Doctor Who: Partners in Crime (4x01)

[fajrdrako]

A fourth series! It seems to me miraculous that we have this - even more so than the previous two series. A sort of cornucopia of television goodness that just keeps flowing. This doesn't mean I don't wish there were more episodes, or that all are of high quality. It's just... so cool that they exist. That the show continues to exist without compromising its originality. With new and intriguing things happening.

And with surprises on several levels.

I have watched "Partners in Crime" twice so far, and the first thing that struck me is that the tone of the show has changed again - perhaps just for this episode. It seemed much more like a typical "kid's show" than I am used to expecting. It felt, on a purely visceral level, as if I were watching The Sarah Jane Adventures. Now, I know Doctor Who is meant for young viewers, but when I got hooked on it in series 1 my belief, my reaction, was that it was a show 'for viewers of all ages' - children's themes grafted onto adult sensibilities. But the show felt mature in its viewpoint.

Series 2 was less so. Series 3 confused me by its tone - still does. And this, the first episode of series 4, struck me as 100% kiddy-tv. The Doctor's "no sex, please, I'm alien" stance sounded more like "Eeyew, girl-cooties" than the complex psychological issues I'd been cheerfully postulating. The Doctor was at his funniest, goofiest, and most boyish: just look at that hair. The plot was about cute animations and a Nanny. And Donna, despite her age, is the most child-like in her circumstances of all the Companions we've had since Rose. Rose took responsibility for those around her - Donna lives at home, jobless, being nagged by her mother, finding an ally in her grandfather - a typical teenage (or younger) lifestyle.

I thought it wasn't the Doctor Donna needed to find, it was Sarah Jane Smith, who would put her straight in no time, and put her to work, too. In a "been there, done that" sort of way.

The plot? I kind of like "alien reducing diets gone nighmarish" themes, and this was fun. Reminding me of the Torchwood novel Another Life, and the Smallville episode "Craving" - and wasn't there an X-File story with this theme, too? It reminded me also of "The Lazarus Experiment", not my favourite series 3 episode, but the same idea: someone tries to market to the public what they want (rejuvenation or thinness) and it all goes wrong.

The good stuff:

1. Donna Noble. When I first heard she would be the companion, my heart sank. She was all right in "The Runaway Bride" - not my favourite Doctor Who story by any means, probably in the bottom ten of my 'least favourites' - and I was holding my breath when the Doctor invited Donna to travel with him, for fear she'd say yes. But she said "no" (confirming my notion that she was an idiot) and I relaxed and Martha came on board and I fell in love with her. So. Happy.
   
   And now... Donna has a new personality and an IQ upgrade. She's stopped being shrill. (Her mother has taken over the shrillness monopoly for the time being.) She's smart and personable and even, dare I say, endearing? Utterly impractical, a dreamer - who'd have thought?
   
   Russell T. Davies has emphasized that Donna has no romantic/sexual interest in the Doctor, and I think we are supposed to believe it. I was prepared to believe it until I saw the episode. Now I don't believe it for a moment: when Donna says she doesn't want "any of that nonsense", she is protesting way too much. They'd have done better not to raise the subject at all.
   
   
2. For me, the most interesting lines by far were the Doctor's comments on Martha. She loved him; he destroyed her; she's doing fine - interesting viewpoint and observations. "It got complicated. It was all my fault." We don't often see the Doctor saying something was his fault, and it would intersting to know what aspect of the 'fault' he sees as his.
   
   But then, I haven't got over my love of Martha, so of course his comments would interest me. Just as it interests me that in "The Runaway Bride" the Doctor was talking a fair amount about Rose, and here he's talking and thinking mostly about Martha.
   
   
3. Big surprise #1: the return of Wilfred Mott, who turns out to be Donna's Gramps. What a treat to see him again, in context! I loved his going up 'on the hill' and his love of Donna and his curiosity. never thought I'd see him again.
   
   
4. Big surprise #2: Rose. Woo! Like pulling a rug out from under us. Why does she look so unlike herself? Is this a holographic projection? (Trying to recall whether Donna touched her when she spoke to her.) Is this an alien doppelganger? Is this the cleverest, nastiest bit of a tease that Russell T. Davies has pulled off yet?
   
   
5. I loved Donna's account of her life since meeting the Doctor - how you have every desire to change your life but it doesn't change; you go to Egypt and you're still you when you get back. It's not so easy to live the life you want to live. I thought this was the most profound thought of the whole episode and it was almost lost, but of course the whole story was about hope and its transience.
   
   
6. Loved the structure of the first part of the episode, with the Doctor and Donna both investigating Adipose, and just missing each other. And then the climactic moment of their meeting - if I hadn't already been impressed by Catherine Tate earlier in the episode, that brilliant bit of improvised mime would have done it. Best moment in the show. And David Tennant was doing beautifully there as well.
   
   
7. This episode played up the aspects of the Doctor I don't like so much, on the whole, but did remind me how brilliantly David Tennant plays those aspects of the Doctor.

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I liked that reasoning, too. It's one of many things that makes Donna more than she appears - and way more than she was in "The Runaway Bride".

I think she's already trying to be a sisterly type - the way she is critical of him is very sister-like. And he seems to want this, so they may suit each other very well. I'm not sure it's a dynamic I want to see for a whole season - but on the other hand, it's the nature of the show that the relationships change in style with events and the course of the action, and I think there will be various changes this season.