User:DReifGalaxyM31/Partners In Crime 2

189 – "Partners in Crime"
Doctor Who episode
275px The Adipose aliens march through Central London towards Adipose Industries.
Cast
Doctor David Tennant (Tenth Doctor)
Companion Catherine Tate (Donna Noble)
Others Billie Piper – Rose Tyler Sarah Lancashire – Miss Foster Bernard Cribbins – Wilfred Mott Jacqueline King – Sylvia Noble Verona Joseph – Penny Carter Jessica Gunning – Stacey Kendel Martin Ball – Roger Davey Rachid Sabitri – Craig Staniland Chandra Ruegg – Claire Pope Sue Kelvin – Suzette Chambers Jonathan Stratt – Taxi driver
Production
Directed by	James Strong
Written by	Russell T Davies
Script editor	Lindsey Alford
Produced by	Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s)	Russell T Davies Julie Gardner
Production code	4.1
Series	Series 4
Running time	50 minutes
First broadcast	5 April 2008
Chronology
← Preceded by "Voyage of the Damned" Followed by → "The Fires of Pompeii"

"Partners in Crime" is the first episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 5 April 2008. The episode reintroduced comedienne Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, who previously appeared in "The Runaway Bride". Donna and the Doctor (David Tennant) meet while separately investigating Adipose Industries, a company that has created a revolutionary diet pill. Together, they attempt to stop the death of thousands of people in London after the head of the company, the alien Miss Foster (Sarah Lancashire), creates the Adipose, short white aliens made from human body fat.

The episode's alien creatures, the Adipose, were created using the software Massive, commonly used for crowd sequences in fantasy and science fiction films. The episode is stylistically different from other Doctor Who episodes; "Partners in Crime" has no clear antagonist, and the creatures are in a different style to Doctor Who's regular "big [and] scary" monsters.

"Partners in Crime" features the return of three other characters. Jacqueline King reprises her role as Sylvia Noble from "The Runaway Bride". Bernard Cribbins reprises his role as Wilfred Mott from "Voyage of the Damned". Cribbins was recalled to replace the character of Geoff Noble after actor Howard Attfield died. Billie Piper briefly reprises her role as Rose Tyler for the first time since the second series' finale "Doomsday", in a scene that was not included in preview showings.

The episode received many positive reviews. Most critics liked the special effects used to create the Adipose. Critics also praised Tate's subdued acting in comparison to "The Runaway Bride"; Donna was changed from a "shouting fishwife" to a more emotional person when she became a full-time companion. Critics' opinions were split over the episode's plot: opinion on executive producer Russell T Davies' writing ranged from "pure pleasure" to "the back of a fag packet".

Plot

Synopsis

Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), a previous companion who appeared in "The Runaway Bride" has become disenchanted with normal life and regrets declining the Doctor's invitation to travel in the TARDIS. She has started investigating conspiracy theories in the hope she would find him. She confides her regrets to her grandfather Wilfred Mott (Bernard Cribbins), an amateur astronomer who met the Doctor before in "Voyage of the Damned".

On the day that this story begins, the Doctor and Donna arrive at APIDOSE Industries and they both enter, posing as safety inspectors, the Doctor using the lower tunnels to get in using his psychic paper. Meanwhile, Miss Foster, a businesswoman in black and with the glasses to match, is giving a presentation.

Miss Foster gives a presentation about a miracle diet pill being marketed by ADIPOSE Industries. Miss Foster explains that this pill can help you lose at least 1 kg a day and you can eat whatever you want. The Doctor sees this interview from the shadows while Donna sits at the front. A screen lights up showing what the pill does or at least what it's supposed to do. A reporter, Penny Carter, starts to question Miss Foster about the pills' unlikely development, asking if its fake and pointless and then the sheer number of customers comes out: there are currently over one million customers all losing weight. The motto of ADIPOSE Industries is "the fat just walks away."

The Doctor and Donna go to the sales department to get a list of people who are taking the pills. While talking to their separate helpers, they both receive a gold necklace with a capsule on it and then ask for the names of the customers. While looking for the printer, the Doctor and Donna always miss each other by a second. While the Doctor gets pulled down and flirted with by the sales rep, Donna inadvertently grabs both sets and Doctor must return to get another print.

