Doctor Who "The Star Beast"

The Doctor (David Tennant) returns to Earth with his 'new old' face and bumps into a woman carrying packages.  What are the odds she would turn out to be none other than Donna Noble (Catherine Tate).  He replaces the package back he was helping with as he recalls, as do we, that if she ever remembers him again she will die.  Then she tells him to take them back since he was helping her.  As he hears her call out to Rose (Yasmin Finney).  No not that Rose.  She's sending her packages to Abu Dhabi and she has her own small business.  As she takes the packages a starship crashes, which Donna misses even after Rose tells her to look.  Taking it's a starship with a pinch of salt.  

The Doctor rushes to the crash and takes a taxi.  Surprise, surprise, it turns out to be Donna's husband, small world.  Her husband, Shaun Temple (Karl Collins) asks him how he knows her and the Doctor name drops Nerys.  She didn't take his last name cos then she'd have been known as Donna Noble Temple.  The Doctor also asks why she gave away her lottery winnings, £166 MILLION.  She gave it to charity but they only bought the house.  As you recall he returned the pound to Wilf and the lottery ticket she had on her wedding day.  The Doctor recalls that Donna saved him by absorbing all his memories, this would have destroyed her mind, but the Doctor saved her by wiping out her memory of him.  However as she tells Sylvia (Jacqueline King) she has a feeling something is missing in her life.  

As he heads to the crash site, UNIT is already there and so is Shirley Bingham (Ruth Madeley).  He tells her about Donna and why he's hiding out.  Apparently the ship carries a creature, a cuddly type that hides out in the ally by Donna's house, again, small world.  As Rose heads to where the pod landed, following her neighbour, but it's empty.  As she returns she finds the creature, an alien known as Meep the Beep.  She takes him back as he says the others are after him.  They killed his species for his fur.  Also he's similar to some of the cuddly toys Rose makes.  Donna returns to the shed and he's rumbled.  UNIT opens the ship and the soldiers are overtaken by something causing their eyes to illuminate and trance-like as they head to Donna's house.

Donna and Sylvia talk about Rose and her gender change when the boys from school call her out on the street and call her Jason.  She's proud of her daughter as she tells Sylvia.  The Doctor of course heads there too and wants to be let in, but Sylvia refuses.  He uses the sonic and she doesn't want Donna to see him.  She hits him and he says she's done that to him before.  The Meep enters as soldiers have a shoot out and two insect-like creatures appear, known as the Wrarth, to take him away.  The Doctor constructs a forcefield barricade using his Sonic and they head to the attic.  Crossing though the attic of five houses they find Shaun's taxi and make their exit.  But not before the Doctor checks out the soldier's pulse.

Heading back to the steel factory they are chased by the soldiers and the Doctor says maybe the creatures aren't after Meep but are here to protect him, or not.  He uses a Shadow Proclamation to cease hostilities until he otherwise permits and finds out Meep is actually the bad one.  He recalls sun psychosis which affects the eyes.  His race ate the Wrarth.  Meep kills off the Wrarth and the Doctor gets hit over the head, in what seems like such an easy way to get him and the others are taken back to the steelworks.  The Doctor can also draw maps with his Sonic now.  

They make their escape as Shirley helps them by firing darts from her wheelchair and the Doctor comments they have those now.  No, they had them all the time.  The Doctor needs to stop the ship from launching as the drag drive will destruct London killing nine million people.  As he tells the Noble's to leave, Donna goes with him and he needed her help too.  He makes her remember as they recite words in a countdown sequence.  She says she's a nobody and no one will miss her but she has to save Rose and the other nine million.  He says she's somebody to him.  They countdown to "binary binary..." and then she pushes buttons averting the ship from taking off and does succumb to her death.

However, she doesn't die as Rose was also helping.  Donna managed to half the effect of the energy she absorped and is saved.  Rose took on his memories too and she even named herself.  They head off on another adventure and Donna wants to go on one last trip.  If only to unveil the inside of the newly revamped TARDIS.  All clean and steely looking, "chrome" as she calls it.  He even has a coffee machine, mistake, as that's what got her fired from her job, she spilled coffee in the computer.  As she does here.  Making the TARDIS go haywire and they disappear somewhere.

Fast paced scenes and dialogue including a scene where the Meep refers to gender pronouns and says  "My chosen pronoun is the definite article – I am always ‘the’ Meep."  The Doctor replies, "I do that."   Talking of what the Doctor’s pronouns are and surmising that they’re just "the".  This ep was a story based on the 1980 comic book Doctor Who and the Star Beast.  The Doctor also realizes that Wilf is in  a home and isn't dead as he thought.  A nice touch for not having to go through Wilf not really being around.  Good to see Doctor Ten return, one of my faves after Eleven, and another two eps to go.