Doctor Who Season 4

Donna Noble: the only companion in history who doesn't want to sleep with the Doctor. Yes, including Captain Jack.

What We Know Going In

The third season of Who was the best one yet, featuring mature, hyper-competent companion Martha Jones and a whole lot of smart, engaging stories. If the pattern holds true, this season will be even more impressive. Also, fun fact: Season Four is the only one for which I had no foreknowledge. I knew about the Bad Wolf and the Mr. Saxon reveals because of the Internet, and I saw "Doomsday" long before I started watching Who in order. But Season Four's content is a mystery to me, so I'm liveblogging it properly: every episode recap was written during or shortly after viewing it, so there's no reflection happening. Allons-y!

What We Found Out

Here we go (warning: spoilers).

4.00, Voyage of the Damned: Doc lands on a spaceship named The Titanic, and it goes just as well as can be expected. Lots of named characters die for no reason at all (some of them die when there's a perfectly valid, totally accessible escape route inches away).

I'm starting to wonder if maybe I'm judging the Christmas specials by the wrong measure. Are they supposed to be...like...fanfiction? Published fanfiction? They don't compare to the quality of the series. They're all written by Russell T. Davies. In general they are filled to brimming with facepalm moments, cheap melodrama, and Deus Ex Doctorus. I wish to everything that is holy they were just extraneous little stories that didn't affect canon, but they aren't. They're inescapable. 1/5

4.01, Partners in Crime: Doc investigates Adipose Industries and runs into Donna Noble (from the Christmas special last season), who has been investigating Adipose but only because she thinks the Doctor will show up. As motivations go, it's not really admirable, and also depressingly Rose Tyler-ish. Call me biased, but a primary motivation of "find the Doctor and hang out with him" just doesn't work for me. It's one-dimensional, selfish, and uninteresting. Martha Jones (who I will hold up as a shining example forever and always) would have been investigating Adipose just because she wanted to help people, but Donna's doing it because she wants to escape her life.

Anyway, Adipose is giving people a pill that turns their fat into teeny-tiny creatures, also called Adiposes. Doc solves the problem in the last second, as always, although this time he does it because Donna just happens to have exactly what he needs—once again, succeeding by luck, although at least this time the Deus is ex Machina rather than ex Doctorus. In the final scene, Donna heads off to worlds unknown, leaving her car behind for her mother and asking a random passerby to help her mother find it. Unfortunately for Donna, that random passerby is Rose Tyler (NOOOOOOOOOOO!) and she proves just as useful to Donna as she was to Doc, walking away and just sort of...disappearing. But if she can disappear, she can reappear, and if Rose Tyler has an opportunity to screw things up, you can bet she'll act on it. Just...ugh. This does not bode well. 2/5

4.02, The Fires of Pompeii: Doc and Donna visit Pompeii, where all of the soothsayers are always right. Donna wants to save everyone from Vesuvius (yeah! Go Donna!) but Doc states that Pompeii is a "fixed point in time," meaning that he cannot (or must not) change it. It's an interesting addition to the lore, although I'm pretty sure it boils down to "if it's in a British history book, it's unchangeable." Unfortunately for Doc, he's not quite right when he calls it a fixed point, because Vesuvius has been infiltrated by aliens called Pyroviles who plan to use it to conquer the world. Doc is forced to choose between detonating Vesuvius and letting the Pyroviles take over Earth, making for a climax full of real pathos. 3/5

4.03, Planet of the Ood: Doc and Donna travel to the 42nd century, where humans are served by the Ood, a slave race introduced in "The Impossible Planet" two seasons ago. (The season-so-far is brimming with callbacks, references, and in-jokes, by the way.) The Ood are developing a bad habit of killing folks, though, as sentient races often do when they've been enslaved. It comes to light that the company selling Ood has been lobotomizing them in order to make better slaves. The resolution actually doesn't involve the Doctor much at all—he's only there to observe and report rather than fix everything. I quite like it that way once in a while, and it sure could happen more often than it does. With this style, the story isn't so much a Who story as it is a really, really good sci-fi story: it's all about human interaction with alien species, and whether we can even handle that. 4/5

