I am – Hercules!!

If I’m not mistaken, episode 30.1 (or 4.1, depending how one counts) of “Doctor Who” arrives on America’s SciFi Channel April 25, one week subsequent to SciFi’s transmission of the 2007 “Who” Christmas special.

The Brits saw it today.

“Doctor Dan” gives it a three out of five:

DOCTOR WHO 4.1 – "Partners In Crime"

Writer: Russell T. Davies
Director: James Strong

Cast: David Tennant (The Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), Sarah Lancashire (Miss Foster), Bernard Cribbins (Wilfred Mott), Jacqueline King (Sylvia Noble), Verona Joseph (Penny Carter), Jessica Gunning (Stacey Harris), Martin Ball (Roger Davey), Rachid Sabitri (Craig Staniland), Chandra Ruegg (Clare Pope), Sue Kelvin (Suzette Chambers) & Jonathan Stratt (Taxi Driver)

The Doctor is reacquainted with Donna, who helps him stop the manufacture of a deadly weight-loss pill...

Forgetting the bland Voyage Of The Damned at Christmas, the last time we saw The Doctor he had just bid farewell to Martha Jones, who decided to take a sabbatical from her adventures with the Time Lord. The premiere of season 4, Partners In Crime, opens in similar fashion to Martha's season 3 debut, with one-off companion Donna (Catherine Tate) also striding purposefully down a busy London street – but unaware The Doctor is on the same street, for exactly the same reason...

Donna, posing as a health and safety officer, infiltrates the offices of Adipose Industries, a business offering a miracle drug to help the country's overweight population. In extended sequences, it transpires that The Doctor is also investigating the mysterious company, although Donna and The Doctor comically avoid meeting each other directly. Donna eventually goes to meet slimmer Stacey Harris (Jessica Gunning), while The Doctor visits Martin (Roger Davey), who is very happy with the Adipose pill, but confused about why his burglar alarm has started going off at 1.10 am every morning...

The riddle is answered by Donna, as Stacey goes upstairs to the bathroom, leaving Donna to fiddle with a gold pendant Adipose Industries hand out as freebies to every customer. After absent-mindedly twisting the pill-shaped pendant, it triggers a reaction in Stacey upstairs – who watches in horror as her stomach flesh begins to pulsate, eventually turning her whole body to slush. Concerned, Donna bursts into the bathroom to find a puddle of Stacey's clothes on the floor and a small, marshmallow-like, chubby alien perched on the bathroom window! According to Adipose Industries' executive Miss Foster (Sarah Lancashire), the pendant triggered premature "parthenogenesis" in Stacey Harris, and she dispatches some of her employees to clean up the scene.

From there, we get a better understanding of Donna's current situation after her adventure with The Doctor in The Runaway Bride Christmas Special. She's living with her irritating mother Sylvia (Jacqueline King), but prefers to spend time with her "Gramps" Wilfred (Bernard Cribbins), who spends his days "up the hill" on his allotment, staring at the stars through a telescope. Donna hasn't told her family about her dalliance with aliens, or the real circumstances behind her wedding day fiasco, but makes it clear to her Gramps that she's waiting for "the right man" to come along – in similar fashion to how Torchwood's Captain Jack spent season 1 waiting for "the right kind of doctor".

There's a great scene for The Doctor inside the TARDIS, as he realizes he's talking to himself, signifying his unease at being a lone adventurer, but he's soon back at Adipose to single-handedly thwart Miss Foster's plans. He snoops on Miss Foster by using an outside window-cleaning rig to position himself outside her office window, to hear Miss Foster berating one of her employees, Penny Carter (Verona Joseph), who appears to have cottoned-on to her plan...

