Live-Blogging Doctor Who: Partners in Crime

So this is the first episode of season four of the new Doctor Who. I’ve seen this one a couple of times already, and I’ve never been entirely convinced by the aliens. But I’ll get to that when the episode actually starts—at the moment, we’re on ABC News’s weather report. More rain, apparently. But a nice cold night.

In other news, I’ve never quite become used to the way this armchair wobbles when I type. I think it’s all right, but who knows?

Hey, it was International Tartan Day, celebrating all things Scottish! I’m Scottish, technically. Why didn’t I know about this? Oh, well: I never identify as Scottish unless Nick’s irritating me by faking a Scottish accent.

Speaking of Nick, he has his iPhone out, despite the fact that his favourite show is about to start. I suspect he’s actually physically joined to that thing.

Ah, theme music. Here we go!

This opening scenes is so reminiscent of the opening scenes of “Smith and Jones”—I can only assume that that’s deliberate.

I know this Adipose CEO woman is from Rose and Mahoney, but I’ve never seen her in anything—I’ve never knowingly watched that other show—but she’s very good in this role. Creepy and patronising, exactly like a bad kindergarten teacher. (Spoiler! Sort of.)

Whatever difficulties I might be finding right now in getting a job, I’m so pleased I don’t have a telemarketing job. This looks intensely dull.

Ah, the two heads popping up sequentially. They could have badly over-played this near-miss angle, but I don’t think that they did.

I like the detective-fiction angle to these opening scenes, too—it’s always been a sub-text in Doctor Who, but I like it when it comes to the surface.

Nick’s live-Twittering, apparently. I’m not sure why he’s trying to steal my audience, but such is life.

Kidding, honey!

Ah, poor Stacey. It irritates me that she has the whole “I can do better, now” attitude, but she doesn’t deserve the fate that she’s about to meet.

Okay, the Doctor’s “the fat just walks away” line is genuinely creepy.

Are we supposed to assume that Donna is actually implicit in Stacey’s death? That her fiddling with the necklace sets off the unscheduled parthenogenesis? That’s rather what it looks like. But the CEO is ultimately responsible for the full parthenogenesis.

The Adipose! Sounds like a good diet plan to me. But I don’t find them entirely convincing—they remind me rather of very old-school cartoons, when you could tell which bits of set dressing were going to become relevant, because they looked different. I can’t explain it better than that—the Adipose just don’t quite seem to fit into the background.

According to Nick, it’s been a matter of some debate since the advent of the Slitheen as to whether or not Russell T. Davis hates fat people. I hope not, Russell. I love you!

I have to admit, the Adipose do look as though they’re enjoying themselves, and that’s something.

Now that near miss, with the two of them on separate roads—that worked well for me. Partly because it’s just such a lovely overhead shot.

Donna’s home life. This is a strangely depressing sequence, Donna being harangued by her mother. The mother (minor, undetailed spoiler) becomes rather an interesting character later in the season, or at least a more nuanced character, but here she’s so depressing and frustrating.

I’d never realised that Venus was the only planet in the Solar System named after a woman. (Well, a goddess, technically, Donna’s grandfather, but still.) I’d never thought about it, but, of course, he’s right. Plenty of moons with women’s names, but that’s just typical, isn’t it?

While Donna’s talking with her grandfather, which is a sweet scene, I’ll just mention that I wasn’t at all sure about Catherine Tate as a companion—she’s funny, but I wasn’t sure how she’d fit into the Doctor Who universe, and I felt her acting was slightly too mannered in this episode. It kept me from responding to her as a person, kept reinforcing the idea that she was a character. But I warmed to her fairly quickly.

I think I’ve read too many detective novels, but I quite liked this scene of Donna waiting in the toilets. Whenever I go into an interesting building, part of me always thinks, “Hmm, I wonder if I could successfully hide in these toilets?” I haven’t the faintest idea where I first saw someone hiding in the toilets, but it obviously made a powerful impression on me.

That probably explains why I found this scene of the men kicking the toilet doors in quite disturbing.

(Of course, I mainly wanted to hide in the toilets in the museum to see if the exhibits came alive at night—long, long before I saw Night in the Museum—but that’s a whole ‘nother story.)

Ah, the revelation of the villain’s true purpose. This villain seems to think she’s more comprehensible than she actually is.

