November 30, 2023
Get ready for more adventures with the Doctor and Donna by discovering where it all began...
Donna Noble landed on our screens 17 years ago, meeting the Tenth Doctor and changing his path forever. The pair went on to have countless adventures, saving civilisations, defeating monsters, and making friends along the way!
Here’s our guide to the Doctor and Donna’s history together. Hold tight, it’s a whistle-stop tour of the DoctorDonna!
The Runaway Bride
Donna Noble crashed into the Doctor’s life in 2006’s Christmas special, The Runaway Bride.
Loud, funny, kind and brilliant, Donna Noble was a temp from Chiswick when she first met the Doctor. Her wedding day was left in tatters as she was suddenly transported into the TARDIS while walking down the aisle!
Shocked and confused, the Doctor returned her to Earth, where the pair discovered she had been dosed with Huon energy, which is what had drawn her inside the TARDIS. What’s more, her fiancé Lance was the one who’d been poisoning her with this ancient power! He was in league with a giant alien spider called the Empress of the Racnoss, double-crossing Donna to help the Empress awaken her ‘children’ at the Earth’s core.
The Doctor defeated the Racnoss’s plot by causing the Thames to flood her secret lair. With Donna safe – although Lance and the Racnoss were lost – the Doctor asks her to travel with him. Donna refuses but tells him to “Find someone… Because sometimes, I think you need someone to stop you.”
Reunited
Full of regret from passing up the opportunity to travel with the Doctor, Donna went on a mission to find him again, chasing wild conspiracy theories and possible alien encounters. This led her to investigate Adipose Industries, where a suspicious new weight-loss drug had been launched.
The Doctor had also noticed the strange pills and began his own investigation, unbeknownst to Donna. The pair eventually discovered each other while sneaking into the building to uncover Miss Foster’s plans, finally reuniting and realising that the dangerous pills were, in fact, alien.
While accelerating her scheme to create millions of Adipose babies from the fat of unsuspecting Londoners, Miss Foster was thwarted by team TARDIS, who acted to prevent the deaths of the people who had taken the pills.
After saving the day, Donna finally joined the Doctor aboard the TARDIS and off they flew for adventures in time and space!
Travels together
The duo experienced the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius, saved countless peaceful Ood on their home planet, met the warrior Sontarans, and accidentally travelled to the future with the Doctor’s previous companion, Martha Jones.
They solved a murder with Agatha Christie, faced the Vashta Nerada at the biggest library in the universe, and Donna had a spa day while the Doctor got trapped on a bus on a planet made of diamonds.
Donna then faced one of the Trickster’s Brigade, a giant beetle that meddled with her past, causing her to inadvertently kill the Doctor and create a new timeline without him – causing death and destruction in the universe.
Rose Tyler, another friend of the Doctor’s, returned to show Donna that she was “the most important woman in the whole of creation,” helping her sacrifice herself to fix the timeline and save the day. Phew, what a whirlwind!
Goodbye
Nearing the end of their escapades together, the Doctor and Donna returned to Earth to find it missing, having been moved to the Medusa Cascade alongside 26 other planets.
While Davros and the Daleks’ plan unfolded, Donna accidentally absorbs all of the Doctor’s knowledge, with which she is able to help save the day – and all of reality.
But being part of this ‘two-way biological meta-crisis’ – part Doctor, part Donna – proved to be too much. Her brain was unable to handle her newfound Time Lord side, leading the Doctor to wipe her memory of him, the TARDIS, and the amazing things she’d seen. He warned that, “if she remembers, just for a second, she’ll burn up.”
In a heartbreaking goodbye, the Doctor left Donna just as he had first found her – and with no knowledge of the incredible change she’d created in the universe.
Their last encounter
Donna eventually went back to a normal life and married Shaun Temple - keeping her last name though, as 'Donna Noble-Temple' sounds like a tourist destination!
In the Tenth Doctor’s final story (The End of Time, 2009-2010) thousands of duplicates of the Doctor’s nemesis, the Master, caused her to begin to remember snippets of her past life, but a self-defence mechanism planted by the Doctor explosively sent her to sleep. She woke up to find that she had, once again, missed something huge.
The Doctor saw Donna for a final time on her wedding day, leaving her the gift of a triple rollover winning lottery ticket. Oblivious, she went on with no memories of all those adventures – no knowledge of “the DoctorDonna” – and remained unaware of his entire existence.
Now, almost 14 years later, the Doctor’s back with his old face. Destiny is at play once more – and it is heading for Donna Noble…!
Watch the Doctor and Donna in action in the 60th Anniversary Specials.