Tag: Donna Noble

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Doctor Who New Series Season 02

Doomsday

Doctor WhoJust as the Cybermen flash into existence all over the Earth, a new threat erupts from the voidship – a group of Daleks, known to the Doctor as a particularly dangerous bunch called the Cult of Skaro, emerge with an unknown device of Time Lord origin called the Genesis Ark. The Daleks are fiercely protective of the Ark, but despite its origins, the Doctor has no idea what it is. The Cybermen aren’t the only visitors from a parallel world: Mickey Smith, Pete Tyler and the soldiers of an anti-Cyberman resistance force have tracked their prey to this world, but now find themselves outgunned as the Daleks and Cybermen launch a full-scale war against each other, with the human race trapped in the middle and Torchwood powerless to fight back. Worse yet, the Genesis Ark is activated and reveals its Time Lord nature: bigger inside than out, it is a prison for millions of Daleks captured during the Time War, who join the fight that’s laying waste to the entire Earth. The Doctor works out a plan to send both of the alien armies back into the void. But even if he can save the world, this time he may not be able to save Rose – and even if her newly (if awkwardly) reunited family saves her, her TARDIS traveling days are numbered.

Download this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Murray Gold

Guest Cast: Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith), Shaun Dingwall (Pete Tyler), Andrew Hayden-Smith (Jake Simmonds), Tracy-Ann Oberman (Yvonne Hartman), Raji James (Dr. Rajesh Singh), Paul Kasey (Cyberleader), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voices / Cyber voices), Barnaby Edwards (Dalek operator), Nicholas Pegg (Dalek operator), Stuart Crossman (Dalek operator), Anthony Spargo (Dalek operator), Dan Barratt (Dalek operator), David Hankinson (Dalek operator), Catherine Tate (the Bride)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 03

The Runaway Bride

Doctor WhoStill stunned from the loss of Rose, the Doctor is even more surprised when he finds someone else in the TARDIS – someone else who’s wearing a bridal gown and insists that she was only moments ago at a church walking down the aisle. Her name is Donna, and she’s neither impressed or pleased to find herself in an alien time machine.

The Doctor whisks her back to Earth, but no sooner has she arrived again than trouble follows: the robot Santas return, but this time they’re not homing in on the Doctor – they’re after Donna. The Doctor discovers that Donna’s body has been irradiated with a kind of energy that hasn’t existed for billions of years, and sets about tracking down the cause of it, eventually finding an elaborate but abandoned Torchwood installation beneath the Thames. But that top-secret organization isn’t behind the energy or the robots. The Empress of the spider-like Racnoss is, and she plans to use Donna to jump-start a diabolical plan to revive her nearly-extinct race…at the cost of the human race’s extinction. If the Doctor can’t find a way to flush this not-so-itsty-bitsy spider down the waterspout, Donna’s TARDIS travels may have already come to an end.

Download this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Euros Lyn
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Sarah Parish (Empress), Don Gilet (Lance Bennett), Howard Attfield (Geoff Noble), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Trevor Georges (Vicar), Glen Wilson (Taxi Driver), Krystal Archer (Nerys), Rhodri Meiur (Rhodri), Zafirah Boateng (Little Girl), Paul Kasey (Robot Santa)

Appearing in footage from New Earth: Billie Piper (Rose Tyler)

Doctor and DonnaNotes: Despite numerous mentions that the planet of the Time Lords has been destroyed, this marks the first time in the new series that the name “Gallifrey” has been spoken on screen. (It’s somehow fitting, given that the name wasn’t invented until Jon Pertwee’s final season, over a decade into the original series’ run.) Sarah Parrish starred with David Tennant in the series Blackpool (which was seen in the U.S. under the title of “Viva Blackpool”). Though the Doctor says his visit to the formation of Earth is further back in time than he’s ever gone, one would presume that the TARDIS’ visit to “event one,” i.e. the creation of the galaxy (see Castrovalva, 1982), must by definition be even further back in time, though he had just regenerated and wasn’t aware of much of it. The extrapolator makes its first appearance since Boom Town. For only the third time in the series’ history (The Deadly Assassin, the 1996 TV movie), the Doctor arrives and departs without a companion. The “dark times” during which the Time Lords did battle with the Racnoss may or may not be the same dark times hinted at by Lady Peinforte in Silver Nemesis. When the Doctor and Donna run out of the TARDIS en route to their final confrontation with the Empress, Donna leaves the door open, but it’s closed a second later.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 04