Case in point: arguing that she chose her name well. “Foster: as in foster mother.” That’s not at all the kind of leap that you’d expect someone to make—and a nanny isn’t at all a foster mother.

I love this silent miming scene between Donna and the Doctor. It’s so strangely comprehensible—and you can believe that they’d get caught up in it and completely forget where they were. She’s a lovely physical comedian, Catherine Tate—and so is David Tennant, actually.

I think I have to give up my ambition of being a companion—there’s no way on Earth I could ever manage all the running.

Ha! Sonic pen. Much more useful than a sonic screwdriver. Well, unless you suddenly need to put up a lot of shelves.

This episode—this scene, in fact—thoroughly reinforced my fear of those little cage thingies that people use to clean windows. How do people ever manage to steel themselves to get in those things?

This woman is evil, though. I wonder what the actual Adipose are like. We never find out. And do they train their childcare workers to employ these insanely ruthless methods? Or is she working entirely alone? I know the Adipose repudiate her methods in the end, but that’s only because they think the Shadow Proclamation has been alerted, isn’t it?

Now the Doctor is calling her a wet nurse. That’s not the same as a foster mother or a nanny, it really isn’t. Unless she’s breastfeeding these Adipose children personally, or doing the Adiposian equivalent, then she’s not a wet nurse.

Ah, Donna stops the Doctor from revelling in his own cleverness. She’s very good at that; Martha was, as well—to an extent—but Donna’s better. At that aspect.

I love you, Martha Jones! Please come back!

The first time I saw that scene, I thought the Doctor had actually killed the two guards that he electrocuted—I didn’t hear him say, “Just enough to stun them.” Nick’s apparently only just heard that this time—this must be the third or fourth time he’s seen this one, too.

Ah, Donna. There’s a kind of desperation to this character that’s heartbreaking—this desire to break out of her ordinary life and do something extraordinary. It’s no surprise that here we have a character who has been actively searching for the Doctor. I don’t think we’ve seen that with a companion before, have we? Except perhaps Turlough, and that was slightly different.

So if one pill means one Adipose baby—which is the impression we’re given through the rate of weight loss, in the early scenes—how is it that she’s managing to generate all those extra babies? Does the body not metabolise the contents of the capsules, so that it can be re-triggered any time?

I know this is “emergency parthenogenesis,” but I still wonder how this is possible. Or are they not responding to the drugs, at all? Is that it? The capsule is a placebo, and it’s the necklace that triggers things? But, then, that would rely on everyone twiddling with their necklace at least once a day, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, the Doctor manages to prevent one million people disintegrating into creepy, little, marshmallow babies, so I suppose that’s a plus.

DONNA’S MOTHER: Oh, what is it now?
NICK: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I believe.

It’s rather cruel, to deny Donna’s grandfather the sight of the spaceships.

Nick thinks this scene with the Adipose children is excellent use of the Massive software. They are adorable.

The villain insists that the children need her, but the Adipose ships clearly disagree—which really reinforces the fact that she’s not a wet nurse.

You know what I really like about Donna—whoops, the space nanny is about to meet her nasty end—what I really like about Donna is that she doesn’t fancy the Doctor. It’s refreshing. She loves him, sure, but not at all in a romantic sense. She’s never jealous, never seeks to supplant Rose or Martha. I like that.

(I don’t think the definition of “nanny” is any more accurate than that of “wet nurse.” The idea that Mum and Dad have the kids, so they don’t need the nanny any more—that doesn’t make sense. Nannies normally worked in conjunction with parents, not exclusively in their absence. Oh, never mind.)

I’m not touching the “I just want a mate” line. Great back and forth, but I’ll leave it to speak for itself.

He’s like a puppy, this Doctor. Always looking to see who he can makes friends with.

I hope no one ever leaves my car keys in a bin.

Oooh, blonde woman. Suspicious. Yep, it’s Rose. I did not see that coming the first time I watched this episode.

Ha! I like this scene of Donna, waving to her grandfather from the TARDIS. The relationship between these two is so lovely.

And that’s the episode.

Next week: The Fires of Pompeii. “The prophecies of women are limited and dull”—ooh, you’re going to regret that when Donna gets her hands on you, mate.

Ah, memorial for the man who played Donna’s father—vale. And they’re playing Doctor Who Confidential; I’m not blogging that, but she’s a lot more soft spoken in real life, Catherine Tate, than any of her characters.

But for now, typing cramp!