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The Runaway Bride Format Reviewed: TV Review Since the return to our screens of Doctor Who, a feature has been a Christmas special story outside the series, so far broadcast starting in March. Between series 1 and 2 there was The Christmas Invasion, and between series 2 and 3 is The Runaway Bride. Last time we were treated to the first story following the Doctors ninth regeneration, and this time we have the aftermath of the end of the Doctors relationship with Rose, described as the love of boths lives. Immediately following the final meeting between the Doctor and Rose accross dimensions, a woman in a wedding dress appears in the TARDIS, Donna. She was halfway down the isle when she appeared in the TARDIS, and the Doctor discovers that she has been filled with Huon particles by the Empress of the Racnoss, a spider-esque creature that is billions of years old. Her children are in a space ship at the centre of the Earth and she needs Huon energy to release them. The Doctor eventually stops them though by draining the Thames into the bore hole to the centre of the Earth. Because the story has to really be as much of a stand alone story as possible, The Runaway Bride dwells only relatively briefly on the departure of Rose from the Doctors life. In my opinion it is quite a good thing that we weren't given the opportunity to dwell on Rose for too long. We do however see the return of the robot Santas, this time used by the Empress of the Racnoss, and I think that a different device should probably have been used here. An over reliance on such foes can be distracting, simply to make the episode a bit more Christmassy. I was also quite surprised by the small size of the pricipal cast, but this does actually do the story favours I think. My opinion of David Tennant has gone down generally as I have watched and rewatched his adventures. Certainly, he has been given a set of stories of generally lesser quality than Christopher Eccleston, but his manicness does seem to be slightly over egged on occasion. This surprised me that my opinion would go this way, but here he seems to be starting to calm down a bit, which enhances his performance. Catherine Tate plays Donna here, who is effectively the Doctors companion for this story. She does the role well, and her casting seems to have been planned. What annoys me though is personal, she is just someone who seems to rub me up the wrong way, but this shouldn't detract from her decent performance here. The real star of the show though was Sarah Parish as the Empress of the Racnoss. She is a true delight from the beginning to the end of her involvement, really making the chartacter come to life while upstaging the rest of the cast along the way! So, we move on into a new era with neither of the original principal characters still in their roles, and the question really is, are we better off now than at the start? My answer at the moment is probably not, as Christopher Eccleston is a truly great actor and would have been such a wonderful Doctor had he continued beyond his single series. We will have to see what Freema Agyemang is like as a new companion, but from the evidence as presented here there are a few issues. Firstly, I believe that Russel T Davies should concentrate on being the Executive producer and not write. He is making the series too Earth bound, and it should probably move out into space more. Secondly, the Doctor is being made too emotional. In the past, the Doctor has largely been made emotionally detatched in the past because he is Gallifreyan, not Human. Time Lords are not an emotional race, but the Doctor has now been made into a metrosexual. Finally, we also seem to always have to go one better than the previous series. We had Daleks in series 1, so series 2 has Daleks AND Cybermen. The robot santas return not just as pilot fish, but as remote controlled assassins now. It's one upmanship where we should just be telling great, but different stories. Overall, The Runaway Bride was a passable story, but one that really didn't hit the heights of others in the new series. We seem to be getting into a pattern of each year having to be the same, but slightly bigger and better than the previous. Please Russell, tell some original stories in different ways! Rating:  |