Donna Noble
Donna Noble was a companion of the Tenth and Fourteenth Doctors.
Despite her humble beginnings, she was described by both Rose Tyler and the Tenth Doctor as being the most important woman in all of creation, due to the fact that she saved the whole of reality from the Daleks and Davros. To survive the side effects of her transformation into "the DoctorDonna", her memories of her time with the Doctor were forcibly erased and she was returned to Earth. She later married Shaun Temple and had a daughter. She eventually encountered the Fourteenth Doctor, during a battle with the Meep, and managed to get her memories safely restored and expelled the meta-crisis that was threatening her life.
Biography
Early life
Donna once told the Tenth Doctor that she was born in Chiswick. (TV: Planet of the Ood [+]Loading...["Planet of the Ood (TV story)"]) However, she told a not-thing she believed to be the Fourteenth Doctor that she was actually born in Southampton, as her mother Sylvia Noble was visiting her aunt Iris, who had refused to come to the family home in Chiswick. This inconvenience led to Sylvia claiming that Donna was a problem from the day she was born. (TV: Wild Blue Yonder [+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"])
She was the only daughter of Sylvia and Geoff Noble (TV: The Runaway Bride) and the granddaughter of Wilfred (TV: Partners in Crime) and Eileen Mott. (PROSE: Beautiful Chaos) She received the nickname "the Little General" due to her bossy nature. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem) She was also a lifelong supporter of West Ham United. (TV: Planet of the Ood)
When Donna was 2 years old, she would come into her parents' bedroom every morning for a hug. One night, she woke up at 11pm and, not realising it wasn't morning, wandered into her parents' room and began traumatically sobbing when she found they weren't there, believing she had been abandoned. The sound she made caused her parents to run frantically upstairs, terrified at what could have happened to cause her "primal howling". (PROSE: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (novelisation)"])
She attended Belmont Primary, where she met her friend Hettie. (PROSE: In the Blood) On her first day at the school, she was sent home for biting her new friend Nerys, (TV: The Runaway Bride [+]Loading...["The Runaway Bride (TV story)"], PROSE: Nerys [+]Loading...["Nerys (short story)"]) She apparently sang "Wild Blue Yonder" in the school choir, which Wilf disapproved of. (TV: Wild Blue Yonder) When she was six, her mother refused to take her on holiday. Undaunted, Donna got on a bus and went on her own to Strathclyde. (TV: Partners in Crime)
When Donna was 10 years old, Donna left her mother in Tesco's to help a small boy who had lost his own mother. After reuniting the boy with his mum, Donna got a special award from the manager, and got her photograph in The Herald's Little Heroes section. (PROSE: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (novelisation)"])
Adult life
Donna received a bottle of Odeur Delaware as a gift from Sylvia for Christmas 2001. (COMIC: The Widow's Curse)
She once attended her friend Ginny's wedding and was thrown out of the church by a monk. (PROSE: Most Beautiful Music)
On 5 March 2005, she got drunk after realising her unrequited affections for her colleague, Rufus. She arrived home at 3 AM the next morning, where her grandfather advised her to sleep it out, meaning she missed the Auton invasion. (PROSE: Rose)
Donna's career consisted mainly of temp jobs. She worked at Hounslow Library for a while, (TV: The Doctor's Daughter) and for two years at a double-glazing firm sometime before June 2007. (TV: The Runaway Bride) She also worked for Hackney Borough Council. (COMIC: The Widow's Curse)
She missed the Christmas Day Sycorax invasion of Earth due to a hangover and the Cybermen invasion because she was scuba diving in Spain. (TV: The Runaway Bride)
H.C. Clements
