Hello, and welcome to my newest tribute "Not Another Bridezilla," dedicated to my favorite Doctor Who companion, Donna Noble. Through this one page tribute, I plan to explore some general information about this character as well as some of my own personal thoughts about her. Right now some of the episode summaries are a bit short because I haven't seen them in a while. As soon as I can, I plan to expand them with a little more detail. This site contains spoilers for almost the entire series of Doctor Who, at least in terms of the new series which began in 2005.

~Series Introduction~

Doctor Who is a science fiction series from Great Britain which features a strange alien man, a Time Lord called The Doctor, having adventures through time and space with a variety of travelers who are generally called "companions." The Doctor (although that is not exactly his name, it is what he and other people use to refer to him) is over 800 years old and, though not immortal, he has the ability to "regenerate" or recreate himself when he is near death. The result is that he looks completely different and often has a slightly different personality, though his core "self" remains the same. As of 2005, he is the last of the Time Lords since his entire race (with only a few exceptions) was wiped out in a battle with their greatest foes, a mutant/mechanical race known as the daleks.

His ship, called the TARDIS (an acronym for Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space) (1), appears to be a police box on the outside, but is actually very spacious and strange on the inside. It is also not entirely predictable and it seems to be a living thing of some sort, though its exact nature remains a bit of a mystery. What is known, however, is that the Doctor stole it a long time ago and that he loves it very dearly, despite its occassional unreliablity.

The companions, of which he usually only has one or two, are people, usually humans though not always, who are offered the opportunity to travel with the Doctor to see time and space. Although they are often pretty, young females, this is not always the case and some men have traveled along with the Doctor as well. The companions are the Doctor's friends and allies, but they often die or get left behind over time, leaving the Doctor to soldier on alone.

Donna is one of the Doctor's many companions. She initially joins him when she is accidentally pulled into the TARDIS due to presence of strange particles in her body that had been feed to her over a long period of time. She initially refuses his offer to travel with him, but eventually she seeks him out again when she decides that she is ready to see the universe. The two spend a fun and very exciting time together as friends traveling through space and time until tragedy forces them to part.

The series originally began in 1963 and ran until 1989 (1). There was a made for TV movie in 1996 which was intended to resume the series, but it wasn't until 2005 that the show returned in full force. The new series is still considered a continuation of the original series (rather than a reboot) and the Doctor is numbered from the original run (in other words the Doctor in the first episode of the new series is considered Doctor Nine not Doctor One). Currently the new series has just finished its fifth season which featured the eleventh version of the Doctor. The new series has been extremely successful and has spawned a few spinoffs, namely Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. The show runs on the BBC and BBCAmerica, though it can also be seen in the US occasionally on SYFY.

~Here Comes the Bride~

Here are the basics of Donna. Donna Noble is the season companion for the fourth season of the new Doctor Who and she is the third season long companion, though she does join him in the TARDIS briefly during the Christmas special between the Doctor losing his first companion and gaining his second. She is played by Catherine Tate, a well known comedian with her own sketch comedy show, The Catherine Tate Show . She is teamed with the Doctor referred to as Doctor 10, since this is the 10th version of the Doctor since the show began in 1963. He is played by David Tennant, who was the Doctor for three seasons plus a number of special episodes. Harry Potter movie fans might recognize him as Barty Crouch Jr from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Donna's very first appearance was actually at the finale of season two in which she suddenly appeared in the TARDIS in a wedding dress during the last few seconds of the episode. Between series, there is usually what is called a Christmas special, and the story of the mysterious bride came to light in the Christmas special titled "The Runaway Bride". She was a temp who was getting married to a co-worker who was actually working for an alien creature that wanted to use Donna's body as a host for huon particles that would eventually allow the alien's children to be born and take over the Earth. With Donna's help, the Doctor destroys the alien and saves the Earth. At the end of the episode, Donna refused the Doctor's offer to travel with him, but recommended that he find someone else instead of traveling alone. By the start of the forth series, Donna found that she regretted her decision and actively tried to find the Doctor by investigating strange events. She eventually found him and became his companion with the mutual understanding that they were just friends. Donna enjoyed seeing time and space and wished to stay with the Doctor forever, but her time with him was unfortunately terminated early due to a major catastrophe which forced the Doctor to take her home. She reappears very briefly in the Christmas/New Years specials "The End of Time."

~Just for Me the Church Bells Rang~

Initially, Donna was a woman who was more interested in celebrities and gossip than what was occurring in the world around her. Although bossy and fiercely independent, she really wanted to find a nice guy to ~~boss around~~ marry, even if she kind of had to bully him into it. She seemed rude, abrasive, shallow, and more than a little spoiled, which combined to make her a massive Bridezilla on the day of her wedding.