Each goes to a stranger who is on the pill. One of them is Stacey Kendel, who is about to go out and dump her boyfriend as she can now do better when Donna comes knocking about her using the pill. The Doctor, meanwhile, goes to visit a man named Roger Davey, who says that he always seems to be losing weight at 1:10 AM exactly, as that is when the burglar alarm goes off downstairs. He can't figure it out. The Doctor wonders about how the fat can just walk away, noting the man has a cat flap on his door. Donna is alone downstairs in Stacey Kendel's house while she is upstairs getting ready, Donna then takes out her gold necklace and twists the pill-shaped pendant and Stacey grabs her stomach. An alarm sounds at ADIPOSE Industries with Miss Foster saying it's an unscheduled biogenesis, and she orders a team to go and get them.

Miss Foster puts Stacey into full genesis and Stacey talks to two small white blobby-looking things who have arms and legs. Donna hears her and goes to investigate; Stacey is still grabbing her stomach while the Doctor gets an alert on his handheld tracker. He tells Roger to lay off the pills then follows the signal to Stacey's house, Stacey starts to scream as more and more blob things come out of her until she completely dissolves into blob creatures. When Donna bursts into save Stacey she is already gone and she just spots one of the blobs waving to her and then jumping out the window. Running to investigate the Doctor and Donna keep missing each other as the collection team picks up the blob creatures and gets away.

Donna returns home to her mother Sylvia, who is moaning at her about her being jobless, Donna then asks where her grandfather Wilfred is and makes her way up the hill to her astrology-loving granddad. She tells him about a little blue box and how she is ready to give up looking for the Doctor. Wilfred gives her hope and tells her about how when she was young she wasn't allowed on holiday, but she hopped on a bus and made her way to the seaside. She then tells him if he ever sees a blue flying box he's just got to shout her and she'll be there.

The next day both the Doctor and Donna return to ADIPOSE Industries where Miss Foster is reviewing the previous day's CCTV tapes of the office and spots a saboteur. Donna makes her way to the ladies' cubicle while the Doctor hides in a janitor's closet. After about seven hours and the offices have been cleared out, the Doctor comes out and explores. Donna is in the ladies room when Miss Foster bursts in and says she knows that she's in there and she can come out. Donna puts her feet up as Miss Foster and her bodyguards kick the doors open. They finally open the door and find… Penny Carter, the suspicious reporter. Thinking she is the saboteur, they take her away. The Doctor climbs the stairs to the roof where he finds a window cleaner lift and lowers himself using his sonic screwdriver.

Miss Foster and her bodyguards are tying up Penny as Donna peeks through a glass window in the door. The Doctor appears at the window outside looking at Miss Foster, oblivious to Donna and vice versa. They watch Miss Foster explain to Penny that she chose her name very well while travelling to find obesity on the scale Britain is: she chose her name Miss Foster after foster mother. She brings out an Adipose, which is one of the blobs. They are created using parthenogenesis of human body fat, removing a little of the host's body fat each time. In the event of an emergency, multiple Adipose can spawn by using all of the body's organic tissue, killing the host. The Doctor and Donna turn and suddenly see each other. Shouting at each other (without hearing each other), Donna uses a difficult interpretation of mimes about how she's been tracking him using the Internet and learnt about what ADIPOSE was up to and decided to come.

Miss Foster sees the Doctor and Donna and sends her guards to get them. The Doctor tells Donna to run and locks the door out of the room Miss Foster is in, giving Donna time to run. The Doctor zooms up on the lift and runs down the stairs Donna is running up. They meet each other and laugh and hug but don't have much time as the guards shoot the locked door open. Running to the roof, Donna tells the Doctor that she's found almost every alien thing possible when she looked on the Internet, they then jump off onto the window lift and Donna says if they go down she'll just bring them up again but the Doctor says that he controls it with a sonic screwdriver and it's very unlikely she has one.

