After the now familiar zoom in on the Earth, the scene changes to a church, where a wedding is taking place. As the bride walks down the aisle, she starts to glow before turning into a cloud of gold particles which disappear through the ceiling. The cloud of particles makes its way into the TARDIS, and we see a repeat of the closing scene from
Doomsday, with the bride demanding to know where she is.
She accuses the Doctor of kidnapping her, and then walks over to the TARDIS doors and opens them, despite the Doctor's protests. She sees the supernova that the TARDIS is orbiting, and the Doctor explains that they're in outer space. He introduces himself, and she does similarly, telling him that her name is Donna Noble.
The Doctor starts examining Donna while spouting a stream of technobabble as to how it's impossible for her to have got onto the TARDIS. Donna slaps him, which stops him mid-sentence, and she demands to be taken to her wedding.
As the Doctor works the controls, Donna notices a purple top that used to belong to Rose. She picks it up and asks the Doctor how many women he has abducted. The Doctor replies that the top belonged to a friend of his, but he lost her.
The TARDIS returns to Earth, but doesn't end up in the right place. While the Doctor takes a look at the controls, Donna gets her first look at the TARDIS's exterior. She walks around it for a while, and then starts to walk away, not able to deal with a space-travelling police box that's bigger on the inside, which is a perfectly natural reaction.
The Doctor catches up with Donna, and the two of them try to catch a taxi, but with little success. Eventually, the Doctor attracts a taxi's with a piercing whistle, but discovers a new problem – neither of them have any money.
As they get out of the taxi, the Doctor notices the Christmas decorations, and asks Donna about it . She replies that it's Christmas Eve.
Donna notices a phone box, and the two of them run towards it. In this shot, we can see that it must be one of the sunniest Christmases Britain as ever had. The Doctor asks why Donna's getting married on Christmas Eve, and she says that she hates Christmas.
The two of them reach the phone box, and the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to allow Donna to use the phone without having to pay or reverse the charges, while he heads off to an ATM to get money. Donna tries to phone her mother, who is still at the church, but her phone's battery dies and so Donna is forced to leave a voicemail message.
By the time the customer ahead of the Doctor in the queue for the ATM has finished and the Doctor has sonic screwdrivered the ATM to get some money, Donna has been able to borrow money from a passer-by and find a taxi.
The Doctor turns away from the ATM and notices a brass band in Santa outfits, who look exactly like the robot Santas from the previous Christmas Special. He then notices that Donna's taxi is also being driven by a masked Santa.
The Doctor calls out to Donna, but her taxi has already driven away. The Santas stop playing and point their instruments at the Doctor in a threatening manner, or at least as threatening as you can be with a tuba.
The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to activate the ATM, sending money flying into the air. People scramble for the money, getting in the Santas' line of fire, and the Doctor is able to make his escape. If the Doctor makes a habit of releasing money to the general population like that, then maybe that's the real reason for the global economic crisis.
The Doctor returns to the TARDIS, while Donna notices that the taxi driver is going in the wrong direction. She reaches for the driver's hood, and his mask falls off, revealing that he is a robot.
What follows is a pretty awesome sequence which has the TARDIS flying down the motorway in pursuit of Donna's taxi. The TARDIS draws level with the taxi and after some persuading, the Doctor convinces Donna to jump from the taxi, and she lands safely in the TARDIS.
The Doctor sets the TARDIS down on the roof of a tall building in order for it to recover from the flight. The Doctor asks Donna if they've missed the wedding, which she confirms.
Donna says that she wishes they had a time machine so they could go back and get it right. The Doctor agrees with her but tells her that even if he did, apparently he couldn't go back on someone's personal timeline.
The Doctor gives Donna a bio-damper, which looks like a wedding ring, to hide her from the robot Santas. He comments that he met the Santas the previous year, and Donna asks what happened then.
The Doctor is amazed at Donna's ignorance of the Sycorax, but she says she had a bit of a hangover. The Doctor then says that he spent Christmas at the Powell Estate, with his friend's family.
Donna tries to ask the Doctor about his friend, but the Doctor deflects the question by wondering what the robot Santas wanted with Donna. He asks her what her job is, and she tells him that she's a secretary.
She was temping at a company called H.C. Clements, which was where she met her fiancé Lance, the head of HR, who she met when he made her coffee. She tells the Doctor that he was the one who insisted they get married, but the flashback shows that it was Donna who did the insisting.