Partners In Crime

Doctor WhoOn Earth in 2008, the Doctor investigates a company called Adipose Industries, the makers of a diet pill that magically makes the fat “walk away,” suspecting that there’s something sinister to their miracle cure for obesity. Little does he know that his friend, former runaway bride Donna Noble, is also at Adipose, having just taken a job in health & safety. Also realizing that Adipose’s claims are too good to be true, Donna begins her own investigation. Donna’s family has criticized her for not sticking to any one job for any length of time since the mysterious circumstances around her not getting married, but what she can’t explain to them is that she regrets not taking the Doctor up on his offer of travel in the TARDIS – and hopes she’ll see him again someday. As she and the Doctor independently snoop around Adipose, they both learn of the more sinister agenda behind the miracle diet pill – and each other’s presence. Just as quickly, they’re both on the run, with Donna leaving no doubt that she expects to be off with the Doctor once the current crisis is over. There’s just one problem: she’s assuming that they’ll both survive the wrath of the mysterious Mrs. Foster once the secret of Adipose is out.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by James Strong
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Sarah Lancashire (Miss Foster), Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Verona Joseph (Penny Carter), Jessica Gunning (Stacey Harris), Martin Ball (Roger Davey), Rachid Sabitri (Craig Staniland), Chandra Ruegg (Clare Pope), Sue Kelvin (Suzette Chambers), Jonathan Stratt (Taxi Driver)

Notes: The episode carries a dedication to Howard Attfield, the late actor who played the role of Donna’s father in The Runaway Bride. He originally shot some scenes for Partners In Crime, but upon his death, the bulk of his dialogue was rewritten for Donna’s grandfather, played by Bernard Cribbins. According to the show’s producers, Donna’s grandfather is indeed the spirited but perhaps slightly unhinged newsstand man encountered by the Doctor (and also played by Cribbins) in Voyage Of The Damned. The Doctor’s observation about how things can come and go through a catflap are nearly identical to a similar comment his seventh incarnation made in 1989’s Survival – a story whose working title was Catflap.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 04

The Fires Of Pompeii

Doctor WhoThe Doctor brings Donna to ancient Pompeii, only to discover that they’ve arrived on the eve of the eruption of Vesuvius. A woman in red robes who immediately noticed the time travelers after their arrival reports to the rest of her order – the blue box foretold by prophecy has appeared. When the Doctor and Donna race back to get in the TARDIS and leave, the blue box is exactly what they don’t find: one of the street merchants sold it as a piece of art. The Doctor finds it soon enough, but now there’s a new problem: Donna doesn’t want to leave without saving some of the people of Pompeii from their fate, something which the Doctor assures her is impossible. Trying to outdo some of the local soothsayers, Donna warns everyone she can about the volcano, but the red-robed sisterhood marks her for death for the crime of false prophecy. The Doctor discovers that one of the locals is apparently in possession of advanced computer circuitry, but doesn’t know exactly what it is. Even if he saves Donna and tracks down the alien attempting to influence history, the Doctor still can’t save the people of Pompeii.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by James Moran
directed by Colin Teague
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Phil Cornwell (Stallholder), Karen Gillan (Soothsayer), Sasha Behar (Spurrina), Lorraine Burroughs (Thalina), Peter Capaldi (Caecilius), Tracey Childs (Metella), Francesca Fowler (Evelina), Francois Pandolfo (Quintus), Victoria Wicks (High Priestess), Gerard Bell (Major Domo), Phil Davis (Lucius)

