by Iseult Murphy

Created on: April 29, 2008

The fourth series of Doctor Who returns with Partners in Crime', which sees the Doctor battling Adipose, an alien made entirely of fat that incubates its young in obese humans. The idea might be scary if the young adipose erupted, alien like, from its host stomach leaving a bloody carcass behind. However, the young adipose are born one kilo at a time and resemble a rather cute pokomon that grins and waves at its host before scampering away. With the donors losing weight at the same time as the Adipose being born, it is hard not to see this set up as a win win situation.

Into this lose weight quick scheme step the Doctor and Donna Noble played by Catherine Tate and last seen in the 2006 Christmas episode, The Runaway Bride' who are independently investigating the Adipose company. After some painful scenes where the Doctor and Donna continue to narrowly miss each other, they unite to cause havoc and ruin the weight loss dreams of millions of Londoners, as well as the nursery hopes of the Adipose aliens. At the end of the episode Donna happily joins the Doctor as his regular traveling companion.

There is a lot wrong with this episode, most notably the Doctor coming across as a meddlesome troublemaker sticking his nose into a situation that did not need investigating, but saying that there is a lot of things right with it as well and it is far superior to the series three premier Smith and Jones'. Catherine Tate is promising, if uneven as Donna and it is nice to see screen veteran and the voice of the Wombles, Bernard Cribben, as her granddad. Other highlights of this episode include tantalizing hints of what is to come in series four what does the reference to the missing bees mean? How did Sarah Lancashire's character get a sonic pen, technology heretofore reserved for the time lords and how did Rose manage to appear in this reality after the Doctor closed the rift between the worlds?

An episode of Doctor Who is always better than no episode of Doctor Who and despite weak points to this outing it is entertaining. I look forward to seeing Donna grow as a companion over the next few episodes and to finding out what the writers have in store for this fourth series of the show.

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