An Hour of Who a Day: 02/05/15

February 5: "The Runaway Bride"

We interrupt our journey through the first series of Torchwood to bring you the 2006 Doctor Who Christmas Special, "The Runaway Bride"...¹⁸¹

If we go by the DVD, "The Runaway Bride" kicks off series 3 of the show. But if we go by what we actually see, we're in a transitional state. We don't get introduced to new companion Martha Jones at all. Instead this episode picks up immediately where "Doomsday" left off, with Catherine Tate standing in the TARDIS wearing a wedding gown and yelling at the Doctor. This meant a lot more to British audiences, who were more used to her hugely successful sketch show (hey, it's not every show that gets a word in the Oxford English Dictionary -- although Doctor Who is a show that can also make that claim) than overseas audiences. Fair enough, it's a British show for British viewers; I'm just pointing out that the impact of this stunt casting is largely lost on those of us in the former colonies and beyond.

It's not an entirely successful opening to the show, though; after the initial shock value wears off, there's little to really keep you entertained. "The Runaway Bride" really wants to be a screwball comedy, but in these initial TARDIS scenes Tennant and Tate exhibit little chemistry together. That's partly because all Donna is doing is shouting unpleasantly, not listening to anything the Doctor is saying, and partly because we don't see any real interaction between the two: Donna is shouting and the Doctor is flying the TARDIS, and while they might be doing these actions at each other, it's more that each is going past the other. This is also the first time that Murray Gold's music really gets in the way of the scene -- it's practically screaming at you to find this stuff funny, which makes you even less inclined to do so.

It gets a bit better when they're actually out on the streets of London -- there's a sense that they're actually listening to each other a bit more, and consequently the jokes land a little better. I'm not too sure about that TARDIS/car chase down the motorway; I don't mind the idea, but there are some weird moments, like Donna asking the Doctor if Rose had trusted him -- that seems like a strange question to ask in the situation. And the two kids in the car, shouting "Jump!" and cheering when Donna does, is really over-egging the pudding -- it's supposed to be triumphant but it feels crass instead. (And the rest of the motorists -- including the parents of the kids screaming in the car -- seem awfully unconcerned about a police box flying down the road at high speed; almost as if they just filmed the drivers and then inserted the TARDIS afterwards...)

Once the Doctor and Donna stop and have their conversation on the roof, that's when the two leads start to actually click; it's clear they've started paying attention to what the other is saying, and the result is noticeably better. Of course, this is the scene that also introduces this episode's technobabble -- a type of subatomic particle that the Time Lords got rid of (what?) but nevertheless are contained inside Donna (WHAT?) and which caused Donna to be transported into the TARDIS in the first place (WHAT?). Fine, we can just about accept this -- but when we later learn that you can extract Huon particles from water, you just have to shake your head in despair that they can't even keep their technobabble consistent. Similarly, what possible reason does Lance have to sneak up on the Empress of the Racnoss? Is he simply trying to be a jerk and give Donna false hope?

The Empress herself is hopelessly overacted by Sarah Parish -- I understand that it's hard to act through all that make-up, but she looks like she isn't taking any of this seriously. And if she's not bothering, why should we? The plan to drill into the center of the Earth and release her 4.5 billion-year-old babies with Huon particles is risible, as is the solution of draining the Thames into the hole.¹⁸²

I'm being hard on this story, but it's not completely without merit. David Tennant is generally good in his scenes, and once Donna stops yelling, Catherine Tate isn't bad. The scene at the non-wedding reception is rather charming (and I like the special song, "Love Don't Roam", as sung by Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy). The whole production is nice and slick (even if they are reusing the robots from last year's special), and Euros Lyn does a good job with the direction. If you were watching this on Christmas, full of turkey and wine, and just letting it flow past, you'd probably be reasonably entertained.

But if you're watching this as part of the ongoing Doctor Who narrative (which should be just about everyone after the initial broadcast), then its flaws are harder to overlook. There's just too much technobabble and not enough time to make the relationship between the Doctor and Donna work. There's also a sense that Doctor Who now knows it's a hit show and should thus do all the predictable, crowd-pleasing things that's expected of them. The change can be summed up by the snow: last year it was a subversion of the cliché, being the Sycorax ship breaking up in the atmosphere; this time it's actually snow. This isn't a step forward.

¹⁸¹ Owing to the fact that I'm trying to go as chronologically as possible (though it's gonna get tricky when we get to the Australian K-9 spinoff), and "Combat" was broadcast on 24 December 2006 -- aka the day before "The Runaway Bride".
¹⁸² Two points for old-school fans: when Torchwood (or whoever) dug into the center of the earth, did a bunch of them turn into Primords after touching a weird green slime? And why didn't the Earth blow up anyway? (And quickly pouring a lot of water into the center of the earth is a lot like Professor Zaroff's plan to blow up the world in The Underwater Menace -- so that's two ways the world should have been destroyed.)