Notes: Depending on how official you consider the Big Finish audio plays to be, Pompeii in 79 A.D. was positively crawling with incarnations of the Doctor; somewhere across town, the seventh Doctor and Melanie were also trying to escape the eruption of Pompeii in the audio story The Fires Of Vulcan – though they weren’t trying to battle an alien influence. Guest star Karen Gillan later went on to play the part of the eleventh Doctor’s companion, Amy Pond.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 04

Planet Of The Ood

Doctor WhoDonna’s first visit to the future brings the TARDIS to a barren, snowy planet, where she and the Doctor find a dying Ood. But before it dies, it says “the circle must be broken” and then glares at them with red eyes – the same sign of malignant external mind control that the Doctor witnessed in his last encounter with the Ood. The Doctor and Donna spot signs of civilization, though Donna becomes less convinced of that when she discovers that it’s a sales and distribution center for Ood slaves. Donna is disgusted that the advanced society that humanity has become is still relying on slave labor, but the Doctor is curious as to what is driving some Ood to calmly kill their masters, and what is causing others to fly into a deadly berserker rage. Then the time travelers discover the secret that is taken from the Ood before they are “processed” into docile servants…but that secret may die with them as the Ood revolt against all humans on the planet en masse.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Keith Temple
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Tim McInnery (Mr. Halpen), Ayesha Dharker (Salana Mercurio), Adrian Rawlins (Dr. Ryder), Roger Griffiths (Commander Kess), Paul Clayton (Mr. Bartle), Paul Kasey (Ood Sigma), Tariq Jordan (Rep), Silas Carson (voice of the Ood)

Notes: The Ood were introduced in season two of the new series in the two-part story The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit, during which time they succumbed to “red eye” for entirely different reasons.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 04

The Sontaran Stratagem

Doctor WhoA call from Martha brings the TARDIS back to Earth, just in time for Donna and the Doctor to witness a UNIT raid on the Atmos factory. Standard-issue in more than half the automobiles in the world, Atmos cancels out all harmful pollution emissions from any car – and the Doctor recognizes it as something far ahead of current human technology. But as everyone knows, Atmos is the invention of former teen prodigy Luke Rattigan, who now heads his own academy for developing young genius. A visit to Rattigan’s academy reveals that he is in league with a Sontaran invasion force, a discovery from which the Doctor barely escapes alive. He decides to dissect an Atmos device for himself, only to accidentally trigger a weapon within it that emits toxic gas. Using a clone of Martha to keep UNIT’s attention away from the real danger, the Sontarans activate all of the gas emitters in all of the Atmos-equipped cars worldwide…

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Helen Raynor
directed by Douglas MacKinnon
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Freema Agyeman (Dr. Martha Jones), Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Ryan Simpson (Luke Rattigan), Rupert Holliday Evans (Colonel Mace), Christopher Ryan (General Staal), Dan Starkey (Commander Skorr), Eleanor Matsuura (Jo Nakashima), Clive Standen (Private Harris), Wesley Theobald (Private Gray), Christian Cooke (Ross Jenkins), Rad Kaim (Worker), Elizabeth Ryder (Atmos voice)

Notes: The Sontarans last appeared with The Two Doctors (namely Colin Baker and Patrick Troughton) in 1985, though fanmade productions such as Mindgame and Shakedown revisited them after the cancellation of classic Doctor Who. This is the first episode to give, in dialogue, the revised name for UNIT – the Unified Intelligence Taskforce – which was changed from the original name, United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, for completely non-fictional legal reasons. Despite the change, dialogue elsewhere in the episode still says that UNIT gets its funding from the United Nations. Speaking of UNIT, a bit of fun is poked at the long-standing debate over whether the third Doctor‘s stint with UNIT took place in the 1970s or 1980s – and the issue certainly isn’t resolved. The Sontarans are apparently aware of the Time War, but for whatever reason were “not allowed to take part in it.” The reference to the human female’s “weak thorax” is a riff on the 1975 story The Sontaran Experiment, in which Field Major Styre noted differences in the thorax between the human genders.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 04

