I really need to get a move on with this Marvel Cinematic Whoniverse video before another
showrunner points out the things I’m gonna say, but as I was going through the three
parter that is Turn Left, The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End, i couldn’t help but
find myself wanting to make a video on Donna all by herself.
Or more specifically, her tragic exit, which still stands as the single best companion
exit ever in my opinion.
Most companions do get some form of happy ending, aside from Big Dric back in the day.
[clip] Lol, what a drichead!
And whilst Donna doesn’t die, spoilers for a fourth series of a show from 2008, she arguably
gets it even worse.
[If she remembers she will burn] She gets to live but is cursed with amnesia that she
can never recover from.
All of her memories with the Doctor, all of the wonderful places she went to, everything
she accomplished - she doesn’t get to keep any of it.
The Donna Noble we come to love is the one that has to die so this other person might
live.
[River: you’re donna noble] A part of her dies, and with it so does her growth across
the series.
RTD makes this ending so soul destroying because he actively takes a character’s arc and
says fuck you!
Its all getting taken away and you just have to deal with it.
It’s frustrating everytime watching the Doctor have to wipe her memories and say goodbye.
[I was just leaving - yeah bi]
Admittedly, the whole DoctorDonna reveal is still pretty bullshit.
We spent the whole series wondering what the odd meant and it turns out it meant…
Donna melding with the DNA of a clone doctor in a two-way biological metacrisis that gives
her all of his brainy powers?
Uh… okay.
I don’t think anyone would have guessed that’s where it was going.
But Russell T Davies was never as good at ironing out the science fiction concepts as
say, Moffat, which is why a lot of things were resolved with a big button.
[buttons in that scene]
But on the flip side, he crafted emotional moments with far more genuine resonance more
than Moffat ever did.
And I think that’s why ultimately his era is looked back on with more fondness.
The ideas in the Moffat era were second to none, but the characters and their troubles
was what really shined in the RTD era.
It was much more human, like the respective Doctors of that age.
And that’s why, in spite of some flimsy technobabble, the result of the DoctorDonna
really works.
The performances really sell all of this and makes it feel so emotionally wrought.
Tate gets to play on the mannerisms of 10, whilst also bringing a great foreboding sense
of doom to the scene.
Her character already knows what is happening to her and that denial, the way she pleads
with him right to the very end and doesn’t accept her fate, it makes it all even harder
to swallow.
Jaqueline King’s Sylvia Noble was always a fantastic character because she never came
around to the Doctor.
No matter what you do, sometimes people won’t always like you -
it feels very genuine for this last exchange to be so bitter, because she never really
approved of Donna's travels and hates the idea that she was better from them.
She somewhat softens by The End of Time’s final scene but I like that they never really
see eye to eye.
Wilfred Mott - Mr Bernard Cribbins - what a legend.
Donna had some great supporting players and the grandpa who would have oh so easily been
a companion had he been young enough is such a great idea for a character.
The inverse of Sylvia, he was so happy to see Donna venture into the universe, and this
exit sets us up nicely for the dynamic in the End of Time.
Which is really, really sweet and deserves its own video.
The best moment from Tennant is when hes forced to give Donna a normal friendly goodbye.
Crushed, forced to say goodbye without any real closure on their friendship.
And that’s something you feel the weight of in those closing moments through Tennant’s
melancholic performance.
The final exchange between 10 and Donna is so good because it is the least dramatic thing
possible - thats what produces that yearning in the audience - that desire to see the Doctor
jump back from behind the door and fix it all like he’s always supposed to.
Of course, he never does and this half-hearted goodbye is heartbreaking because its all they’re
ever going to get.
Now whenever I rewatch Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead, and River looks at Donna
that way I go cold -
Especially for a character like River; when the Doctor isn’t synced up with her knowledge
or doesn’t even recognise her, memories and stories are all she has.
So to be confronted with someone that knows the Doctor but will never get to cherish that
must be heartbreaking.
She is presented with a similar fate of forgetting the Doctor through timey-wimey shenanigans,
and chooses death instead.
[Not those times, not one line don’t you dare!]
I honestly think this is one of the sweetest moments in Doctor Who ever, brilliantly acted
by Bernard Cribbins and David Tennant, and beautifully crafted by director Graham Harper
and the team.
That sad lonely shot of 10 standing in the rain is unforgettable.
The biggest team up in Doctor Who history, the Doctor surrounded by all his friends - and
yet he still has to walk into that TARDIS alone and contemplate what it means to be
a lonely god forevermore.
RTD just gets it.
I understand the appeal of past companions coming back, but I really think it’s for
the best if she doesn’t.
And I say that only because she is my favourite RTD companion.
She should never come back - the sanctity of that ending is too great.
And if you need an example of that - just look at the scenario with Clara and 12.
They essentially did the same thing but in reverse - the Doctor forgets Clara.
It’s funny to think that when Catherine Tate joined the show it was “that comedian
off that show, I forget the name, appearing in the novelty Christmas special” and who
would have thought she would end up being one of the best companions of not only the
RTDS era, but Who in of itself.
The platonic rapport between 10 and Donna was a breath of fresh air after Rose and Martha,
and lit up even the most maligned episodes.
[Flapper or slapper - you look lovely] After all the pain his 9th and 10th incarnations
endured, Donna came into his life to form a real companionship.
I loved them together and much like Donna, I wish it could have gone on forever.
I would be really shocked if RTD brings back Donna, unless it’s in a multi-Doctor scenario
where 10 and Noble are pulled out of their series 4 timestream.
I don’t ever expect him to reverse the status quo because to do so would squander that perfect
ending.
Mace Windu doesn’t need to come back.
Captain America doesn’t need to come back.
Donna Noble certainly doesn’t need to come back.
Sometimes “death”, even in fantasy, needs to stick.
Sometimes that last page is what gives everything meaning.
And
just to quickly cover the other main companion exits in order from the revival:
Rose - yep defo the second best exit.
Even with the second exit, this one is up there.
Martha - I actually kind of dig this scene and I really like that she just consciously
decides enough is enough.
I like the dialogue and the way she compares it to a very down to earth situation.
[So this is me getting out]
The Ponds - I don’t think the Ponds had a terrible exit but it could have been much
better.
I think if you have an opener like the 11th hour for these characters they need a bit
more fanfare at the end.
The Angels Take Manhattan should have been a two parter.
Clara - The first two eps of the exit- top tier - doesn’t quite stick the landing.
Bill and Nardole - its just fine - they both only had a series and they get nice enough
endings but I really wish Moffat didn’t fairytale the cyber-conversion.
A scenario I can’t have seen RTD reversing in the same situation but that’s pure speculation
of course!
Graham and Ryan - I couldn’t tell you.