Miss Foster takes out her sonic screwdriver (disguised as a black pen) and bursts the door open. Looking down at the Doctor and Donna on their way to escape, Miss Foster points at the control mechanism and puts the descent speed to maximum. With a quick jolt both the Doctor and Donna are quickly dropping to the ground until the Doctor stops it with his sonic screwdriver. The Doctor then tries to open a window into the building but Miss Foster deadlocks the building, Miss Foster points at one of the two support cables and it starts to burn on Donna's side of the lift. It snaps and Donna goes flying off the side but manages to grab hold of the cable and screams she should of stayed at home where it was safe, Miss Foster then points to the Doctor's cable and it starts to burn. The Doctor points his screwdriver at Miss Foster's screwdriver and causes it to spark violently out of her hand. The Doctor leans back and catches the sonic screwdriver and climbs the rope to open a window using both screwdrivers.

The Doctor then climbs into the building and sees Penny while on his way to grab Donna from outside. Running to intercept Miss Foster and her guards, the Doctor frees Penny and rescues Donna, then runs into Miss Foster. He demands to know under the Shadow Proclamation what her true name is, and she already knows he is an off-worlder due to his technology. Miss Foster explains that her real name is Matron Cofelia, and that she was hired as a galactic nanny for the Adiposian First Family after their breeding planet was lost. Miss Foster tells her guards to shoot them but the Doctor puts the two sonic devices together, creating a huge sound rendering Miss Foster and her guards out of action. Miss Foster then declares they're going into premature labour and runs to her office where Penny gets recaptured after trying to grab some evidence to back up her story. The Doctor then runs to the cupboard he hid in earlier and finds an inducer machine that Miss Foster is also at above and has activated only to get one million max.

Meanwhile, Sylvia is having a drink with a friend who is also on the pill. The Adipose children come out of the stomach of her friend and other overweight individuals throughout England. The Doctor tries to stop Foster by using one of the pendants to override the system but Miss Foster doubles the power, meaning numerous people are on the verge of falling apart just like Stacey Kendel. The Doctor starts to panic as a million people are about to die and Donna asks what he needs and he says another pendant. The Doctor pulls out her pendant and overrides the system. He sees coded Adiposian instructions and runs to the roof while Miss Foster is gathering all the Adipose. A huge ship appears out of the sky to collect the Adipose children. The Doctor shouts to Miss Foster saying that the Adipose parents in the ship know that using a level 5 planet like Earth for surrogacy is illegal under the Shadow Proclamation and they would want to get rid of their accomplice. She doesn't believe him until the Adiposians turn off the levitation beam and she plummets to a terrible death. The spaceship flies away and Donna says can she take the Doctor up on his offer.

The Doctor refrains from killing the Adipose because they are children; Donna notes that his previous companion Martha Jones made him more human, citing his infanticide of the Racnoss in their previous encounter.

They make their way to the TARDIS, which the Doctor has inadvertently parked next to Donna's car. The Doctor says his last two companions had feelings for him and he doesn't want it to happen again and Donna points out that he was never her type: he's a big bag of skinny and that's not her type. Realising that she still has her mother's car keys, she phones Sylvia and puts them in a bin. She tells a blonde woman to tell Sylvia where the keys are when she arrives. The blonde woman turns round: it is Rose Tyler, who then walks away and fades.

The Doctor asks where Donna would like to go and she says two miles away. Two miles away, Wilfred looks up at the sky and sees the box and as he is shouting to Donna he looks in his telescope and sees Donna and the Doctor waving and then the TARDIS dematerializes.

Continuity

Miss Foster tells the Doctor that the Adipose lost their breeding planet but does not elaborate. The disappearance is explained in episode 12 and reversed in episode 13 of the series: planets have been snatched out of time and space by Davros and the Daleks.

Production

Casting

"Partners in Crime" features several actors returning to the series. Catherine Tate was offered the opportunity to return as Donna Noble during lunch with executive producer Julie Gardner. Tate, who expected Gardner would ask about appearing in a biopic, later admitted it was "the furthest thing from [her] mind". Tate's return was controversial amongst Doctor Who fans; the criticism she received was compared to Daniel Craig after he was cast as James Bond. Howard Attfield, who appeared as Donna's father Geoff in "The Runaway Bride", filmed several scenes for this episode, but died before his scenes for the remainder of the season were completed. The producers retired his character out of respect, and dedicated him in the closing credits for the episode. Producer Phil Collinson suggested transferring his traits to the unrelated character Stan Mott from "Voyage of the Damned", and rewriting his role as Donna's grandfather. Executive producers Russell T Davies and Gardner liked the idea and recalled Bernard Cribbins to the role to re-film Attfield's scenes, with the character renamed as Wilfred—a name Davies favoured for Donna's grandfather—in time for the credits of "Voyage of the Damned" to be changed.

