An Overview of Series Four
David Tennant’s third year in the role is his strongest, despite a fairly tepid allotment of scripts. You have a couple of stunners toward the end; “Midnight” and the prologue to the finale, “Turn Left”, are amongst the greatest scripts ever written for the show. The earlier Ood story is a bit on-the-nose, but has the right idea. Although the Pompeii story doesn’t quite work, it tackles some themes never before addressed in the series — and when it does so, it does it well. Not as well as the later “Waters of Mars”, but hey.
Otherwise the series is mostly a dud, narrative-wise. Nothing as horrible as some of the series three indiscretions; more a dull murmur of mediocrity. Despite the odd flash of competence in his Sarah Jane Adventures scripts, I’ll be happy if Gareth Roberts never writes for the parent show again. The Sontarans were boring villains at the best of times, and although their new adventure is superior to all of their classic ones (save perhaps the shortest and most conceptual, The Sontaran Experiment), there’s little positive to say and nothing so heinous as to strain myself in detailing. It’s just… there.
Yet this is also the series where Donna (Catherine Tate) comes in full-time. And it’s the series where her grandfather Wilf (Bernard Cribbins) becomes a recurring feature. The two of them can battle it out off-screen for the position of greatest Doctor Who companion ever. As lukewarm as I may be toward Tennant’s portrayal of the Doctor, his chemistry with each of them elevates the show to a new level and harks back to some of the best Doctor/companion pairings of the past — Troughton and Frazer Hines, Hartnell and Ian and Barbara, McCoy and Sophie Aldred.
Donna is such a flawed, yet such a genuine character — and she undergoes more development than any other companion figure in the show’s history. Heck, she probably develops more than any other individual character. As far as the new series goes, it’s refreshing to have such an unimpressed companion. Donna respects the Doctor’s perspective, and he inspires her every bit as much as she inspires him, yet she is immune to his nonsense. If he needs a kick in the rear, Donna will gladly provide it. If anything, she frequently shows better judgment than Tennant’s petulant, temperamental Doctor.
So although it’s hard to find a standout episode in this bunch, these dynamics make any episode entertaining, whatever else may or may not be going on with the story. As it happens the overall story arc is pretty decent, and better developed than in previous series. (With that in mind, It is curious that the two best-written episodes are the ones where Tennant and Tate are largely separated.)
In some ways it’s a shame that the last few episodes are so continuity-heavy, as otherwise it would be easy to point series four at the Doctor Who neophyte and say, here; this is all the David Tennant you really need to see. This, and maybe a few excerpts from previous seasons — most of them by Steven Moffat. And “The Waters of Mars”.
Oh well. Even though the production team was running out of creative steam here, the cast carries the show to an extent it hasn’t since the boring scripts and amazing chemistry of 1967-1969.