In June 2007, Donna had the choice of being a full-time secretary for Jival Chowdry at Capital Copies Ltd or a temporary secretary at H.C. Clements, a security firm in London. Although she considered the former at her mother's insistence, an accident blocked the traffic in the direction of Jival Chowdry, so instead of waiting in a traffic jam and turning right on Little Sutton Street towards Griffin's Parade, she chose the temporary position at H.C. Clements by turning left, heading for the Chiswick High Road. At the time it was unknown to Donna that the accident was caused by a future version of herself from a parallel world. (TV: Turn Left)
At Clements, she gradually fell in love with Lance Bennett, whom she pressured into marriage. She planned the wedding, unaware that Lance was dosing her coffee with Huon particles by order of the Empress of the Racnoss, whom he secretly served. (TV: The Runaway Bride)
Meeting the Doctor
At her wedding on Christmas Eve, while she was walking down the aisle with her father, Huon particles reacted with her elevated emotional state and teleported Donna into the Doctor's TARDIS. Robot Santas prevented the Doctor returning her in time for her wedding, but he got her there for the reception; when she found the wedding party and guests had started without her, she was furious. Some of the guests, such as Sylvia, assumed Donna had played a practical joke on them and started having a go at her for it; they quickly quietened down when Donna pretended to burst into tears, before joining the party. When a robotic Christmas tree fired explosives at the wedding guests, Donna and the Doctor investigated H.C. Clements. The trail led to an abandoned secret Torchwood base under the Thames where Lance and the Empress of the Racnoss revealed their plans. Donna was heartbroken after learning Lance had been toying with her feelings up to this point, especially when he outright called her stupid and felt he deserved a medal for putting up with her for that long; she still pitied his death when the Empress betrayed him and fed Lance to her children. Donna helped the Doctor defeat the Empress and pulled him away from the Empress' death, saving his life. However, she turned down his offer to travel with him, frightened by what he had done and could do (such as making the TARDIS trigger snow). (TV: The Runaway Bride)
Joining the Doctor
As a result of her encounter with the Doctor, Donna's eyes were opened to the universe, and she could not resume her old life. She went to Egypt for two weeks on holiday looking for some excitement. (TV: Partners in Crime) Having sold her flat to finance the trip, she ended up moving in with her mother upon her return from Egypt. (PROSE: Judge, Jury and Executioner) After her father, Geoff Noble, died, her grandfather on her mother's side, Wilfred Mott, moved in with them. Donna began investigating unexplained events, knowing the Doctor always ran into trouble and hoping that she would be able to encounter the Doctor again. She also took a thermos of coffee up to her grandfather when he was looking at the stars. (TV: Partners in Crime)
Donna was captured by Adam Mitchell and trapped with many other companions of the Doctor in Adam Mitchell's fortress. (COMIC: The Choice) Along with the others, she was released by Frobisher and assisted the first eleven incarnations of the Doctor as they fought through the Tremas Master's army of Autons. After Adam thwarted the Master's plot to destroy the universe at the cost of his life, all the Doctors and their companions oversaw his memorial before taking their leave. (COMIC: Endgame)
In the 2000s, she began looking into Adipose Industries; whilst spying on Miss Foster, the head of Adipose Industries, she suddenly saw the Doctor also spying on her from the outside window, who was as surprised as she was when he saw her. Together they stopped the birthing of the Adipose from fatally converting human tissue into Adipose young, and witnessed the March of the Adipose. The Doctor once again invited her to travel with him, Donna remarking that she must've been mad to turn him down the first time. Unlike most companions of the Doctor, she was well prepared for the trip having packed several suitcases (including a hat box in case they went to the "Planet of the Hats"). The Doctor was reluctant at first but agreed after Donna assured him that she, unlike his two previous companions, harboured no romantic feelings for him.
