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Donna NobelCatherine Tate |
The most important woman in all of creation by Nathan Mullins 19/8/08
Donna Nobel was fiesty, bolshy, she knew what she wanted and she threw herslef into time and space with one man who she dreampt of finding after her last adventure with him in The Runaway Bride. In that episode, I had doubts about her character, because I thought the episode lacked something that I felt had something to do with her, which probably was her personality. However, this was something I have had to get used to throughout her adventures in time and space with the Doctor who she finally found whilst on an adventure herself.
Though, I must say, since The Runaway Bride, she has certainly progressed and her personality has changed from what we got used to in her last episode with him. During The Fires of Pompeii, she brought a lot of real emotion to Donna I thought and that after first viewings of that episode and the one previous, I thought, 'My god, they've gone and done it again! They've given us a companion we can feed our love and sorrow off.'
The episodes she was in were brilliant to say the least. She had all the best writers writing for her as well, giving her episodes like Turn Left, The Sontaran Strategem/The Poison Sky, The Fires of Pompeii and Journey's End. Pretty much all of them apart from one which was Planet of the Ood, which I felt was over the top; nothing to do with her, but the episode in general.
Her and David Tennant get on like a house on fire. The two of them in their characters are a joy to watch, bouncing ideas off one another and just a great couple of actors who know how to make a show work for an audience watching at home.
In my opinion, she was easily the best of the three companions so far. I liked both Rose and Martha but they didn't give the emotions that Catherine Tate gave and that's why I acknowledge her as one of the best since Doctor Who's revival, though the repetitiveness got to me in the end!
"Forget Me Nots" by Thomas Cookson 23/9/20
For Series 4, RTD went with the safest companion choice. A companion who'd already been road-tested, played by a big-name celebrity. Despite my distaste for it, the sordid, petty jealousies of RTD's companions probably felt real to Reality TV-acclimatised viewers. So accustomed to seeing people make explosive real, unsanitised, selfish choices, that they might've not bought Classic Who's old-school characterization.
Donna represents a tasteful alternative, from the world of neurotic women's comedy, who could cross-over and be in her element in RTD's environment. I would've welcomed a flat-share with Donna. Her whirlwind personality potentially making you forget your troubles.
Donna's appeal was she didn't feel part of Reality TV's piranha environment, but felt more at home in quirky comedy. Thus I felt comfortable inviting her into my living room. She had Rose's vindictive pettiness nicely shaved off, clearly existing to entertain rather than outrage and tie stomachs in knots.
Donna was explicitly chosen to both complement and challenge Tennant. Unfortunately, here's where holes appear. If we're to define Tennant in contrast to Donna, she's rash, explosive, sentimental. He's careful, considered, detached. Except he's none of those. He's the loudest, emotional Doctor of all.
The idea of Donna as Tennant's conscience comes from how she's quick to be her own. She reflects on Lance's demise "He deserved it..." then immediately reconsiders her words, realizing he didn't. Possibly the most genuine, human reaction to a quisling's comeuppance since Evil of the Daleks.
I'm unsure it quite qualifies her to be his conscience, but it does make them kin. Given the Doctor himself did something terrible to save the universe from the Daleks and also can't quite see it as justice. Unlike Davison's Doctor, there's an acknowledged absurdity of Tennant's ability to be grizzled war survivor with the capacity to physically reshape himself into an innocent-looking pretty boy.
However, looking back, I think there's a big obstacle to Donna rejoining Tennant. An elephant in the room never acknowledged. How did Donna come to forgive his drowning the Racknoss? This is something that should come naturally to RTD. He's seen Earthshock, Remembrance. He knows what it's like feeling conflicted about the noble Doctor doing terrible things and how as fans we strive to rationalize that. It's not just that there might've been a great story here, but we don't even get half a picture of it. Something feels missing that could've given their rekindling substance. It didn't have to dominate proceedings, but could've been addressed.
Due South once saw Fraser rekindle with an old flame he'd sent to prison when he could've let her go. They meet again, have a long, happy date and momentarily everything's forgiven. Next day she calls round, and all her delayed anger comes out, wailing at him for thinking they could act like nothing happened. A beautifully human moment.
