10.15: The Runaway Bride
In which Doctor Who becomes a screwball comedy, and anyone who thinks “Well, at least she’s only here for one episode!” is in for a nasty and long-running surprise.
Broadcast: December 2006
Watched: August 2021
“Christmas trees!” “What about them?” “They kill?”
A favourite – after Carol, probably the Christmas special I’m mostly likely to re-watch. The jokes, the flying TARDIS, the kids watching and cheering, the reception, Donna’s fake crying, the journey by segue, Sarah Parrish having the time of her life... it’s just so joyful.
Plus, it’s an entirely new genre for Who, a sort of screwball comedy. I remember not quite clicking with it at the time, and I think this is why: it’s something we’ll see more of in the years to come, but that the show hadn’t really done before, that I can think of?
And the Empress is funny, or at least thinks she is, which makes her more fun than the usual ranting megalomaniac. Then in the last act she cries for her children. Very RTD.
Tennant is immediately more fun now he’s just the 10th Doctor, not “the bloke that Rose fancies”. But he’’s also more scary (“What happens next is your doing... you did thisW), showing us the steel we saw in Christmas Invasion but haven’t seen much of since. Plus Donna instantly gets him – at the end she even gets that he’s not parking the TARDIS, he’s leaving. He gets her, too. When her heart is broken, the genuine pathos of the way she says “But I love you”, as she realises that Lance has betrayed her, gets me every time. But the Doctor doesn’t make her talk about it, he just shows her something wonderful and life-affirming.
Bottom line. I didn’t immediately get it – Catherine Tate was huge in 2006, and not someone I rated – but now it’s by a distance my favourite RTD Christmas special.
Other things:
I’d forgotten that seeing Donna means we also see Sylvia and Nerys. Cool.
Tate makes Donna’s voice harsher than she does as a regular. Can probably retcon that as being because of the wedding.
The cash point the Doctor fixes is next to Henrik’s! They rebuilt it!
2006 WAP phones, LOL.
I love the running joke that Donna hasn’t noticed all the alien invasions, a sort of inversion of the thing they did with Elton Pope. In the same way, it also works as a character note. (Also, this is both the second story and second Christmas special running where there’s absolute terror on streets... RTD Who is a very public affair.)
“There’s a secret base, hidden under a major London landmark?” “I know, unheard of.” Lance obviously knows his way around the base... which is a fairly big clue he’s a traitor (lol, the first Lance in Doctor Who and he’s obviously evil).
“I’ve got you!” *crash*
“Mr Saxon” gets a mention, just as Torchwood did last Christmas. RTD’s catchphrase approach to season arcs is probably about the level the show can handle but it feels very lightweight now.
In the drained Thames, boats make honking noises, as if people aren’t dying which they obviously would be.
“He often performs his own stunts on set.” Don Gilet clearly writes his own Wikipedia page. Citation needed.
Wild that this episode introduces a character who’ll still be in the show 17 years later.
Buy me a coffee