Then she met the Doctor when the TARDIS accidentally picked her up during her wedding, as a result of her body being contaminated with huon particles. The experience of encountering alien life opened up her eyes and her better characteristics--her intelligence and compassion--bubbled up to the surface over time and she became a stronger, kinder, more tolerable person. It's not so much that the Doctor changed her personality--she remains as fiery and independent as ever--but her experience made her less self centered. She saw that there was a world out there beyond herself that was worth exploring.

To be perfectly honest, the Donna that first appears in the TARDIS--angry, afraid, and damn well determined to get out of the spaceship--is rather understandable in the context of the event. She was pulled from her wedding into a strange ship, apparently by a strange man, for a completely unknown reason. If that is not reason enough to be a bit of a bitch, I don't know what is. This is not to say that Donna is not bossy and self centered in general, but rather to suggest that these characteristics are blown up in that moment by situation, which leaves a negative impression on some people who proceed to ignore Donna's more subtle characteristics. Not trusting the Doctor immediately actually makes sense considering that he was a strange man and he was piloting a spaceship. Over the course of the episode, she has to face not only the reality of space aliens, but the fact that the man she loved was only using her. In other words, it was a rather bad day for Donna and the fact that she choose to grow from in in end shows that she isn't as shallow as she first appeared.

When she reappeared, her personality had mellowed out a bit. Although she did not successfully travel the world, she did give it a try and found it was not nearly as satisfying or life changing as her time with the Doctor. She looked for signs of him and began actively searching for him. That she was active was fundamental to her personality. It does not matter if she was searching for a husband or an alien, she actively pursued her goals. She did not always accomplish what she wanted, as evident with her failed journey to see the world, but she always tried. This may not seem like an important detail, but Donna was getting to an age where people are suppose to have already accomplished what they are going accomplish and should settle down. She was still trying to do something and that something ended up being saving the universe.

Despite what the Doctor and her fiance said about her being thick, Donna proved to be rather clever. When she found herself in was to find an appropriate jacket. She also used her experience as a temp to figure out the truth behind a mysterious colony at war with another group. She may not have be able to compete with the Doctor in terms of intelligence, but she was not without a certain level of street smarts or wit. Anyway, if everyone was as smart as the Doctor, to whom would he be able to show off?

Donna also showed a great deal of compassion for those she met on her journey with the Doctor. Sometimes the Doctor got so caught up in the BIG PICTURE of the universe that he forgot about the people that make up that picture. Donna understood what it is like to be treated like you are less than nothing by those around you, due in large part to her work as a temp, so she cares about those she met. For example, although she understood the need for the Doctor to destroy Pompeii in order to save the world, she still insisted that he save at least one person or one family. While a lot of people died in the event, at least the one family he did save got a chance, and, as Donna pointed out, that matters.

On the surface, Donna seemed very confident and strong, certainly strong enough to stand up to the Doctor, which is more than most of his companions seemed to manage. She could feel his pain and his sorrow, but she did not let that excuse some of his darker moments or characteristics. When he started to rant about humanity's flaws, she reminded him that she was human and chastised him for being a jerk. She did not allow herself to be bullied, even by her best friend. Still, she had the strength to go into the darkness with the Doctor and then come out of it.

This is not to say that Donna was never afraid. She admitted that she was too afraid to go with him the first time he offered her the chance. Spending time with the Doctor was both thrilling and extremely dangerous, so it would be a little odd to never be afraid. Donna faced that fear, not by covering it up, but by soldiering on and doing whatever needed to be done.

Donna was also very open about her emotions, at least when it came to other people. She is one of the few people who could come right out and tell the Doctor that she loved him. Of course she did not love him romantically like Rose or Martha (his first and second companions respectively), but that did not make it any less powerful. When Donna wanted something, like attention from the extremely handsome Captain Jack, she made it very clear. This directness was a refreshing change from the angst created by romantic tension in the previous two seasons.

Still, there was a darker side to Donna, and something she did not like to face. When the Doctor first met her and was trying to figure out why she ended up in his ship he said to her, "I mean, you're not special, you're not powerful, you're not connected, you're not clever, you're not important..." This, apparently, was what Donna felt about herself. The Doctor, in a very complicated situation, realized this and said, "All that attitude, all that lip, 'cause all this time you think you're not worth it." The reality is that Donna ends up being very important to the safety of the universe, but, more significantly, she is important to the people around her. Whatever she may have thought about herself, she showed throughout her story that she was special, powerful, connected, clever, and important, though perhaps not in a way that the Doctor could see clearly at first.