The overriding sense is that, like us, Donna's fallen in love with the adventure. The issue's whether Series 4 feels the same sharply dangerous adventure of 2005. Midnight aside, it doesn't.
The Doctor's nature was trusting, open-minded, hoping for the best in everyone. But, as Scooti's death demonstrated, this could also get you killed for your naivety. You could say that's the show's thrill. A liberal hero striving against a reactionary genre's cruellest tropes. It's the danger we loved. It was life-affirming. Affirming the nobility of the Doctor's desperation to preserve life. Sometimes I genuinely get why some fans feel RTD's revival was a successful second go at a failed experiment.
For those 13 weeks a year, it somehow genuinely felt it's our real world and future at stake. Perhaps because we'd been long starved of homegrown sci-fi adventure or anything resembling a 'just war'.
Even Doomsday, The Sound of Drums and Voyage of the Damned's shlock had a genuine sense of the futuristic. About where modern society, technology and politics was precariously heading. All at the backdrop of a terrible apocalypse the Doctor made happen in order for humanity to have that chance. It seemed aspirational toward the years and centuries ahead, albeit with forebodings (Turn Left).
The trouble is Series 4 felt a lot more complacent.
Donna began being exposed to the idea the Doctor could be dangerous. Could even, beneath the sentiment, social mask and charm offensive, be an extremist who'd go far in defence of what he believed was right.
Series 4's Doctor isn't. Partly because he's been moulded into the fannish deified hero, and the season's been tailored to never put him in such difficult positions or decisions again. What feels off is that this isn't so much character growth, but circumstances being contrived to prevent him growing. The Doctor's purpose now seemed less to act as experience and instinct guided and more to stubbornly cling onto and finger-wag about nanny-state principles.
There was perhaps a feeling after The Family of Blood that Tennant had gone far enough. That it was a great chilling moment, but RTD feared it ran the risk of making the character or series unappealing. That the show needed to pull back for sake of moderation. In some sense, maybe it should. Maybe Series 4's a needed easing off of previous seasons' emotional rollercoasters, letting us relax into the last lap.
Many talked of really liking Donna, being moved by her acting in The Fires of Pompeii and Turn Left. But is her run possibly New Who's Season 17? A season with all the crowd-pleasing, ratings-grabbing, going fully for the humour, a fun Doctor-companion dynamic. And next year suddenly no one cared as much anymore?
The danger had become more cartoonish. The Daleks and Davros something of a joke. The Doctor becoming almost too self-assured. The occasions he wasn't (Midnight) overridden by the finale where his God-like powers become split three ways. Where even the moments he seems vulnerable don't quite convince anymore, given how they're at odds with his superhuman invincibility in The Family of Blood and Forest of the Dead.
Aside from Planet of the Ood, Turn Left, and Pompeii's climax, it's a rather shallow, cartoon-board season. Defined more by Partners in Crime's nonsense (the only substantial moment's Wilf's scene) and the derivative Sontaran Stratagem and Journey's End. The latter burdened by too many characters to juggle, leaving Donna little to do until the deus ex machina ending.
Occasionally we see why Russell loves Donna. Her chewing out her co-workers when she's sacked, her inability to bear the Ood song, and of course "Back of the neck!" But, as Mike Morris highlighted, Donna wasn't blessed with a substantial story run. Even in the more substantial Midnight and Silence in the Library, she's largely sidelined, latterly to give favour and focus to River instead.
Midnight seems to acknowledge Donna's growth by contrasting her with Tennant's more unenlightened, xenophobic fellow passengers. But rather overdoes it with the mother's almost psychotic reaction to suspecting he's 'an immigrant'. It's a misreading of immigration anxieties. Many Britons don't dislike individual migrants, but rather the wider transformative phenomenon of mass immigration, making assimilation and integration into our social contract seem impossible, especially given language/communication barriers. Put simply, no one would have a perfectly coherent conversation with the English-speaking Doctor, then suddenly hate him upon suspecting he's foreign.