Just before she left, whilst trying to find a suitable place to leave her car keys, she approached a blonde woman standing at a police line; it was Rose Tyler, who had briefly returned from the parallel universe in which she was trapped. Once on board the TARDIS, Donna had the Doctor fly it to where her grandfather could see them through his telescope and wave him goodbye. (TV: Partners in Crime)
Curiously, Donna's car was parked right by the Doctor's TARDIS; Donna picked up on this, calling it destiny. Neither of them knew at the time that this had happened due to the manipulation of the timelines at the hands of Dalek Caan. (TV: Journey's End)
Travels with the Doctor
Early travels
After leaving home, Donna and the Doctor went to Pompeii on the day Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. She tried to convince him to stop the eruption, but he called it impossible stating that it was a fixed point in time. She and the Doctor were ultimately responsible for the eruption; a group of Pyroviles, who had escaped from their planet before it was lost, planned to convert every human on the planet into Pyroviles, creating a new homeworld for themselves. The Doctor told Donna it was either Pompeii or the world; she took some of the burden off of him by helping him cause the eruption, which killed the Pyroviles. The Doctor left for the TARDIS, ignoring the pleas and chaos all around him; however, Donna convinced him to save one family from the devastation who subsequently worshipped the Doctor and Donna as household gods. (TV: The Fires of Pompeii) During this encounter, Lucius Petrus Dextrus, who was one of those who had gained psychic abilities due to inhaling Pyrovile dust, told her there was something on her back; she was unaware at the time that he was referring to the Time Beetle that would later create a parallel world around her where she never met the Doctor. (TV: Turn Left)
After that, Donna and the Doctor travelled to the Ood Sphere in 4126 and discovered the Ood's servitude was caused by the removal of the Ood's forebrain and the "third element", the controlling Ood Brain, being blocked. They together unblocked the Ood Brain, ending the chaos between the Ood and humans running the Sphere. The suffering that the Ood went through combined with witnessing Klineman Halpen get turned into an Ood was too much for Donna, who said she wanted to go home; she later calmed down and took this statement back, however. When they parted, Ood Sigma referred to Donna as DoctorDonna. Neither the Doctor nor Donna realised the significance of the statement at the time. (TV: Planet of the Ood)
Meeting Martha Jones
Next, The Doctor and Donna were called to Earth by the Doctor's former companion Martha Jones, who now worked for UNIT; Martha and Donna quickly became friends, the former warning the latter of the dangers that occurred when being near the Doctor. While Doctor investigated ATMOS, Donna went home to see her family. She was terrified when her grandfather almost died from the Sontarans' Caesofine gas emitted by ATMOS. When the TARDIS was taken by the Sontarans with Donna still on board, Donna activated the teleporters to allow the Doctor to bring it back to Earth. She later scolded the Doctor for scaring her by nearly getting himself killed when offering the Sontarans the chance to leave Earth alive. She agreed with her grandfather that her mother Sylvia should not know about her travels in the TARDIS. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky)
The TARDIS was pulled off course, with Martha inside, to the planet Messaline in 6012. The Doctor had his DNA synthesised and grown into a full-sized clone. Donna dubbed the "daughter" that resulted from the synthesis Jenny (as the Doctor had called her a "generated anomaly"). Donna was the first to realise that the war going on between the humans and the Hath had only been going on for a week. She witnessed the end of hostilities between humans and Hath when the Doctor opened the terraforming device (the Source) inside the Temple. She also watched General Cobb shoot Jenny when he refused to lay down arms, which led to her apparent death. Donna left Messaline with Martha and the Doctor, believing Jenny had perished. They soon after dropped Martha back off on Earth before continuing their travels. (TV: The Doctor's Daughter)
After Martha
Donna met Agatha Christie in 1926 and killed a Vespiform by throwing the Firestone into a lake to save Agatha's life. During this adventure, she influenced the creation of Miss Marple and Murder on the Orient Express by mentioning them to Christie years before they were created; although Christie's memories of the incident were wiped, some unconscious memories remained. Donna muttered that she should have gotten Christie to sign a contract when she had the chance (so they could split the copyright). She also comforted Agatha when she stopped believing in herself and over her marital problems, recounting some of the events that happened between her and Lance. (TV: The Unicorn and the Wasp)
