A Drive By Spot of Episode Love

[meddow]

I finally got my season three box set, and I’ve been watching The Runaway Bride, probably for the sixth or seventh time. I’m sure everybody has that episode that they know isn’t the greatest episode ever, but they love it to bits regardless, and The Runaway Bride is mine.

For a start, I’m a sucker for a good fun action sequence and the TARDIS car chase was brilliant and fun. Having something that is normally an inanimate prop suddenly coming down the motorway is spectacular to behold. And speaking of spectacular, as is the two looks into space that we get – they’ve got to be two of the greatest special effects pieces of the series so far.

And while the episode has this madcap caper feel to it, it’s also got two of the most brutal scenes of New Who. Firstly the Lance berates Donna scene. She genuinely loves him, and he’s gone and not only lied to her and used her, he has been slowly and willingly poisoning her – murdering her. And then he goes and tops it off by letting loose a tirade about how awful and thick she is. Just the cruelty of the way Donna’s heart is broken and the humiliating way she finds it out, it’s amazing Donna can still stand, never alone a moment later defend the Doctor.

Then, later, you have the Doctor going homicidal - that being the scene used in Family of Blood to scare daughter-of-mine away, and with good reason. You never see Ten go darker than you do in TRB. Not for the Daleks, or the Cybermen and certainly not for the Master. It’s not just some light and fluffy distraction, it’s got a punch to it. And it’s even subversive at points. The Christmas Star killing people? Oh, I love it. And it’s humans that destroy the star in the end. For once we’re not useless.

Probably also helps with my love of this episode that I adore Donna and the Donna and the Doctor duo. I was one of the two percent of the Internet that was leaping for joy at the news that Donna was to become a companion. I adore her at the beginning when she’s got the Doctor stunned and I adore her at the end when she’s grown as person. It’s so much fun to see the normal Doctor-Companion role somewhat reversed. He’s desperately trying to keep up with her rather than someone else trying to keep up with him. And she makes him smile. Not that big ‘smile to mask the pain’ grin, but that small and shyer genuine smile.

Oh, yeah, and David Tennant’s never more adorable as Ten then his is in that rooftop scene.

In short, The Runaway Bride shall forever have my affection. And season four cannot come quick enough (I’m looking forward to the season four teaser at the end of VotD more than I am the actual episode).

ETA: Just caught the VotD trailer. You can tell the Doctor's getting older, he's knocking half a century off every time he states his age.

Comments

[ragdoll.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on all of this. I adore TRB, I don't care if other fans hate it, I think it's brilliant and I love Donna because as loud and abraisive and thick she is at times, she's completely and utterly human. She's not perfect or super smart or pretty or exceptional the way most other companions have been -- she's just a woman caught up in a crazy situation dealing with it the best she can and she does. She's still braver and smarter than anyone thinks in the end and that makes me love her all the more. The bit where we find out what Lance has been saying and doing is heartbreaking -- poor Donna has started out thinking this is the happiest day of her life and then she finds out how badly she's been used. It's horrible and I never feel any sympathy for Lance when he dies...

I am looking forward to see Donna this coming year and then Donna with Martha and the Doctor. It should be fun.

[meddow.livejournal.com]

I can't agree with you more. Everyone underestimates Donna, Lance and the Doctor certainly both do at times, and it's going to be so wonderful to watch that bravery and intelligence come out even more as the character evolves. I'd be like season one Rose but with added maturity and ballsy determination.

[ragdoll.livejournal.com]

I think I like Donna most for that reason. She's sort of like Neville Longbottom or someone like that -- someone who is not outwardly brave or clever or competent but manages to stay and fight and do what's right no matter how scared they are. I can't wait to see more of that or her cutting the Doctor down a few pegs when needed.

I think the fact that she's also a not conventionally pretty/slightly overweight 40 yr old woman instead of a cute, size 0 twenty-something makes me happy too.

[meddow.livejournal.com]

Yes. It's fantastic Doctor Who's not having a conventional starlet as the new Companion. An while Kylie's tiny and very famous, she's pushing 40 as well. Not to mention they gave Lis Sladen her own show at 59. All this makes me very happy.