The Poison Sky

Doctor WhoA worldwide crisis is declared as Atmos-equipped cars across the globe poison the atmosphere with toxic gases. Meanwhile, the Sontarans’ clone of Martha continues to undermine UNIT’s preparations for all-out war against the invaders, but she’s also been noticed by the Doctor, who uses her to find the real Martha and discover why the Sontarans – usually a race that craves all-out war – are sneaking around with tactics such as poisoning the atmosphere. But the TARDIS is not at his disposal: the Sontarans have teleported it to their ship, with Donna inside. As he uncovers the plan to terraform Earth into a world suitable for breeding more cloned Sontaran warriors, the Doctor has a life-or-death choice to make – and he has to offer one to the Sontarans as well.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Helen Raynor
directed by Douglas MacKinnon
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Freema Agyeman (Dr. Martha Jones), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Ryan Simpson (Luke Rattigan), Rupert Holliday Evans (Colonel Mace), Christopher Ryan (General Staal), Dan Starkey (Commander Skorr), Clive Standen (Private Harris), Wesley Theobald (Private Gray), Christian Cooke (Ross Jenkins), Meryl Fernandes (Female Student), Leeshon Alexander (Male Student), Bridget Hodgson (Captain Price), Kirsty Wark (herself), Lachelle Carl (US Newsreader)

Notes: The Brigadier gets his first mention in the new series, even though he isn’t seen; apparently there’s only one Brigadier serving in UNIT, since Colonel Mace seems to instantly know who the Doctor is talking about.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 04

The Doctor’s Daughter

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Donna – with Martha along as an unwitting passenger due to the TARDIS’ unexpected takeoff – arrive in a war-torn underground world where the Doctor is immediately held at gunpoint by soldiers and subjected to a mechanical tissue sampling process that uses his DNA to create a new soldier – a young girl with a brilliant mind, two hearts, and, like the rest of the human soldiers, a genetically-programmed knowledge of the long war between the humans and the fishlike Hath. She immediately joins in a pitched battle against the Hath, and winds up saving her human comrades – but not before the Hath have abducted Martha. The Doctor’s “daughter” – to whom Donna gives the name Jenny – is locked up with the time travelers for fear that she’s been swayed by the Doctor’s promise to stop the humans from committing genocide against the Hath, and vice-versa. Jenny proves to be as resourceful, and ultimately as compassionate, as the Doctor herself…but when she becomes the key to ending the bloodshed, she may also find out whether or not she can regenerate.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Stephen Greenhorn
directed by Alice Troughton
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Freema Agyeman (Dr. Martha Jones), Georgia Moffett (Jenny), Nigel Terry (Cobb), Joe Dempsie (Cline), Paul Kasey (Hath Peck), Ruari Mears (Hath Gable), Akin Gazi (Carter), Olalekan Lawal Jr. (Soldier)

The Doctor's DaughterNotes: Actress Georgia Moffett really is the Doctor’s daughter – just not this Doctor. She’s the daughter of Peter Davison, who played the Doctor from 1982 through 1984, and only recently reprised his role on TV in the Children In Need special scene Time Crash. She guest starred in one of Davison’s Big Finish audios, Red Dawn, in 2000, and in 2004 she auditioned for the part of Rose Tyler; she married David Tennant after his departure from Doctor Who. This title of this episode may or may not be a play on the classic production staff in-joke title of The Doctor’s Wife – a story title, fictitiously attributed to Robert Holmes, which was posted openly in the Doctor Who production offices circa 1985 by then-producer John Nathan-Turner in an attempt to find out which production staffer was leaking story details prematurely to fanzines. Though the mole in Nathan-Turner’s office was never pinpointed, some UK fanzines did indeed announce that The Doctor’s Wife was in production for the coming season. (The title The Doctor’s Wife would crop up again during the Matt Smith era.)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 04

The Unicorn And The Wasp

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS brings the Doctor and Donna to the 1920s, to an ordinary cocktail party with an extraordinary guest – murder mystery author Agatha Christie. And right on cue, a murder takes place at the party, and the Doctor tries to enlist the famed writer’s help in narrowing down a list of suspects whose alibis have no witness to back them up. Donna searches for clues, and discovers quite a big one – a huge wasp at least as big as a human being. She narrowly avoids its deadly stinger, and at the same time, a jewel thief is at large in the house. But is the killer related to the jewel thief…or the wasp? And after solving a mystery whose perpetrator is not of this Earth, will Agatha Christie ever be the same again?

