SFX's Spoiler-Free 'Runaway Bride' Review

[Rob McCow]

BBC One * 7.00pm, Christmas Day
Director: Euros Lyn
Starring: David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Sarah Parish
Rating: 4/5

Last year, the big question hanging over Doctor Who’s maiden Christmas special was: “Can Doctor Who carry on without Christopher Eccleston”? “Yes!” came the reply, followed by a whoop. This time, it has to prove that Doctor Who has a future post-Billie Piper. Signing up a marquee name as her stop-gap replacement seems like a good insurance policy...

So, “The Runaway Bride” picks up exactly where “Doomsday” finished all those months ago, with Catherine Tate’s mardy madam, in her wedding dress, screaming “Where am I?”s at an incredulous David Tennant. Seems she was beamed into the TARDIS halfway through her wedding. An impossibility, reasons the Doc. But he’s been around too long to believe himself when he says that. Soon, in classic tradition, the race is on to get her to the church on time...

Doctor Who’s never really done anything like “The Runaway Bride” before. There’s a bit of The 39 Steps in there and a heavy dumping of screwball comedy too. And at one point it suddenly becomes a Hollywood action movie... Never in two years of peacock Doctor Who and in 26 years of pawn shop Who have we seen anything as jaw-slackening as this sequence. Russell T Davies knows that for Doctor Who to compete on Christmas Day it has to run with its balls out to compete for people’s attention in a pissed-up living room, in a way Saturday Who doesn’t have to. When Sarah Parish’s villain turns up it becomes as big and as visual as Who’s ever been. It’s a masterpiece of prosthetics and visual effects: slightly naff but at the same time brilliant.

Catherine Tate’s a curious celebrity in that she wins awards and has hit TV shows, and yet a sizeable amount of the public not only can’t warm to her, but actively dislike her. Her gnarly, sarky Donna won’t win over those people, but it’s her who really makes “The Runaway Bride”. Tennant, meanwhile, is as good as ever, and has even toned down some of the face-gurning and Over Emphasis Of Certain Words.

“The Runaway Bride” doesn’t have quite the festive feel of last year’s “The Christmas Invasion" - it doesn’t feel so in love with the season. Sillier in tone than last year’s special, this is Russell T Davies indulging that voice inside of him that most seems to grate with certain members of the viewing public (the voice that whispers "farting Slitheen"). But few writers have that tone of voice that fits so snugly with what you want at 7.00pm on Christmas Day after a couple of Baileys and a snooze.

Reviewer: Steve O’Brien

4/5? Well, there's no point in watching this then! They gave Van Helsing 4/5!

[Milky Tears]

I'll be watching Emmerdale.

Never in two years of peacock Doctor Who and in 26 years of pawn shop Who have we seen anything as jaw-slackening as this sequence.

My foot is hovering in front of the bloody TV screen already, blah, blah, rant, spurt, rant, fist clenched, cream, rant, bloody, soiled, rant, blah, blah, etc, etc...

DAVE LEWIS CAN FILL IN THIS BIT

He does "anal fanboy rants" much better than I can these days.

[Larry]

thanks for that Steve - nothing in that article has got me worried in the slightest.

[Dave Lewis]

I'll be watching Emmerdale.



My foot is hovering in front of the bloody TV screen already, blah, blah, rant, spurt, rant, fist clenched, cream, rant, bloody, soiled, rant, blah, blah, etc, etc...

DAVE LEWIS CAN FILL IN THIS BIT

He does "anal fanboy rants" much better than I can these days.

OMFG! I already hated this episode more than I hate Hitler, Al Queda, and the Sylvester McCoy era, but this has made it EVEN WORSE. When oh when oh when will RTD realise that Doctor Who is a SERIOUS DRAMA SERIES, not a screwball bloody comedy???? When I read that it's sillier than last year's dreadful travesty, I feel SICK INSIDE. When will the BBC ditch RTD and his crappy prosthetics, farting, jokey Who and replace that gurning imbeciled Tennant with a decent actor, preferably a former builder who once played Rasputin. Katherine Tate is so TALENTLESS it has given me TAPEWORM. I will certainly not be watching and encourage all other fans to do the same. DEATH TO THE STRAIGHT AGENDA! Runaway Bride? Runaway ***** more like. -100/10

[Pip Madeley]

[Milky Tears]

I think this Dave Lewis character is also Milky Tears. He is clearly posting his "lesser works" under the tragic fanboy username and saving all the best stuff for his flaky bake pastry alias.



Flaky Bake Bentos would be a cool username for The Ian Levine forum...

[Dave Lewis]

I don't think Dave Lewis exists at all. Furthermore, I think Milky Tears is not a real person but a gestalt entity of everybody's inner fanboy writ large. I miss that flakey old fool Benny Summerfield, and also James Lindsay, who, lest we forget, had a DVD collection where his life should have been.

[Milky Tears]

I missed the personal attack.

[Dave Lewis]

I didn't see it as an attack; I saw it more as a tribute to a great and much-missed personal hero and icon of us both, and indeed, of all Planet Skaro.