Series 4 Boxset:
Series 4 Part 1:
Series 3 Boxset:
Director:
James Strong
(Daleks In Manhattan, Evolution of the Daleks, The Impossible Planet, Partners In Crime, The Satan Pit, Smith & Jones, Voyage of the Damned)
Screenplay:
Russell T. Davies
Cast:
The Doctor: David Tennant
Donna Noble: Catherine Tate
Miss Foster: Sarah Lancashire
Wilfred Mott: Bernard Cribbins
Sylvia Noble: Jacqueline King
Penny Carter: Verona Joseph
Stacey Harris: Jessica Gunning
Roger Davey: Martin Ball
Craig Staniland: Rachid Sabitri
Clare Pope: Chandra Ruegg
Suzette Chambers: Sue Kelvin
Taxi Driver: Jonathan Stratt
Synopsis:
The Doctor is reacquainted with Donna, who helps him stop the manufacture of a
deadly weight-loss pill...
Forgetting the bland Voyage Of The Damned at Christmas, the last
time we saw The Doctor he'd just bid farewell to Martha Jones, who decided to
take a sabbatical from her adventures with the Time Lord. The premiere of
season 4, Partners In Crime, opens near-identically to Martha's
third season debut, with one-time companion Donna (Catherine Tate) also
striding purposefully down a busy London street but unaware The Doctor (David
Tennant) is on the same street, for the exact same reason...
Donna, posing as a health and safety officer, infiltrates the offices of
Adipose Industries, a business offering a miracle drug to help the country's
overweight population. In extended comic sequences, it transpires that The
Doctor is investigating the same company, although they both humorously avoid
bumping into each other.
Donna eventually goes to meet slimmer Stacey Harris (Jessica Gunning),
while The Doctor visits Martin (Roger Davey), who is happy with the
Adipose pill's fat-losing effects, but confused about why his burglar alarm
has started going off at 1.10am every morning...
That riddle is answered by Donna, as Stacey goes upstairs to the bathroom, leaving
her to fiddle with a gold pendant Adipose Industries hand out as freebies to
their customers. After absent-mindedly twisting the pill-shaped pendant, it
triggers a reaction in Stacey upstairs who watches in horror as her stomach
begins to pulsate, and eventually her whole body turns into tiny, chubby,
white alien babies.
Concerned, Donna bursts into the bathroom to find a puddle of Stacey's clothes
on the floor and a marshmallow-like alien perched on the bathroom window!
According to Adipose Industries' executive Miss Foster (a frosty Sarah Lancashire),
the pendant triggered premature "parthenogenesis" in Stacey Harris, and she
dispatches some of her employees to clean up the scene...
From there, we get a better understanding of Donna's current situation after her
adventure with The Doctor in The Runaway Bride Christmas Special. She's
living with her irritating mother Sylvia (Jacqueline King), but prefers
to spend time with her "Gramps" Wilfred (Bernard Cribbins), who spends
his days "up the hill" on his allotment, staring at the stars through a
telescope.
Donna hasn't told her family about her dalliance with aliens, or the real
circumstances behind her wedding day fiasco, but makes it clear to her Gramps
that she's waiting for "the right man" to come along in similar fashion to
how Torchwood's Captain Jack spent season 1 waiting for "the right kind of
doctor".
There's a great scene for The Doctor inside the TARDIS, as he realizes he's
talking to himself about the investigation (signifying his unease at being
a lone adventurer), but he's soon back at Adipose to single-handedly thwart
Miss Foster's plans. He snoops on Miss Foster by using an outside window-cleaning
rig to position himself outside her office, where he eavesdrops on Miss Foster
berating one of her employees, Penny Carter (Verona Joseph), who appears
to have cottoned-on to her masterplan...
Donna also arrives, and there's a brilliant scene where The Doctor and Donna
finally clasp eyes on each other -- albeit from behind a sound-proof window
and door, on opposite ends of Miss Foster's office. Possibly intended as a dig
at Catherine Tate's brash nature during Runaway Bride, I thought it was
particularly amusing of writer Russell T. Davies to have Donna shout and
"overact" from behind solid glass, effectively silencing her with mime. It was
a nice touch, and the scene has a funny pay-off when Miss Foster calmly interjects
on The Doctor and Donna's silent "conversation."
The Doctor and Donna are finally reunited, with Miss Foster in hot pursuit
(armed with a sonic pen), which she uses to trap them both on the window cleaning-rig
with Donna dangling from the broken rig, and The Doctor seconds away from a
freefall to death. However, after managing to knock Miss Foster's sonic pen
away with a ricochet effect from his sonic screwdriver, he manages to get them
both to safety inside the Adipose office block.
In typical villainous fashion, Miss Foster and two armed goons eventually locate
The Doctor and Donna, and she monologues her nefarious plot: to use Earth as
an alternative "breeding planet" for the Adiposian First Family. Behind the
wall of the office block is a large system called The Inducer, which can make
the 1 million users of her slimming pill go into parthenogenesis and transform
into millions of tiny alien Adipose children immediately.
