History Recap / DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride

* SanDimasTime: While Donna and the Doctor at the formation of the Earth, finding out what the Raknoss are digging for, the Queen is pumping Lance full of Huon particles.

The one with the bovvered bride and lots and lots of hurled insults.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: On seeing the massive hole in the Torchwood lab going all the way down to the centre of the Earth, Donna wonders [[Literature/JourneyToTheCenterOfTheEarth if there are dinosaurs down there]] (because she saw a movie with something like that once). The Doctor is just completely dumbfounded by that one.

** Donna's comment about dinosaurs at the centre of the Earth that she saw in a movie. She probably saw ''Film/JourneyToTheCenterOfTheEarth'', though it's also a subtle nod to the Silurians.

* ArmourPiercingSlap: Donna's willingness to slap the Doctor so hard he nearly falls on his ass (twice!) when he starts acting high-handed with her [[BullyingADragon just makes him even more impressed and charmed by her]]. No, not like ''[[FetishizedAbuser that...]]''

* ArmourPiercingSlap: Donna's willingness to slap the Doctor so hard he nearly falls on his ass (twice!) when he starts acting high-handed with her [[BullyingADragon just makes him even more impressed and charmed by her]]. No, not like ''[[BastardGirlfriend that...]]''

The Doctor goes to get Donna money for a cab. However, while waiting in line for the ATM and stuck behind a slow-moving customer, he notices familiar masked Santas playing nearby and recognizes them as the robotic scavengers from the previous year's Christmas that came after him before the Sycorax arrived. Not only that, but they've got their weapons disguised as band instruments pointed directly at him. And the cab that Donna has hailed while the Doctor's been tied up at the ATM is [[NotMyDriver also being driven by another of the scavengers]]. He distracts the ones on the street by using his sonic screwdriver on the ATM to make it spit out money, causing a crazed rush from the nearby crowd, then races back to the TARDIS to give chase.

%%* ActuallyPrettyFunny: "The Doctor-man amuses me!"

Donna is crying over Lance's deceit as they arrive at the formation of the Earth to learn why the Empress has dug into the core of the planet. He tempts the distraught Donna into looking, and they notice a Racnoss spaceship arriving to hide from being exterminated by the Fledgling Empires. The Doctor fast-forwards time outside the TARDIS, observing that the Earth formed around the ship. The ship is the actual core of the Earth, so the Empress needs Huon particles to awaken her "children". When that happens, the Racnoss will eat everything and everyone on Earth; worse, they'll likely destroy the planet to free their ship.

'''Donna:''' And it's ''terrible''. That place was flooding and burning and they were dying and you stood there like... I don't know, a stranger. And then you made it ''snow''. I mean, you scare me to death!

The Doctor tries to land in Chiswick, but accidentally lands the TARDIS near Oxford Street. Donna storms out of the TARDIS and is not happy with the misdirected landing. She then sees that the outside is smaller and, going into shock again, she rushes off. The Doctor follows her, however, she is too weirded out to want to return to the TARDIS.

Donna laughs that it's too bad the Doctor doesn't have a time machine; then they could just go back to when she vanished. Not wanting to disturb her more, the Doctor subtly admits he can't go back along someone's personal timeline without creating a paradox. [[NoodleIncident Apparently.]] As a precaution, the Doctor gives Donna a bio-damper ring to stop the scavengers from tracking her, and decides to ask her a bit more about herself so he can figure out why she's being targeted. To the Doctor's surprise, Donna missed the Sycorax's attempted invasion the previous Christmas (she was asleep with a hangover). Donna discloses that she works at a security firm called H.C. Clements, where she met Lance; she was interested in him because as head of H.R., Donna found it odd he would bother to get coffee for a temp. They went out for a while, and then Lance asked her to marry him. [[UnreliableNarrator In reality, it was the other way around]]: ''Donna'' was the one constantly pestering Lance to marry her, until he caved.

The Doctor immediately runs to a window, and sees the roboforms closing in on all the exits. They stop outside and one of them uses a remote to activate the ornaments on the Christmas trees. They start moving around... then attack the guests, exploding. All six of the roboforms enter and attack. The Doctor sends a sonic pulse over the loudspeakers, destroying them. Dissecting one of the scavengers, the Doctor finds they're being operated by remote control. Severing the head, he runs off to pursue the signal. He looks up to the sky, unaware that they're being observed by a shadowy spider-like figure in a floating spaceship, a webstar.

A hidden wall panel slides aside and the voice of the spider-creature taunts them. Lance sneaks off while the Doctor comes in and finds a huge shaft drilled to the centre of the Earth. The Doctor taunts her into teleporting down, and the spider-creature arrives in the complex. The Doctor recognizes her as the Empress of the Racnoss, the last of her kind. The Racnoss were carnivores from the "Dark Age" that consumed whole planets. Lance arrives with an axe and Donna tries to distract the Empress. Lance prepares to swing... then both he and the Empress laugh. Lance has been working with the Empress all along, and was dosing Donna with liquid particles in the coffee he gave her. The Doctor tries to get them to explain, but the Empress orders in her remaining roboforms to attack. However, the Doctor reverses the huon particle attraction and the TARDIS materializes around him and Donna as a shield. The Doctor then dematerialises the TARDIS and sets a course back to the beginning of Earth's creation. With Donna gone, the Empress orders her roboforms to grab Lance and uses him as an alternative.