Writing

I see her as a slightly warped Mary Poppins. She's quite austere. She's a strong woman. When I first read the script, I thought, oh, well, of course she's a baddie... but the more I read it, I thought, 'No, she's doing what she's doing for legitimate reasons.'

Sarah Lancashire

Davies took a different approach while writing the episode. David Tennant and Sarah Lancashire noted the character of Miss Foster had good intentions but was morally ambiguous. The premise of the Adipose pill was equally ambiguous with rare side-effects, but was a "win-win situation" for anyone involved. Davies based the character of Miss Foster on the "Supernanny" Jo Frost and Argentine philanthropist and politician Eva Perón, and Lancashire compared her character to Mary Poppins. The Adipose are a different style to regular Doctor Who villains; antagonists such as Lazarus in "The Lazarus Experiment" or the werewolf in "Tooth and Claw" were singular monsters designed to scare the audience; the Adipose were written as "cute" to provide a "bizarre [and] surreal" experience.

Davies made some changes to Donna's character. The character was "rounded ... out from being a shouting fishwife to someone who's quite vulnerable and emotional". Donna was written to provide a "caustic" and "grown-up" attitude towards the Doctor, in opposition to Rose and Martha, who fell in love with him. Tate considered Donna to be more equal to the Doctor because her character did not romanticise him, allowing her to question his morality more easily.

Donna's mime

In this production, the script requires Catherine Tate, as Donna Noble, to reintroduce herself to the Doctor in mime. The stage directions by writer Russell T Davies are as follows.

Donna does a little mime. I came here, trouble, read about it, internet, I thought, trouble = you! And this place is weird! Pills! So I hid. Back there. Crept along. Looked. You. Cos they...

Tate says Davies had suggested that she might come up with something on the day. She improvised her mime during filming.

Filming

The episode was in the fourth production block in the season, and was filmed in October 2007. The out-of-sequence filming allowed producers to use props to "seed" later episodes; ATMOS, a plot device in the episodes "The Sontaran Stratagem" and "The Poison Sky", is referred to by a sticker on a taxi's windscreen. As the episode mostly takes place at night, many scenes were filmed in the early morning.

The scene where Donna and the Doctor investigate ADIPOSE Industries was difficult to film. The scene took thirty shots to complete, and Tennant and Tate experienced problems avoiding each other on-screen. The scene was filmed in a loan company's call centre in Cardiff's outskirts on an early Sunday morning, with the company's telephonists serving as extras.

Exterior shots of ADIPOSE Industries were filmed at the Welsh Gas Board building in Cardiff's city centre. For health and safety reasons, Tennant was prohibited from performing his own stunts in the window cleaning platform. His only shot that required stunts was when he catches Miss Foster's sonic pen, a shot that took several takes to perfect.

Adipose

The Adipose were inspired by a stuffed toy Davies owned. The name comes from the scientific name for body fat, adipose tissue. Davies' brief outlined a "cute" child-friendly creature shaped like a block of lard, similar to the Pillsbury Doughboy. Further consultation with post-production team The Mill resulted in the ears and the singular fang each Adipose has. Stephen Regelous, who won an Academy Award for his software Massive, flew to London to supervise the creation of the crowd special effects. Regelous, a Doctor Who fan, was enthusiastic about helping The Mill with special effects, stating that "When I first found out that the Mill was working on Doctor Who, I was quietly hoping that Massive might be used to create hordes of Daleks or Cybermen and with series 4, I jumped at the opportunity to be involved." The Mill created two types of Adipose: extras with artificial intelligence and independent movement, and "hero" Adipose, which were hand-animated.

Broadcast and reception

Tennant described Billie Piper's return as a "genuine prickle up the spine".

Broadcast and ratings

The episode was broadcast on 5 April 2008 at 18:20, the earliest timeslot since the show's revival in 2005. Davies criticised the BBC's scheduling department and claimed the show could lose 1.5 million viewers. The show retained a similar time of broadcast for a further four episodes, before returning to around 19:00. from "The Doctor's Daughter" onwards.