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Gareth Roberts
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Fenella Woolgar (Agatha Christie), Felicity Kendal (Lady Eddison), Tom Goodman-Hill (Reverend Golightly), Christopher Benjamin (Colonel Hugh), Felicity Jones (Robina Redmond), Adam Rayner (Roger Curbishley), David Quilter (Greeves), Daniel King (Davenport), Ian Barritt (Professor Peach), Leena Dhingra (Miss Chandrakala), Charlotte Eaton (Mrs. Hart)

Notes: Guest star Christopher Benjamin appeared in two much-loved adventures from classic Doctor Who, the 1970 Jon Pertwee epic Inferno, in which he played well-meaning bureaucrat Sir Keith Gold, and 1977’s Talons Of Weng-Chiang, in which he guest starred as irrepressible showman Henry Gordon Jago – a character who, with Talons sidekick Professor Litefoot, was briefly considered a candidate for an early Doctor Who spinoff which never – if you’ll pardon the pun – materialized. (Jago & Litefoot’s long-overdue spinoff was finally produced in audio form by Big Finish.) Agatha Christie’s amnesiac interlude actually happened, though generally history doesn’t record the whole giant wasp incident in connection with that.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 04

Silence In The Library

Doctor WhoThe Doctor’s psychic paper receives a distress call from a library so huge it takes up an entire planet. But when he and Donna arrive, the entire library is deserted – they’re the only two humanoids there. The Doctor expands the sensors to detect other life forms, and this time millions of millions are picked up – but none that the time travelers can see. Another expedition arrives to solve the mystery of the empty library, and this provides another puzzle for the Doctor when he discovers that Professor River Song, the expedition’s archaeologist, has apparently met him and knows him quite well – but she knows him in his own future, and can’t say any more than that. An automated node in the library warns the Doctor and Donna to count the shadows – and then warns them to run. When two members of the expedition die, consumed by the shadows, the Doctor realizes what they’re up against…but that realization comes too late to save Donna. Meanwhile, somewhere across the galaxy, someone else seems to know exactly what’s happening in the library…

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Steven Moffat
directed by Euros Lyn
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Alex Kingston (Professor River Song), Colin Salmon (Dr. Moon), Eve Newton (The Girl), Mark Dexter (Dad), Sarah Niles (Node 1), Joshua Dallas (Node 2), Jessika Williams (Anita), Steve Pemberton (Strackman Lux), Talulah Riley (Miss Evangelista), O-T Fagbenle (Other Dave), Harry Peacock (Proper Dave)

Notes: Alex Kingston is best known to American audiences for a stint on the long-running hospital drama ER, while Colin Salmon took over the role of Avon in a recent audio drama revival of the classic BBC science fiction series Blake’s 7.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 04

Forest Of The Dead

Doctor WhoSnatched out of the TARDIS in mid-teleport, Donna finds herself in an artificial world, where she meets the man of her dreams, has children, and enjoys a normal life with no sign of the Doctor or the TARDIS…until he suddenly appears in the place of her therapist, Dr. Moon, who she seems to see quite regularly. In the library, the Doctor’s attempts to detect his shadowy adversaries are being jammed by something, somewhere, and the ranks of the expedition are dwindling as more of its crew are consumed. Only the enigmatic Professor River Song can be of any real help to him, but the Doctor is still worried about how well she knows him – especially after she whispers one word to him that proves she knows him very well, and again when she proves that she’s more than willing to sacrifice her life to save him. Donna runs into a familiar face in the virtual construct, another victim of the Vashta Nerada who clues her in to the true nature of her new life, and she begins to question everything as her artificial world starts to collapse on itself. The Doctor realizes that Donna – and almost everyone else who was in the library before the shadows fell – have been saved in the Library’s massive computer core, but as the Vashta Nerada try to claim the library world and bring it to the brink of destruction, they may not leave him enough time to recover the survivors.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Steven Moffat
directed by Euros Lyn
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Alex Kingston (Professor River Song), Colin Salmon (Dr. Moon), Harry Peacock (Proper Dave), Steve Pemberton (Strackman Lux), Jessika Williams (Anita), O-T Fagbenle (Other Dave), Eve Newton (The Girl), Mark Dexter (Dad), Jason Pitt (Lee), Eloise Rakic-Platt (Ella), Alex Midwood (Joshua), Talulah Riley (Miss Evangelista), Jonathan Reuben (Man)