Then something happened. In a moment of extreme danger--danger to the entire universe--Donna and the Doctor created a "metacrisis" which resulted in the creation of a half Time Lord, half human clone of the Doctor (with bits of Donna's personality) and Donna becoming half Time Lord. Her head was flooded with his knowledge and experience and she was brilliant! She became the Doctor Donna and, because of her humanity and creativity, she was the one who ended up saving the universe. Everything she thought she wasn't, she became, for one shining moment. Unfortunately, the combination of human and Time Lord was killing her, so the Doctor had to bury it deep within her and make her forget all knowledge of him and their adventures, or she would die. She begged for death rather than becoming the Donna who was a Bridezilla at her wedding, but he did it anyway. Not only did she lose her Time Lord brilliance, she lost all the character development she had experienced up to that point. She became shallow and self centered again, meaning that the Donna who she eventually became died.

~I Got Lost on My Wedding Day~

Doomsday
In order to save both Rose and two different dimensions, The Doctor had to leave her behind in an alternate dimension. As he flew away in the TARDIS, having just said goodbye to her, a woman in a bridal dress suddenly appeared.

The Runaway Bride
The Bride turned out to be Donna Noble, a woman who was walking down the aisle on her wedding day--the day before Christmas. As she was walking, she suddenly started to glow and materialized in the TARDIS. Both she and the Doctor were terribly confused by her presence there, but she insisted that he needed to bring her back to the church so she could get married. His attempts to do so were hampered by alien robots dressed as Father Christmas. Eventually he got Donna away from them and gave her a ring that should have kept the robots from tracking her. In a quiet moment, she explains how she met her fiance at work and how he would bring her coffee, which was a kind gesture since she was only a temp.

The Doctor brought her to her reception which had gone on without her. Unfortunately the Doctor finally figured out that she was poisoned with something called huon particles which had not existed in the universe for millennia, thus the ring he gave Donna to keep the robots away would not work. They crashed the party, but the Doctor was able to defeat them with his sonic screwdriver. The Doctor took Donna and her fiance go to the office where they worked and began investigating a secret underground chamber. Eventually the Doctor realizes that the Empress of Racnoss, a red, spider-like woman, was behind Donna's condition. The alien creature had hired Lance to poison a woman with huon particles so that she could than use them to reawaken her ship and all of her children. Despite his service, the Empress eventually fed him to her children as they awoke. The doctor managed to destroy the chamber and forced the Empress back to her space ship, which was subsequently destroyed. Once it was all over, he offered Donna a chance to travel with him, but she refused, explaining that it was too scary, but she advised him to find someone else because, according to her, sometimes he needed someone to stop him.

Partners in Crime
A company that sold a miracle weight loss pill looked suspicious to both the Doctor and Donna, who had been searching for the Doctor. The company was run by a woman who was "fostering" a race of aliens called Adipose, which would form from the fat, and anything else really, of people who took the pills. The aliens got away, but not before killing the woman who had been fostering them. This time Donna agrees to join the Doctor on the TARDIS.

The Fires of Pompeii
The Doctor and Donna visited Pompeii, unfortunately shortly before the fatal volcano explosion. The Doctor discovered that an alien creature existed below the city and he would have to make the volcano explode, killing all of the people there. Donna was horrified by this, but ended up helping him in order to save the world from destruction. She demanded that he save someone, anyone, so he went back and saved the one family that he could. Ultimiatly the Doctor admitted that Donna was right--sometimes he needed someone to stop him from going too far.

Planet of the Ood
The Ood were a rather strange looking alien creature that the Doctor had met on a previous occasion. When the Doctor encounters them again, they were enslaved by humans but they were experiencing a sickness that would turn them vicious. The Doctor discovered that the Ood were enslaved because a human family had found the Ood collective brain and used it to control them. The Ood managed to take out the man controlling them and the Doctor set them free. Donna was horrified by the experience, but decides to continue traveling with the Doctor.

The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky
Martha, the companion before Donna, called the Doctor and asked him to help her with a project she is working on for UNIT, a group formed to protect the Earth. A warrior race, called the Sontarans, planned on taking out the human race through a gas that has been placed in countless cars throughout the world fitted with a special GPS like device, including Donna's grandfather's car. Their plan was to take over the Earth and turn it into a clone farm. Martha was captured and replaced by a clone, but the Doctor figured out that she was not the real Martha and was able to stop the gas from killing everyone. The Doctor ended up on the Sontaran ship, apparently ready to take them all out, but he cannot so a human who had been working for the Sontarans teleported the Doctor away and took out the ship, killing himself as well in the process.