[ragdoll.livejournal.com]

I think it's awesome that we're not getting another teenybopper as a companion. While it's great that RTD wants to keep the show sexy, if the men can be in the 30-40 or so age range, why can't the women?

I keep forgetting Kylie's around my age. I always think of her as *young* LOL And I have to say that Lis looks unbelievable at 59, even close up. When I met her again in October, I was just amazed by how terrific she looks in person. I want to look that good when I'm 60!

[artic-fox.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so excited for the new season, and for the whole Donna as the new companion thing. I'm with you completely - I really liked the Runaway Bride, and I really like Donna, and I think she is certainly going to bring a great new dynamic that we haven't yet seen on new Who. I think she is going to be good for Ten, in a way that finally he is with someone who doesn't want more from him than he can really give.

I love so many things about the Runaway Bride, and Donna and Ten really do have a great chemistry. I suppose a lot of people didn't like it because it was "different", but I think it is great, and Season 4 is going to be great and like nothing we've ever seen. What do I love about the Runaway Bride? The rooftop scene, the last scene in the snow, the Doctor's vengence, the reception scene... ohh, what is not to love? (and I know what you mean about loving an episode that you know isn't the greatest, but loving it regardless - mine is Smith and Jones).

"with this ring, I thee biodamp..." Oh, Ten! You ol' romantic!

DONNA DONNA RAH RAH RAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[lastwordy-mcgee.livejournal.com]

I LOVE HER. LOVELOVELOVE. I am thrilled to bits that she is the new companion -- I am over the moon that the new companion is a WOMAN and not a CHILD. No offense to Rose (who I adored) or Martha (who was perfectly satisfactory), but Donna is FRESH out of give a shit, and she is not going to get sidetracked by a puppy-dog crush.

And I do also love me some homicidal Doctor. There is something about a bad boy wielding power with absolute authority that just makes me all weak at the knees and liquid in the loins. I was all about John Simm as the Master too, for the same reason.

[meddow.livejournal.com]

I love that rooftop scene. I really want to a joke to come out of that biodamp line, like the revelation, to both the Doctor and Donna's horror, that they're now legally married on 587 planets.

I adore Smith and Jones as well, it's got such a Douglas Adams feel to it with the big bad alien police force using permanent markers and a vampire using a straw. Also the Dracula references peppered throughout and Martha being so win. And the looking out at the Earth scene which is beautifully done.

Re: DONNA DONNA RAH RAH RAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[meddow.livejournal.com]

I'm slightly different, I always want to slap the Doctor when he's exercising power with absolute authority - reason #467 why I love Donna.

And hurray for no crushes. I'm getting so bored of them. The only crush I shall permit in a Doctor&Donna TARDIS is if the Doctor develops an unrequited one for her or she thinks he has done and it's used for the purposes of comedy.

[artic-fox.livejournal.com]

*snort* Donna + Doc = married? There is a crack fic just waiting to be written, right there!

Martha is definitely so so WIN, in her first episode, which is great. She reads the manuals! She wants to go outside! She's just a perfect companion for Ten really. I always love those scenes where they show space (or the earth in Smith and Jones, and as above, the Earth's creation in TRB) - they are so visually stunning, and really make the show take on another dimension.

(there seems to be a lot of fanwank going on at the moment re: RTD's comments about Martha, although, I am refraining very hard from comment less I get my head bitten off. I think everyone is overreacting a LOT, and taking things v. out of context, especially if you read the quote properly. *le sigh*. I hate fanwank)

[meddow.livejournal.com]

Of course, the natural progression from the marriage is that the Empress of the Racnoss’s ‘I do’ joke turns out to also be a legally binding marriage and the pair of them get arrested for bigamy (the Doctor too since been travelling the universe for 900 years and thus has got to have been accidentally married at least 5 time before that one).

And snorkackcatcher has written an analysis (http://snorkackcatcher.livejournal.com/90327.html) of Rusty’s comments that you might like.

[artic-fox.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link. Basically a perfect rundown of how I feel about the whole situation.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loved The Runaway Bride - and I adore Donna. I wrote some meta on how TRB is season 3 in miniature, here:

http://selenak.livejournal.com/306859.html