Original Title: River’s Run

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 04

Midnight

Doctor WhoThe Doctor is eager to take a trip to the uninhabitable planet of Midnight, whose sun’s radiation renders the surface completely inhospitable to any known kind of life – or so the legend has it. Faced with the choice of either this or sunbathing next to an opulent swimming pool, Donna lets the Doctor go off on his own for once. The Doctor gets acquainted with fellow passengers along the way, but when the tour ship comes to a sudden halt, so does the cameraderie – especially when the pilots’ cabin is wrenched away from the ship and something begins knocking on the hull from outside. One of the passengers is apparently taken over by some form of life which has defied expectations and evolved on Midnight, and in its new body it begins rapidly learning about human characteristics such as speech. But when the other passengers become terrified enough to discuss throwing the possessed woman out of the ship to certain doom, just to rid themselves of the alien life form, it appears that the being is learning some of humanity’s darkest behaviors too. And this time, there’s almost nothing the Doctor can do to stop the worst from coming out of everyone present.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Alice Troughton
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Lesley Sharp (Sky Silvestry), Rakie Ayola (Hostess), David Troughton (Professor Hobbes), Ayesha Antoine (Dee Dee Blasco), Lindsey Coulson (Val Cane), Daniel Ryan (Biff Cane), Colin Morgan (Jethro Cane), Tony Bluto (Driver Joe), Duane Henry (Mechanic Claude)

Notes: A few episodes after meeting the Doctor’s daughter, this time around we meet the Doctor’s son – in real life. Guest star David Troughton is the son of the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, and played a minor role in the last second Doctor story, The War Games, in 1969. He played a much more visible role opposite the third Doctor in 1972’s The Curse Of Peladon. Like his father, he’s no relation to this episode’s director, Alice Troughton, who has also directed installments of Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 04

Turn Left

Doctor WhoDuring a visit to a futuristic Chinatown, Donna is lured into a fortune teller’s booth, where her fortunes aren’t so much predicted as changed drastically. She finds herself over a year in the past, at the moment when she decided to take a job her mother found for her instead of going to work as a temp at H.C. Clemens – where she was working when her path became inextricably linked with the Doctor’s. History changes. Without Donna to convince him to show the Empress of the Racnoss some mercy, the Doctor’s mission to stop the Empress becomes a suicide mission. UNIT finds the Doctor’s body, having suffered too much damage to regenerate – the last of the Time Lords has died. Without the Doctor, history unfolds very differently, but few notice the divergence until the moment when the starship Titanic slams into Buckingham Palace and its reactor goes critical on impact, destroying London totally. Donna and her family are assigned to a home in Leeds in a besieged and increasingly xenophobic Britain, a world that they would never have chosen to live in. Further events that would have been stopped by the Doctor continue to drastically alter the world: America is laid to waste by the Adipose incident, while the Atmos devices choke millions across the globe. And with each disaster, a young woman named Rose appears to Donna, insisting that she is the most important woman in human history – Donna must go with Rose to fulfill her destiny and set history back on its rightful course. But why should Donna Noble believe a total stranger who claims to be from another dimension of reality?

