The Runaway Bride (TV story)

"Drink the particles, become the key!"

- The Empress of the Racnoss

Summary
As Donna is about to marry her boyfriend Lance on Christmas Eve, she suddenly finds herself aboard the TARDIS. As the Doctor tries to get Donna to the church on time, the alien Empress of the Racnoss watches closely from the throne in her spaceship. How is Donna the key to an ancient plot to destroy the Earth? With time running out, can the Doctor solve the puzzle, defeat the Empress and stop her army of robot Santas?

Plot
The Doctor in his TARDIS as it orbits a supernova, finishes his farewells to Rose Tyler, when suddenly a bride appears in the control room. Both are astounded by this event. Donna, the bride, demands the Doctor return her to the church in Chiswick where she was just in the middle of her wedding ceremony before appearing on the TARDIS. The Doctor tries to return there, but ends up near Oxford Street. Donna storms out of the TARDIS and tries to contact her family through a public telephone, while the Doctor wonders how she could have gotten aboard.

He then notices familiar masked Santas, recognising them as the robotic scavengers from the previous year's Christmas, leveling their weapons disguised as instruments at him; he distracts them by using his sonic screwdriver on a nearby ATM to make it spit out money and causing a crazed rush from the nearby crowd, and then goes off in search of Donna. He finds she has managed to collect some money and is taking off in a cab, though its driver is another one of the robotic Santas. Donna quickly realizes that her cab is not taking her to the church, and discovers that the Doctor has managed to engage the TARDIS in pursuit of the cab along a highway and is able to rescue her. However, such an endeavor has put a strain on the TARDIS, and he cannot use it for some time.

The Doctor gives Donna a ring to prevent the Santas from tracking her and tries to learn more about her, learning that she works at a security firm called H.C. Clements, and that that is where she met her husband-to-be, Lance. The Doctor takes Donna to her reception, to the relief of Lance, her family and their friends. The Doctor learns that H.C. Clements is owned by the Torchwood Institute, and that through footage taken by the photographer at the wedding earlier, that Donna was turned into Huon particles, a source of energy that hasn't existed for billions of years, since "The Dark Times", and cannot be masked by the ring he gave her earlier. He finds the reception hall surrounded by the Santas, and that they have rigged a Christmas tree's ornaments to fly off explosively at the crowd. Using the sound system at the reception and his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor is able to shake apart the robots, and trace the source of their control to a star-shaped spaceship hanging above the city, but shortly loses its signal.

The Doctor asks Lance to take her and Donna to H.C. Clements, learning that after Torchwood One's dissolution in the Battle of Canary Wharf, someone else took control of the company. The Doctor discovers a basement level not on the floor plans and the three travel to it, finding themselves in a long tunnel that eventually leads to the Thames Barrier. There, the Doctor discovers a laboratory where Huon particles have been manufactured and stored in liquid form. The Doctor determines that Donna was saturated in them, and due to the stress of her wedding day, causes the particles to catalyze and activate, pulling her into the TARDIS' own source of Huon particles. A large hole also extends across the room, the Doctor surmising that it was dug out by Torchwood's laser technology and extending to the center of the Earth.

As they explore, a half-humanoid, half-spider teleports into the lab, which the Doctor recognises being one of the Racnoss, a race thought wiped out billions of years ago by the Fledgling Empires during the Dark Times of the universe. The Racnoss calls itself the Empress, and has fashioned a large web above the pit, where the body of H.C. Clements still hangs. As the Doctor talks to the Empress, Lance sneaks around behind it with an axe, threatening to strike, but quickly reveals that he has been working with the Empress; he had spiked the coffee he gave to Donna every day with Huon particles as to allow them to mature in her, so that the Empress can use their activated energy to regain her ancient power. However, as the Doctor and Donna are targeted by more of the robotic agents under the Empress' control, the TARDIS materializes around them and they escape. The Empress is not thwarted as she knows exactly how to achieve the same result with Lance, and begins to force feed him the Huon liquid while trapping him in her web.