Continuing that theme in Turn Left, Donna's horrified at learning of immigrant labour camps. A clumsy insertion of RTD's political hyperbole of believing the worst in Britain. What made 1984's Threads so terrifying was how plausibly pragmatic and understandable the governments' ruthless actions against the dwindling populace seemed. This racism just seems unbelievably spiteful for the powers that be and isn't plausible except to left-wing conspiracy nuts seeing a Nazism creep everywhere except plain sight (i.e. ISIS) and clearly aims to make us outraged without trying, without us even thinking.
Also, in regards enlightening Donna about homegrown evils, there's an unfortunate hypocrisy in Tennant's line "Who made your clothes?" One can counter "The same corrupt regime built on human trafficking that let you film in Dubai."
Finally we get the return of a new Dalek empire from the ashes of the old.
Disney's Star Wars lost me because it never explained the empire's restoration after Return of the Jedi. As though audiences aren't supposed to care why the empire's back, only that it is. Consequently, I didn't care or believe in this new scenario, or its stakes.
Perhaps it should seem equally far-fetched that Davros rebuilt an entire Dalek army from ribmeat. But the Daleks are an established single-minded conquering force that'll always find ways to multiply and cannibalize. Propelled by their perceived right to conquer the universe. Likewise, Davros' presence makes this particular mad universe-destroying scheme plausible. It's not the villain's best use, but it fits him. I can imagine him embracing a post-total extinction existence in perpetual darkness. Reigning supreme.
Unfortunately, the Daleks get utterly cheapened. We don't get vindicated by Tennant's team defeating an all-powerful, genocidal empire. They don't apply their inherent gifted smarts to it. Instead, Time Lord magic gives Donna a minute's omnipotence, and her solution's just insipid. It doesn't feel like she's personally achieved some mighty break-through against her mother's borderline abusive negative reinforcement, or Davros' ("they are pathetic"), but that the writing Gods have done it all for her.
It doesn't help Tennant's so inexplicably unhappy how they won. The clone Doctor being likened to Eccleston really cheapens the substance of him. Eccleston's psychological trauma-based malaise was that he kept picking the wrong fights and didn't realize it. The clone Tennant's absolutely picked the right fight, doing what was inevitably necessary, just a bit too soon for his original's liking.
Clearly Russell's being too audience conscious. Adopting a very simplistic view of what mainstream audiences will take. The Parting of the Ways possibly had echoes of earlier drafts where Eccleston was called upon to destroy the Toclafane rather than Daleks. Hence Eccleston had to have faith that some semblance of their human DNA might one day make these Daleks become compassionate. That's not the case in Journey's End. Nor is he being required to destroy Earth's human survivors too.
But the image of Eccleston abstaining from destroying the Daleks is one Russell knows audiences remember. As such, would they accept Tennant having no problem genociding the Daleks, despite the nuances being different? It's this strangely neurotic cautious recklessness of Russell's. Relying on the fix-all clone Doctor solution to avoid anything risky.
Donna's fate drew many feminist objections, given Tennant saves her life by mind-wiping her against her consent. However, in healthcare, there are sometimes areas for doubt whether patients possess the capacity to consent to or refuse treatment, if their state of mind's questionable.
Donna is possibly seconds from death. It's already affecting her mental faculties. She has no way yet of comprehending the full implications of this shocking news. In order to consent to being allowed to die rather than forget, she'd have to instantly grasp what death truly means, because she's not afforded any of the time to fully consider that fate.
I don't think it'd be any rational choice to die when you've a chance to live healthily, albeit with amnesia. There's always the chance to have good memories again. If she dies, she loses those memories anyway. I think Tennant's duty of care to save her takes precedence over a panicked, rash, refusal that could senselessly kill her and devastate her family. Frankly she sounds like she wants to die just to spite her past self.
But somehow it feels we've gotten from the beginning to end of Donna's journey, but the sandwich filling's missing. That there's lots of tell about how Donna's been enlightened by travelling with Tennant, but it's hearsay of events and developments we rarely saw.
Frustratingly, The Unicorn and the Wasp hints what could've become of Donna. Hundred-words-per-minute Donna, who previously seemed unimaginative and trivia-obsessed, potentially could've become an author of sci-fi books, tapping into her unlocked wit and creativity, compulsively describing her forgotten adventures for a forgotten reason. Maybe even stocked in Cal's Library. Alas, she was denied that.