4.04, The Sontaran Stratagem: MARTHA JONES IS BACK. Oh, and she's engaged, because Martha Jones is a strong, independent black woman who don't need no Doctor. (She's marrying a doctor who travels a lot. How about that?) Meanwhile, a boy genius has been popularizing hardware called Atmos, which claims to fix the carbon monoxide problem of cars but has a nasty side effect of pulling an "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave" and driving pesky humans into rivers. Of course, it's all a big scheme by aliens, in this case a proud warrior race called the Sontarans. Everything comes to a head as the Sontarans initiate their plan to conquer Earth by making 4 million cars emit poisonous gas, which doesn't really seem like a proud warrior race thing to do. 3/5

4.05, The Poison Sky: Continuing from last episode, Doc runs three complex gambits at once in order to stop the poison gas from turning all the humans into Sontarans. The boy genius (who is a jerk in the order of Draco Malfoy) gets humiliated, vilified, and then redeemed in the final seconds, and the gaspocalypse is averted. The denouement is a bit convenient, but boy genius's character arc is powerful enough to drag this episode out of Deus Ex Doctorus. Before Martha can get back to her life—because she is a strong independent black woman who don't need no TARDIS—the TARDIS gets abruptly very excited, locks her in, and jumps forward in time. 3/5

4.06, The Doctor's Daughter: Doc, Donna, and MARTHA JONES land on Messaline, where humans are fighting a devastating war with the Hath, who are fish-people. Thirty seconds into the episode, the humans grab a sample from Doc and extrapolate it into...the Doctor's daughter, who is Georgia Moffett (otherwise known as David Tennant's wife and the IRL daughter of the Fifth Doctor). She's a lot like Doc, in that she's charming, vivacious, and all manner of gorgeous. She's got a knack for rendering Doc speechless, too, which just makes us fall in love with her more. Martha Jones gets kidnapped and immediately turns it to her advantage (because she is MARTHA JONES, the most capable companion who has ever set foot in the TARDIS), while Donna proves herself useful by deducing the terrible truth that the human-Hath war has only been going for seven days. They have technology that mimics parthenogenesis, which is how Doc became a father all on his own. Unfortunately, it also accelerates their aging, and the war accelerates their dying, so—despite the war only starting seven days ago—they've been fighting for so many generations they can't remember how it started. 

Doc discovers that they're fighting over control of a terraforming machine, and activates it, declaring the war over. Unfortunately, not everyone is on board, and one of them tries to shoot Doc; Doc's daughter leaps in to save him, sacrificing herself. Doc realizes she's not Time-Lordy enough to  regenerate, and leaves—but it turns out she's just taking her time about it, and as soon as he's gone, she wakes up and heads out among the stars. Despite an extremely rushed opening scene, the episode pulls together and nails almost all the right notes. 4/5

4.07, The Unicorn and the Wasp: Donna and Doc meet Agatha Christie and a host of the usual suspects when a dinner party turns deadly. Things get stereotypical fast, and just after getting stereotypical, they get distinctly weird. Everyone is being menaced by a huge alien wasp-thing, who turns out to be someone's child. Which means that at some point one of these characters got very romantic with a huge alien wasp-thing. Squick. For all that, though, this one is honest and earnest about the stereotypes it's playing to, and it gains points back for shamelessness. 3/5

4.08, Silence in the Library: Doc and Donna land on a planet that is a library (the very thought of which nearly sends me into gleeful catatonia, by the way). Doc opens with a thoughtful statement about how death "makes us big," and if it weren't for death "life would be all comedies."

Oh, crap. It's a Moffat episode, isn't it? It is a Moffat episode. Everyone's going to die.