Donna's adventures with the Doctor involved visiting India in 1947 and encountering Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi, who helped them stop a Zytron energy outbreak. (PROSE: Ghosts of India) Other adventures involved coming into conflict with the Cult of Shining Darkness, (PROSE: Shining Darkness) battling Sebastiene in his goal to capture and kill the Doctor, (PROSE: The Doctor Trap) and preventing a Mandragora invasion of Earth. (PROSE: Beautiful Chaos)
Donna watched a magic performance by Fergus Antelect at the Galactic Royal Hotel when Antelect appeared to confess to stealing from wealthy people at his shows, and subsequently got arrested when his assistant Ood, Ood Delta, telepathically projected memories of Antelect's crimes being committed to everyone in the room. (PROSE: Disappearing Act)
The Doctor was reading a collection of short stories when he realised that the words of one of them, Variations by David Banderson, changed each time it was read. The Doctor and Donna broke into Banderson's house when there was no answer at the door, and they discovered he was being influenced to write stories by a creature in the computer screen that was kept alive by stories. Donna was nearly caught in the creature's trap too, but the Doctor intervened, freeing Banderson from the creature. (PROSE: Once Upon a Time)
The Doctor and Donna watched the Child of Music perform at the Concert of the Most Beautiful Music at the Church of the High Exalted on Cantabulous Nine. The Doctor and Donna went behind the stage to ask the Child, what he wanted. The man, who had performed for 320 years since he was little, answered: "I want to die". The Doctor and Donna were thrown out. Upon breaking back into the church, the Doctor explained to Donna that there was a creature trapped inside the Child's musical instrument the lassimater and that the creature passed on its life energy to the Child as it slept. He also said the music being played was its cry for freedom. Upon reaching the Child's room, the Doctor broke the lassimater with his sonic screwdriver. The room was filled with what the Doctor called "the sound of freedom," and the Child drew his last breath. (PROSE: Most Beautiful Music)
The Doctor and Donna visited Shadow Cay on Earth in the 2000s, which was really a disguised Sycorax spaceship occupied by a group of widows of the 2006 Sycorax invasion which hypnotised humanity into believing the "island" had been discovered by Columbus. Separated from the Doctor, Donna and several other tourists were trapped inside the Church of the Sycorax. Donna and Norah escaped capture but followed the Sycorax to see where the humans were being taken. Donna saw the Sycorax play a video from the 2006 invasion ship's Foraxi Yox which showed the humans betraying the men of their clan. The grieving widows prepared to spread the "widows' curse" using a captured aircraft boarded by zombies, or human abstracts, who carried a virus that would turn the Earth into "a world of never-ending suffering" by preventing death, leaving humanity in agony for centuries. Donna and Norah freed the prisoners, and Donna told them to head for the ferry. Donna and Norah boarded the plane and hijacked it from the abstract pilots as it took off for London. They flew the plane back to Shadow Cay and were captured by the Doctor, who used the ship's magma-sculptor to catch Donna and Norah by replicating the hands of a "drowning giant" sculpture. The Doctor used the magma-sculptor to overload the ship, and before the ship exploded, the Doctor, Donna, Jean and Norah escaped the ship after the Doctor set its controls to take off. (COMIC: The Widow's Curse)
In 2011, Donna went shopping on Oxford Street whilst the Doctor visited London's Technology Museum. She became slightly concerned when Brian was paranoid about the new tablet computer. She watched as other people were becoming paranoid about computers. She went with Rebecca Young to the London Underground where they met the Koggnossenti who took Bex as a test subject. She told the Doctor this before he started to succumb to the Koggnossenti influence. She worked out a plan to destroy the Koggnossenti which involved Kevin Jones's train driving into their power source. (AUDIO: Technophobia)
She wanted to go to the Planet of the Boys because she thought it would exist due to her logic, and dressed as a wench. Instead, the Doctor took her to Calibris as he needed parts for the TARDIS. She compared the planet to a space version of King's Cross station. She gave her watch to a Busker to get him to stop playing. She saw the effects of a Time Reaver gun and found them disgusting. After finding Cora, she had to escape from Gully. She became lost in the tunnels with Cora, where she found out why Cora was selling the Guns. Gully strapped a Time Reaver bomb on her back but the Doctor managed to remove it before it blew up. (AUDIO: Time Reaver)
