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I have finally caught up on the Doctor Who specials and by God I am going to post about them. Spoilers follow for “The Star Beast” and “The Wild Blue Yonder” but the tl:dr is DONNA NOBLE IS BACK, BABY!!!!
So. First we need to talk about me, Russel T. Davies, and season 4 of New Who, in which Donna Noble, who was introduced in a Christmas special called “Runaway Bride,” is brought back as a full-time companion…and then sent off, in a season finale called “Journey’s End,” which just…really did not sit well with me.
The conclusion of “Journey’s End” is summarized at the beginning of “Star Beast,” but what that summary does not convey is how emotionally devastating Donna’s exit was to many of us who were invested in her. In “Journey’s End,” there’s a climactic showdown with the Daleks which leads to something called the Metacrisis which ends up multiplying Ten. Briefly, and to Jack Harkness’s extreme delight, there are three versions of Ten in the Tardis. There’s Ten, there’s a copy of Ten regenerated from Ten’s severed hand (referred to sometimes in the fandom as Ten Too but officially named, I believe, the Metacrisis Doctor), and then Donna also picks up a timelord consciousness which makes her both the Doctor and Donna, aka DoctorDonna. This enables her to save the world; but a timelord consciousness is too big for a human brain and will kill her. To prevent this, the Doctor shuts down the timelord consciousness and basically stores it in a tiny lockbox somewhere in Donna’s brain. The lockbox has to stay closed, and it can’t if Donna remembers what happened, so in order for this to work Ten feels he has to wipe all her memories of him. Since she also has to forget the events of “Runaway Bride,” and the year she spent looking for the Doctor afterward, Donna loses two years of her memory.
I was not alone. Of all the companion exits in New Who under either Davies or Moffat, Donna’s was absolutely the worst. The final scenes of “Journey’s End” are so painful to me that I’ve never rewatched that episode, even though I loved about 75% of it. At this distance I think the worst of it was watching all of Donna’s character development just get wiped out, and to see her reintroduced as someone who not only doesn’t remember those experiences but seems incapable of wanting or appreciating them. Donna was my favorite companion (the only companion who’s come close to unseating her is Bill from Twelve’s last season) and I really liked the Doctor’s dynamic with Donna. She loves him but she’s not *in* love with him and, crucially, she doesn’t adore or worship him. They’re friends, and they have fun, and they have more of a peer-to-peer relationship than an apprenticeship one. I wrote a meta about this called “Double Trouble: The Death of Doctordonna” (it’s also on AO3) which is probably my most widely-read meta post ever, which tells you something about how strongly people felt about this because at the time I had like 30 followers. The argument, in a nutshell, is that RTD enjoyed the peer-to-peer dynamic but ultimately was more threatened than charmed by the idea of a companion who was the Doctor’s peer, and that’s why she had to be, not just kicked out of the TARDIS, but destroyed.
Eventually I had to take the drastic step of writing a fix-it fic called “Recovery” in which Donna recovers her memories without dying, and then has some shit to work out with Ten. Anyway.
This is just to say: there was a lot at stake for me in these episodes. And, again, not alone. From my POV the most obvious answer to the question, “Why this face?” i.e., why bring David Tennant back to play Fourteen for the blink of an eye before transitioning to the new Doctor is: Russell T. Davies has finally realized how much he fucked up with “Journey’s End” and wants to use his showrunnerportunity to try to undo some of the damage.
So. How’s that working for me, you ask?
Pretty well so far. “The Star Beast” is, for better and for worse, classic RTD era Who: ridiculous aliens, unsubtle social commentary, bits where you can almost see the unfavorable outcomes of budget discussions, occasional bouts of cheesiness. The introduction of Rose could have been handled more lightly, and there could have been fewer taps of the sledgehammer in the final minutes; but on the other hand, RTD has had many years now to be appalled by what’s going on in the UK and this intervention does actually matter. I hope we will get to see more of Rose in future episodes, because we don’t find out very much about her in “The Star Beast” apart from that she has a weakness for cute furry animals. Everyone agrees on how awesome she is but she’s not given much time to establish her specific flavor of awesomenss. And it’s not the performer, because the same actress plays Elle on Heartstopper and has no problem establishing character in the time she’s given. I would say that actually the supporting character leaving the strongest impression in “The Star Beast” is Sylvia. Go get him Sylvia!!
The solution RTD comes up with for bringing Donna’s memories back is fairly similar to the one I came up with for “Recovery”: have Donna share the metacrisis consciousness with another human so she doesn’t have to try to contain it all. Again, this could have been done better and made cooler and I wish they had; but it’s still cool that Rose gets to be both the Doctor and the Doctor’s Daughter (another Doctor double created during Donna’s original season), and of course that she gets to save the universe. But. RTD still doesn’t want anyone competing with the Doctor, so they both have to “let it go” at the end and go back to being regular humans. WHY? It could have been SO COOL to let them keep their timelordiness. But I guess RTD’s feelings about the Doctor and doubles haven’t changed since “Journey’s End,” whatever else has.
(I did love the return to the stuffies in the end, especially the Ood stuffie. Anyway.)
Nevertheless, it is cool to see as much as we saw of Donna Noble as mom. I wish we could have seen more of her Descending in the ordinary world. I mean can you just imagine the trail of fire and destruction Donna Noble has left in her wake as she unleashes herself on all the people who are coming for trans kids in the UK now? Or in the US. Donna Noble at a public hearing about book banning. Donna Noble on the PTA. Donna Noble versus The School Dress Code.
So, important as all that was, I actually enjoyed “Wild Blue Yonder” more because it gives us what we all wanted more of: the Doctor and Donna as a team. Like “Midnight,” this is a very simple concept (one set, two actors) which must have been very cheap to make but is all the better for that because it is about 98% made of David Tennant and Catherine Tate. It’s just so great to see them together again. I am even giving a pass to the cold open with Isaac Newton even though a) the Ye Olde Dialogue written for him set my teeth on edge b) I am pretty sure the word “gravity” existed before 1666, I’m not even going to check the OED…no, wait, I am. Yeah, in use since 1534 though not specifically as a scientific term. Anyway, as I said, I don’t care, because I just love Tennant and Tate’s shtick so much and the “mavity” running gag was funny.
You know, it’s been a long time and they’re both different as both performers and characters; but I just love seeing them together again and doing that thing that they do. I could go meta for a while on the fact that this episode is about doubles and trust which is interesting when you consider how their season together ended, but I think I will instead just sit with my happy memories and enjoy them. Doctor Who, under RTD, was a show that made me happy. Under Moffat, it was a show that enraged me. Under Chibnall, it was pretty good most of the time. And I’m really grateful for the opportunity to see Donna as herself again, even if they’re not letting her stay a timelord.
And Wilf! I didn’t know that he’d filmed his part of this episode before he died. What a gift to get more of Wilf, even if the actor is no longer with us.
So yeah, I am grateful for these two episodes, despite some lingering frustrations with RTD and his flaws. Bring on the next!