Am I bovvered, Doctor?
My initial reaction seemed to be from another TV comedy… “Are you havin’ a laugh?”
Catherine Tate’s bringing back her character Donna to be the full-time companion to Doctor Who. She was in the last Christmas special, and put in a performance that many people found slightly, well… annoying.
She screeched through most of it, and her character seemed to have been ripped straight out of her sketch show.
But having thought it over for a few hours, I’ve changed my mind. I think this could be genius casting.
Quite frankly, people were getting fed up with the Doctor/Companion having a bit of a romantic quandary, as witnessed with both Billie Piper and Freema Agyeman. Having an older character – who we know already doesn’t fancy the protagonist – will let the relationship be a bit more productive.
And, despite the vitriol you’ll read on the internet, Tate is actually a classically trained actress with some pretty serious roles behind her.
Russell T Davies, head honcho of Doctor Who, suggested in the past that Catherine Tate’s Donna was too annoying to be a permanent fixture in the series. I suspect this means he’s planning to tone her down.
So I’ll reserve judgement until the new series starts. But unless the character’s made a bit less ‘screechy’, viewers won’t be bovvered for much longer.
04 Jul 2007 14:34
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Tags: BBC Catherine Tate Doctor Who Television
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Comments (4)
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Most of the (overwhelmingly negative) fan reaction to the casting seems, from what I’ve seen, to be fixated on this idea of the bellowing, bug-eyed Catherine Tate who played Donna in the first ten minutes of The Runaway Bride. I myself was skeptical at first, thinking we would be seeing some horrifying crossover from her sketch show. But it’s not like that character didn’t develop, if you watched. There were some terrific moments with her and David Tennant (parting scene especially) which I remember as the real standouts of what was otherwise the usual, RTD-penned flimsy mishmash of ideas. I’m sure, given the right scripts, they’ll rediscover that chemistry…
So personally, I’m intrigued. Good to see somebody else resisting the knee-jerk reaction.
04 Jul 2007, 15:43
What’s that… Fielding took a full 1hr 9 mins to post a comment on a Who related entry? You’re slipping, sir…
04 Jul 2007, 18:41
What can I say? I was at work.
05 Jul 2007, 09:55
Shams Uddin
I agree that the Doctor-Companion Love interest is wearing a bit thin!! We wouldn’t have had that with William Hartnell now would we!!
However RTD would have to perform a miracle to re-invent the character and make her interesting and more importantly likeable!! Certainly getting her out of the Wedding Dress and toning down the whingeing and shouting may help, but ultimately when she speaks you can’t help but hear her comedy characters speaking instead and that means that most of the audience including myself cannot take her seriously!!.
05 Jul 2007, 16:45
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