The library-planet's totally lifeless due to an infestation of shadow-piranhas called Vashta Nerada. Doc and Donna run into a crew of archeologists, one of whom greets Doc as "sweetie" and introduces herself as River Song and has a sonic screwdriver and a journal that looks just like the TARDIS. That is to say, she is a walking, talking Chekhov's Gun and she is clearly Very Very Important. We find out gradually that there's some kind of time traveler romance going on here—this is Doc's first time meeting River, but River already knows him like a book. (Ha, get it? Because...because a library? Do you g—oh, never mind.)

As tends to happen with Moffat episodes, things escalate rapidly into the genuinely terrifying. Oh, and lots of people die. 5/5

4.09, Forest of the Dead: "Silence in the Library" continues with Doc, River Song, and the archeology crew sprinting away from shadow-piranhas (the details of which I'm still unsure about, but whatever). Meanwhile, Donna's been transported to some kind of fantasy world, where she gets married and has kids in dream-time, meaning about twenty minutes even though it feels like years to her. Despite being a grand total of 15 seconds long, her interplay with her imaginary husband is just adorable. +10 Companion points to Donna Noble. Rose Tyler was never this adorable.

Everything comes together when Doc realizes that the enormous computer in the planet-core has saved everyone as bits and bytes (because it has that level of computing capacity), and Donna is now one of them. To pull everyone out, he prepares to offer himself as a sacrifice—only for River Song to bash him on the head, cuff him to a pipe, and take his place.

Now, don't get me wrong when I say this, because this nearly made me weep, but YES. YES. YES. FINALLY HE FOUND A STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER AND HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HER PROPERLY AND THEY'RE FINALLY DOING REAL ROMANCE INSTEAD OF HAVING HIM PINE OVER THAT OBNOXIOUS TEENAGE GIRL.

Moffat, you brilliant fiend. Now you've shown us what can really be done with the Doctor, romantically speaking, just to taunt us, while at the same time Rose Tyler is popping up everywhere. How can they let this happen? How can Moffat tease us with a gut-wrenching love story between two mature, capable characters while the other writers dangle the possibility of reintroducing The Hated One into this story?!

Right. Anyway. Everyone the computer was holding in stasis is saved (including the man Donna married in her dream world). Doc almost leaves before...no. No, I'm not going to spoil this bit. This bit is too good. 6/5

4.10, Midnight: On the planet Midnight, Doc and Donna visit a leisure resort. Donna takes to sunbathing (under 15-foot-thick glass, since the planet's radiation is instantly deadly otherwise) while Doc gets into a shuttle with a bunch of strangers for a four-hour trip. Shocking no one, the trip steers right for catastrophe. An alien life form somehow gets onboard and possesses a passenger—and then the Doctor.

Despite a creepy premise, solid performances, and a feels-churning denouement, the episode falls flat because of a lack of real thematic commitment. I can't tell if the story's meant to delve into how depraved humans get when they're frightened, or how depraved humans get when they're infected by a psychic alien. Oh, and Rose Tyler cameos for about three seconds, so minus 100 points to Hufflepuff for that little bit of tomfoolery. 3/5

4.11, Turn Left: Donna Noble finds out It's A Wonderful Life when a pseudo-Chinese pseudo-psychic and a demonic chronovorous beetle force her to change her own past so she never meets the Doctor. Things get off-rail fast. The Doctor dies in his fight with the Racnoss (in that truly awful Christmas special from two seasons ago) because he doesn't have Donna there to calm him down. With the Doctor gone, Martha Jones' hospital has no one to save it from the Judoon, leaving both Sarah Jane Smith and Martha Jones dead. London gets destroyed by a falling spaceship modeled after the Titanic, everyone in America dissolves into Adipose creatures, Atmos nearly chokes the entire population of Earth, and England restarts the Holocaust.

But worst of all, Rose Tyler will not stop popping up.

(And she has the most inane musical cue that is just screaming "SHE IS IMPORTANT, LISTEN TO HER." And she just keeps on being Rose Tyler.)