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Joseph Long (Rocco Colasanto), Noma Dumezweni (Capt. Magambo), Chipo Chung (Fortune Teller), Marcia Lecky (Mooky Kahari), Suzann McLean (Veena Brady), Natalie Walter (Alice Coltrane), Neil Clench (Man in pub), Clive Standen (UNIT Soldier), Bhasker Patel (Jival Chowdry), Catherine York (Female Reporter), Ben Righton (Morgenstern), Loraine Velez (Spanish Maid), Jason Mohammad (Studio News Reader), Sanchia McCormack (Housing Officer), Lawrence Stevenson (Soldier #1), Terri-Ann Brumby (Woman in doorway), Lachele Carl (Trinity Wells), Paul Richard Biggin (Soldier #2)

Appearing in footage from The Runaway Bride: Sarah Parish (Empress)

Notes: The Trickster is mentioned as being the architect of the beetle-like creature on Donna’s back; though he isn’t actually seen in this episode, the Trickster did feature prominently in the Sarah Jane Adventures story Whatever Happened To Sarah Jane?, in which he threatened to remove the Doctor from time; presumably Turn Left is where he tried to make good on that threat. Sarah Jane and her three young friends from that spinoff series, Luke, Maria and Clyde, are said to have been in the same hospital where Martha Jones worked (and died), and in the absence of the Doctor, Sarah is said to have prevented the Earth from being blasted by an accelerated MRI machine (as seen in Smith And Jones), paying for that bravery with her life and the lives of her young friends. Similarly, Captain Jack, Gwen and Ianto of Torchwood apparently prevent the Sontaran takeover of Earth (The Poison Sky) at the cost of their own lives. Chipo Chung guest starred in the 11th episode of season three as well, as Chantho, while Lachele Carl’s American news anchor – after appearing in episodes since the first season and even appearing in the same role in the Sarah Jane Adventures – finally picks up a name.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 04

The Stolen Earth

Doctor WhoConfronted with the imminent arrival of Rose from the alternate universe, the Doctor and Donna make a quick jump to modern-day Earth, finding that everything is all right and returning to the TARDIS. But a sudden displacement of time and space leaves the TARDIS floating in space – without Earth. The Doctor flies into action to try to track the planet down, even going so far as to pay an unannounced visit to the Shadow Proclamation, an intergalactic law enforcement body, where he talks his way past Judoon guards and discovers that Earth isn’t the only planet missing: the Shadow Proclamation has placed the entire universe on alert. Taking note of the mass and properties of the missing worlds, the Doctor hypothesizes that the planets may have been stolen to become components of a massive engine, generating energy on a scale not seen since the creation of the universe. The representatives of the Shadow Proclamation are prepared to go into battle, but only if the Doctor surrenders his TARDIS; he opts to go it alone instead.

On Earth, chaos has broken out. Night has fallen around the world, and the sky is now teeming with unfamiliar planets. At UNIT HQ in New York City, at Torchwood in Cardiff and at Sarah Jane Smith’s home in Ealing, former companions of the Doctor are among the first to hear a message transmitted from an oncoming barrage of spacecraft: a Dalek voice endlessly repeating the word “exterminate”. The Daleks attack the planet, concentrating their firepower on military installations or entities that have prior knowledge of the Daleks: Torchwood and UNIT are among the first targets. An unlikely ally unites Martha, Torchwood and Sarah, using a technology invented for an emergency in which the Doctor hasn’t arrived to save the day. But the TARDIS does indeed make its way to Earth, finding the stolen planets time-shifted within the Medusa Cascade. The Doctor discovers that Davros, creator of the Daleks, has survived the Time War and bred a new race of Daleks to do his bidding. As the Doctor’s former companions race to join up with him, Torchwood comes under Dalek attack and Gwen and Ianto are left to fend for themselves. Sarah finds herself at the mercy of the Daleks, and even when Rose finds the TARDIS, it may not be enough to save the Doctor when he finds himself in a Dalek’s gunsights.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones), John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Penelope Wilton (Harriet Jones), Adjoa Andoh (Francine Jones), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Thomas Knight (Luke Smith), Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Julian Bleach (Davros), Michael Brandon (General Sanchez), Andrea Harris (Suzanne), Lachele Carl (Trinity Wells), Richard Dawkins (himself), Paul O’Grady (himself), Marcus Cunningham (Drunk Man), Jason Mohammad (Newsreader), Paul Kasey (Judoon), Kelly Hunter (Shadow Architect), Amy Beth Hayes (Albino Servant), Gary Milner (Scared Man), Barney Edwards, Nick Pegg, David Hankinson, Anthony Spargo (Dalek Operators), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voice), Alexander Armstrong (voice of Mr. Smith)

