Companions: Fifty Years of Doctor Who Assistants (44 page)

Donna Noble
–
Catherine Tate
, continued… (
The Runaway Bride
and
Partners in Crime
to
Journey’s End
, plus
The End of Time
)

By the time the Doctor appears in Donna’s life again, over a year has passed, during which time Donna has been seeking out the Doctor by exploring strange events. In early 2008 she visits Egypt in the hope of finding some excitement, but upon returning she realises that her same old boring life will always be there. She wants to see more,
feel
more. She often sits with her gramps, Wilfred Mott (who, unbeknown to either of them, met the Doctor briefly on Christmas Day 2008 in
Voyage of the Damned
), looking up at the stars. Wilf is concerned about Donna – he believes she is waiting for something, and so she tells him about the Doctor, adding that she is not waiting for the Doctor to romance her, it’s not like that, but rather to show her the true wonders of the universe. Wilf hopes she finds him. Sylvia, Donna’s mother, is constantly on her back to get a proper job, which always riles Donna. In early 2009 Donna investigates Adipose Industries, unknowingly at the same time as the Doctor (
Partners in Crime
). They almost bump into each other on several occasions until one fateful day when they eventually see each other across an open office. Donna is looking through the glass in a door, while the Doctor is outside the building in a window-cleaning cage. Donna cannot believe her luck, and she explains to him, in mime, how she has been looking for him. Once spotted by Miss Foster, they both run and meet up on a staircase. They barely have time for more than a quick reunion before they are on the run again and Donna remarks that she was right, ‘It’s always like this with you’.

She tells him that she believes everything now – including crop circles. Although she doesn’t believe the story about the replica of the Titanic almost crashing into Buckingham Palace on Christmas Day (an event the Doctor was involved in). Despite all the danger, she is excited by the chase and helps the Doctor stop Miss Foster from breeding more Adipose from the fat of people. As they stand on the roof of Adipose Industries, she finds herself waving as the baby Adipose are transported to the nursery ship, and can’t help but laugh. She tells the Doctor that she must have been dumb to turn down that offer, and when the Doctor enquires what offer, she says the one he made about joining him.

‘Come with me?’ he asks, as if he has forgotten, to which she quickly replies, ‘Oh, yes please!’ The Doctor isn’t entirely sure it is a good idea, concerned that things may get complicated again like they did with Rose and Martha. This time he just wants a mate and tells her so. After a little confusion, during which Donna thinks the Doctor wants
to mate
, she realises what he is in fact offering. She unpacks her car, amazed that they should park in the same place, showing the Doctor she has been ready for ages. Before leaving she places the car key in a bin and rings her mother to tell her where she is leaving it. She then talks to a blonde girl, completely unaware that it is Rose. She gets the Doctor to fly the TARDIS past Wilf, who looks through his telescope and sees Donna and the Doctor waving. He is overjoyed that Donna’s found the man she has been waiting for.

Her first journey takes her into the past in
The Fires of Pompeii
, and she is not initially convinced, thinking that the Doctor has just taken her to Epcot. He explains about the TARDIS’ telepathic circuits and how it translate language for her. Donna is amused that she ‘just said “seriously” in Latin’. She decides to try some actual Latin, and the stallholder she speaks to tells her that he does not speak ‘Celtic’. The Doctor explains that she sounds Welsh to the natives of Pompeii. Realising that they are mere hours away from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and thus the death of everyone in Pompeii, Donna wants to warn them, to clear the town, but the Doctor tries to tell her that they cannot – that this is a fixed moment in time. She won’t have it, and tells him straight, ‘I don’t know what sort of kids you’ve been flying around with in outer space, but you’re not telling me to shut up. That boy – how old is he? Sixteen? And tomorrow he burns to death.’

When introduced to Caecilius, the Doctor and Donna are mistaken for a married couple, and not for the last time (a reoccurring motif throughout their time together; they are confused for a married couple on four separate occasions). Meeting with the soothsayer, Lucius, is confusing for Donna. He tells her that there is something on her back (foreseeing, in part, the events of
Turn Left
). When attacked by a Pyroville, a creature made of fire, lava and rock, the Doctor defends himself and Donna with a water-pistol – Donna is gobsmacked.

