Previously: How Kylie Minogue saved Christmas.
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Partners in Crime
Marines: DONNA THE TOTAL BEST is wearing a business suit and walking purposefully through a busy street. The Doctor is walking in the opposite direction. They both end up in front of the same building: Adipose Industries.
Donna walks in the main entrance and the Doctor sonics his way through a back door. Donna flashes an ID to a security guard and says she’s from Health and Safety. The Doctor does the same, flashing his psychic paper. Neither of the guards these two encounter look particularly interested anyway.
Lecture hall. A woman (Ms. Foster) is presenting a weight loss pill before a small audience that includes Donna. She goes on about how wonderful it is and ends with the slogan, “the fat just walks away.” A reporter named Penny speaks up and asks how they know this isn’t just another scam. Ms. Foster is snippy with Penny, but says she can provide the science. A presentation plays and it has science-y words and fat burning explanations.
Kirsti: While also being totally full of zero answers at all, as such things always are.
Mari: We pan up into the projection room and see that the Doctor is watching the presentation from in there. He flashes his psychic paper to the projection guy and says he’s from Health and Safety… film department.
Back in the lecture hall, Ms. Foster says her pill is 100% safe and 100% effective. Penny asks how many people have taken the pill so far. Ms. Foster says they have one million customers in the greater London area and will be soon taking the pill nation wide.
We cut to a call center. Donna sneaks into a cubicle and sits down next to a man. He’s on a call but she whispers that she’s from Health and Safety. We then watch the Doctor sneak into a cubicle and sit down next to a woman. From the reps, we hear that people who order that Adipose pills get a free pill pendant. Donna and the Doctor both examine it.
Donna asks her Dude Rep to print a list of customers. Dude Rep tells her where the printer is and she stands to get a look at it. After she sits down, the Doctor stands up, also looking for the printer. They keep just missing each other as they stand and sit.
K: I love this opening more than I can say. Hell, just seeing Catherine Tate’s name in the credits made me ridiculously happy.
Mari: Me too. It makes me excited about this show again.
Ms. Foster walks in and gets everyone’s attention. She says that they are selling an average of 40 packs per day, but she wants them to sell 100 packs per day. After the announcement, Donna and the Doctor both prepare to hightail it out of there, but Lady Rep pulls the Doctor back and gives him her number. “You be health, I’ll be safety,” she says with an eyebrow waggle (K: Does this count as Eyebrows of Innuendo? It’s so… obvious) and the Doctor has no words. He rushes off, but Donna has grabbed the list of customers before he can get there. He has to go back to Worker Lady with a sheepish little, “me again.”
K: This is as good a time as any – can we all just stop and appreciate how glorious Tennant’s hair is in this episode? Because seriously.
Mari: Duly appreciated.
Donna visits the house of Stacy Campbell, while the Doctor finds Roger Davey, both from the customer list. Donna and the Doctor pretend to be there on behalf of Adipose Industries. Both Roger and Stacy say that they’ve lost weight in a short amount of time with no side-effects.
Roger’s lost 14 kilos in two weeks, which the Doctor notices is the same amount of weight each day. Roger says 1 kilo is gone at 10 past 1 in the morning. He knows because that’s the same time he’s woken up every morning, so he figures he might as well weigh himself.
Stacy is getting all dolled up because she’s going to go dump her boyfriend now that she’s lost weight.
Roger is still explaining that everyday at 10 past 1, his burglar alarm goes off, but there is no burglar. He’s phoned the company and had the alarm replaced, and still, every morning it goes off. The Doctor asks Roger if he’s got a cat flap.
We cut to them examining the cat flap. Roger says it was there when he bought the house.
K: Oh, New New York. It always comes back to you.
Mari: Roger asks if the Doctor thinks cats are getting into his house. The Doctor says that the thing about cat flaps is that they let things out as well as in. “The fat just walks away,” the Doctor says pensively.
