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| Donna (Catherine Tate)'s wedding doesn't quite go as planned... |
1 episode. Approx. 60 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Euros Lyn. Produced by: Phil Collinson.
THE PLOT
A stranger has somehow appeared in the TARDIS: A woman in a white wedding dress.
The Doctor gapes at the impossibility, particularly when he realizes that the woman, Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), is completely ordinary. Donna is enraged at being taken from her wedding to HR manager Lance (Don Gilet), right as she was walking down the aisle, and the Doctor has no explanation for how this could have happened. He does know that Donna is as irritating as she is irate, however, and resolves to get her to the church as quickly as possible.
The TARDIS gets her to the right city on the right date, and Donna hails a cab. Situation resolved... Until the Doctor notices that her driver is one of the same robotic Santas that he tangled with the previous Christmas. He manages to rescue her, but not in time to make her wedding. He instead delivers her to the reception, which has gone on without her.
While Donna reunites with her not overly-worried family, the Doctor reviews the video footage of the wedding. That's when he realizes that Donna has been infused with huon particles, energy which should not exist. When he learns that her workplace is an office building formerly owned by the Torchwood Institute, the pieces start coming together... And when he discovers a secret sub-basement in that building, he realizes that he's stumbled into a plot that traces back to the dawn of the Earth, and that just might spell the planet's ending!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Is intrigued by Donna's impossible appearance in his TARDIS - but when she notices a blouse of Rose's, he is uncharacteristically willing to forget that mystery just to get this shrill intruder out of his life as quickly as possible. It is only when he sees Donna in imminent danger that he gets pulled back into her situation. At the reception, while other couples dance, he keeps thinking of Rose - right up until he notices the videographer from the wedding, and is able to distract himself with the mystery. The climax, in which the Doctor grimly takes action against the villainous Queen of the Rachnoss (Sarah Parrish), is particularly memorable, with Tennant's Doctor actively frightening in this moment.
Donna: Barrels into the series with a shrill voice and a shriller attitude. For the first part of the episode, she is unbearable - loud, overly emotional, loud, unlikable, and loud. But once she has to accept that she's not making it back to her wedding in time, she settles down for a nice, contemplative scene on a rooftop in which actress Catherine Tate shows some terrific chemistry with David Tennant. That scene would be evidence in itself of why she was worth bringing back, even if Catherine Tate did not proceed to be terrific for the remainder of the episode. A noteworthy scene that ties in with the ending is when, after the attack at the reception, Donna tries to get the Doctor to help some of those who were hurt. He refuses to slow down, telling her that he needs to focus on "the bigger picture" - Which reinforces Donna's statement at the end, that he sometimes needs someone to stop him.
THOUGHTS
My thoughts on Donna's characterization are a microcosm of my thoughts on The Runaway Bride as a whole. The first 15 - 20 minutes are mostly unbearable: Overly broad, overly frenetic, and overly loud. There are actually a few good lines in there, with Donna's rant about pockets particularly amusing - But the stray good line can't help but get buried underneath the sheer busy-ness of it all.
Then, after a bizarre car chase (which is actually rather enjoyably staged), things finally settle down. We get some quiet bits, the characters of the Doctor and Donna start to properly emerge, and the whole story becomes so much more enjoyable that I can scarce credit that it all came from the same creative crew.
A particularly effective undertone is that Rose's departure is a raw nerve for the Doctor. This entire story is happening to him directly after losing her in Doomsday. This influences his attitudes throughout the story, and makes this a strong epilogue to the Rose era, reinforcing how important she was to him.
It should have stayed the final word on Rose, in my opinion, with only an occasional stray reference thereafter... But that's a complaint for another day.
The story itself is fairly clever. The explanation for how Donna was catapulted into the TARDIS for the Doomsday cliffhanger is not only given an explanation, it is made part and parcel of the story. There's also a nice end twist that is planted early in the story, but which is not blatantly telegraphed. The story also works nicely as a bridge between seasons, with the Doctor's reaction to Rose's departure following on from Season Two, and the planting of the name "Mister Saxon" near the end.
I tend to think that Runaway Bride would have been better had it been the length of the regular episode. Most of the first Act is not necessary to the story, and the frenetic activity of that opening segment is the worst single feature of the show. On first viewing, I nearly switched off during the first 15 minutes; on this viewing, even knowing it improved, I still had to push myself through that first patch.
But it gets so much better after, that I still find myself awarding a strong score. This is a good episode - if one that requires just a touch of viewer indulgence with it.
Overall Rating: 7/10.
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