TV Club: The Runaway Bride

Funnily enough, I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas specials. There are the good ones (The Christmas Invasion is really fun IMO, A Christmas Carol is absolutely fantastic, The Time of the Doctor has its issues but I like it), but the others I’ve seen so far I’m not that big on (this one and Voyage of the Damned I think aren’t very good, The End of Time I do like but it’s also very much a mess, The Doctor, The Widow and blah blah is pretty dull and boring, and I’m not too keen on The Snowmen either, I mean the titular Snowmen don’t even really do anything).

I just think Donna is too much here and while the Racnoss is impressive visually, outside of that I don’t really like it. I also just don’t buy the Earth’s core being a Racnoss ship or the fact that ordinary guy Lance would join up with this giant alien spider queen.

It has its good moments though and, even if it is minor, it was fun to see the Roboforms (also called Pilot Fish) in the second Christmas special after appearing in the first.

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I love and have a soft spot for RTD’s first 3 christmas specials, they are just so nostalgic for me. Runaway Bride is great fun, the Doctor and Donna instantly have great chemistry. Donna really saves the Doctor at the end from his own darkness. And seeing the Doctor in pain after just losing Rose is a nice bit of fleshing out his emotions, and we get the wonderful Love Don’t Roam song.
Lance is a fun character. The Racnoss is an imposing enough threat and a species barely explored in the EU yet, a Fifth Doctor BF being one of their only other appearances. Seeing the formation of the Earth is a fantastic scene.
I just have a lot of fun with this episode whenever I watch it.

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