caz963 | DW Rewatch - The Runaway Bride (Reply)

It’s no secret that Donna is my favourite companion in the whole of “nu-Who”, so of course I’m having a little squee because The Runaway Bride is next up on the DW Rewatch schedule.

I was a fan of Catherine Tate’s before this – Lauren Cooper, whilst being the bane of teachers everywhere was nonetheless an amazing creation – so I was pleased to see her arrive on the TARDIS at the end of Doomsday.

I’ve said this repeatedly – so one more repetition won’t hurt – that when it was announced that Billie Piper was leaving, I was hopeful that she’d be replaced by someone very different – older, less cow-eyed over the Doctor (not that I blame her for the cow-eyes; he’s gorgeous, it’s understandable!) and most definitely someone who would call him on his crap and administer a metaphorical kick up the arse when needed.

And here she is – although we had to wait another season before she became a ‘full-time’ companion.

I’ve got loads more I could say about Donna, and the impact that the arrival of Catherine Tate had on the series, but I’d better save that for my S4 rewatch.

I remember many people complaining that she was too shrill and ‘shouty’ – but hang on. She was walking down the aisle on the biggest day of her life and suddenly finds herself somewhere really strange, with a bloke she doesn’t know! What’s she supposed to do? Curl up in the corner and cry? See, this is Donna Noble we’re talking about here. She might not know where she is or what’s going on, but she doesn’t take shit from anyone and she’s bloody-well going to make her presence felt!

I’ll have a salute, thank you. *g*

The obvious chemistry between Tate and Tennant is also not to be dismissed lightly. (They’ve since become a rather good double act!) My other all-time-favourite show (The West Wing - of which incidentally, T&T are almost as big in the geek stakes as I am!) benefitted from a similar happy accident between two of the actors which stood out a mile, and which, quite frankly, doesn’t happen very often, not on this sort of level. People can get on and work well together, but this is something over and above that, and it’s rare. We’re talking Powell and Loy / Grant and Hepburn levels of chemistry here, even though the Doctor and Donna never had a romantic relationship.

This is very image heavy. Also, I'd have finished it sooner, but Photobucket is behaving very oddly for some reason, and it took me ages to retrieve links.

What?

Doctor: I’m the Doctor.
Donna: Donna.
Doctor: Human?
Donna: Is that optional?
Doctor It is with me.

Again with the mean and moody.

And she hits him! Has any other companion actually slapped the Doctor?

TARDIS stroking

Our hero continues to rant – but sadly, to himself as Donna is having her “it’s bigger on the inside” moment.

Guess what? NO POCKETS!

Wonder why they can’t get a cab. It's not as though they want to go south of the river, is it?

I’m sorry – I couldn’t help it. What’s he staring at? *whistles*

Oops. No money and still no pockets!

Donna manages to borrow a tenner and heads off

To be driven by a robot.

After the TARDIS/Taxi chase down the motorway (I’m in my wedding dress! – Yes! You look lovely!), it’s time for a bit of a rest.

He’s a gent. Even though his jacket wouldn’t fit a rat.

Heh. No snogging for the Doctor in this episode. No, instead he gets to put a wedding ring on Donna’s finger, complete with an adapted “with this ring” speech

– and a very flirtations grin. He just can’t help himself, can he?

This friend of yours. Before she left, did she punch you in the face?

Back at the reception, it’s… well, the reception!

With one swift stroke of the pen, RTD tells us such a lot about Donna and her relationships with her friends and family. They had the reception without her, not knowing if she was okay or not. It’s cruel of them (and should have told her something important about Lance, letting them go ahead with it.) – but not in the obvious way. It’s not that anyone set out to be cruel – they just didn’t think. Which shows you just how highly they think of Donna (not) if they can do something so callous on what was supposed to be the best day of her life. Given what we find out about Donna later – her lack of self-esteem – her inability to see how brilliant she is, it makes sense that her image of herself would be picked up on by others. Which doesn’t excuse their behaviour one bit. And then we’ve got Sylvia, her own mother – accusing her of leaving a “silly little message”, seemingly not at all concerned. Poor Donna. Thank goodness she’s finally met someone who can see her awesomeness.

Gotta love the wink!

And the barely suppressed smirk

And the specs

Wedding videos can be useful

But the baddies have found them

Just before this - another of Ten’s quirks; the flippy thing. I love the flippy thing; the sonic screwdriver, the microphone, the torch – bearing in mind they only had 2 of the screwdrivers, I hope he was good at catching them, or they’d have been forever repairing them!

The Doctor is concerned about the bigger picture – Donna just wants to help the injured

I love this bit – you can see she’s torn between going and staying, but there’s really no contest. She goes.

Pencil. Mug. Face. Bovvered?

Doctor: To honour and obey?
Lance: Tell me about it, mate
Donna: Oi!

*drool*

Hee! They know they look stupid, but they don’t care!

Donna’s a bit preoccupied. Given what she’s looking at, so would I be!

Who’d have thought it – a secret base under a major London landmark?!

I’ve heard of blushing brides. Not glowing ones, though.

Maybe he likes the slaps.

What did I do this time?

Donna’s Doctor-bullshit detector is already working at full capacity.

That’s a big plug’ole!

Donna finally realises that Lance wasn’t all he seemed. What a git.

Clearly, the Doctor thinks so too. He doesn’t like it when people mess with people he likes.

Don’t you hurt him! Oh, Donna.

I know that for many, this is the point at which they admitted that maybe Donna wasn’t so bad after all.

They’re about to be attacked and/or killed – and he still can’t shut up.

Typical man.

Even our hero – who knows everything – doesn’t know what to do with a sobbing woman.

I’m not sure that being present at the creation of the Earth was high on Donna’s list of priorities right then.

But look how cute he’s being.

And who could fail to be impressed by that?

And look! I've added this cap in, because I just saw this ep again, and there is kicking controls and clambering over the console! I'd thought the first instance of this was in The Shakespeare Code, but it appears to be here.

Donna-less.

Not happy. Just plain scary.

Spider-lady gets one last chance to leg it. (With all eight!)

Pockets. Which are bigger on the inside. Which accounts for the amount of crap he seems to keep in them!

At this point, I suppose we’re meant to infer that if Donna hadn’t been there, the Doctor wouldn’t have stopped. (Which is what we see later in Turn Left)

You can stop now!

And he does. But they drained the Thames.

Back home.

He asks her to go with him – and is genuinely sorry when she turns him down. He knows she’s right about his needing someone.

Donna: Will I ever see you again?
Doctor: If I’m lucky *wibble*

Be magnificent.

I can’t help but compare this with the scene at the end of Smith and Jones which was on earlier - I know, I'm behind with the spamming!), where he offers Martha “one trip” and you can see that half of him doesn’t really want her there, even though the other half is crying out for companionship. I wouldn’t have blamed Martha for saying “stuff your bloody trip, you obviously don’t want me here!” because he was all “come with me – but you’re not staying!”.

But here – and thinking about it, despite the gap in time between episodes (Doomsday aired in the summer, and Runaway Bride at Christmas) the Doctor lost Rose and met Donna on the same day – his offer is genuine. He knows he not only needs someone, he wants someone with him. It can't be much fun, travelling alone :(

Screencaps from Sonic Biro, The Medusa Cascade and Demon-cry.net. gif by