At Stacy’s house, Stacy is still primping while Donna patiently waits. She takes out the Adipose pendant meanwhile and starts absently twisting it. In the bathroom, Stacy’s stomach makes rumble noises. She lifts her shirt and we see that underneath, something is stretching under her skin.
Alarms blare at Adipose HQ. Ms. Foster spins around dramatically and tells her watch/walkie that they have an unscheduled parthenogenesis.
The Doctor says goodbye to Roger just as one of his super space technology doohickeys starts going off. He runs off, following the signal just as Ms. Foster dispatches a collection unit.
In the bathroom still, a white cuddly little blob of fat escapes Stacy’s stomach. Donna asks if Stacy is alright and for some reason, Stacy is all, “yeah!” instead of, “AHHH!” Since Stacy has seen the blob of fat, Ms. Foster initiates “full parthenogenesis” and more fat blobs come out of her body.
Stacy finally calls out for help, but her door is locked. She screams and suddenly her whole body explodes into fat blobs. Donna breaks down the door, but all she sees is a pile of clothes. That is, until she looks at the window and sees a fat blob escaping.
K: I know we should be totally grossed out by this, but the fat blobs are just so stinking cute that it’s hard to hate on them.
Mari: Right. And I mean, sorry Stacy! But yeah, those guys are cute.
The Doctor is still outside, running around with his doohickey, shaking and smacking it when it doesn’t work.
The Adipose collection team grabs the fat blobs and leaves. They drive right past the Doctor and his doohickey goes crazy so he chases after the van. He loses them though. The Doctor and Donna stand on two adjacent streets looking confused.
Ms. Foster is examining surveillance video, assuming there was a thief amongst them because of what happened with Stacy. In the video feed, we see both Donna and the Doctor. Ms. Foster stops the video and says, “there she is,” but we can’t see who she is talking about.
Donna gets home that night and straight away her mother starts nagging her. She sits at the kitchen table, tuned out and rather desolate, as her mother rants about Donna’s lack of job. (K: I relate to Donna Noble more than I can say.) Donna finally asks where her grandfather is and we cut to her walking up a hill.
There she finds her grandpa, who is none other than Wilf, who we met during Voyage of the Damned. Donna cutely asks Wilf for permission to board and he grants it. After establishing that Mama Noble was indeed nagging Donna, she pulls up a blanket and looks up at the stars with her granddad. He’s got his telescope trained on Venus, “the only planet in the solar system named after a woman.” Donna gives a little, “good for her.” Wilf goes on about how he knows that they’ll make it to Venus eventually. Donna asks if maybe he’s seen a little blue box out there. Wilf asks if that’s slang for something but Donna just laughs. She tells him if he ever sees a little blue box out there, to shout for her.
Wilf has no idea what she’s talking about but says it’s okay because she’s had a crazy time of it lately, after Lance and crazy Christmases and all. He wishes Donna would tell them what really happened, but she just smiles at him warmly. The things she’s seen are too crazy. Wilf tells her she seems to be drifting, but Donna says that’s not it. She’s waiting. Wilf asks what for and Donna says, “the right man.” Wilf laughs but Donna doesn’t mean that way. She’s met this man and let him get away. Wilf tells her to get out there and find him.
K: I love Wilf so much. So, so much.
Mari: We Segue Magic on over to the TARDIS where the Doctor is examining the Adipose pendant. He’s talking out loud about what he’s found, but he looks up and realizes he’s alone (K: Womp). We pan around the TARDIS and away from the Doctor to get the full scale of his loneliness.
The next day, Donna and the Doctor both head back to Adipose Industries. Donna parks her car in an alley just as the TARDIS materializes behind her.
K: Okay, but WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T DONNA HEAR THE TARDIS??? I know there’s a running joke that she’s kind of oblivious, but seriously?? Mickey and Jackie could hear that thing like 4 blocks away…
Mari: They were exposed to it for a bit longer. Maybe?
Once again, she enters through the front door, and the Doctor sonics his way into the backdoor. The Doctor finds a closet to lock himself into, and Donna hides out in a stall in the bathroom.
