In 1963, Physician Who premiered. In 2005, Physician Who was revived, introducing new iterations of the Time Lord and extra adventures via time and area. In 2023, one other new period started, with Disney turning into a producer. There was fairly a bit to like about every Physician and his or her companions, in addition to every season. However 17 years in the past, on July 5, 2008, the very best season because the present was revived got here to an finish.
The second Physician Who Season 4 featured David Tennant because the Tenth Physician and introduced again Catherine Tate as companion Donna Noble after introducing her on the finish of Season 2 after which in a one-off Christmas particular in 2006, “The Runaway Bride.” It was filled with each comedic and heartfelt moments, the key return of Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, the introduction of a personality who would go on to be a major a part of the Physician’s life (although he didn’t comprehend it on the time), a well-crafted season-long arc, one of many sequence’ finest episodes, and a lot extra. Learn on for why this was such an awesome run of episodes.
The comedy of the Physician and Donna was subsequent degree
The Physician’s relationship with Donna benefited from not being weighed down by the emotional features of his relationship with Rose (the romance that wasn’t) or Freema Agyeman’s Martha (unrequited). From their first full episode collectively — she ended up on his TARDIS and neither had any thought how — it was clear that Tennant and Tate bounce off one another so properly.
That was once more true in her return within the Season 4 premiere, “Companions in Crime,” which noticed them investigating the identical unusual circumstances solely to simply miss one another … till each had been listening in to a dialog exterior the identical room (him from suspended scaffolding, her from the door) and noticed one another, mouthing and miming to elucidate the occasions main as much as it. That continued when he let her know he wished her to journey with him however he was solely fascinated about “a mate” and she or he mistook him to imply he wished “to mate.”
And who might neglect Donna struggling to know what he wanted after he’d been poisoned in Episode 7 “The Unicorn and the Wasp”? Watch that scene beneath for pure genius.
The creation and heartbreak of the DoctorDonna
In case you requested Donna, she’d say she was nothing particular (as she did a number of occasions, together with when she returned for the sixtieth anniversary specials). However your entire season — from her parking her automobile in the identical alley because the TARDIS within the premiere to the reveal of what the Ood meant by the DoctorDonna — confirmed she was, not less than for a time, what each the Physician and Rose mentioned: good and an important lady in all of creation. It was a construct that paid off in a serious method.
What appeared like pure coincidence — her and her grandfather Wilf (Bernard Cribbins) crossing paths with the Physician — was in actual fact all resulting in the two-way organic metacrisis that resulted after the Physician put his additional regeneration vitality into the hand he’d misplaced so he might preserve his face. She bought the Physician’s thoughts, and the part-human, part-Time Lord Metacrisis Physician had a little bit of Donna in him. “You might be so robust. What are you? What’s going to you be?” the fortune teller in “Flip Left” requested after Donna was in a position to struggle off Time Beetle on her again that created a brand new timeline, one the place she by no means met the Physician.
River Tune’s (Alex Kingston) response to Donna, then the companion being advised, “You might be one thing new,” and “I’m so sorry in your loss … the loss that’s but to return,” in “The Stolen Earth,” foreshadowed the creation of the DoctorDonna and the Physician being pressured to take her reminiscences when the metacrisis was an excessive amount of for a human physique to deal with within the following episode, “Journey’s Finish.”
The foreshadowing within the season-long arc was good
The season all constructed to the two-part “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s Finish,” which introduced again Rose (extra on that shortly), Mickey (Noel Clarke), Jackie (Camille Coduri), and Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and within the Torchwood staff (John Barrowman‘s Jack, Eve Myles‘ Gwen, and Gareth David-Lloyd’s Ianto) to struggle the Daleks. Moments all through the 11 episodes main as much as it foreshadowed what was to return.