The Doctor received a message on his psychic paper from Professor River Song. She called him to the Library in the 51st century to help a team of archaeologists representing the Felman Lux Corporation to investigate the planet, which had been sealed off a century earlier with the message "4022 saved. No survivors." However, her message reached the Doctor at a point in his time stream where he had no idea who she was. The group discovered the Library was infested by Vashta Nerada. The Doctor teleported Donna back to the TARDIS with the ship's teleporters, but she never made it to the TARDIS. (TV: Silence in the Library) Donna's consciousness was "saved" to the planet's Data Core hard drive by CAL. Her face was used as the face of an information robot, repeating the warning message "Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved." Inside the hard drive, Donna experienced several years of a disjointed, idyllic married life and had two children within the space of less than a day, thanks to the memory alterations of the Doctor Moon virus checker. Miss Evangelista, whose data ghost had been uploaded via the Library's Wi-Fi, warned Donna that her world wasn't real. When River sacrificed her life to rescue the "saved" people inside the hard drive, Donna assumed that her husband "Lee McAvoy" was just a part of her simulation like her children. The real "Lee" saw Donna but was teleported away before he could call to her or reach her. (TV: Forest of the Dead)
Kidnapped with Nat
After the trauma of the Library, Donna returned to Chiswick to see friends and family. Donna was signed up to One's no Fun speed-dating event with her old school friend Natalie by Sylvia to help her return to her old self. (AUDIO: Out of this World)
Donna and Natalie became captured by aliens along with the Doctor's TARDIS on the planet Valdacki. Donna claimed to be the owner of the TARDIS but the aliens demanded she explain the controls. (AUDIO: Spinvasion)
Trying to return home, Donna and Natalie arrived in the Middle Ages where Donna was mistaken for Merlin. (AUDIO: The Sorcerer of Albion)
Donna successfully arrived back in Chiswick surprised to find Sylvia under the false impression that she had scored a successful job mapping trends in big data with Nat's husband Garrison Lord. However, Donna and Nat soon discovered Earth was in the middle of an alien invasion after receiving a message on the Doctor's psychic paper from the Collectors who had been using duplicates. Donna and Nat joined with UNIT's Josh Carter, whom Donna took a liking to, and successfully defended the Earth before reuniting with the Doctor. (AUDIO: The Chiswick Cuckoos)
Further travels with the Doctor
The Doctor and Donna visited China during the Qin dynasty, where they were thrown into a crater for being foreigners and faced a robotic soldier made of ceramics. Donna defeated it by disrupting the control signal with her mobile phone. The two were taken to the Imperial Palace of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor, who had become a cyborg. Donna was threatened by the Emperor's general Meng Tian, who was really an alien gangster, and Meng remotely awakened the soldiers of the Terracotta Army and shut down Qin Shi Huang. Donna made a call on her mobile phone, stopping the signal that paralysed Qin Shi Huang, waking him up again. While Qin Shi Huang and Meng were fighting each other, Meng shot at the warp converter, which shut down the Emperor and the Army, while also burying the whole palace in an explosion. The Doctor and Donna escaped the exploding palace. (COMIC: The Immortal Emperor)
They travelled to the French Rivera in the 1780s and went to a casino. There, they met Rudolph of Goritania and Donna started dating him. She eventually became the Queen of Goritania. She told the Doctor of her exploits as Queen, including being annoyed by the Queen Mum about procedure. After getting annoyed by her maids, she got them to be taught to read and write instead of embroidery. Seeing the death cloud she ordered that all of the peasants into the castle to protect them. When the Queen Mum said that the coronation would still be going ahead, Donna chastised her because of the danger outside. She told Rudolph that he was sending his troops to their deaths. Rudolph then blackmailed her into marrying him as that would save the kingdom. Hortense told Donna that she would do anything to stop the death because it had destroyed her mother's house, and then helped Donna into her wedding dress. Death walked out of the mist and stared at her. She realised that there was something special about the Goritanian flag and got her maids to cover the castle in it. At her wedding, she discovered that she was given to Death. When Death eventually came to collect her, he couldn't destroy her because her underwear was made from the royal standard. (AUDIO: Death and the Queen)