For some reason she thinks she comes from 2008, even though her native time is clearly 2009 (since Wilf met the Doctor the previous Christmas, which was 2008, a year after Donna met the Doctor on Christmas Eve 2007). Faced with the dilemma of either dying or erupting Vesuvius themselves, Donna is crushed by the weight of the decision, but learns a valuable lesson: some things just cannot be changed. She cries as she makes the decision to erupt the volcano, and continues to cry in the streets of Pompeii as she tells everyone to run to the hills and not the beach. They escape in the TARDIS but Donna demands that the Doctor must go back, ‘You can’t just leave them!’ She uses the destruction of Gallifrey against him, reminding him why he travels and why he needs someone like her. ‘Just someone. Please. Not the whole town. Just save someone.’ The Doctor relents and saves Caecilius’ family, admitting that Donna is right. He does need someone.

Donna gets her first taste of an alien world when they arrive on the Oodsphere in the year 4126 (
Planet of the Ood)
. She is a little stunned by the idea of it, until she steps out into the snow. While the Doctor is showing off his knowledge, she pops back into the TARDIS to get a warm coat and totally misses what he was saying. She is deeply affected by the death of Ood Delta-50 – another example of the depth of emotion Donna feels. She may be a woman with opinions, and is not afraid to express them, but she is also a woman who feels everything deeply. She is disgusted by the idea of the Ood being treated as slaves, even though the Doctor tries to tell her that it is not so different from her time. After discovering the truth about the Ood, who are born with their brains in their hands, Donna realises that they weren’t a threat to anyone and humanity has lobotomised them. She wants to hear the Ood song, the song of captivity, so the Doctor shares his telepathic awareness with her. However she finds the song difficult to bare, and is brought to tears. The Ood refer to them as DoctorDonna – another portent of things to come.

In
The Sontaran Stratagem
we see Donna piloting the TARDIS, and she is doing much better than she should, even the Doctor cannot believe it. When Martha’s phone rings, Donna is shocked to find the Doctor has one too. What could have been an awkward first meeting with her predecessor is quickly disarmed when Donna notices Martha’s engagement ring. She does not take kindly to being virtually ignored by Colonel Mace of UNIT, who almost bows before the Doctor, and tells him that she will have a salute. The Doctor nods in approval and Mace reluctantly salutes Donna. She is surprised to discover that the Doctor used to work for UNIT, and that he is technically still on staff since he never actually resigned. Her temping experience comes in useful when she routes through the personnel files at the ATMOS factory and learns that not a single member of the workforce has ever been ill. This alerts the Doctor and UNIT to the conditioning of the workforce. Martha advises Donna to look in on her family, and Donna takes the advice, although the Doctor believes she is leaving him for good. He tells her of the wonders he wanted to show her, like the fifteenth broken moon of the Medusa Cascade, before he realises she is just popping home for a visit. Returning home Donna learns she has only be gone a few days, although to her it seems a whole lot longer and she shares a tearful reunion with Wilf. She tells him everything, and he is extremely happy for her – excited by the adventures she is having. Her mother, Sylvia, is her usual miserable self, but Donna does not bite back this time and merely shares a knowing smile with her gramps. The Doctor is powerless to save Wilf, who becomes trapped in Donna’s car, choking on the fumes coming from the ATMOS device. It is Sylvia who saves him with a pickaxe. Donna knows she has to go with the Doctor, but Sylvia does not want her to. Wilf, however, tells Donna to leave. ‘Don’t listen to her. You go with the Doctor. That’s my girl!’

The Doctor hands Donna a TARDIS key, which he calls a big moment, but she reminds him that they can get all sentimental after the world’s finished choking to death. Donna is accidentally transported to the Sontaran ship high above the Earth. She is full of doubt when the Doctor tells her that she can figure out how to transmat back to Earth. While stranded on the ship, she rings home from the Doctor’s phone, and once again refuses to bite at Sylvia’s words. She shares a tearful moment with Wilf, certain the Doctor will fix things. Once the Sontaran invasion is stopped, Donna suggests Martha join them.

As the TARDIS heads off to Messaline, seemingly of its own accord, Donna is shocked to discover that the hand in the jar, which sits nears the console, is the Doctor’s. Martha points out the hand got cut off and he grew a new one, to which Donna tells the Doctor, ‘You are completely impossible’. She is not overly impressed upon meeting Jenny,
The Doctor’s Daughter
, who considers the loss of Martha as collateral damage, and calls her ‘GI Jane’. She watches the Doctor’s reaction to Jenny, and decides he is not a natural father. She is later surprised to learn that he was once, but he lost every member of his family. She works out why the Doctor is so resistant to Jenny; he cannot bear the thought of losing anyone else. Donna helps the Doctor accept Jenny by pointing out that she has two hearts – that he is no longer the last. She is certain with Jenny around, the Doctor will improve. When Jenny dies, Donna is within earshot when Martha mentions regeneration, but clearly does not pay much attention to it (as her shock at the end of
The Stolen Earth
proves). Once they return Martha to Earth, Donna explains that she is going to be with the Doctor forever.

