Doctor Who: Partners In Crime (Series 4)

It constantly amazes me that Doctor Who is still continuing to this day and that it is so immensely popular in England at the very least. Over the past three years the series has taken risks with its casting - Billie Piper, Catherine Tate, Freema Agyeman, John Barrowman and Kylie Minogue are hardly the names you'd expect to see in the title credits alongside Christopher Eccleston or David Tennant - and yet it's clear that Russell T Davies knows what he is doing and knows how to make a good television show. I'm sorry die-hard fans, but this series is the way Doctor Who should be made today. It still has the spirit of the past while acknowledging that today's viewers want to see a "human" side to their heroes.
I loved Donna (Catherine Tate's character). When she first appeared she was a breath of fresh air. She argued with the Doctor, didn't follow him blindly, and slapped David Tennant which was something I'd been itching to see happen for the entirety of series two. When they announced she would be returning, I was over the moon. Bring it on!
Tennant, on the other hand, had shown in series three that he was an exceptionally good Doctor and so with the news that a sparky companion opposite a soulful Doctor would be the go for series four, I was very happy indeed. Partners In Crime did not disappoint.
Don't get me wrong, this is no 5/5 episode. This is a good fun plot without too much thought required, but it is really there to reestablish the relationship between the Doctor and Donna and that is worth it. The Doctor is a little less melancholic than usual, but is genuinely delighted to see Donna again - although not initially so happy to have her travel with him. Donna, on the other hand, has been regretting her decision to not travel with the Doctor and so she has been seeking out trouble because she knows that when she finds it, she will find him. Quite wonderfully, within five minutes of meeting each other, she is already going off because she is suspended from a wire from the top of a building, which is great. And their initial meeting as they mime a conversation through a room while watched by the villainess makes tremendous use of Tate's comedic timing.
Sarah Lancashire is quite good as the evil Miss Foster, keeping a very calm and cool exterior throughout the entire story, but to be fair she doesn't lend an awful lot of weight to proceedings. Bernard Cribbins makes an interesting appearance, turning out to be Donna's grandfather and it's fun to have Sylvia Noble back as well.
Truth to tell, as I said, there is little to actually review in the episode short of the Doctor/Donna relationship but this is honestly not a bad thing. And the surprise in the final few moments is genuinely astonishing.
Now we need some solid stories to see how this relationship will last, and we will have to wait patiently to find out more about the WTF moment.
"B"