(Also I'm going to point out that even though this is clearly a dream-storyline with literally nothing at stake because it'll all be completely reset by the end of the episode, hearing about the deaths of Martha Jones and Sarah Jane Smith both hit me way harder than watching Rose Tyler get locked in another universe. Oh, and while I'm on the topic, at least Rose is consistent: as soon as she hears Doc is dead, her immediate response is "But I came so far." Self-absorbed as ever, Rosie. How we missed you.)

When the stars start winking out, Donna finally lets Rose tell her what's going on. Something bad is coming, and it's even worse because of Donna never meeting the Doctor. In the ancient and honorable traditions of time-traveler stories everywhere, Donna needs to stop her past self from making the wrong decision, and does so by traveling into the past and leaping in front of a car. The alternate reality breaks down, Donna returns to the Doctor, and she delivers Rose Tyler's message: "Bad Wolf."

From the resurgence of Rose Tyler to the totally tension-less plot, this episode just does not work. All it serves to do is fabricate suspense for the big reveal next episode, and drop in some arbitrary information about Donna Noble. 2/5

4.12, The Stolen Earth: It's exactly what it says on the tin: somebody steals the Earth. There's about thirty seconds worth of uncertainty as we wonder who could possibly be responsible, and then we remember there hasn't been a Dalek episode this season, and this is a Russell T. Davies episode.

So they've brought back possibly the most unthreatening villain since those stupid mannequins. But that's not all they're bringing back: Martha Jones, Cap'n Jack (and his new Torchwood friends), Sarah Jane Smith (and her son, and their supercomputer), and Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister. Seriously, there's a metric crap-ton of backstory and spinoff tie-ins in this finale. On the one hand, this is kind of impressive and speaks to the Doctor's knack for inspiring loyalty. On the other, it sort of cheats viewers who don't watch Torchwood or The Sarah Jane Chronicles.

Right, the recap. Doc tries to chase down the Earth, but fails. Fortunately, Team Doc—comprised of Harriet Jones, Cap'n Jack and Torchwood, Sarah Jane Smith and her son and their supercomputer, and Martha Jones (but distinctly not Rose Tyler, who whines about it to no end)—brainstorms a way to contact him, bringing him to Earth. There, he TARDISkypes Team Doc, only for the transmission to be intercepted by Davros, the creator of the Daleks. He's used his body to create an entire new race of Daleks (since the best way to make something nonthreatening into something threatening is to balloon the numbers). Doc gets characteristically flippant and lands on Earth, where, at long last, Rose finds him. Cue dramatic running scene, and the worldwide groans. But wait! A Dalek arrives! Will it shoot Rose, ridding us of her forever?

Nope, no such luck. The random Dalek snipes Doc, forcing him to start regenerating. 3/5

3.13, Journey's End: Just kidding! Tennant's here to stay for a while longer. He siphons his regeneration energy into his hand (the one that got cut off in that miserable Christmas Special in Season 2). He and most of Team Doc are captured, while Donna escapes in the TARDIS and somehow manages to turn the super-magicked hand into another iteration of Doc, except he has only one heart and says "Oi!" a lot.

Davros monologues about the evil Dalek plan: they're going to use a bomb balanced by the weight of the planets they've been stealing to destroy the entire known universe. Team Doc, upon realizing this, threatens to explode lots of things so the Daleks won't be able to explode all the things. Davros gleefully points out the irony to Doc: the man who won't carry a gun has turned his followers into weapons of mass destruction.

Just as the Daleks are going to detonate the Reality Bomb, Beta!Doc and Donna arrive with pseudo-science, intending to backfire the Reality Bomb on the Daleks. Instead, they both get zapped. Beta!Doc gets captured, but Donna bounces back up. The shock has triggered something inside her brain, giving her the personality and skills of...the Doctor. She proceeds to trounce the entire Dalek race using her newfound knowledge of technical systems and...erm...her typing speed of 100 WPM.