We cut to the end of the workday. The Doctor lets himself out.
Donna streteches and exits the bathroom stall when she gets a phone call. It’s her mother asking where she is with the car.
The Doctor makes his way up to the roof and then lowers himself using a construction lift right in front of Ms. Foster’s office. He ducks down out of sight as Ms. Foster arrives Penny still being pushed along by security. Donna sneaks into conference room next to Foster’s office just in time to hear what the Adipose pills really are: the spark of life. The capsule attracts all the fat, binds it together and galvanizes it to form a body.
Penny has no idea what’s going on and Ms. Foster says she chose her name on purpose. Foster as in “foster mother.” She then pulls a little Adipose baby out of her desk drawer. The Doctor and Donna both stand to get a better look and FINALLY see each other. The music swells and stops and then the best exchange happens:
K: Possibly the greatest scene in all of television ever. There are a lot of slapstick-y elements in this episode, and this is just the icing on the cake of magnificence.
Mari: The Doctor sonics the door that leads to Donna shut and then sonics the lift back up to the roof. Unable to open the door, the security guards shoot it open. The Doctor and Donna meet up on the staircase and hug. She can’t believe it’s him and takes a moment from this overwhelming happiness to note that he’s even got the same suit on. “Don’t you ever change,” she asks. Bless. I love me some Donna.
Anyway, the Doctor says it’s just like old times as they run back up to the roof. Donna rambles away about how she figured she’d just look for strange happenings until she found the Doctor. UFO sightings, crop circles, even bees disappearing (K: Foreshadowing shots!). The Doctor asks what she means about bees disappearing. That’s what it says on the Internet. And that’s how she found out about Adipose Industries.
The Doctor climbs back in the lift and tells Donna to climb in too. She says they’ll just call it back up again, but the Doctor has locked it with his sonic screwdriver. Unless Foster has a sonic device of her own, she won’t be able to call it up.
Cut to Ms. Foster with a sonic device of her own. She makes it to the roof and instead of calling the lift back up, it just goes hurtling downward. The Doctor manages to stop it with his screwdriver. He then tries to break into the building through one of the windows, but Ms. Foster has the building deadlocked. Foster uses her sonic pen to cut the cable on one side of the lift. Donna falls out of the lift, but grabs the cable and is now hanging on for dear life. Foster tries to cut the second cable but the Doctor aims his sonic screwdriver at her sonic pen and it causes a spark that makes Ms. Foster drop it. The Doctor catches it and then goes back to trying to break into the building.
Donna is yelling that this is all the Doctor’s fault and she should’ve stayed home. The Doctor finally opens the window and climbs into the building. He runs down the staircase back to Ms. Foster’s office. He opens the windows there and grabs onto Donna’s leg, all while Penny is still shouting and asking if anyone is going to tell her what’s going on.
K: I’m just going to butt in here to say that the music in this episode is A+. I mean, the music is usually pretty damned great where Doctor Who is concerned, because Murray Gold is a genius. But this episode is a step above.
Mari: Donna safely inside, they run off again, though the Doctor doubles back to set Penny free. He tells her to get out.
The Doctor and Donna run right into Ms. Foster, her security guys and their guns.
Ms. Foster guesses they are off-worlders, judging by their sonic technology. The Doctor pulls out her sonic pen and asks what Foster’s real name is: Matron Cofelia of the Five Straighten Classabindi Nursery Fleet Intergalactic Class. The Doctor translates: a wet nurse, using humans as surrogates. Matron Cofelia has been hired by the Adiposian first family to make babies after their breeding planet was lost.
Donna gets that the Adipose babies are made of fat, but there was nothing left of Stacy. Cofelia says that in a crisis, the Adipose can convert bone and tissue and internal organs, even though it makes them a little bit sick. (K: It makes me a little bit sick too…) Donna’s all, “hello?? STACY?” but obviously Cofelia don’t care. The Doctor very seriously tells her that seeding a level 5 planet is against intergalactic law. Cofelia asks if the Doctor is threatening her, but he says he’s trying to help her. This is her one chance.