Donna also arrives, and there's a brilliant scene where The Doctor and Donna finally clasp eyes on each other, albeit from behind a sound-proof window and door, on opposite ends of Miss Foster's office. Possibly intended as a joke at Catherine Tate's brash nature during Runaway Bride, I thought it was particularly amusing of writer Russell T. Davies to have Donna shout and "overact" from behind solid glass, effectively having to mime her histrionics. It was a really nice touch, and the scene has a funny pay-off when Miss Foster calmly interjects on The Doctor and Donna's silent "conversation."

The Doctor and Donna are finally reunited, with Miss Foster in hot pursuit (armed with a sonic pen), which she uses to trap them both on the window cleaning-rig – with Donna dangling from the broken rig, and The Doctor seconds away from a freefall to death. However, after managing to knock Miss Foster's sonic pen away with a ricochet effect from his sonic screwdriver, he manages to get them both to safety inside the Adipose office block.

In typical villainous fashion, Miss Foster and two armed goons eventually locate The Doctor and Donna, and she monologues her nefarious plot: to use Earth as an alternative "breeding planet" for the Adiposian First Family. Behind the wall of the office block is a large system called The Inducer, which can make the 1 million users of her slimming pill go into parthenogenesis and transform into millions of tiny alien Adipose children immediately. The Doctor slips away from Miss Foster with Donna, by creating a sonic wave blast from his screwdriver and her pen, before finding a cupboard with access to The Inducer.

Miss Foster starts the Inducer system, and overweight pill-takers across London begin to contort in pain as their body fat coalesces into chubby aliens. The Doctor uses one of Adipose Industries' pendants to dampen the effects of The Inducers, but is at a loss once Miss Foster increases the power. Fortunately, Donna has another pendant to hand, and the two combined manage to override the system. Still, Miss Foster is happy that 10,000 Adipose have been created, and the thousands of chubby aliens march together down London streets, as their nursery ship (looking extremely similar to the Mothership in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind) descends to collect them.

On the roof, The Doctor and Donna watch the Adipose babies float upwards to the nursery ship through the night sky, along with Miss Foster. The Doctor warns her to escape the ship's tractor beam, but she's convinced she'll be handsomely rewarded by the Adiposian First Family for her duties as nanny. But, of course, as The Doctor warned, the Adiposians have to need for a "foster mother" now that their children have been born, and she plummets to the ground.

With disaster averted (or at least limited) by The Doctor, Donna practically invites herself along for more adventures. The Doctor only seems to half-remember inviting Donna along once before, but now she's convinced it's the right thing to do. In fact, she's already fully packed with suitcases filling the boot of her car. The Doctor, despite being lonely, makes it clear that things got complicated with Martha, but seems happy once Donna makes it clear that she doesn’t fancy him.

Donna leaves her car parked in an alley next to the TARDIS, puts the car keys in a nearby bin, and phones her mum to say goodbye. Just before she leaves, Donna asks a blonde-haired girl to keep an eye out for her mum, and as she rushes off to be with The Doctor, the girl turns around and reveals herself as Rose! Then, Rose walks away, fading like a ghost, until she disappears...

The episode closes with Gramps still in his allotment looking through his telescope at the stars, as the TARDIS spins into view, with The Doctor and Donna clearly visible through its open front door. As Gramps yelps with joy, the TARDIS ascends to the heavens, taking his granddaughter on the ride of her life...

Russell T. Davies manages to deliver a very effective premiere, which entertainingly reintroduces Donna Noble and tweaks her character away from the irritating loudness that caused such upset in The Runaway Bride special. There are moments when Donna's feisty nature comes through, but it's tempered by a more whimsical air and infectious enthusiasm. Above all, it's just nice to have a companion who categorically has no intention of smooching with The Doctor, and therefore should result in a fresher Doctor/companion relationship.

The episode's basic idea is perhaps better suited to The Sarah Jane Adventures, but the sense of fun and some genuinely funny moments help make it palatable for adult audiences. And I'm sure kids will love the adorable Adipose babies, as you can already imagine them as cuddly toys for Christmas '08. The sequences with the hundreds of Adipodes were apparently created using the "Massive FX" computer software used in Lord Of The Rings, and it's certainly a noticeable improvement over the swarms of Daleks we've seen on the show before now.