The Doctor takes the TARDIS to the creation of the Earth to learn why the Racnoss has dug into the core of the planet, and finds that a Racnoss spaceship is the actual core of Earth, the rest of the planet forming around it, and that if the Empress were to use the Huon particles, she would be able to reawaken those still on the ship. Armed with that knowledge, he and Donna return to a corridor by the laboratory, but Donna is immediately captured into the Empress' web, while the Doctor is held at gunpoint. The Empress begins to activate the Huon particles and, knowing that her fellow Racnoss will be hungry, severs Lance from the web dropping him into the pit.

Meanwhile, the Empress' ship begins to descend towards the city, initially mistaken as a Christmas star before it starts firing on the city. The Doctor manages to sneak back into the laboratory and issues the Racnoss a final offer, to take her and her kind to a planet where they will not threaten anyone. She refuses, and the Doctor reveals himself as from Gallifrey, his long-gone race having previously defeated the Racnoss, and will do so again, using some of the explosive Christmas ornaments to burst apart the walls and flooding the room with water from the River Thames. The Doctor is caught up in his act and doesn't move until Donna says he can stop. The doctor is able to escape with Donna into the TARDIS, while the Empress teleports back to her ship, moments before it is blown out of the sky by tanks under orders of "Mr. Saxon".

The Doctor returns Donna home, but she is desolate having lost her job and her fiancé the same evening, and the Doctor uses a burst of energy from the TARDIS to make it snow in hopes to cheer her up, and offers her to join him on the TARDIS. She declines, but encourages him to find someone, recognizing that he had just lost someone himself. The Doctor tells her briefly about Rose, and then disappears into his TARDIS.

Cast & Characters

 * The Doctor - David Tennant
 * Donna Noble (The Bride) - Catherine Tate
 * Empress of the Racnoss — Sarah Parish
 * Lance Bennett — Don Gilet
 * Geoff Noble — Howard Attfield
 * Sylvia Noble — Jacqueline King
 * Vicar — Trevor Georges
 * Rhodri — Rhodri Meiler
 * Nerys — Krystal Archer
 * Taxi driver — Glen Wilson
 * Little girl — Zafirah Boateng
 * Robot Santas — Paul Kasey, George Cottle

Production crew
to be added

Story Notes

 * A controversy occurred during filming of this story as guests at a hotel were awakened and frightened by gunfire and explosions during filming of one scene in the street below, including one who had just returned from the conflict in Israel.


 * Though set at Christmas, this story was filmed in late July, with an average temperature of thirty degrees, centigrade. David Tennant was quoted as saying he was "blinking boiling" during filming.


 * As part of the 2006 Children In Need concert, a four minute clip from this episode was shown. It features Donna riding in a taxi, unaware that it is being driven by a Robot Santa. The Doctor gives chase in the TARDIS down a motorway and tries to persuade Donna to jump between the two vehicles.


 * This is the first appearance of companion Donna Noble. It is debatable whether Donna qualifies as an actual companion for this episode, though in the eyes of the show makers, she gains this status. She also receives a lead credit at the start which so far only the Doctor and his companion have received. She returned in Partners in Crime and left in Journey's End, both in Series 4.


 * Catherine Tate was unable to attend the traditional first cast read-through of the episode. David Tennant's then-girlfriend, and former guest star Sophia Myles (The Girl in the Fireplace) read the part of Donna Noble on this occasion.


 * According to David Tennant on his DVD commentary, the reprise of the cliffhanger scene from Doomsday had to be refilmed for The Runaway Bride as the change of cinematographers would have resulted in a discontinuity in terms of lighting between the earlier footage and that shot for the special.


 * The "TARDIS car chase" sequence was the first part of the episode to be publicly screened when it was included in the Music and Monsters charity concert TV special, broadcast several weeks before the episode.