Donna says that they had better get back. She says that she had a big reception planned, and everyone is going to be heartbroken. However, when the two of them arrive at the reception, they see that everyone is having a good time.
Donna's arrival is greeted by questions for everybody, who all end up talking at once. Donna's answer to the cacophony is to burst into tears, and Lance responds by hugging her, while everyone applauds. As she cries into Lance's shoulder, Donna gives a little wink at the Doctor, confirming that it's all just an act.
While the festivities are resumed, the Doctor borrows a fellow party goer's cellphone and uses it to look up H.C. Clements, with the aid of his sonic screwdriver. He discovers that the sole proprietor of H.C. Clements is Torchwood.
The Doctor watches everyone dancing, and has a brief flashback to Rose falling in his arms in
New Earth. This not being
Lost, the flashback ends there.
The Doctor notices a cameraman who is recording the proceedings, and gets him to show him the events in the church when Donna disappeared. The Doctor recognises what caused Donna's disappearance, and becomes alarmed. The particles responsible are huon particles, a form of energy that hasn't existed for billions of years, and more importantly, can't be hidden by a biodamper.
The Doctor takes a look out of a window, and sees the robot Santas outside. He tells Donna the news, and they try to look for a way out, but the robot Santas have surrounded the building.
The Doctor notices a remote control in the hands of one of the Santas, and remembers how they like to use Christmas trees as weapons. He urges everyone to get away from the tree in the centre of the room, with little success until the baubles decorating the tree rise up into the air and start exploding.
By the time all the baubles have exploded, the robot Santas have entered the room, and are lined up ominously. The Doctor takes his sonic screwdriver and activates it next to the DJ's sound system, sending a screeching sound through the speakers. The Santas fall to pieces, literally.
The Doctor picks up the head of one of the Santas and discovers that there's a signal being broadcast to the Santas, meaning that someone else is controlling them. He uses his sonic screwdriver to trace the signal, and discovers that it's coming from something up in the sky.
The Doctor's discovery of the source of the signal is being observed by a spider-like creature in a star-shaped webbed spaceship. The creature says that the Doctor will come to her and she will descend upon Earth and shine.
The Doctor loses the signal, but tells Donna, who has followed him outside that he needs to get to H.C. Clements. He convinces Lance to give him a lift, and the three of them make their way inside.
The Doctor tells Donna that H.C. Clements was bought twenty-three years earlier by the Torchwood Institute, which means nothing to Donna. It turns out that Donna was in Spain scuba diving, and missed the Cybermen invasion. Upon the destruction of Torchwood, someone else came in and took over H.C. Clements.
Donna asks what they want with her, and the Doctor says that somehow she was dosed with huon energy, something that hasn't existed since the Dark Times, whatever they are. The only place that huon energy can now be found is in the heart of the TARDIS, and when the particles inside Donna were activated, she was pulled inside the TARDIS.
The Doctor discovers that although the lift has a button for the lower basement, that floor doesn't show up on the official plans. Naturally, he is able to use his sonic screwdriver to gain access to that floor. He initially bids Donna and Lance farewell, but Donna insists on going along with him, and tells Lance to join them too, despite his protests.
The lift opens into a corridor lit by green lights. The three of them find some Segways, and start travelling down the corridor.
The Doctor stops at a door marked “Authorised Personnel Only”, and opens it. Behind the door is a ladder, which he begins climbing. Reaching the top of the ladder, he discovers that the corridor runs underneath the Thames Flood Barrier.
After returning to Donna and Lance, the Doctor leads them into a laboratory where he discovers that huon particles were being made. He picks up a jar containing huon particles in liquid form, and twists the top. The jar glows, as does Donna.
The Doctor explains that the particles needed something living to catalyse, which is why Donna was dosed with them. When it came to her wedding day, the adrenaline and endorphins active in Donna's body caused the huon particles to become active.
Donna asks if she's safe, and the Doctor initially replies that she is, but then admits that they are actually deadly. He tells Donna that he will find a way to reverse it as he's not about to lose someone else.
The voice of the spider-creature from earlier is now heard, saying that “she” is long lost, presumably referring to Donna. One of the laboratory's walls slides upwards to reveal another room with a large hole in the floor, and the robot Santas, no longer wearing their Santa outfits, lining the walls. Lance is able to make his escape, and slips out of the lab and makes his way to the door with the ladder behind it.
