Episode 84: “The Runaway Bride” and “The Bells Of Saint John”

We look at a pair of action-heavy companion introductions, neither of which quite ends with the companion joining the Doctor at the story's end. (Though admittedly Clara needed rather less time to come round.) First up, we consider Donna very much at the rough draft stage for her character, and how she works alongside a 10th Doctor still grieving Rose. There's some good and serious stuff here, but there's also a bunch of deeply silly business with the Racnoss and the Santas and what have you. Then we look at "The Bells Of Saint John," which has some good ideas here and there but has so little sense of character, and what there is just tends to make the 11th Doctor look like a creep. We wrap up with a discussion of Time Lord footwear and how this helps explain which Doctors do and do not work in action movie contexts, because of course we do.