Special 4 The Runaway Bride

The introduction to Donna Noble, heart of my heart; light of my life was absolutely brilliant. Catherine Tate is such a tour de force as Donna and she fucking smashes it out of the gate. Her and Tennant have such amazing chemistry and the hijinks throughout the episode and the banter all of it was fabulous. Even better the emotional substance of this ep had some real weight to it. Like even though Donna was a shrill joke character for most of the episode When Lance betrayed her you really felt it. That arc she goes on in this episode of taking her life into her own hands while really well done here only shines further with the context of her arc in series 4.

And the Doctor here was excellently characterized. Outside of the amazing banter what I loved about him and DOnna was the way she saw him in totality. His cavalier attitude, the way he made a game of people's lives being in danger, that persisted pretty much unchallenged through series 2 is sharply excised by Donna here. She also hold a mirror to his brutality and how genuinely scary he can be in a way that highlighted just how alien the doctor is.

I've gone on record than Tenrose didn't compel me all that much in series 2 but Tennant characterizes the immense grief of that loss brilliantly here.

I will say the villain of this episode wasn't a favourite I could tell Sarah Parish was having fun as the over the top campy Empress but id didn't really gel with her as much.