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Donna Noble

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Donna Noble is a fictional character played by Catherine Tate in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A secretary from Chiswick, London, she is a companion of the Tenth Doctor, appearing in one scene at the end of the final episode of the 2006 series, "Doomsday" (named in the credits only as "The Bride"), and in the second Christmas special, "The Runaway Bride". The character returned as The Doctor's sole full-time companion for the whole of the fourth series in 2008.[1]

In April 2009, David Tennant stated in a radio interview that Tate would be reprising the role as Donna Noble for the final specials in 2009–10.[2] This has been confirmed by Tennant and Tate in another radio appearance[3] and by reports of filming.[4]

Character history

In the events of the 2006 series Christmas episode "The Runaway Bride", Donna Noble is a temporary secretary at H.C. Clements in London, a security firm which, unknown to her, provided a front for the Torchwood Institute up until its collapse following the events of "Doomsday", and was then taken over by an alien intelligence. Her parents are Geoff and Sylvia Noble.[5]

On Christmas Eve, the day of her wedding, she is accidentally pulled into the TARDIS as a result of being dosed with Huon particles by her duplicitous fiancé, Lance Bennett, on the orders of the Empress of the Racnoss. She aids the Doctor in defeating the Racnoss Empress, but declines his invitation to travel with him — she is frightened not only by his adventures, but also, to a certain extent, by the Doctor himself. Having seen him commit genocide on the Racnoss, she urges him to find a new companion to act as his moral compass. It was revealed later in "Turn Left" that the Doctor would have been killed while stopping the Racnoss if not for Donna's involvement.

Reappearing in April 2008's series four premiere, "Partners in Crime", Donna has become dissatisfied with regular life and more interested in the bigger picture. She regrets declining the Doctor's offer and has been investigating unusual phenomena in the hopes of finding the Doctor for some time. When investigating Miss Foster and Adipose Industries, the Londoner and the Time Lord are finally re-united. She expresses her regret to the Doctor for not joining him, and after stopping Foster's plans to convert the whole of London into Adipose children, she joins him in the TARDIS as a regular companion. She makes it explicit, however, that she has no romantic attachment to him as Martha Jones and Rose Tyler did.[6]

In "The Fires of Pompeii", Donna continually argues with the Doctor over the moral issue of whether or not he should save the inhabitants of Pompeii from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius the next day. Ultimately, they are forced to cause the eruption to happen, weighing the destruction of the city against the fate of the whole world. When they escape in the TARDIS and leave behind a Pompeiian family they had befriended beforehand, Donna eventually manages to persuade the Doctor to save the family. The Doctor later admits to Donna that she was right about his needing someone, after which he welcomes her aboard.[7]

Donna was the Doctor's full time companion for all 13 episodes of series four.[1][8] Her return to the series sees her with her maternal grandfather, recurring character Wilfred Mott, as well as her mother, Sylvia. Mott is played by Bernard Cribbins, whose appearance as a newspaper seller in Voyage of the Damned was merged into his new role following the death of Howard Attfield who played Donna's father in "The Runaway Bride".[9][10] Donna has encountered the Racnoss, the Adipose, the Pyroviles, the Ood, the Sontarans, The Hath, Vespiforms, the Vashta Nerada, the Judoon, the Shadow Proclamation, and the Daleks.

In the finale of series four, the Doctor uses his severed hand as a store for unused energy from his aborted regeneration process. When Donna touches the hand, an instantaneous "biological metacrisis" takes place and a new, half human Doctor forms from the genetic material of the hand and Donna herself. This Doctor also displays some elements of Donna's personality. The metacrisis proves to be a two way transference; Donna acquires a Time Lord mind, causing her to become half human and half Time Lord. This fulfils the prophecy of the Ood in 'Planet of the Ood' when they spoke of the "Doctor Donna", and also the prophecy of Dalek Caan that the downfall of Davros would come via 'The Threefold Man': the Tenth Doctor, the part-human Doctor and the "Doctor-Donna".

As Donna's body is still human, however, she is unable to live with a Time Lord mind, and the Doctor finally has to wipe her memories to protect her from the effects of the metacrisis. He returns her to her family with the instruction never to speak of her time travelling with the Doctor, telling them that if she remembered she would 'burn up.'

It is confirmed that Donna will return, she was seen filming with David Tennant & Bernard Cribbins. A trailer was also shown at Comic-Con 2009, of the 2009 Christmas Specials wherein Donna appeared in the trailer along with The Master, Jack Harkness, Sylvia Noble and other various characters.

Personality

Donna's strident reaction to her sudden appearance in the TARDIS includes yelling at the Doctor and leaping to the conclusion that she has been kidnapped. The Doctor appears to find her loud-mouthed manner off-putting at first, saying "I don't want you here, anyway". He sarcastically wishes Lance "good luck" with the marriage, and later reminds Lance in person of his pending promise to "honour and obey". Even at the end of the episode, when the Doctor and Donna are on better terms, he remarks, "Blimey, you can shout." Series producer Russell T Davies at one time dismissed Donna's potential as an ongoing companion due to her abrasive personality, saying that "she'd get on your nerves".[11]

The Doctor innocently notes that Donna is neither special nor clever. Upon learning that she is unaware of both the Sycorax ship flying over London and the Battle of Canary Wharf, due to hangovers and scuba-diving holidays respectively, he takes her to task for missing "the bigger picture". Fixated on her interrupted wedding, Donna initially shows little interest in understanding the strange things she encounters, such as the TARDIS and robot Santas, viewing them instead as obstacles between her and her goal. Upon being informed that "this is serious" by her husband to be and asked what they are going to do, she responds by recommending a new date for their wedding. Once his duplicity toward Donna is revealed, Lance criticises her for her stupidity and her preoccupation with "trivia" (celebrity gossip and so on).