Partners In Crime certainly kept me entertained throughout, and I was struck by the instant chemistry between The Doctor and Donna, with Catherine Tate particularly enjoyable, and David Tennant now firmly embodying the wandering Time Lord with a level of authority not seen since Peter Davison's days on the show. He just lacks the iconic presence of Tom Baker, really, but he's still marvellous to watch bounce through scenes.

And what about the surprise early appearance from Rose? I didn't see that coming, although I did realize it was Rose just from the colour/style of her hair, before her face was revealed. Is that sad? It looks likely she's season 4's "arc" element -- to be sprinkled throughout the 13 episodes -- but why is she back? Her ghost-like disappearance hints at the likelihood she's found a way to cross dimensions from her own parallel universe into ours, but for what purpose?

Overall, Partners In Crime was a competent, efficient and entertaining start to the new season. There were the usual gripes with Doctor Who in evidence (the overuse of the sonic screwdriver, primarily), and I'm confused about Gramps musing on the secrets of the universe – as he debuted in Voyage Of The Damned as a local awaiting alien invasion because the previous two Christmases both featured alien attacks on London – but never mind. Doctor Who and Torchwood have always featured populations with implausible reactions to alien first contact, and very bad memories...

All said, I found this to be a good episode with more to recommend than to pick fault with. Catherine Tate might not be as physically attractive as Billie Piper and Freema Agyeman, but she does bring a welcome change of dynamic and her character has definitely improved from Runaway Bride on the evidence of this. I'm more excited about the possibilities of season 4 than I was yesterday.

The Good

1. Catherine Tate and David Tennant. No, I didn’t like Donna in The Runaway Bride either, but she was absolutely fine in this opener. Tate's comic timing boosted some scenes, and her interaction with David Tennant was great to watch.

2. The Adipose were extremely cute creations, and I particularly liked the visuals for them en masse.

3. Sarah Lancashire had a clichéd role as an evil executive, but she was still fun to watch trotting around in black spectacles and blood-red lipstick.

4. The comedy can sometimes be eye-rolling on Doctor Who, but there were some great moments of comedy in this episode – particularly regarding Donna and The Doctor's near-misses, her mention of the Titanic spaceship over Buckingham Palace as "a hoax", Gramps missing a giant spaceship floating past behind him, and when it's revealed Donna keeps her car packed just in case she finds The Doctor.

5. The unexpected appearance by Billie Piper as Rose. The show has difficulty keeping secrets – so we already know Rose was due back in season 4 – but not in the first episode!

The Bad

1. The story worked well, but I'm not a fan of the sillier plots Doctor Who often deals in – particularly because I thought the idea behind Sarah Jane Adventures' creation was to move the more kid-friendly stories into that show. I know the show has to tailor for 8-year-olds as well as 80-year-olds, but I think plots about fat-based aliens growing out of peoples' bodies would be best suited on the Sarah Jane show.

2. Yes, more overuse of the sonic screwdriver to get out of any plot dead-ends and tight spots. It's almost painful.

3. Bernard Cribbins already seems to be the best family member for a companion since Jackie Tyler.

4. It feels like Russell T. Davies has a basic story template that he refuses to budge from, which meant this episode mostly felt like it was on rails whenever it focused on Adipose Industries and Miss Foster. The "evil company" and "evil business person" is a staple of Who, Torchwood and Sarah Jane.

The Geeky

1. Actor Howard Atfield, who played Donna's father Geoff in The Runaway Bride, died after filming that 2006 special, so his character was replaced by Bernard Cribbins as Donna's grandfather.

2. This episode features the first use of Massive FX software on television; after its creation by New Zealand 's WETA special-effects house to create crowd scenes of digital characters in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.

