These reviews are based on the UK broadcast of the series, which is several episodes ahead of the US broadcast, so beware of spoilers.
SUMMARY:
Earth. London, England. 2008.
Adipose Industries is marketing the latest miracle diet: one pill a day, and the fat just walks away. The Doctor and Donna enter company headquarters, each conducting their own investigation.
They discover that the company is a front. The CEO, Miss Foster, is actually an alien nanny charged with creating a new generation of Adipose, beings composed of living fat. The Doctor acknowledges that this action of using humans as surrogates for the Adipose birthing is against galactic law, and he stops Foster before she can doom everyone taking the Adipose pills to death, but is too late to save her when her employers kill her to remove evidence of the crime.
The episode ends with Donna finally joining the Doctor on his travels, flying out over her home where her grandfather sees her in his telescope, whooping and dancing around enthusiastically as he shouts for her to get out there and explore the universe.
REVIEW:
The primary plot thread of this episode is to reintroduce the character of Donna Noble, played by Catherine Tate, who was first seen in 2006's Christmas Special, The Runaway Bride. At the end of that story, the Doctor asked her to travel with him, but she turned down the offer.
Now we see Donna roughly a year later. She thought she was going to change and travel the world, but her life has ended up at a dead end. She has no job, she's moved back home to live with her mother and grandfather, and is restless. She regrets turning the Doctor down, and has spent her time searching for him as best she can, following conspiracy theories on the internet, investigating them in hopes of finding the elusive Time Lord once again.
When it was announced last year that Catherine Tate would return to the series full-time, many fans (including myself) were concerned. In The Runaway Bride, the character of Donna Noble was rather shallow, loud, and obnoxious. If she were to work out as a regular, she would have to grow up.
Fortunately, that's exactly what the writers had in mind. While Donna still has an abbrasive quality to her and can verbally cut the Doctor down to size, she's also matured, thanks to her prior experiences and the knowledge that there was more to life than her little corner of Earth. It's also a pleasant change to see an older female in the companion role. Whereas Rose and Martha were both young and developed romantic attraction to the Doctor, Donna doesn't get doe-eyed over him.
Since the beginning of the new series, the writers have woven in the family life of the Doctor's comapnions, showing that while they're out exploring the universe, they still have lives back on Earth and people who care and worry about them. Rose had her mom and boyfriend, Martha had parents and siblings, and now Donna brings yet another family dynamic with her mother and grandfather. Sylvia Noble cares about her daughter, but rather than encourage her, her frustration is dominant and she often nags Donna. Counterbalancing this is her granfather, Wilfred Mott. He does his best to empathize her, hoping the adventurous little girl she once was can resurface from under the disillusioned adult.
The episode maintains a lighthearted feel throughout, with the primary comedy coming from the Doctor and Donna almost running into each other several times, but ultimately just barely missing each other, even when they're only a few feet apart in the same room. This culminates in a hilarious scene where they finally catch sight of each other from across a room (the Doctor outside the window and Donna behind a door), and they try to communicate through lip reading and mime, with Donna launching into a series of manic hand gestures, much to the Doctor's confusion.
Of course, a new series is usually ushered in by the introduction of new aliens. In this case, we get the Adipose, a monster that is quite different from the usual stock of menacing invaders.
The Adipose are so named because they are made of fat (adipose tissue). Miss Foster, the CEO of Adipose Industries, turns out to be a wetnurse to a new generation of Adipose. Their breeding planet has been lost (for unexplained reasons), and she sees Earth as the perfect resource, full of fat, lazy people she can take advantage of. The diet pill turns out to be a seed of some kind, a catalyst with which the fat cells of a human body merge to create a new baby Adipose - "The fat just walks away."
The Adipose are designed to be cute, with stubby little arms and legs, a giggly, cooing voice, the shape of a marshmallow and the size of a plush toy. While Russel T Davies, Exec. Producer and writer of this episode, says he based them on a toy he had as a child, I can see a bit of anime influence in their design. Perhaps it's just my perspective, but they have that Kirby/Pokemon quality to them. The single triangular fang emphasizes the anime connection in my head.
And in the Adipose lies the moral question of the story: was it right for Miss Foster to use humans as surrogates for the Adipose? In a way it's a win-win situation - people get to loose weight, and the Adipose are able to breed a new generation. Of course Miss Foster's only concern is for the children, and she has no reservations about removing those she feels are a threat, or converting a woman's entire body into Adipose after she sees one form from her fat, or even condemning millions of people to death by advancing the birth program.
In the end the Adipose children are guiltless, because they cannot help the manner in which they were born, as the Doctor states after Donna asks if he's going to "blow them up," a reference back to The Runaway Bride when he destroyed the children of the carnivorous Raknos. The Doctor even tries to help Miss Foster, as her actions are in direct contravention of galactic law, but as most villains do she refuses to listen to him, which leads to her downfall when the Adipose discover her crime and get rid of her.
With the adventure over, Donna is ready and eager to board the TARDIS and travel with the Doctor, having even already packed ahead of time just in case she managed to find him again. The Doctor doesn't want to be alone, but after the problems he'd experienced ignoring Martha's unrequited love for him as well as nearly destroying her family through his actions, he's afraid the same might happen with Donna. In another funny scene - "I just want a mate." "You just want TO MATE!?" - Donna makes it clear that she doesn't hold any romantic feelings for the Doctor.
BUILDING THE STORY ARC:
And then came the shock scene. Donna leaves her car keys in a trash bin for her mother to find later, and asks a woman in the crowd to tell Sylvia when she arrives. After Donna departs, the young blond woman turns... and it's Rose Tyler, the Doctor's companion from the first two seasons, who is meant to be trapped in a parallel world. Rose walks off, and fades away.
The news that Rose would return for the season finale had already been known for months, but her initial appearance here was a complete surprise. The possibility of her return is worrying, since the Doctor had to seal the rift between dimensions to prevent both universes from being destroyed. If the rift is opening again, it can only mean disaster.
REACTION:
I thought the episode was decent overall, although not quite on the same level as Smith & Jones, the opener for Season 3 and the best season premiere of the new series so far.
The concept of the Doctor and Donna constantly missing each other and then finally meeting at the least expected moment was well-played, and I'm happy with the maturing of Donna's character, while still keeping some of her old attitude.
I really like Milfred Mott. He is very likable and is the first family member of a companion who is enthusiastic about the whole space-travel thing, whereas Rose's mom wanted to keep her daughter tied down, and Martha's mom was deceived into believing the Doctor to be a villain.
The Adipose are certainly a different variety of alien, played more for laughs and as something to attract the younger children in the audience, but it's a nice change of pace from the usual growling alien monsters who want to invade for one reason or another.
