Doctor Who "The Runaway Bride" Christmas Special 2006 Originally Broadcast 25/12/06 Written by Russell T. Davies Regular Cast David Tennant The Doctor Principal Guest Cast Catherine Tate Donna Noble Don Gilet Lance Bennett Sarah Parish Empress Directed by Euros Lyn Rating Doctor Who

Rose was such a big part of the revived series' success (and, fairly often, appeal) how the show is going to deal with her departure is something of a burning question. The answer posed by "The Runaway Bride" is 'not very bloody well at all'.

Of course, that's not really fair. Come New Series Three/Season 29/David Tennant Season 2, we're going to have a new companion who could well go on to usher in even more success for the show and prove it's grown enough of a following to survive without Billie Piper.

Sadly, this is a few months off, and while we wait for Martha Jones to arrive, we have to put up with Catherine bloody Tate. I did my level best to ignore my dislike of her derivative, over-hyped and unfunny sketch show. Because bad comedy doesn't necessarily mean a bad Who guest star - think of David Haig, who as DI Grimm in The Thin Blue Line gives one of the most painfully unfunny performances I can remember, and yet makes a chilling villain in "The Leisure Hive". For God's sake, Sylvester McCoy was famous for putting ferrets in his trousers before Who. Form means nothing.

Unfortunately, this isn't a dramatic story, it's an overlong Children in Need sketch. Much like Peter Kay in "Love and Monsters", Tate isn't in this to act, she's in it as Catherine Tate. Her performance is nothing short of diabolical, loudly lisping "Get me to the church!" and "We are going to sue the backside off you!", ensuring that within a minute of the titles no-one bar chavs enthralled with Tate's shouty comedienne schtick gives a toss what happens to Donna. Apologists for this piece of attention-seeking from the production team (JNT may have had a penchant for pointless celebrity cameos in Ken Dodd and Dolores Gray, but at least they were only cameos) have claimed she gets better as the episode trudges on - she doesn't, you just get used to her, like roadworks outside your house. You just kind of accept the noise and do what you can to deal with it. It might seem a bit mental to spend an entire paragraph lambasting a guest star, but sadly Tate's irritating shouting is basically the episode.

The actual plot is gossamer-thin, and without a celebrity guest-star wouldn't even have been considered for carrying an episode. Even then, Davies is reduced to recycling sequences from "The Christmas Invasion". We even get a rough explanation for the pilot fish. One that doesn't hold a lot of water (How do you contact and hire this lot when you're hiding in a facility under London? How do android mercenaries explain all the leaps of logic in their first appearance?).

Running time is also eaten up by a silly chase sequence that isn't half as attention-grabbing and exhilarating as Davies and Euros Lyn (who has another off-day, substituting hyperactivity for style) seem to think it should be. Thankfully, Tate is a sort of bio-damper for tosh like this - in any other story, the horrible emotion-management of the two kids cheering in the back of an SUV while watching would be in the running for the worst scene of the episode.

Even the Empress of the Ragnos is unsuccessful, a rare make-up mistake from the new team. The spider-like creation is ugly and awkward-looking - it's hardly threatening when the villain looks like she's going to trip over her own legs at any moment. Lance works a little better, providing the one surprise when he reveals he's on the other side, though this is wildly illogical - how exactly does a giant alien spider track him down and form an alliance with him? I mean, really? What does she do, climb up out of the underground to HC Clements and take him out for a coffee? Mind, if I'd met Donna, I'd be looking for some way of killing her too, however ludicrous. Except he meets the alien first. Oh well… Srah Parish's ludicrously hammy am-dram performance drains any vestiges of drama from the proceedings.

David Tennant, the show's greatest asset, makes a couple of unsuccessful attempts to compete with Tate before settling for an rather subdued, sympathetic performance, just about managing to mask his disbelief at being involved in this garbage. While there is too little plot to support an episode, let alone a special, what there is isn't too bad, though there are a few brainfarts along the way. It's a nice touch that the regular military finish off the spacecraft for once, though there's a nice Pearl Harbor-style piece of stupidity as the army open fire from the streets of Cardiff London with tanks - we clearly see some shots missing, which presumably land in other bits of London… Brilliant. I know the RAF aren't quite the world leaders they once were, but I'd expect them to be higher up the airborne interception pecking order than the artillery…

Basically, though, "The Runaway Bride" has little going for it, precluding that a lack of taste means you enjoy Tate's performance. Its' positives can be surmised as The Doctor having transcendental pockets, t's not preachy (therefore just about having the edge on "Love and Monsters"), Tate won't be back, and the next series' opener can only be a step in the right direction. And that, having reviewed it, I have absolutely no need to ever watch this dirge again. Fanks fer nuffin, Catherine.

Review written: 08/01/2007

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