She doesn’t take it. Before the security guys can grab them or start shooting the Doctor asks if she knows what happens if you hold two identical sonic devices together. She doesn’t know. Neither does the Doctor, but he does it anyway. They squeal and cause everyone to double over in ear-pain, except of course the Doctor who has super ears, I guess. Donna stops the Doctor after a bit and they take off running. Cofelia, meanwhile, tells the invisible people in her watch to advance the birth plan.
Penny is still around and collecting documents for proof. She’s just leaving when Cofelia comes back in. Sorry, Penny.
The Doctor leads Donna back to the closet he was hiding in. Apparently, you can access the alien computer core Cofelia is using to run her evil business from this closet. And now, the Doctor has her sonic pen so he can hack into it.
K: Hello, contrivance, my old friend.
Mari: Cofelia is pushing buttons on her alien computer core and sends her security guards back out to find the Doctor and Donna. The Doctor buys them time by electrocuting the security guards and it’s really loosey goosey so let’s just move on.
Donna watches the Doctor as he works. She quietly remarks that he looks older. She asks if he’s still on his own. He says he is. I mean, there was someone. Martha. He messed up half her life, but she’s okay and she’s gone now. Donna asks about Rose. “Still lost,” is his answer. He asks after Donna. Didn’t she want to travel the world? Donna says that’s easier said than done. She woke up the day after he was gone still in her crappy life and it was like the Doctor had never been there. She did take a trip but after two weeks of bus rides and guidebooks, she was just back home. It wasn’t like traveling with the Doctor. She says she must’ve been mad to turn down that offer. The Doctor half-distractedly asks what offer. To go with him, Donna replies. “Come with me?” the Doctor says, a little shocked. “Oh yes, please!” Donna replies, not hearing the question mark in his voice.
K: This gave me feels, because I relate to Donna Noble way too much.
Mari: The alien computer core is activated. Cofelia is looking out very smugly from her office window saying it’s time for one million birthdays.
Mama Noble is having drinks with friends. One of them is bragging about her weight loss with the adipose pill, but suddenly, her insides start gurgling. When she stands, we see there is something crawling along her back. In the same bar, another man is feeling gurgly too. Roger is in his house and little Adipose babies are starting to whirl around in him. Adipose babies are being born all over. Out in the street, they are wobbling along en masse.
Mari: Birthdays are pretty awesome, Happy Little Squish.
Back at Adipose Industries, the Doctor is explaining that everyone is just losing weight right now, but Cofelia has upped it to emergency parthenogenesis, which means whole people will be gone soon. The Doctor starts doing stuff to the alien core, using the little Adipose pendant he still has. Upstairs, Cofelia just counteracts it by doubling the power to the core.
The Doctor is fussing with his hair like woah right now because of all the stress. He’s freaking out because people are all going to die and he hasn’t got the time. Donna asks if she can help, but he says this is beyond her. Donna again, very calmly, asks him what he needs, and he finally spits out that he needs a second capsule pendant. Donna lifts up her necklace and holds it up before him. It’s kind of silly that they are in this emergency situation and just spend the next couple of seconds staring at each other and then laughing, but IT’S ALSO CUTE SO LA LA LA LA.
The Doctor hooks up the second capsule and shuts down the core. Everyone is okay.
Matron Cofelia figures the Doctor is behind the shutdown, but they still gave birth to 10,000 Adipose, and the nursery is coming. We hear mechanical spaceship whirring. People run outside to scream in the street at the sight of the spaceship.
Of course, poor Wilf has headphones on and is facing the sky in the wrong direction. The ship flies across the sky behind him.
K: Like grandfather, like granddaughter…
Mari: Still in the closet, the core seems to power back on and receive a message in the Adiposian language. No word on why it’s not being translated by the TARDIS. The Doctor shushes Donna to listen.