The Doctor slips away from Miss Foster with Donna, by creating a sonic wave blast
from his screwdriver and her pen, before finding a cupboard with access to The
Inducer.
Miss Foster starts the Inducer system, and overweight pill-takers across London
begin to contort in pain as their body fat coalesces into chubby aliens. The
Doctor uses one of Adipose Industries' pendants to dampen the effects of The
Inducers, but is at a loss once Miss Foster increases the power. Fortunately,
Donna has another pendant to hand, and the two combined manage to override the
system. Still, Miss Foster is content that 10,000 Adipose have been created,
and the thousands of chubby aliens march together down London streets, as
their nursery ship (looking extremely similar to the Mothership in Close
Encounters Of The Third Kind) descends to collect them.
On the roof, The Doctor and Donna watch the Adipose babies float upwards to
the nursery ship through the night sky, along with Miss Foster. The Doctor
warns her to escape the ship's tractor beam, but she's convinced she'll be
handsomely rewarded by the Adiposian First Family for her duties as nanny.
But, of course, as The Doctor warned, the Adiposians have no need for a
"foster mother" now that their children have been born, and she plummets to
her death.
With disaster averted (or at least limited) by The Doctor, Donna invites herself
along for more adventures. The Doctor only seems to half-remember asking Donna
to be his companion, before she turned him down, but now she's convinced it's
the right thing to do. In fact, she's already fully packed with suitcases filling
the boot of her car!
The Doctor, despite admitting he's lonely, makes it clear that things got complicated
with Martha, but seems relieved when Donna makes it abundantly clear she doesnt
fancy him.
Donna leaves her car parked in an alley next to the TARDIS, drops the keys in
a nearby bin, and phones her mum to say goodbye. Just before she leaves, Donna
asks a blonde girl to keep an eye out for her mum, then rushes off to be with
The Doctor.
The blonde girl turns around and reveals herself as Rose! Looking strangely
sad, Rose walks away... fading like a ghost, until she disappears...
The episode closes with Gramps in his allotment looking through his telescope at
the twinkling stars, as the TARDIS spins into view, with The Doctor and Donna
clearly visible through its open front door. As Gramps yelps with joy, the
TARDIS ascends to the heavens, taking his granddaughter on the ride of her
life...
Russell T. Davies manages to deliver an effective premiere, which entertainingly
reintroduces Donna Noble and tweaks her character away from the shrill caricature
that caused upset in The Runaway Bride special. There are moments when
Donna's feisty nature comes through, but it's tempered by a more whimsical air
and infectious enthusiasm. Above all, it's just nice to have a companion who
categorically has no intention of smooching with The Doctor (the crippling of
the otherwise great Martha last year), as it consequently results in a fresher
Doctor/companion relationship.
The episode's story is better suited to The Sarah Jane Adventures, but
the sense of fun and some genuinely funny moments help make it palatable for
teens and adults. But I'm sure kids will love the adorable Adipose babies, as
you can already see them on toy shelves for Christmas. The sequences with the
hundreds of Adipodes were apparently created using "Massive FX" computer
software created for Lord Of The Rings, and it's certainly an improvement
over the swarms of Daleks we've seen on the show before.
Partners In Crime certainly kept me entertained, and I was struck by
the chemistry between The Doctor and Donna, with Catherine Tate giving an even
performance. David Tennant now firmly embodies the wandering Time Lord with an
authority not seen since Peter Davison's '80s tenure. He just lacks the iconic
presence of Tom Baker, really; but he's still marvellous to watch bounce through
scenes.
And what about that surprise appearance from Rose? I didn't see that one coming,
although I did realize it was Rose from her hairstyle, before her face was
shown. I know, it's sad. It looks likely she's season 4's "arc" element (to be
sprinkled throughout the 13 episodes), but why is she back? Her ghost-like disappearance
hints that she's found a way to cross dimensions from her own parallel universe
into ours, but for what purpose?
Overall, Partners In Crime was a competent, efficient and entertaining
start to the new season. There were the usual gripes with Doctor Who in evidence
(the gross overuse of the sonic screwdriver, primarily), and I'm confused about
Gramps musing on the mysteries of the universe as he debuted in Voyage Of The Damned
as someone expecting first contact because the previous two Christmases had
aliens openly attacking London but never mind.
Doctor Who and Torchwood have always operated around populations with dumb
reactions to alien first contact, and very bad memories...
All said, I found this to be a good episode with more to recommend than to
pick fault with. Catherine Tate might not be as physically attractive as
Billie Piper and Freema Agyeman, but she brings a welcome change of dynamic,
and her character has definitely improved from Runaway Bride on this
episode's evidence. I'm more excited about the possibilities of Season 4 than
I was before watching this episode...
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Series 4 Boxset:
Synopsis:
The Doctor is reacquainted with Donna, who helps him stop the manufacture of a
deadly weight-loss pill...