 * In the DVD commentary it is confirmed that a scene filmed, but cut from broadcast, would have continued on from Donna pointing out a piece of Rose's clothing by showing the Doctor angrily throwing it through the open TARDIS doors and into space. Executive producer Julie Gardner explained to David Tennant in the commentary that it was cut as being too melodramatic. The cut scene was not included with the other deleted scenes on the DVD release.

Ratings

 * 9.4 million viewers

Myths
to be added

Filming Locations

 * This is the first episode to be filmed in the new Upper Boat studios.
 * Filming also took place in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. (Representing the Torchwood base)

Discontinuity, Plot Holes and Errors

 * Even though this episode takes place immediately after Doomsday in terms of the Doctor's timeline, almost six months have passed since the Battle of Canary Wharf. This makes it unclear what time the Bad Wolf Bay scene in Doomsday took place in, presumably some time within these months. Earlier, Doomsday makes it clear that time does not pass at the same rate in the two universes involved. Doomsday gives no indication how long it took the Doctor to find a way to contact Rose. From his perspective years could have passed. And the TARDIS being a time machine renders considerations of strict chronology somewhat moot anyway.
 * How come the fires don't go out once the water has been released from the drains? (There could be an alien substance or oil preventing fires from going out easily).
 * The Racnoss plan involved getting Donna to HC Clements - how would this have worked without the Doctor taking her there?Donna worked there. Lance would most likely take her down there if The Doctor didn't
 * How do the Santa Robots find Donna so quickly after she arrives back in the TARDIS?
 * When Donna gets in the taxi with the Santa robot she says she will give him the money when they arrive - why not just do that with the original taxi driver - surely someone at the wedding would have paid. Maybe they did, the episode doesn't actually show the entire, short, taxi journey and the original driver could have refused. the Robot Santa wouldn't have cared if Donna hadn't paid it at all as all it had to do was take her to HC Clements
 * It takes an amazingly short amount of time for the waters of the Thames to journey to the centre of the earth and drown the children of Racnoss. And why doesn't the heat of the earth's mantle evaporate it? Torchwood probably put in insulation against the Earth's mantle, although that doesn't explain how the Racnoss ship managed to survive temperatures of around 1000 degrees down there. also, Lance falls surprisingly quickly so maybe the Racnoss where climbing up, or perhaps there's more gravity down there so stuff falls quicker, or maybe some sort of gravity funnel - or possible even an automatic transmat field.
 * The wedding is on Christmas Eve, so how come Donna invites the Doctor in for Christmas dinner? And at night? Some families celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, mostly so they can relax and not have to worry about the cooking and cleaning on Christmas Day.
 * Donna is completely oblivious of both The Christmas Invasion and Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, with explanations that do not work in the context of those stories. This is most notable for the latter, which featured weeks of ghost manifestations that were accepted by humanity, a global invasion, and Donna's home city being the sight of massive warfare, home invasions, and enough deaths to easily cover up the Tyler's disappearance.
 * It's never really explained why the robot Santas are disguised thus once again, after having previously menaced the Doctor in The Christmas Invasion. Since this special takes place also at Christmas, it may have been a coincidence; encountered at another time of year, the robots might have been dressed differently.
 * When the Doctor remembers Rose, it's odd that the memory that he relives is actually from when Rose's body was taken over by Cassandra (DW: New Earth). He remembers a moment when Cassandra just left Rose's body and he holds her.

Continuity

 * The Tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator was first seen in Boom Town.
 * The Robot Santas previously appeared in The Christmas Invasion.
 * These events are referred to in The Sound of Drums by The Master.
 * When the Doctor is standing waiting for the cash machine, the shop Henrick's is seen. Rose worked there in DW:Rose
 * In the episode Turn Left, Donna never meets the Doctor and he dies while stopping the Empress of the Racnoss' plan.

DVD Releases

 * This episode was released as the sole story on Doctor Who: The Runaway Bride, alongside the full Children In Need 2006 concert.
 * It is also included in the Series 3 boxset.

Behind the Scenes

 * For some shots in was suggested that the Torchwood helicopter be used for certain shots by Patrick Schweitzer, this was turned down