Rating: 3 / 5

“The Handsome 12th Doctor” says it’s “the best opening episode yet of new-Who”:

Who's back? Yes it is.
And with a change of personnel. Martha My Dear has taken leave for a while. Pixie Minogue was only a temporary substitute. Leaving us with the return of Donna (Catherine Tate).

Now I'm aware of a fair amount of Tate-hate out there. There exists a remarkably large group of Tate-haters, or Taters as I'll refer to them from now. And I don't get why this is.

Sure, you might not like her sketch show. I don't myself. But that's no reason to hate the woman. It's not as if she walks around all day going "Am I bovvered". I've seen her perform well in enough other things, such as 'Scenes of a Sexual Nature' or 'Big Train', that I'm able to separate her from the bovveredness.

Though if there's one justifiable weapon that the Taters possess it's that her character of Donna from two Christmases ago was a bit of an irritant. And I'd agree that if she played the role exactly like that for a full season then it would be an annoying show. However, judging from tonight's episode she's changed her approach. It was a nicely more restrained performance (apart from a moment or two at the end). She showed she can do the sober stuff as well as the funny.

If she continues the same way then she should, I hope, quieten a lot of the Taters.

But enough of the Tater waffling....... what about the rest of the show?

It was the best opening episode yet of new-Who. I may have said that this time last year but I was right then and I'm right again now. The story was fun and original and moved along at a very good pace.

The comedy elements were pretty sharp. I enjoyed the miming scene between the Doctor and Donna, and even though I could tell what the punchline to that was going to be I still laughed. I also laughed a lot at the actions of the Adipose, which I think are the best bizarro creations that new-Who has done so far. Looking like a Barbapapa family reunion these 'things' scuttled about in their hundreds. And in one case slid down a car bonnet like it was a ride. Well done to the effects team that did them.

Would it be weird to say I want a soft toy version of one?

Sarah Lancashire played a fine baddie. Though I felt her end scene could have been done better. That was the only down point of the ep to me.

David Tennant remains a brilliant Doc. And he and Tate look to have a winning dynamic together. I like that they've stated this early on that they're going to be 'just mates'. We've had enough of the girlies fawning over him.

Speaking of which.......... Her? There? Whoa. How?

It's going to be cool finding out. I'm looking forward greatly to the rest of the season. And I've been told they'll be visiting some worlds that are even more alien than London.
Scary.

The Handsome 12th Doctor

“Kelvington” notes the episode ends with a “holy shit” moment:

Well, tonight marks the return of Doctor Who and sort of a reboot, in that the episode opens up almost like series 1 with a female character living her life and going through the motions. But instead of Rose, this time it's Donna. She wants to find the Doctor and looks anywhere that there appears to be trouble. Including a company selling a rather dodgey diet pill, where the fat literally walks away from you.

Now the first fifteen minutes is played very much like a like romantic comedy where the Doctor and Donna almost see each other many times, but never quite manage it. Similar to that episode of the X-Files set in two different times. But once Donna and the Doctor meet up again, they are on the hunt to figure out what is going on at the fat company.

Mark this day well, because you will see an ENDLESS amount of posts about the little walking chicklets that were once human fat, being the Ewoks of "Doctor Who", and if they haven't already made at least of a million of them to sell around the world they are crazy. Every kid who likes "Doctor Who" will demand an entire little of the little buggers for their own.

As the episode progresses we see the Doctor and Donna nearly die from falling out of a window washer cart, escape getting shot to death, and defeat the mean Ms. Foster the nanny to all the little walking blobs.

The effects in this one are very cute, and the chicklets are so sweet that many people watching the show will die of diabetes before it's finished. But the rip of the Close Encounters style ship didn't sit well with me.

Now on to the end, while I'm not going to spoil the last minute or two of the show, it was one of the few times when in the history of "Doctor Who" I was actually surprised, thus I won't ruin it here, but when the moment comes, I think you will go HOLY SHIT! It was just that good!

Just my 2¢

$35.49 PER SEASON!!!!