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After giving us a few months to mourn the loss of Billie Piper (not nearly long enough), Doctor Who returned for a Christmas Special in 2006, with Catherine Tate filling in as the companion until Freema Agyeman took over the reins for the third series in March 2007…
Donna Noble is my all-time favourite Doctor Who character, bringing comedy, warmth, and bucket-loads of tears to Series 4. But the Donna Noble of Series 4 is not the Donna Noble of ‘The Runaway Bride’. Appropriately, for a woman who made her name on a sketch show, the Donna in this episode is nothing more than a sketch. There’s still humour to be had, with Tate giving it her all, and the episode itself is pretty good, but we know that both the show and Tate can do much better. Any qualms about Tate were swiftly forgotten, though, as viewers readied their claws for the Doctor’s next full-time companion, Martha Jones.
While some disagree, Agyeman proved to be a worthy successor, giving a likeable and natural performance. Series 3’s opening episode, ‘Smith and Jones’, perfectly introduces the character; you really do feel like you know her by the end, and that’s not as a result of two-dimensionality or rushed characterisation. She also has great chemistry with Tennant, who continues to masterfully display charm, wit, intelligence and sorrow (often all at once). The only issue in this otherwise excellent series opener is that Martha is in love with the Doctor after about half an hour. One, did we really need another love interest so soon after Rose? And two, half an hour?!
Martha’s first trip in the TARDIS, ‘The Shakespeare Code’, is also great fun. The sets are a bit... well, setty, and the visual effects could never be dubbed special, but the script is well written by Gareth Roberts, who clearly has a gift for puns and wordplay. Again, it’s not perfect, not least the casting of Dean Lennox Kelly as Shakespeare; I can’t imagine him writing even one logical sentence… on second thoughts, maybe he was the perfect choice.
The fun comes up against a red light, however, as we reach ‘Gridlock’, the first in a run of episodes that would be the worst until Series 5. ‘Gridlock’ is one of those episodes where, if you think about it for a millisecond, you realise that it just doesn’t hang together. Why, for instance, would anyone go on the motorway, knowing that people have been on it for 24 years, when the cars are more than capable of travelling across land? Also, how did the pre-credits couple get to the fast lane, when we were told later on that the wheel locks if there aren’t three people in the car? It’s such obvious errors that make it troublesome to watch but, come the following two-parter, all would be forgiven.
‘Daleks in Manhattan’/ ‘Evolution of the Daleks’: the worst two-parter of the RTD era. Dodgy New York twangs aside, the first part is alright, happily jaunting along, but then comes the human-Dalek cliffhanger. It’s a cliffhanger entirely lacking in suspense, inducing groans rather than gasps, and it sets up a disastrous second part, with a tedious resolution and dialogue that hits new levels of cheesiness, cringeworthiness, and downright awfulness. But, hey, it’s infinitely preferable to ‘Victory of the Daleks’.
The sixth episode, ‘The Lazarus Experiment’, wouldn’t have had to work hard to top its predecessor, but, somehow, only just manages to do so. It’s a weak episode that’s as formulaic as they come, with an unimaginative plot that does little with its potentially interesting idea. And I’d rather not talk about the dire CGI. The episode’s only saving grace is that the Harold Saxon thread begins in earnest, laying the tantalising seeds for the series finale. And, based on the standard of the series so far, it couldn’t come fast enough.
A summary of Series 2 (Part 2) can be read here.
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