{"id":403,"date":"2008-04-13T14:45:57","date_gmt":"2008-04-13T01:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/?p=403"},"modified":"2008-04-13T14:45:57","modified_gmt":"2008-04-13T01:45:57","slug":"fat-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/?p=403","title":{"rendered":"Fat Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Am I Bovvered?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I suppose in many ways we shouldn\u2019t be too surprised by Partners in Crime<\/em>, it follows a pattern of season openers over the past few years.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ve had Cat nurses, Intern companions, and now an alien midwife; we\u2019ve had relatively non-threatening (misunderstood?) female villains, with this year\u2019s silent security heavies mirroring last year\u2019s silent biker types; we\u2019ve got the usual family business, with the obligatory harridan mother; vertical shenanigans with tall buildings\/lifts\/stairwells\/cleaners\u2019 hoists etc.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s always window dressing for the main event, new Doctor, new companion, new look, new direction, new meme.\u00a0 <\/span>Sarah Lancashire did an adequate job channelling Supernanny, but really all eyes were resting, nervously, on Catherine Tate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

‘Ginga’ companions have had a bit of a chequered history (despite some staunch support): Mel, BBC Books’ \u201cGinger Whinger\u201d Compassion, and now Donna.\u00a0 <\/span>Apart from hair colour and fan dissatisfaction, they have a few things in common, they tend to be forthright, opinionated, straight talking, and occasionally shrill.\u00a0 <\/span>Even before her return there was quite a bit of fan angst after her hijinx last Christmas.\u00a0 <\/span>She was too much a caricature, too silly, too unbelievable, too thick, too unlikeable, too unlikely, and just too much!\u00a0 <\/span>And she still is!\u00a0 <\/span>But perhaps in a good way.\u00a0 <\/span>There is thankfully no Doctor-love angst, and Donna\u2019s simple and direct\u00a0style may be just the thing to crack the more dark and moody aspects of the Doctor\u2019s nature, while she isn\u2019t the companion<\/span>\u00a0to win the Doctor\u2019s heart, she may be the one with a chance of understanding what makes him tick, and this will counterpoint the dark and moody road ahead\u2026 Because Donna\u2019s story is<\/span> going to end in tears.\u00a0 <\/span>Not essentially in terms of fan reaction, but because that\u2019s how Rusty works.\u00a0 <\/span>Tragedy, tears of a clown, the dramatic impact of killing of the comedy relief.\u00a0 <\/span>Given his past form her \u201c100 years\u201d comment could only be foreshadowing something.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Similarly the business end of this episode is the bookending that seems to have been missed by many.\u00a0 <\/span>While the Doctor and Donna continually missing each other got a bit tiresome relatively quickly, there was a brilliant payoff (even if it was only in mime), but it was also reflected by the surprise cameo at the end.\u00a0 <\/span>Looking for the Doctor, and just missing him, and probably continuing to do so for the rest of the season to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

DR<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Am I Bovvered? \u00a0 I suppose in many ways we shouldn\u2019t be too surprised by Partners in Crime, it follows a pattern of season openers over the past few years.\u00a0 We\u2019ve had Cat nurses, Intern companions, and now an alien … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-series-4-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeusblog.tetrap.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}