More than fourteen months later, and I have finally arrived at the episode that kind of inspired this entire ridiculous project.That cute little marshmallow guy to the left of my post titles? That's an Adipose baby. Weight loss through parthenogenesis. Sadly, I am not able to just take a little pill and be thinner, I have had to earn it the hard way through honest sweat. That's ok, though. If feels good to have gotten here.

So let's talk about it.

Partners in Crime

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

This story features the return of Donna Noble, the titular Runaway Bride from the previous year's Christmas episode. In the time since that story, Donna has realized that it was a mistake to not take up the Doctor's offer for her to travel with him, and she has been searching for him ever since. The entire first act of this story has both Donna and the Doctor investigating strange goings-on at Adipose Industries, and it's a lot of fun. They continue to just miss each other right up until the classic scene in which they are both peeking in windows to spy on the Big Bad, and spot each other instead.

As it turns out, the evil Miss Foster is an alien who is harvesting Adipose babies from humans using a combination of pills and Whatever Technology. Unfortunately for her, in the end it turns out that what she is doing is illegal on an intergalactic scale and her employers end up dropping her like a bad penny. As in, they literally drop her from several hundred feet in the air so that she falls to her rather squishy-sounding death. Oops.

Donna's mother returns for several scenes, and originally her father was supposed to be there as well. In fact, actor Howard Atfield filmed several scenes for the episode, but unfortunately he tragically passed away shortly thereafter. Since he was supposed to be a recurring character, they wound up bringing in Bernard Cribbins to fill that role in the plot, and re-filmed the scenes. While it is certainly very sad that Mr. Atfield passed away, I have to say that gaining Bernard Cribbins was a real treasure. His appearances throughout the remainder of the Tenth Doctor era are a real joy.

Anyway, at the end of the episode Donna invites herself back aboard the TARDIS and the Doctor initially balks at the idea. He is still reeling from Martha's departure (not to mention still being [literally] haunted by the Sainted Rose), and so he tries to explain to Donna why she maybe shouldn't join him. "I just want a mate..." he says plaintively, to which she recoils in a horrified "You just want to mate!?!?"

Oh, did I mention that the episode ends with a surprise reappearance of the Sainted Rose? Because it totally does. It was a real shocker at the time. She'll pop up a couple more times this season before figuring into the big finale. So there's that to look forward to.

Tomorrow: the first appearance of Amy Pond and the Twelfth Doctor. Except, not really. It's complicated.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Tenth
Companion(s): Donna Noble, Wilfred Mott, Rose Tyler
Episode(s): Partners in Crime
Steps Walked: 7,419 today, 2,861,214 total
Distance Walked: 3.96 miles today, 1,492.30 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 100 today, 2,214 total
Sit-ups Completed: 134 today, 773 total
Is the Doctor So, So Sorry?: He is not
Weight: 251.08 lbs (five day moving average), net change -56.22 lbs