the farting aliens, not my bag really, well not in Doctor Who anyway, leave it to Little Britain if you ask me. There often feels a didactic with the new Who, serious versus surrealistic camp. Well, this episode could have gone easily the same way. I mean Catherine Tate, this series needs another Sketch Comedy artist like East Enders needs another dramatic murder storyline to prop up ratings. I’ve often found her sketches more miss than hit and about as likable as Anne Wittercombe. Still she does a good job balancing Donna’s nightmare PMT hysteronics with a more sensitive demeanor in some of the quieter scenes of the episode. Her scene with her fiancé when she finds out the truth about him is well played and realistic, given the circumstances. I’m kind of glad she’s a one off though for this episode, I’m not sure I could take her on series length basis, you just know at some point she would’ve gone – Am I bovvered?

Tennant is great in this episode. Really, he’s been great from the beginning I just find him so natural in the role, throughout this episode he manages to balance the Doctor’s confusion and curiosity about what has happened to Donna with his grieving over Rose. In one particular party scene, there is a well executed flash back as he observes a blonde haired woman dancing. He remembers happier personal times dancing with Rose. He plays the part like a guy who’s just been dumped, well no that’s not quite right, as if his girlfriend has just died would be a better description. Now that Rose is gone, a bit of the darker side of the Doctor reappears, which adds a lot of ambivalence to this tenth Doctor, and more the better for it IMO. Without giving to much away he appears to commit a crime against a race which some would have difficulty reconciling with no matter how evil they were. It’s a fitting contrast to last year’s moral indignation at Prime Minister Harriet Jones when she decides to destroy the Sycorax.

Kudos has gotta be given to The Mill for the special effects they’ve produced for this episode, sometimes you forget you’re watching a British Sci-fi show. Seriously, the chase sequence and the execution of the aliens and the spacecraft are equivalent in quality to the later Buffy and Angel seasons from America. It’s interesting to see that they’re really experimenting with what the Tardis can do. In fact this episode makes the Tardis a real star, becoming an integral part of the plot. I usually hate the stories, well not hate exactly, but certainly I’m not as warm to the stories where the Tardis is absent. It’s just such a wonderful machine to watch in action.

Downsides? Not too many really, admittedly the alien spider woman thing camped it up a little bit too much for me, but hey, kids like this kind of thing and Doctor Who is supposed to a cross generational show, so I’ll let that slide. The sonic screwdriver though is starting to turn into Harry Potter’s bloody wand though, and you have to wonder whether that’s a good thing of sloppy writing, seriously in this episode it pretty much solves half a dozen different problems for the Doctor. Now originally it had been written out because it was making the Doctor’s life too easy. Will that become significant again in future stories?

The episode ends with a series of preview shots from the third series, yeah the Daleks are back, so is the Face of Boe and we’re introduced for the first time to Martha Jones, the Doctor’s new companion. She looks hot, should be a good season.

Comments

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[Brian Fraser]

I Dont think david tennant should leave doctor who because hes the best 1 out of them all.

[Lorenzo Fantini]

I can understand the move. He will have done over forty stories by his last episode. There's only so many facets of a character you can explore, even one as complex as The Doctor, before an actor feels the urge to try something new. I'm guessing Tennant wants to avoid repeating himself or ending up in a parody of his original interpretation ala Tom Baker.