The Stolen EarthNotes: Davros first appeared in 1975’s Genesis Of The Daleks, and returned to terrorize each of the Doctor’s successive incarnations until his final appearance in 1988’s Remembrance Of The Daleks. Even the cancellation of the original series didn’t slow him down, as he returned to do battle twice more with the sixth Doctor, and then with Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor in Terror Firma, and even appeared in his own audio spinoff series, I, Davros. Apparently he’s been missing since a battle during the first year of the Time War, which – just to drive fans crazy – remains unrecorded in either novel or audio form. Actor Julian Bleach becomes the fourth actor to play Davros, having played the Ghost Maker in an episode of Torchwood’s second season. Bernard Cribbins, as Donna’s grandfather, has come up against the Daleks before – 42 years before this episode’s premiere, in the 1966 feature film Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. starring Peter Cushing as Doctor Who. Penelope Wilton returns as former Prime Minister Harriet Jones, not seen since the then-newly-regenerated Doctor uttered six fateful words in The Christmas Invasion. Appearing as himself, evolutionary science advocate Richard Dawkins is the husband of former Doctor Who co-star Lalla “Romana” Ward; coincidentally, they were introduced by former Doctor Who writer and script editor – and Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy author – Douglas Adams.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 04

Journey’s End

Doctor WhoCaught by a glancing blow from a Dalek weapon, the Doctor’s body is involuntarily beginning the regeneration process – until the Doctor is able to divert the energy into his severed hand, benefitting from the restorative effects without changing his appearance or personality. On Earth, Sarah Jane is saved from the Daleks by Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler, who have returned from the alternate universe after losing contact with Rose. The Dalek attack on the Torchwood Hub is halted by a defense mechanism that the late Toshiko Sato was developing, locking the Dalek into a moment of frozen time – but also trapping Ianto and Gwen inside, safe but unable to escape. To Mickey’s disgust and Jackie’s horror, Sarah surrenders herself and both of them to the Daleks, reasoning that being taken to the Dalek mothership as hostages will put her closer to the Doctor, and in a better position to help. The TARDIS is brought about the mothership by the Daleks, and the Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack step out to meet their fate – but the TARDIS doors close, trapping Donna inside. Declaring the time machine and anyone who is still inside it a threat, the Dalek Supreme orders the TARDIS dumped into the neutrino core of his own ship, where it will dissolve and surrender its energy to the Dalek war effort. But when Donna reaches for the Doctor’s severed hand, she sets other events into motion which the Daleks can’t possibly have foreseen. Davros is planning the destruction of the entire cosmos, every universe, every alternate universe, and every dimension, to prove himself a god, and nothing the Doctor says can dissuade the mad Dalek creator from his plans. Martha, Sarah, Jack, Mickey and Jackie join forces to put an end to Davros’ plan, but he has anticipated their interference. But he hasn’t anticipated Donna’s next move – and he certainly hasn’t anticipated whose help she has.

Order the DVDDownload this episodewritten by Russell T. Davies
directed by Graeme Harper
music by Murray Gold

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones), John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler), Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith), Adjoa Andoh (Francine Jones), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Thomas Knight (Luke Smith), Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Julian Bleach (Davros), Valda Aviks (German Woman), Shobu Kapoor (Scared Woman), Elizabeth Tan (Chinese Woman), Michael Price (Liberian Man), Barney Edwards, Nick Pegg, David Hankinson, Anthony Spargo (Dalek Operators), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voice), John Leeson (voice of K-9), Alexander Armstrong (voice of Mr. Smith)

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green