The Doctor takes a look at the hole in the floor and asks how far it goes down. The voice replies that it goes all the way to the centre of the Earth. The Doctor asks where the owner of the voice is and is told that she is high in the sky.
The Doctor demands to see the owner of the voice, and she obliges by teleporting into the laboratory. The Doctor identifies her has one of the Racnoss, which is not the most original name for a spider-like creature, and the Racnoss states that she is the Empress of the Racnoss.
The Doctor establishes that the Empress is the last of the Racnoss, and he tells Donna that the Racnoss were carnivores who devoured entire planets, but they were wiped out billions of years ago. The Empress corrects the Doctor by pointing out that she survived.
Meanwhile, Lance has found an axe and made his way up to the balcony where the Empress is standing. Donna tries to distract the Empress by asking where she fits into it all. Lance approaches the Empress, raises the axe, and then the two of them burst out laughing.
Donna takes a little time to follow what just happened, and the Doctor explains that Lance was the one dosing her with huon particles when he made her coffee. Lance confirms this, and then reveals his true feelings about Donna, and she learns that he never liked her very much at all.
The Doctor asks what's at the bottom of the hole, but Lance realises that the Doctor wants them to talk, which is more awareness than pretty much any other Doctor Who villain has shown. The Empress orders the robots to shoot the Doctor.
The Doctor's response is to point out that the particles in Donna activated and drew her to the TARDIS. Therefore, if it's reversed then the TARDIS can be drawn to her. He takes out the jar of huon particles and turns the lid.
The TARDIS materialises around the Doctor and Donna, and he wastes no time in getting out of there. The Doctor tells Donna that he lied about it not being a time machine, and that they're going back to the beginning in order to see what it is at the Earth's core that the Empress wants. Meanwhile, the Empress tells Lance that if a key is lost then another must be cut, and the robots aim their guns at Lance.
The Doctor and Donna arrive at their destination, the creation of the Earth. The Doctor opens the doors of the TARDIS and they look out on rocks and dust floating in space. A Racnoss ship appears, and the Doctor and Donna discover that the Racnoss ship was in fact the first “rock” which caused the formation of the Earth, attracting other rocks towards it until the planet came into being.
Back in the lab, the Empress has had the robots force Lance to swallow a large quantity of water laced with huon particles, which she activates. Back at the beginning of the Earth, the TARDIS starts shaking, and the Doctor tells Donna that it's being pulled back by huon particles.
The Doctor searches for a way to stop the TARDIS's progress, and finds the extrapolator. As the TARDIS materialises in the lab, the Doctor hits the target with his hammer, and the TARDIS disappears and reappears in the corridor outside the lab.
The two of them reach a closed door, and the Doctor takes out his stethoscope and listens to it, or more likely, to whatever's behind it. Donna says that she still doesn't understand why she's full of particles, and the Doctor explains that because huon particles ceased to exist, the Racnoss were stuck at the centre of the Earth and needed new, active particles so they could be worken up, which is the Empress had Donna dosed with the particles.
During this explanation, a robot has come up behind Donna and taken her away, covering her mouth so that she can't say anything. The Doctor notices that Donna is unusually quiet and turns around, only to find that she's gone. He opens the door he had been listening at, only to find a robot pointing a gun at him.
Donna and Lance have been suspended in the Empress's web above the hole. The Empress activates the huon particles in Donna and Lance, and the particles leave their bodies and travel down the hole.
The Empress says that her children are hungry and will need sustenance, and she cuts Lance free. He falls down the hole and to his death.
Meanwhile, the Empress's ship has entered the Earth's atmosphere and is now hovering over London. At the Empress's command, it begins firing on the city, killing people.
As the Empress celebrates her triumph, a robot climbs the stairs that run up the side of the lab. The Empress turns to the robot and tells the Doctor that he might as well unmask.
The Doctor takes off the mask and cloak and points his sonic screwdriver at Donna. The screwdriver cuts the webbing binding her, and she is able to swing to where the Doctor is standing, waiting to catch her.
Or at least, that was the plan. The strand of webbing is too long, and she hits the wall below the Doctor and falls to the ground.
The Doctor apologises to Donna and then addresses the Empress. He tells her that he's giving her one last chance. If she ends things now, then he will find her a planet of her own.
The Empress rejects his offer, which was predictable, as if she had accepted it then there couldn't have been a big ending to the story. She orders the robots to aim and the Doctor, but before she can tell them to fire, he tells them to relax. Donna looks on in amazement, and the Doctor produces a remote control from one of his pockets, which he says are bigger on the inside.
