2023/12/01

At the beginning of series 3 we already got a taste of this new companion, Donna Noble, in the TV special “The Runaway Bride”. So far, we’ve had 3 companions, all totally different from each other and each of them brought something unique to the companion role. In series 4 not only we see the 3^rd companion Donna, but also Rose and Martha. It’s like the Avengers movie where all these characters come together, this also happens with the characters of the past 3 Doctor Who series and even beyond that. This is mainly happening in the last few episodes where we meet Jack Harkness again, but also Yanto and Gwen Cooper from Torchwood. Sarah Jane also joins in, with her, Mr. Smith, her son Luke and K9. The former companions drop by all over the season.

It was at least 10 years since I last saw series 4. I sold my DVD sets at one point, to replace them with Blu-ray sets. This however did not happen before 2019. So, it was fair to say that I did not remember a lot of it, which is only a good thing in my opinion. What became clear to me very early in the 4^th series that Donna and the Doctor really work well together, they really had good chemistry together. Very humorous also, as if Donna was his companion from the start. What was also very funny, approximately the first 7 episodes a certain joke returned every time. It was that others made a suggestion that Donna and the Doctor were a couple, they then would awkwardly explain to that person that they are not a couple, just hilarious!

I think series 4 is perhaps my favorite season till now because of the stories, the avenger thing and the Doctor and Donna relationship which I really enjoyed. What I also liked about the 4^th series was that the Cyber men were absent, yes, they have been fun …. some time ago, but like with the Borg on Voyager, it is too much! Same with the Daleks, although they did return in the season finale episodes. but these were good episodes, as I said earlier, a lot of cross-over characters, so all in all I thought these two Dalek episodes were satisfying but not because of the Daleks but because of the cross-over characters. Still, I wouldn’t mind skipping Dalek stories for one or two series.

Episodes:

There actually is only one episode I really did not like this season, and this was “Midnight”. It really annoyed the hell out of me in that cabin with the yelling, copying each others word and such. And it began quite interesting, but it went down from there. There is another episode “Turn Left” which I didn’t hate but wasn’t fond of, where Donna is being forced to turn left so to say, which meant that she didn’t go with the doctor which also resulted in the death of the Doctor. The other episodes actually are quite entertaining, as I said, no Cybermen stories, only one Dalek story, although over two episodes but other than that it felt fresh. Besides that, the Donna & Docter partnership I thought was very successful.

In the first episode “Partners in Crime” Donna and the Doctor meet again after the initial meet they have in “Runaway Bride”. It seems to be nothing more but a coincidence, but in the finale episodes it is suggested it perhaps was fate! They are both investigating the same incident from another perspective. I have to say I really like Donna’s granddad, what a sweet man he is. In the final moments we suddenly see Rose again! That was a nice surprise! In episode two “The Fires of Pompeii” we meet the future Doctor, Peter Capaldi, who plays Caecilius. Funny thing is that the Doctor really often has his planned destination, also in this episode, he plans to go to Rome but ends up visiting Pompeii in AD 79.

Third episode is actually a favorite of mine, “The Planet of the Ood”, really like the Ood. They are nothing more than servants to the humans in 2000 years, but the humans treat them more like slaves. The Doctor frees them, but here another tidbit is placed which comes back in the season finale: DoctorDonna. Next up was the two-parter “The Sontaran Strategem / The Poison Sky” where we meet the Sontaran, a people looking a bit like Mr. Patato head! 😊 They However aren’t very friendly. We also meet up with Martha again, she works for Unit. It is a nice action-oriented two-parter with without the obvious villains, that was a treat and after Rose we got to see Martha again! Martha and Donna both must choose if they want to keep travelling with the Doctor. Note - Funny thing in this episode, when the Doctor puts on a gasmask, he says: "Are you my mummy", which is a direct reference to the series one episode "The Empty Child". “The Doctor’s Daughter” was also a very entertaining episode where the Doctor gets to have a daughter! The Doctor wants to bring Martha home, but they arrive elsewhere where there is a war going on. The Doctor is being used to make a copy of his DNA and voila, he has a daughter, who gives her life for him but after the Doctor is gone, she somehow regenerates! Doctor finally can return Martha home. In “The Unicorn and the Wasp”, the Doctor takes Donna to the 1920’s at an English country and they meet the renowned murder mystery writer Agatha Christie.

In the two-parter “Silence in the Library & Forest of the Dead” the Doctor meets River Song (Alex Kingston) for the first time! From the perspective of Riving Song, it definitely it not her first time! Donna finds herself in a world where she is happily married and has two children and virtually no memory of the Doctor, so she has no intention of changing her life. Also, some humorous scenes as: "Hey, Who Turned Out the Lights?" continuously, don’t know if this meant to humorous but I had to laugh each time. I already discussed “Midnight” and “Turn Left” briefly and that brings us to the season finale which we also already touched upon! The Daleks are back in “The Stolen Earth & Journey's End”. To me, the best episodes of the season. Where we see Doctor Who, The Sarah Janes Adventures and Torchwood come together in an attempt to stop the Daleks eradicating all life except their own! The ending is bittersweet, where Donna has become a bit like the Doctor but she can’t handle it so he has to wipe her memory and restore her to being a normal human being. He asks her mum and granddad never to talk about what happened and who the Doctor is, because that would bring her in terrible danger. So yes, the Doctor is alone again after Rose also went back to her alternate universe with a version of the Doctor.

Final Word:

I really liked this season, the Doctor and Donna have a great chemistry, the stories were engaging, fresh stories also, both earlier companions return this season and of course also Jack and Torchwood and Sarah Jane Smith visit this season. It is the last normal series with David Tennant as the Doctor. Yes of course, he also is the Doctor in the specials which were made between series 4 and 5. Really looking forward to the David Tennant specials, which I most likely will create a blog for also. And also looking forward to Matt Smith as the new Doctor in series 5, 6 & 7.

Screencaps taken from: KissThemGoodbye.net