In the present, the Empress force feeds Lance the huon particles to make a new "key". He then acts as a magnet, drawing the TARDIS back. The Doctor grabs the extrapolator while Lance is hauled up into the Empress' web. The TARDIS materialises in her chamber but the Doctor is able to divert it to a nearby corridor. The Doctor tries to sneak past a security door, but Donna is captured by two of the roboforms without him noticing, and he opens the door to be faced by another.

The Empress strings Donna up in the web next to Lance. She then directs the huon particles down the shaft to awaken the Racnoss ship and all of her children... reborn to feast on human flesh. The Empress drops Lance into the shaft as food for her kids after disapproving of his treatment of Donna, then summons her Webstar, which takes up position over London. She activates its weaponry and it fires beams of devastating lightning across London, ripping up streets and buildings, and sending late-night shoppers scrambling for cover.

The Doctor stoically — coldly, even — watches as the water pours in, flames rush up and the Empress screams in anguish for her children. Donna's look grows horrified, as it seems as though the Doctor has no will to live without Rose. It takes Donna yelling out to snap him out of it, at which point a look of terror comes across his face as well as if he realizes how close he came to permanent death. They escape up a ladder while the Empress teleports back to her ship, vowing to scorch the Earth out of spite. But the Doctor assures Donna that between her using up all her huon energy, and the Webstar's assault on London, the Empress is defenceless.

* EarlyInstalmentWeirdness: [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime Wilfred Mott]] is an important member of the Noble family but doesn’t appear at the wedding. His first appearance is the [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned following Christmas special]] and his relation to the Nobles isn’t revealed until the episode after that.

* ArmorPiercingSlap: Donna's willingness to slap the Doctor so hard he nearly falls on his ass (twice!) when he starts acting high-handed with her [[BullyingADragon just makes him even more impressed and charmed by her]]. No, not like ''[[BastardGirlfriend that...]]''

* TheReveal: Oh, and Lance makes it ''hurt.'' Not only did Lance never love Donna, but he couldn't ''stand'' her, and fully intended to sacrifice her to the Empress, having been feeding her huon particles in the coffee he'd been getting for her. Adding salt in the wound is that the Doctor immediately understands what happened, but Donna still stands there dumbfounded, so Lance, long fed up with her shallow behavior, absolutely ''decimates'' Donna's self-esteem and leaves her a weeping mess.

* ArtisticLicenseSpace: At the point where Donna checks her watch and remarks that it's 3:30 PM, the Sun is far, far too high, given that on Christmas Eve in London, at 51°N, that's roughly ''45 minutes'' before sunset.

* HateSink: The Empress of the Racnoss is the main antagonist of the episode, but she's ultimately too entertaining to hate and appears to [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes genuinely love her children.]] [[LoveInterestTraitor Lance]] on the other hand is a smug {{Jerkass}} who, after revealing to be allied with the Empress, tells Donna that he couldn't stand her and gives a cruel [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech Reason You Suck Speech]] about how annoying and stupid she is. Zero tears are shed when the Empress feeds her to her children, and Donna even admits that he deserved it before withdrawing the comment.

* ArtisticLicenceSpace: At the point where Donna checks her watch and remarks that it's 3:30 PM, the Sun is far, far too high, given that on Christmas Eve in London, at 51°N, that's roughly ''45 minutes'' before sunset.

* ActuallyPrettyFunny: "The Doctor-man amuses me!"

* ArtisticLicenceAstronomy: At the point where Donna checks her watch and remarks that it's 3:30 PM, the Sun is far, far too high, given that on Christmas Eve in London, at 51°N, that's roughly ''45 minutes'' before sunset.

* HateSink: The Empress of the Racnoss is the main antagonist of the episode, but she's ultimately too entertaining to hate and appears to [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes genuinely love her children.]] [[LoveInterestTraitor Lance]] on the other hand is a smug {{Jerkass}} who, after revealing to be allied with the Empress, tells Donna that he couldn't stand her and gives a cruel [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech Reason You Suck Speech]] about her annoying and stupid she is. Zero tears are shed when the Empress feeds her to her children, and Donna even admits that he deserved it before withdrawing the comment.

It's another story for humanity, however. The army deploys Challenger 2 tanks to take positions throughout the city, leveling their cannons at the Webstar. Once in position, they are given orders from [[ChekhovsGunman Mr. Saxon]] to fire at will. The cannons blast projectiles at the Webstar from multiple directions repeatedly until it explodes, killing the Empress and the Racnoss species with it. The Doctor and Donna emerge from a manhole just as the ship's remains begin plummeting to Earth. Catching their breath, Donna laughs hesitantly as she notices that they've also managed to drain the Thames.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E17E18TheEndOfTime Wilfred Mott]] is an important member of the Noble family but doesn’t appear at the wedding. His first appearance is the [[Recap/DoctorWho2007CSVoyageOfTheDamned following Christmas special]] and his relation to the Nobles isn’t revealed until the episode after that.

* FiveRoundsRapid: In what may be a television first, the Empress of the Racnoss' attempts to lift off from London without enough power to activate her energy shield defenses — and is taken out by a barrage of cannon blasts from a couple of Challenger 2 tanks. Even TV series set in World War II (''Combat'' and ''Rat Patrol'', for example) traditionally avoid spending money on tanks.

* ContinuityNod: While the Doctor tries to figure out what's happened, he at one point asks Donna, "Are you sure [your fiancé]'s human? [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E4AliensOfLondon He's not a bit overweight]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E5WorldWarThree with a zip round his forehead]], [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E11BoomTown is he?]]"