Doctor Who 4.1: Partners in Crime

[selenay]

I am mostly still overcome by the squee from Doctor Who being back, so this
is mostly the excitable review rather than the serious, in depth review.

Things to love:

- Doctor Who is back!
- Ahem.
- Donna Noble. I wasn't sure about her on first watching The Runaway
Bride, started to like her on re-watching it in order to write a fic and
now adore her rather a lot after watching this episode.
- Donna and the Doctor missing each other for the first half of the episode
not only had comic wonderfulness, it gave us a chance to see that Donna has
learned to be surprisingly resourceful on her own.
- Donna's grandfather. I just loved that character and his joy when he saw
that Donna had finally found the Doctor.
- Miss Foster was a fantastic villain.
- Partners in Crime indeed :-)
- Dueling sonic screwdrivers just added to the screwball comedy nature of
the episode.
- The Doctor didn't destroy the Adipose children and Donna was pleasantly
surprised.
- They resisted the temptation make Donna into a caricature, not always the
easiest thing in the world, so we had some of the shouty Donna (particularly
that section on the window cleaner's lift *g*) without overdoing it mixed
with some of the more thoughtful Donna.

As an episode to reintroduce Donna, this worked really well. I enjoyed the
comedy of it, the thoughtful moments and the signs that Donna has grown and
matured without losing what made her Donna. The only thing that didn't work
for me was, er, the Adipose plot. I think that if the CGI had made them look
a little less like Pillsbury Dough boys then it would have been a much more
effective story. It's one of those cases where the idea is great but the
execution let it down.

However, Miss Foster was a fabulous villain because she was so calm and cool
and controlled throughout. Too often that kind of villain eventually
descends into maniacal laughter and hysteria, so it was nice to see her
retain the cold evil throughout.

Despite the actual plot not working well for me, everything else really did
work. I loved the interaction between the Doctor and Donna. That moment when
they finally spotted each other and had the mime conversation through the
window was just brilliant, with Miss Foster's "Are we interrupting you?" as
the icing on the cake.

I think they are going to be a terrifically fun partnership and I can't wait
to see where the writers go with it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the
best friends/siblings dynamic to be built up because that would be such a
lovely change from the past three years. Not that I didn't love the Doctor
and Rose and not that I didn't have sympathy for Martha, but I'm looking
forward to having a companion in the TARDIS who isn't in love with the
Doctor.

As a last note, I knew that Rose would be reappearing at some stage this
season, but was I the only one kind of squeaking and going "Eee!" when I
spotted her?

I definitely did not expect to see her in the opener and now I am impatient
to find out why she was there and how she faded away.

It is so good to have new Doctor Who again :-)