For instance, in “The Fires of Pompeii” (that includes visitor appearances from Peter Capaldi and Karen Gillan earlier than they star because the Physician and companion Amy in later seasons), there have been prophecies about one thing on Donna’s again (“Flip Left”) and “she is returning” (Rose). The lacking Adipose 3 in “Companions in Crime,” Pyrovillia in “The Fires of Pompeii,” and the misplaced moon of Poosh talked about in “Midnight” ended up being worlds taken out of time and area by the Daleks, as revealed within the two-part finale. The season was book-ended with the Shadow Proclamation, with the specter of them within the premiere after which the Physician and Donna going to them in “The Stolen Earth.”
The build-up to Rose’s return was improbable
The identical episode that first launched Donna (“Doomsday”) was additionally the one which noticed the Physician and Rose pressured to say goodbye when Piper’s character ended up trapped in a parallel world. And the episode that introduced Donna again as a full-time companion (“Companions in Crime”) was additionally the one which ended with Rose’s surprising return, as the lady Donna advised the situation of her automobile keys earlier than she ran off with the Physician within the TARDIS. Rose would then pop up a pair extra occasions — together with on a display behind the Physician in “Midnight” — earlier than returning considerably within the last three episodes of the season. As Rose defined in “Journey’s Finish,” in her world, they constructed a dimension cannon so she might come again.
And reuniting the Physician and Rose, albeit in a timey wimey, she ended up with the Metacrisis Physician who might spend his life along with her since he was part-human, method, was a pleasant book-end after their heartbreaking farewell after they had been separated. Was it good? No. However it was nice to see a Physician end what wasn’t mentioned after they initially mentioned goodbye: “I really like you.”
“Midnight” is without doubt one of the sequence’ finest episodes
Close to the tip of the season, the Physician and Donna had their separate adventures, hers in “Flip Left” and his in “Midnight.” What ought to have simply been a leisure journey in a bus with different vacationers changed into a nightmare, with one in all Tennant’s finest performances on the present, an impressive visitor spot from Lesley Sharp as Sky, the lady possessed by an unknown entity, and no concrete solutions about what precisely took her over. It each highlighted the Physician’s cleverness and why the Time Lord wants a companion, because it was really easy for the group of strangers to activate him. He was, in any case, an unknown, with nobody to vouch for him.
There are few issues extra terrifying or memorable than watching the entity possessing Sky go from repeating the whole lot these round her mentioned, to speaking on the similar time, to talking forward of the Physician and stealing his voice, to the purpose that the others thought he was possessed and had been able to throw him out the bus to his loss of life. It was the hostess who realized what was occurring (the Physician had mentioned “Molto bene” and “Allons-y” earlier) and her sacrifice that saved him.
© Sci-Fi Channel / BBC / Courtesy: Everett Assortment
River Tune was launched in such an intriguing method
“You’ve solely simply met him.” “No, he’s solely simply met me,” River Tune defined to a fellow explorer. From the beginning, Alex Kingston’s character stunned the Physician. Her solely look reverse Tennant’s got here within the two-parter “Silence within the Library” and “Forest of the Lifeless” and featured references that might later (with Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi’s Docs) make sense.
River Tune was the one to summon the Physician to the Library, solely the fallacious iteration, a youthful model, obtained and responded to it. And so he and followers heard her “Hi there, sweetie” and “Spoilers,” which viewers would come to know properly, for the primary time. She needed to preserve him from wanting in her diary to see his future, and as an alternative, the clues to her id — she was his future spouse and Amy and Rory’s (Arthur Darvill) daughter — got here from the truth that he gave her his sonic screwdriver sooner or later and she or he knew his identify.
Plus, she was a part of a narrative that includes a chilling monster, the Vashta Nerada, swarm creatures that regarded like shadows and stripped the flesh off bones (hen and human) instantaneously. Who might neglect them?
However what did you consider this season? What did and didn’t you’re keen on about it? Tell us within the feedback part beneath.
Physician Who (2005), Streaming Now, HBO Max