When they arrive in the 1920s in
The Unicorn and the Wasp
, Donna is not easily fobbed off by the Doctor’s apparent ability to tell the date just by smelling the air, since she has already espied a car nearby. She is dumbstruck at meeting Agatha Christie, who spots that the Doctor and Donna are
not
a couple. Donna gives Christie the idea of Miss Marple and asks to retain the copyright. She is not too impressed with being called ‘the plucky young girl’ who helps the Doctor out. To save the Doctor from cyanide poisoning, Donna kisses him to produce the shock he needs to stimulate the inhibited enzymes into reversal. Donna’s quick thinking helps save Christie, by luring the Vespiform (a giant wasp) into a lake. The Doctor bemoans this loss of life, saying that the Vespiform could not help itself. ‘Neither could I,’ Donna replies.

The Doctor takes Donna to the Library, a fifty-first century repository of every book ever printed (
Silence in the Library
), only to discover the entire planet is empty. He shows her the message he received on his psychic paper. The Doctor has been summoned by Professor River Song, who calls the Doctor ‘pretty boy’, which amuses Donna. She is disturbed by the idea of nodes, which wear the donated faces of dead people. When Miss Evangelista ‘ghosts’, an echo of her conscious is stored for a few moments after her death. Donna is distraught and talks to her, attempting to ease her pain. She thinks it is the most horrible thing she has ever seen. River knows Donna’s fate, coming from the Doctor’s future, but she will not reveal it to Donna. For the first time Donna has to face the very real possibility that she will not be with the Doctor forever. To save her from the Vashta Nerada, the Doctor attempts to teleport Donna back to the TARDIS but instead she is uploaded to the moon-sized hard drive in orbit around the Library. She finds herself living in a false reality, one in which she gets married and has kids, living the dream she had always wanted before meeting the Doctor. It is only the appearance of Miss Evangelista that convinces her that it is all fake. The park she is in, for instance, is populated by many copies of the same two children – her own. When she is restored to reality, she wonders if her husband ‘Lee’ was real too, and she tries to find him. He is real, and he sees her a second before he is transported from the Library, unable to call out to her because of his stutter. The Doctor and Donna share a quiet moment, both pretending to be alright, when in truth they have both lost so much – her: a husband and children, and him: River, the only person who know his name.

While the Doctor explores the planet Midnight, Donna stays behind to relax in luxury, enjoying the break from their hectic life (
Midnight
). He returns sometime later to tell her about the horror he faced, of the creature that stole his voice, and Donna tries to make light of the situation by telling him how she cannot imagine him without a voice.

Donna’s greatest challenge arrives in the most unlikely way in
Turn Left
. She visits a fortune teller on Shan Shen, who merely distracts her while a Time Beetle, one of the Trickster’s brigade, leaps onto her back and changes reality around her. All she has to do is turn right and head to an interview to become Mr Chowdry’s personal assistant, instead of the temp job with HC Clements. Her mother bullies her into doing so, and Donna’s World is created, a world in which she doesn’t meet the Doctor on Christmas Eve 2007 and is not there to stop him going too far against the Racnoss, which results in his death. The extensive fallout is felt throughout the following year and a half. Throughout this horrible ordeal, Donna is visited by a blonde girl who will not say her name, but she insists that Donna is at the heart of everything, that the timelines converge on her. Eventually, Donna agrees to go with the girl from UNIT, and she learns about her real life. She is convinced to go back in time, to prevent herself from turning right, so she can meet the Doctor and fix the timeline. This Donna does, but only by allowing herself to be run over by a truck. As she is dying, the blonde girl tells Donna to give the Doctor a message, and whispers two words. Back on Shan Shen, Donna snaps out of the trance and the Time Beetle falls off her back. The fortune teller cannot believe that Donna was able to resist. The Doctor is puzzled by the coincidences, as if there is something binding them together. All Donna can remember is the blonde girl. The Doctor wants to know what the girl’s name was, but Donna doesn’t know, recalling only the message: ‘Bad Wolf.’