Jo’s Cafe

Season 4 of Doctor Who is finished and we await the Christmas Special, the four episodes promised in 2009 (while David Tenant does Hamlet), and Season 5 with fingers crossed that David gives us one more season before regenerating.

What?

You don’t understand? 

Well, this is about a television show that has traveled from the mountains of Gallifrey to Cardiff and London on the planet Earth and lodged itself into the hearts and minds of folks far and wide.

For a second time.

I didn’t watch the first of Doctor Who when it hit the British airways and traveled to America, but I sure got hooked on the updated version quickly.  

But … I got hooked on Torchwood first.  Yes, back-ass-wards to say the least since Torchwood is a spin-off of DW (snort), but I’m not known to take the normal path to things.

The 2006 Christmas Special, “The Runaway Bride”, was an okay show and we got to see a bit of madness deep within from the Doctor, but after an hour of whining from Donna, thankfully it was over.  She went back to mummy and the Doctor melted away in the TARDIS.

Series/Season 4 started with the Doctor running around trying to find out why people were dying to get skinny, literally, and Donna (groan) doing the same.  When they  met up at the factory building doing mouthing mimes to each other, I almost threw up.  

Doctor and Donna

I watched - grudgingly.  But even when Martha showed up the whole thing just didn’t work for me.  (We were also watching Seasons 1-3 back to back via Netflix and that could have been part of the problem.)

Then came “Forest of the Dead” and I finally clicked into Catherine Tate’s Donna and what this season was doing for the Doctor.  Donna wasn’t “in” love with the Doctor. Instead of longing glances across the TARDIS, we had genuine fondness and friendship.  Poor Martha got him on the rebound and dang near paid for it with her life.  Donna got him after a trial run and he was up-front about his feelings and needs. 

So in the beginning began a pairing I did not like but ended up thinking is the best so far.  Yes, even better than Rose.   Rose’s stalker like love for the Doctor was her life.  Donna’s life was enhanced by being with the Doctor.

Although at the end of “Journey’s End”, he told Rose she made him better - looking back, Martha and then Donna made him more than he was with Rose. She was a stablizing influence and finished off what Martha started.  Donna filled out the package so to speak.  Come on, the guy is 900 years old and still needs work (snicker).

Unfortunately - Donna lost all that she gained in the end.  A price to pay for life.  It was a sad ending and the pain the Doctor felt by having to do it was evidenced on his face when he took her home.  He lost more having to save Donna than he eve thought he would.

Thank you Russell T. Davis for bringing me around.

I still have “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End” on the DVR.   

The DoctorDonna was the best companion this incarnation of Doctor Who.