The Doctor produces some of the exploding baubles from his pockets, and uses the remote control to direct them about the underground lair. The baubles explode, and the Thames river comes rushing in.
If it's not on the
Evil Overlord List, then not setting up a base underneath a body of water should be. All it takes is a few explosives from the hero and the base will be wiped out.
The water fills the hole that has been drilled down to Racnoss at the centre of the Earth, presumably killing them if the Empress's cries of “My children” are anything to go by. The Doctor stands watching this happen until Donna tells him that he can stop.
I'm not quite sure what he's supposed to stop doing, but maybe it's watching the destruction of the Racnoss. Although, it's not that bad an idea to make sure that your enemy is actually dead before leaving the scene, as if no body is recovered, then there's a very good chance that they'll return at some point in the future.
But Donna's comment breaks the Doctor's concentration, and he says that it's time to get her out of there. While the two of them make their way out up a ladder, the Empress teleports back to her ship.
In the street, the Army has brought out the tanks, and at the orders of a Mr Saxon, they open fire and destroy the Empress's ship. Remember the name Mr Saxon, as it will crop up in Season 3, in a similar way to “Bad Wolf” and “Torchwood” in the first two seasons.
The Doctor and Donna reach the top of the ladder and emerge into the open air, to discover that the Doctor's actions have completely drained the Thames. So not only has the Doctor bankrupted a bank, he's also severely inconvenienced a lot of people by rendering shipping impossible, probably causing millions of pounds of damage in the process, and he's severely affected the ecology of the Thames by killing off the marine life. Maybe Torchwood's original purpose to oppose the Doctor wasn't so misguided after all.
The Doctor takes Donna home in the TARDIS, which I would have thought would have been underwater as a result of the Doctor flooding the underground lair. Although, he may still have had the jar of huon particles and been able to use it to call the TARDIS to him, but it does still remain a plot hole.
The two of them stand outside the TARDIS, and the Doctor presses a switch which makes something shoot up in the air and cause snow to fall on the two of them. This time it's real snow, unlike the ash from the previous Christmas special.
The Doctor asks Donna what she plans to do, and invites her to come with me. She turns down the offer, or at least turns it down for a Season.
Donna invites the Doctor for Christmas dinner, and he agrees with some reluctance. He tells Donna to go in first, and as she turns, he sneaks back into the TARDIS and fires it up.
Donna calls out for the Doctor, and he stops the engines and emerges from the TARDIS. She asks if she'll ever see him again, and he replies that she will if he's lucky.
Donna then tells the Doctor to find someone, saying that sometimes he needs someone to stop him. The Doctor tells Donna to “be magnificent” and then returns inside the TARDIS.
Before the Doctor can start up the engines again, Donna calls for him and asks him what his friend's name was. He tells Donna that her name was Rose, and then enters the TARDIS once again. Instead of the usual dematerialisation, the TARDIS flies up into the air.
QuotesDonna: I'm in my wedding dress. It doesn't have pockets. Who has pockets? Have you ever seen a bride with pockets? When I went to my fitting at Chez Alison, the one thing I forgot to say is “Give me pockets".
The Doctor: It's weird, I mean – you're not special, you're not powerful, you're not connected, you're not clever, you're not important...
Donna: This friend of yours – just before she left, did she punch you in the face?
The Doctor: Oi! Santa! Word of advice: if you're attacking a man with a sonic screwdriver...don't let him near the sound system.
Lance: Are you telling me this building's got a secret floor?
The Doctor: No, I'm showing you this building's got a secret floor.
Donna: What, there's like a secret base hidden underneath a major London landmark?
The Doctor: I know! Unheard of.
The Doctor: Only a madman talks to thin air and trust me, you don't want to make me mad.
The Doctor: How far down does it go?
Empress: Down and down, all the way to the centre of the Earth!
The Doctor: Really? Seriously? What for?
Donna: Dinosaurs.
The Doctor: What?
Donna: Dinosaurs?
The Doctor: What are you on about, dinosaurs?
Donna: That film, Under the Earth, with dinosaurs. Trying to help!
The Doctor: That's not helping.
Donna: But what do we do?
The Doctor: I don't know, I make it up as I go along. But trust me, I've got a history.
The Doctor: Guess what I've got, Donna? ...Pockets.
Donna: How did that fit in there?
The Doctor: They're bigger on the inside.