Talking Out Of Turn

This is a review, containing spoilers, for the Doctor Who episode “Partners in Crime,” which aired in the US about a week and a half ago (what can I say, I’m behind).

Ah, the smell of a new series, and a companion introduction episode. Smells like victory.

All the elements are there: the somewhat silly, underdeveloped alien threat (Judoon and hemavore last season, Nestene Consciousness in the first season, and now the Nanny and the cutest wittle alien thweat you ever saw… the Adipose; I smell spinoff cartoon! “The Adipose Babies,” in which they differentiate themselves by different-colored hats or diapers, and communicate in vaguely Teletubby fashion while doing insanely cute things and not, anymore, consuming the flesh and organs of unfortunate hosts), the time spent learning about the day-in, day-out life of shopgirls, I mean medical interns, no, I mean unemployed busybodies… and finally the denouement, in which the new companion demonstrates that she’s better than the ordinary people around her (her mother or boyfriend, or perhaps the other people at her hospital, or in this case the poor reporter who is still tied to her chair).

It is definitely the old Donna in one sense: talking a mile-a-minute with that accent that I can barely follow (I had an easier time wif Rose and Mawfa, I’ll be honest), switching madly between admiration and undisguised contempt, and then there’s that quality that is going to make her better than any other companion, I feel sure of it: that idea she has, that the Doctor is actually deficient in some way, that her opinion is as good as his. We know better, don’t we? I mean, Rose goggled at him. Martha fell for him, hard. But Donna thinks he’s great for being a “spaceman” (not used in this episode, but it shows up in the next one) and having the TARDIS (and she does use that term; somehow she remembered that, held onto it like a lifeline)… and she saw him killing hundreds of children. The Racnoss children. And it wouldn’t surprise her to see him do it again.

In the meantime, we laugh at the poor fat people who take a pill and end up giving birth to the Adipose. Seriously, I thought they were funny. It’s better than Tribbles. And they’ve got such personality! Waving at their poor hosts as they saunter off through the catflap… there’s something just hilarious about that. Even the Doctor doesn’t find the idea too weird, except that he knows that it could get worse. “Seeding a level five planet,” we are told, is against the law. And then a shudder out of the not-so-distant past… out of the first new episode, actually. The Shadow Proclamation. What is that? Miss Foster (the Nanny) mentions it, and she’s afraid of the Doctor “informing” it. What? I thought it was a document, but now I’m not so sure. What a great name, though! “The Shadow Proclamation.” Where did that come from? I’m already chalking it up on the Repeated Meme list, just in case.

So, did Donna get that two-week job with “Health and Safety” just to get into Adipose? Or was this just an auspicious coincidence? Interesting to see that she learns almost as much as the Doctor does, with neither psychic paper nor a sonic screwdriver.

Speaking of, gosh, who doesn’t have an advanced magic can-opener device these days? Sarah Jane, Harold “who’d have sonic?” Saxon aka the Master, and now Miss Foster. Of course, some might argue that Catherine Tate’s voice by itself qualifies as a sonic device that should be illegal on a level five planet. But it isn’t the Doomsday Device that Mel’s shriek was. Speaking of which, you almost wonder for a moment if the Nanny is the Rani… but it seems doubtful. I mean, the Doctor said that he was the last Timelord, and he’d know, right? I mean, assuming we’re not going to pull out the Deux Ex Machina I mean Chameleon Arch again. And what woman carries a pocketwatch?

Did the Adipose lose their breeding planet because of the Time War? I mean, that’s how the Nestene Consciousness lost its protein planet, isn’t that right? Is this all the Doctor’s fault again? After all, everything else is.

Are all my reviews going to be unanswerable questions?

Well, it was fun to see them hanging from the side of a building. The Doctor didn’t seem concerned enough. Maybe since Martha walked out (and since losing Astrid, whatever that may mean to him) he just doesn’t care anymore. Maybe it’s because, as we have surmised elsewhere, he actually loved the Master more than any of these other people, and feels that loss most keenly.

Funny discussion between Donna and the Doctor, certainly. He’s so vain, he probably thinks this show is about him. “She fancied me,” he says, almost with a wink and a nudge, about Martha. Yeah, but not enough to destroy herself for you. And frankly you don’t seem worth it. I was practically cheering about Martha’s leaving for her own sake at this point. The Doctor is turning into one of those guys that ruins people for life. The “bad breaker-uppers.” I’ll jump ahead and say, though, that there was a line in this episode that might be the funniest line ever in this series: he tells Donna that he “just wants a mate,” and she hears it as “I just want to mate,” and responds with a real disgust and shock: “You’re not mating with me, sunshine!” And then starts to go on in some detail about just what’s wrong with him, physically.

A note to Russell T. Davies: if you mess up Donna to the point where she falls in love with the Doctor, we, the fans, are going to kill you. This is just the right companion, do you hear me? This is what we need. All hail the Anti-Rose! Don’t you dare pull a Martha on us with Catherine Tate. You succeeded in selling her to us already, and we’ll concede that you were right. If you ruin Donna, we’ll turn this TARDIS around right now, mister.

And then… I will not soon forget that awful moment. Donna speaks at length to some woman, whose head is turned away from the camera, to ask her to tell her mother where the car keys are (who throws car keys into somebody else’s garbage can, anyway?). I remember thinking, wow, this is unusually bad direction. Then it dawns on me that the hair (blonde, dirty roots) looks familiar. Then Donna runs back toward the Doctor, and the blonde turns around. And Murray Gold lays it on with a trowel… it’s the Doomsday theme.

It’s Rose. In the first episode, it’s Rose. Not the right eye makeup, and looking rather used up compared to the last episodes of Season Two, but it’s her. Extreme closeups haven’t been good to Billie Piper, though. And then she wordlessly turns around, walks away from us into the street, and gradually disappears. No evidence that she is actually Rose, that she saw the Doctor or the TARDIS… none of that. Fading away suggests that this is some sort of opening between Pete’s World and ours, which is scary because that opens up all sorts of scary new possibilities. What if the Cybermen return? I don’t think that anything can survive without a Voidship in the Void, so the Daleks and the Army of Ghosts shouldn’t come back, at least.

But I’m sure nobody thinks of those things. They think of Rose. And I think, oh, this could ruin everything. Doesn’t the world explode when the Rose and the Anti-Rose collide? But I will admit that I had a lump in my throat when I heard that music again.

I fear that we will be treated to an episode at some point where the Doctor will run all over space and time looking for a power source big enough to crack the Void again… unless he finds that it’s better without her. She can’t come back, right? I mean, the series isn’t going to regain her as a companion, is it? Is this some awful golem of the Rose he knew? Is the Doctor the sort of person who would do anything — and remember, he believes he CAN DO ANYTHING — to get her back, even if it means the destruction of the world?

Up
with the pale important
stars and the Humorous
moon
dear girl
How i was crazy how i cried when i heard
over time
and tide and death
leaping
Sweetly
your voice

– from e.e. cummings, “your little voice”

Donna shushes him about the intricacies of the TARDIS, yes, yes, she’s heard all that, and here we go, into what could be the only new adventure we’ve had since Nine regenerated into Ten: a human who doesn’t get sucked into the black hole that is the Doctor’s personality.

Long live Donna Noble, as long as she doesn’t end up mating with the Doctor, anyway. She, at least, will never fade away. (But these days, I’m already wondering if perhaps she will end up being killed at the end of the series. We haven’t had a proper companion death yet, after all. I hope not, but if she does die, remember, you heard it here first.)

I liked this episode. It gave me hope for the new series again. Now, on to Vesuvius! Talk about getting back to your roots…