The preview version of the episode supplied to the press and aired at the press launch omitted the scene that features Rose; before broadcast, only the production team, Tate, and Tennant had seen the scene. The scene contains Rose's departure theme, "Doomsday". Tennant commented "on the night of transmission ... the Radio Times won't have told you it's coming, it'll come as a genuine [...] prickle up the spine".

Overnight figures estimated the show was watched by 8.4 million viewers, with a peak of 8.7 million, 39.4% of the television audience. The consolidated rating was 9.1 million viewers. Doctor Who was therefore the most watched show on 5 April, although the Grand National had a higher peak with 10.1 million viewers. The episode's Appreciation Index was 88 (considered "Excellent"), the highest for any television show aired on 5 April.

Critical reception

The episode received many positive reviews. John Preston, writing for The Daily Telegraph, called the episode an "undiluted triumph". Opening his review, he said "last night's episode struck me as being as close to 50 minutes of pure pleasure as you're likely to get on television". He noted the episode's clever tackling of the topical theme of obesity, and its mixture of emotion and special effects. In closing, he said "the dejected critic, denied even the smallest nit to pick, walks glumly away". Scott Matthewman of The Stage lamented that the Adipose were not threatening enough. He liked the Adipose's execution of Miss Foster, a "momentary pause in mid-air, gravity only kicking in when the character looks down", comparing it to Wile E. Coyote and Chuck Jones, which "[was] a nice little touch in an episode ... full of them". He also appreciated Tate, saying that "David Tennant finally has a partner who is approaching an equal". Sam Wollaston of The Guardian wrote that Tate was "not right for this role" and "too hysterical, too comedy, not cool enough", and felt her inclusion was an attempt to trade on the popularity of her own series and "broaden the appeal of [Dr Who] still further". He also found the music "a bit oppressive" but concluded that, despite these criticisms, the show was "still awfully nice television". Keith Watson of Metro gave the episode 4 stars out of 5. He admitted that despite his dislike of Tate, "she isn't that bad". His review of the Adipose was positive, citing them as a reason of the quality of the show. Closing, he said "it split [his] sides".

Jon Wise of The People said "Doctor Who is a super-galactic way of spending a Saturday night indoors", and appreciated that Donna was not romantically interested in the Doctor, unlike Martha or Rose. Ben Rawson-Jones gave the episode a wholly positive review, summarising it as containing "pure fantastic family fun, delivering a winning blend of action, comedy, poignancy and one unexpected shock cameo".

The episode received several negative reviews. Andrew Billen, writing for The Times, lamented that Davies had "forgotten that Doctor Who's main task is to send children scuttling behind sofas while entertaining their fathers with the odd philosophical idea, the occasional classical reference, a joke or two they would probably not wish to explain and a wee bit of space totty". Billen also criticised the writing and acting, but commended Tate for a "toned down performance". Alan Stanley Blair of SyFy Portal summarised it as "a runaway Saturday morning cartoon in desperate need to a solid story". Blair found flaws with the comedy and the music in the episode, but was impressed with Tate's acting and Piper's cameo. Kevin O'Sullivan of the Sunday Mirror criticised Tate and Tennant for overacting, and had concerns about the writing: "It didn't exactly ooze tension. All we got in the way of terrifying space enemies was Sarah Lancashire hamming it up as an intergalactic super nanny, a couple of security guards with guns and lots of cute little fat babies." Ian Hyland of News of the World criticised the child-friendly storyline, comparing it to "the back of a fag packet". He also criticised Tennant for appearing "jaded" and Tate for "still shouting".

External links

• Partners in Crime on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki
• "Partners in Crime" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
• Shooting Script for "Partners in Crime" at the official website for Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook's Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale

• {{Doctor Who RG|id=who_tv33|title=Partners in Crime|quotes=y}}
• "Partners in Crime" at IMDb

Reviews

• {{DWRG| id=partnerscrime | title=Partners in Crime | quotes=y}}

[[Category:Tenth Doctor episodes|Partners in Crime]] [[Category:2008 television episodes]] [[Category:Screenplays by Russell T Davies]] [[Category:Doctor Who stories set on Earth]] [[fr:Le Retour de Donna Noble]] [[no:Partners in Crime]] [[ru:Соучастники (Доктор Кто)]]