Nevertheless, as she begins to trust the Doctor more, she follows him as he investigates her employers, H.C. Clements, and stands up to the Empress of the Racnoss. Gaining perspective on the human condition after witnessing the formation of the Earth, she decides to make something of her life, walking "in the dust" of the Earth and no longer taking "the bigger picture" for granted. When the Doctor tells her to "be magnificent", she says that she intends to do just that.

Despite her faults, and her failure to discover Lance's villainy earlier, Donna shows a great deal of insight in her interactions with the Doctor. Shocked and scared by his merciless defeat of the Racnoss, she initially turns down the Doctor's offer of full time companionship, but urges him to find someone else to travel with, "because sometimes I think you need someone to stop you".

Upon her second meeting with the Doctor, Donna claims that he has "opened her eyes" about the wonders of the universe. She has also shown considerable investigative skills, in particular in bureaucratic areas, due to her experience as a temp. Such skills are demonstrated in "Partners In Crime" when she investigates Adipose Industries in tandem with The Doctor, and in "The Sontaran Stratagem" when she points out that something is amiss with the workers in the ATMOS factory since the records shows no sick days taken. In "The Doctor's Daughter" these skills are further developed as Donna deduces the development of Messaline's civilization from the dates printed on its doors. Also, in "The Sontaran Strategem" Donna can be seen as having the capability to, albeit with the Doctor's close personal guidance, be piloting the TARDIS, something no normal human has ever been shown to be able to do.

Donna also tells Martha Jones in "The Doctor's Daughter" that she wishes (like Rose Tyler before her) to travel with the Doctor forever, becoming the second companion to express this desire. Indeed, she admits that she couldn't go back to living a normal life after everything she has seen. Despite wanting to travel through time, Donna displays a desire not to peek at her future: she dismisses prophets in Pompeii as nonsense, turns down the chance to read River Song's diary, and declines the offer to have her fortune told on Shan Shen three times before giving in.

Production and publicity

Catherine Tate, the actress who portrays Donna, was the first guest star to be named in the show's opening credits, and her character was considered by the production team to have companion status long before the announcement of the character's return.[11] Several other guest stars have been credited in this manner since, including John Barrowman (during his tenures with Tennant only), Elisabeth Sladen (during her tenure with Tennant in Series 4), Kylie Minogue in the following Christmas special, "Voyage of the Damned" and Peter Davison in the Children In Need Special "Time Crash".

As indicated by David Tennant in his video diary of the making of the second series (included in the DVD box set), the casting of Tate was kept secret, with her scene in Doomsday filmed with minimal crew. According to Tennant in his video diary for the third series (and included in that series' DVD set), this was one of the few occasions where the element of surprise was successfully maintained without it being revealed in advance by the media.

Donna is featured in the original audiobooks Pest Control by Peter Anghelides[12] and The Forever Trap by Dan Abnett, and she appeared for her first time in the New Series Adventures in the set of three books published in September 2008; Ghosts of India, The Doctor Trap and Shining Darkness. She also appeared in Beautiful Chaos, published in December 2008.

References

  1. ^ a b "Donna says "I do!"". British Broadcasting Corporation. 2007-07-03. {{cite news}}: Text "accessdate 2007-07-03" ignored (help)
  2. ^ "http://www.absoluteradio.co.uk/djs_shows/shows/breakfast/blog/?id=111304&mode=post&s=1". Absolute Radio. 2009-04-09. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |title= (help)
  3. ^ David Tennant, Catherine Tate (guest hosts) (11 April 2009). "Jonathan Ross". BBC Radio 2. {{cite episode}}: Missing or empty |series= (help); Unknown parameter |city= ignored (|location= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ Miloudi, Sarah (14 April 2009). "Catherine Tate spotted filming Doctor Who in Swansea sun". Western Mail. Retrieved 16 April 2009.
  5. ^ Cook, Benjamin; Davies, Russell T (#386, September 2007), "Leader of the Gang", Doctor Who Magazine, pp. p 17 {{citation}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  6. ^ Writer Russell T Davies, Director James Strong, Producer Phil Collinson (2008-04-05). "Partners in Crime". Doctor Who. BBC. BBC One. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |city= ignored (|location= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ Writer Helen Raynor, Director Douglas Mackinnon, Producer Susie Liggat (2008-05-03). "The Poison Sky". Doctor Who. BBC. BBC One. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |city= ignored (|location= suggested) (help)
  8. ^ "Tate to be Doctor's new companion". bbc.co.uk. 2007-07-03. Retrieved 2007-07-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ "SFX Exclusive! Phil Collinson on Doctor Who (SPOILER ALERT!)". SFX. 2007-12-13. Retrieved 2008-02-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ "New Series 4 Doctor Who cinema Trailer". YouTube. 2008-02-02. Retrieved 2008-02-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ a b Cook, Benjamin (January 31, 2007 (Cover Date)). "The Runaway Bride — Along Came A Spider". Doctor Who Magazine (378). Panini Magazines: 25–26. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ BBC Worldwide Press Releases (2008-02-25). "David Tennant to read Doctor Who: Pest Control". BBC. Retrieved 2008-03-02.
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