Partners in Crime Review

Partners in Crime

The Doctor and Donna!

Story 189, Episodes 739, Series 4 Episode 1

Doctor: The Tenth Doctor

Companions: Donna Noble, Wilfred Mott, Rose Tyler (cameo)

Partners in Crime is a fun romp across London where Catherine Tate shines with the return of Donna.

The Review

Man Catherine Tate is just the best

The idea of someone turning down being a companion with the Doctor, and regretting it, trying to track him down again is such a good one. Due to things like ‘actor availability’, it would be difficult to do, but the stars aligned and Catherine Tate is back as Donna. With a year’s distance and not in mortal danger on her wedding day, Donna has been toned down and we actually get some emotional moments with her. She has essentially paused her life to try and track down the Doctor, and the only person that can related to that is good ol Wilf, now revealed to be her grandfather who looks up to the stars every night hoping to get out amongst the stars. It’s a fantastic performance by Catherine Tate, with the highlight of course being her miming how she got to Adipose to the Doctor. Don’t think that she is suddenly in love with the Doctor, she is quite upset with him when she’s dangling off the building and has the great line of ‘I’m not mating with you sunshine’, complaining that the Doctor is far too skinny. I’m not sure how anyone could turn down David Tennant, but it is absolutely a relief with the not well-handled Martha loves the Doctor plot line that there will be none of that here.

The Adipose are extremely cute

There is not much for David Tennant to do, but he does it well, and boy does the Tenth Doctor look perfectly realized in this story with his spiky hair and lean suit. Compared to my love of Smith and Jones, this episode is not quite as good, but the idea of fat creatures forming out of people is delightfully insane. It’s also such a fun choice to have the Adipose being nice smiling little dudes, who have done nothing wrong on their own account. They’re very cute. Miss Foster is straight out of the sleek corporate boss woman trope, but she’s played well. I guess the Judoon really sealed the deal for me in Smith and Jones, but this is plenty of fun too. I liked the Doctor remembering that he did offer Donna to join the TARDIS, and having to accept that she is coming along. It’ll be fun to have a companion whose so strong-headed that it will put the Doctor on his back foot. The ending with Wilf seeing Donna and the Doctor in the TARDIS and dancing around celebrating is plenty of fun. This is a fun episode, and portends good things coming in RTD’s senior season as show runner. Oh, and Donna talking to a ROSE at the end of the episode is still a whopper of a reveal!

It’s a fun romp, powered by Catherine Tate’s very fun performance, and makes me excited for the season to come.

8.75/10 Donna reminds me a lot of a friend of mine, maybe I’ll like her even more on this watch.

Can’t forget the birth of this meme

 

Voyage of the Damned Review

Voyage of the Damned

The Doctor and Astrid

Story 188, Episodes 738, 2007 Christmas Special

Doctor: The Tenth Doctor

Companions: Wilfred Mott

Voyage of the Damned is the most watched Doctor Who story in the 21st century, and is kind of a bloated mess of what could have been a good story.

The Review

Nearly 2000 people die in this story by the way

This story marks halfway through the Tennant era, and it is kind of crazy. The idea is simple: the Doctor finds himself on the Titanic, but that’s boring, so let’s make it the Titanic in space. It passes Earth to observe it at Christmastime, and the beginning of the story sees us meet all the characters. We have extremely wrong but charming ‘Earth-expert’ Mr. Copper, the dickwad stock broker Rickston Slade, the small alien Bannakaffalatta, and the lower-class couple of Morvin and Foon. Most importantly we meet Astrid, a waitress played by Commonwealth superstar Kylie Minogue. Minogue does an excellent job throughout the story, providing real energy to the character. Her excitement at seeing a boring London street cheers the Doctor right up, and she is endearing and brave throughout the story. She falls in love with the Doctor because if you saw how Tennant looked in this episode you would too. Morvin and Foon however completely don’t work, they’re wearing ridiculous purple cowboy-esque clothes, their dumb names don’t help, and they’re just too ridiculous. The ridiculousness will continue!

I mean seriously. Also another episode with aliens that are indistinguishable from humans

The early montage where the Doctor realizes the ship’s shields are down and meteors are going to slam into it is really good, filled with chaos and tension. Tennant has an excellent performance, him telling everyone he’s the Doctor and he’s going to save them is an iconic moment, as well as his heartbreak at Astrid’s death. This story is over 70 minutes long, and really does not need to be this long, with a lot of unneeded moments. Bannakaffalatta is secretly a cyborg, but worry not, cyborgs are getting rights on Sto now! A crucial sequence shows the gang of survivors crossing a very narrow metal beam over an open engine that might be 20 minutes in length, including Foon needlessly committing a suicidal sacrifice after his husband dies. The enemy is revealed to be the company’s owner Max Capricorn, a gold-toothed bald head in an ATV. He is defeated by Astrid running him (and herself) into an engine with a forklift, in one of the more absurd sequences in show history. The evil angel Host work well, including giving the Doctor an extremely Jesus-like lift into the air just an episode after we got JesusDoctor. There was also Midshipman Alonso Frame, he was cool. We see the Queen! Astrid’s goodbye into stardust is cool, as well as the sadness of seeing that asshole Slade not only survive, but profit. Really, this story is mediocre and I’m sorry a few people watched this as their only Doctor Who episode.

There is so, so much going on in this story, and I grow weary. It’s not bad, but it’s certainly not good. In a different world, RTD culls out all the absurdities and it really works! RTD is his own worst enemy sometimes.

7.5/10 A big MEH from me

BUT! A Wilf cameo!