Outside, Matron Cofelia is speaking to the Adipose babies. She tells them that she’s taking them home to their new mommies and daddies. Those adorable little fat blobs all cheer. Energy pulses beam down from the ship and start lifting batches of Adipose babies into the ship.
As the Doctor keeps listening to the transmission, he says that they aren’t the ones in trouble now. Matron Cofelia is. He takes off running and they end up on the roof again, watching as the Adipose babies get teleported into their ship. Donna asks what he’s going to do now. Blow them up? The Doctor is like, “bro. They are just babies.” They can’t help where they came from. Donna says that’s a change from the last time she saw him.
K: Agreed.
Mari: Matron Cofelia is beaming up so the Doctor runs over to warn her. The Adipose know that breeding on Earth is illegal and are going to try and get rid of the accomplice. Cofelia says she’s more than an accomplice; she’s the nanny.
The Doctor is like, “yeah and now that they’ve got the children, they don’t need a nanny!” Just then the levitation beam shuts off and Matron Cofelia falls to her death.
Off the Adiposian ship goes.
Later, we see the Doctor throwing away Cofelia’s sonic pen. That seems like an incredible waste. Penny is walking by, still tied to her chair. She calls them mad as she hobbles away. Donna says some people just can’t take it. But some people can! TARDIS TIME!
Back in the alley, Donna sees that she’s parked her car just in front of the TARDIS and thinks it’s fate. Plus, she’s got a trunk full of luggage because she packed ages ago. She’s even got a hatbox. The Doctor is like, “…hat box?” and Donna replies, “Planet of the Hats! I’m ready!”
K: Bless her.
Mari: We cut to Donna standing just inside the TARDIS, looking out at the Doctor who is carrying a bunch of her stuff. She’s babbling away so she doesn’t immediately catch on to the fact that he looks like someone just killed his puppy. When she does, he tells her that it’s a funny life in the TARDIS. It’s not that he doesn’t want her there or that he wants to be alone. It’s just that things got complicated with Martha and that was all his fault, according to him.
K: Same. Times infinity. She’s the best.
Mari: She asks if she can come then and the Doctor says yes. She runs in for a hug but suddenly remembers that she’s got her mom’s car keys. She runs off and the Doctor starts grabbing bags to bring into the TARDIS. Donna calls her mom and says she’s staying with a friend for a bit. She’s throwing the car keys in a bin just down the road from the car. Her mom protests this totally terrible plan (K: Legit. What if the bin gets emptied before she gets there?!), but Donna has got to go. She hangs up and finds a blond woman standing nearby. She tells the blond woman that someone named Sylvia is going to pass by. She asks the blond woman to point out the correct bin to Sylvia. Donna runs off again and the blond woman turns so we can now see her face.
IT’S ROSE, Y’ALL. I totally forgot that happened. Rose walks away and then disappears.
K: The first time I watched this episode, I had literally no idea this was coming. I may have screamed at my television.
Mari: Same.
Donna makes it back to the TARDIS. The Doctor tries to give her the “bigger on the inside” spiel, but she knows all of that already. The Doctor asks where in the whole wide universe Donna would like to go. She knows exactly the place.
Wilf is still on his hill when he sees the TARDIS flying by. He starts yelling for Donna, but when he looks up through his telescope, he sees Donna waving down at him with the Doctor just behind her. Wilf does the cutest little happy dance that you ever did see.
Mari: I enjoyed this episode! I think it was a nice reintroduction to Donna, who we see is both the kind of woman who is out there investigating weird things in an effort to find the Doctor, but also a little lost and a little scared and whatever she may say, drifting some. Catherine Tate has this style that just plays these loud comedic moments so singularly, but can also play those softer moments wonderfully as well. I feel like for anyone who was unsatisfied with the Martha romantic subplot of the last series breathed a sigh of relief as the Doctor and Donna laid it all out on the table before she stepped on the TARDIS: friends forever.
K: BrOTP to end all brOTPs, yo.
Next time on Doctor Who: Pompeii on volcano day in S04 E02 – The Fires of Pompeii.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