Here I thought this was going to be an exciting finale, and what do I get? Three concurrent iterations of the Doctor and a climax where Donna solves everything by being the Doctor with a better typing speed.

Having subdued the Daleks, Beta!Doc decides they pose too great a threat to be allowed to live and blows them all up. The team returns Earth to its proper position, and everyone is sent back to their daily lives. Doc drags Rose back to her alternate dimension and explains in detail that Beta!Doc is human enough for her. (Even though we know this is not enough for Rose. She wants the original Doctor. Well, she wants both of them. Well, she wants both of them and a TARDIS.) He's only got one heart, he'll grow old and die properly, and he needs some serious reforming for his unforgivable act of blowing up the race of murderous psychopaths who were literally planning to destroy the universe entirely.

(Russel T. Davies, you're an idiot, and so is this limp-wristed version of the Doctor you keep thrusting at us. Season Five cannot come fast enough.)

Finally, Doc returns Donna to her home. She absorbed a Time Lord brain, he explains, which is way too much for her puny human cranium. He wipes her memory to keep her from melting down. She can never be allowed to remember, otherwise she'd die. This...this is actually genuinely sad. We'll miss you, Donna Noble, even though your importance to the plot apparently boiled down to "touched Doc's hand-in-a-jar." 3/5

What's Good?

Donna Noble is a great character and a great companion. She stands out as the first companion in this reboot who legitimately didn't want the Doctor to kiss her. There was no sexual tension, which came as a welcome change. The Doctor-Donna dynamic is delightful to watch because it's the first time we've seen Doc with a companion who is, first and foremost, his friend. Rose was...Rose, and a romantic interest from day one for no apparent reason. Jack was...well, you know, he was Jack. The Doctor was a walking life form, ergo, Jack wanted him. And Martha, dear Martha, could never have been his friend because she was too hung up on him. So Donna—who treats the Doctor like a twin brother, rather than a god, a celebrity, or a husband—is a delightful change from all that.

And a number of these episodes really were fantastic. "Silence in the Library" and its counterpart, "Forest of the Dead," are both exceptional. "Planet of the Ood" and "The Doctor's Daughter" are both very strong. "The Unicorn and the Wasp" and "Midnight" are both fairly tolerable.

What's Bad?

If that last paragraph sounded like it damned the season with faint praise, that's because it was supposed to. Season Four really, really wanted to be great. It incorporated all the elements people loved about Who in the last three seasons, and it explored new territory as well. As in Season Three, the companion was strong and independent. The alien races were fascinating and their dynamic with the human race brought up real questions about our species as a whole, a la the best parts of Season Two. And the finale tied together threads from the whole season, as Season One's Bad Wolf fiasco tried so hard to do.

But they're not enough.

Despite all the good intentions, despite Donna Noble, despite David Tennant, and despite three whole years of practice at this, Season Four just couldn't cut it. When it's good, it's the best it's ever been. But when it's bad...when it's bad, it's like watching the first season again, except worse, because now we've seen what Who can do when it's not laboring under the burden of Russell T. Davies and his pet monster, Rose Tyler. And it's bad a lot. This season averaged out at 3.5.

So, then...

Is it quality? (Sigh.) Yes, sometimes. Like I said, when it's good, it's great. But it's also pretty bad.

Is it family friendly? Much more so this season than the last few. Relatively little actual violence.

Is it daring? No, not as a whole. This season explored a few new things—and dangled the wonderfully tantalizing story of the Doctor and River Song—but for the most part, it was playing old tunes, particularly in the finale, in which it plays only oldies.

What's the rating? 6.9/10. Rough stuff, Doc, rough stuff.

Callow Note: Netflix tells me there are four more episodes of Tennant left. I'll review those next Wednesday. After that, it's Matt Smith and Steven Moffat, so here's hoping we're looking forward to something that is

Molto Bene!