The Doctor's Daughter
The Doctor, Donna, and Martha were taken by an out of control TARDIS to a strange world where a war has been going on for generations between humans and a race of beings called the Hath. Donna and the Doctor ended up with the humans, while Martha ended up with the Hath. The Doctor was instantly cloned--the result being his "daughter". The Doctor eventually realized that they are on a ship and Donna discovered that it has only been seven days, but the colony has already been through 20 generations. The daughter "died" in the conflict, but the Doctor eventually united both sides and they formed a new colony. Martha returned home, unwilling to continue her travels with the Doctor, but Donna said that she wanted to travel with him forever.

The Unicorn and the Wasp
The Doctor and Donna met Agatha Christy at a party and events turn out a bit like one of her books, except with a decidedly science-fiction twist.

Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead
The Doctor and Donna ended up in a massive library that is "haunted" by horrible creatures that lurk in the shadows. They also met River, a woman who claimed to be very close to the Doctor in his near future.

Midnight
The Doctor ended up on spaceship with a strange, new creature. Mob mentality rules here and almost leads to the destruction of the Doctor.

Turn Left
If it wasn't for Donna making a decision to turn right and pursue a temp job with the hopes of finding a husband rather than turning left and taking a steady job as a secretary at a local firm, Donna never would have met the Doctor. A strange alien interfered with Donna's timeline and took her back to that day, but this time she turns left. As a result, the Doctor died in the battle with the Empress and all the subsequent alien disasters (except one that Torchwood manages to avert) end up happening driving Donna and her family, along with the rest of humanity, into desperation. Donna knew that something was wrong, but she receives aid from a young blond girl that turned out to be Rose, the Doctor's beloved companion. As a result, Donna gives up her life in order to force herself to turn right and correct the timeline.

The Stolen Earth / Jouney's End
This part of the story, which results in Donna becoming Doctor Donna is rather complex. Because of this, this section will have to wait a little bit.

~All That's Left is a Band of Gold~

Doctor Ten, or the tenth version of the Doctor, was a rather strange creature--a mixture of manic energy, loneliness, pride, and angst. Considering that he was assumed to be the last of his race and that he had a tendency to lose companions, his angst was not exactly unjustified. Nor was his pride unjustified, to some extent, especially considering the number of times he pulled the world from the jaws of certain destruction. Still, these qualities sometimes made him a little less than pleasant for everyone else to be around. In particular, he seemed to look past Martha a lot during her time with him, even to the extent of having her play the role of his servant while he was disguised as a human, ignoring the fact that she was a doctor. The benefit of being with the Doctor is getting to be around him seeing the universe in a new way. The cost is sometimes having to be around him and pulling him back.

He and Donna had excellent chemistry, in part because Donna was not attracted to him romantically. They were great friends, which is exactly what they both needed. The Doctor had at least two of his companions fall for him with rather unpleasant results (and several incidental characters fell for him too). Donna had spent years looking for a husband, only to fall prey to a man who hated her and wanted to use her. They both needed a break from romance and a person with whom to travel, so they were a great pair.

The Doctor offered Donna a chance to grow--a space where she could really feel like she was changing her life. The Earth seems like a pretty small place once you've had a taste of the wonders beyond it. With the Doctor she became a better person, less self involved and more compassionate. Her determination and active nature were turned towards higher and nobler pursuits which, in turn, helped build her self confidence. He expanded her horizons and gave her a chance to prove herself.

Yet, Donna gave the Doctor a lot too. She challenged him in ways that his other companions really did not and she made him face some of his darker side. Donna knew that the Doctor was brilliant, but she wasn't so in awe of him that she thought that he was always right. The Doctor, above all, enjoys the universe, but he has already experienced a lot of it. Having a companion that is anxious to experience it for the first time helps him experience it as well and keeps it fresh. Donna really did want to travel with him forever and he thought of her as his best friend.

That is what makes the ending so sad. With Rose and Martha, they get to treasure their time with the Doctor, even if it couldn't last. Donna doesn't even get to remain the awesome person she became through meeting the Doctor, and he is the one who had to take that away from her. That is the tragedy of their relationship. The Doctor will always have to remember the Donna he knew, the Donna who he told to be brilliant and who said she would be, and know that he took that away from her. Donna will never get to remember the man who meant so much to her and she will have to start from scratch, not knowing that she was a great person all along.

~Something Borrowed, Something Blue~

~It's a Nice Day for a White Wedding~

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