Donna appeared on the home improvement, reality TV series Haunted Makeovers presented by Justin. She pretended to be married to the Doctor, who used the name Dr John Smith as a disguise. They investigated the haunted Morley mansion alongside Wilf and Sylvia. (AUDIO: No Place)
The Doctor took Donna on holiday to the beautiful underwater city of Vallarasee in the 51st century. However, due to leaks inside the airdome, they needed to convince the Judoon that thousands of tourists and native Fins could be trapped. (AUDIO: One Mile Down)
Trying to make it to a 1967 Pink Floyd concert, the TARDIS brought the Doctor and Donna to 1952 where they became lost in the Great Smog of London. They discovered a group of Londoners trying to make their way home. Donna was told by one Londoner, Ivy Clark, that "there's something on your back". They discovered that some of the deaths of the Great Smog were from the Fumifugium that lived in the toxic fog. Donna helped Terry Hopkins accept his homosexuality. (AUDIO: The Creeping Death)
The Doctor took Donna to the leisure planet Midnight for a relaxing holiday. Donna chose to stay at the Leisure Palace to relax at the spa whilst the Doctor took a 4 hour trip on the Crusader 50 bus to the Sapphire Waterfall. Donna comforted the Doctor when he returned traumatised after the bus was attacked by an unknown entity which possessed the passenger Sky Silvestry and he was nearly thrown off the bus by the other passengers. (TV: Midnight)
Donna's World
On a visit to the planet Shan Shen, Donna was distracted by a fortune teller while a Time Beetle leapt on her back. The beetle showed Donna the day she decided to work at H.C. Clements on 25 June 2007; it altered events ensuring Donna turned right, to work with Jival Chowdry, instead of left, towards H.C. Clements.
In December 2007, she was promoted to Jival Chowdry's personal assistant. On Christmas Eve, she celebrated with her friends in London, when she saw "a Christmas star" attack the city. She watched as the army shot the star down, then ran to its general location. There, by the side of the River Thames, Donna watched as a body - a man called "the Doctor" - was loaded into an ambulance. Without Donna there to stop him, the Doctor had died confronting the Empress of the Racnoss. A blonde woman, Rose Tyler, arrived, apparently by mistake, but she quickly disappeared.
The following year, Donna was laid off by Jival Chowdry due to the Thames still being closed off following the Christmas attack. She won a trip to Firbourne House using a raffle ticket that she took on her final day at the office. While there over Christmas, the Titanic crashed into Central London, obliterating it and Donna's family was relocated to Leeds.
Rose knew she needed Donna as well as the Doctor to stop the stars from going out throughout the multiverse as timelines had been converging on Donna since her birth. At some point in the 2000s, Donna agreed to be sent back to June 2007 in a jury-rigged time machine; her task was to prevent her younger self from turning right on Little Sutton Street and taking the fatal job with Chowdry, instead, getting a job at H.C. Clements by turning left towards the Chiswick High Road. Unable to get there in time, the alternate Donna Noble threw herself in front of a lorry to cause a traffic jam that would physically prevent her younger self from making that decision. Just before her death, Rose appeared to Donna and gave her a message for the Doctor: "Bad Wolf". (TV: Turn Left)
Against the Daleks
Donna and the Tenth Doctor rushed to Earth to find it taken from underneath them. They then went to the Shadow Proclamation for help. They traced the Earth, along with twenty-six other missing planets, to the Medusa Cascade, where the planets had been hidden by being placed one second out of sync with the rest of the universe. As the Doctor reunited with Rose, he was shot by a Dalek and rushed into the TARDIS with Rose, Jack and Donna. As a result, the Doctor began regenerating, (TV: The Stolen Earth) but was able to use some of the regeneration energy to heal himself before funnelling the remaining energy into a matching bio-receptacle — his spare hand — and stop the regeneration.
The TARDIS was taken on board the Crucible and its defences were taken down. Donna was separated from the Doctor when the TARDIS refused to let her leave when the others surrendered to the Daleks. Donna reached out toward the Doctor's hand when the TARDIS was being sent to the core of the Crucible to be destroyed. The regeneration energy stored in the Doctor's hand interacted with Donna and created a being who looked like the Doctor but was half human and had aspects of Donna's personality.
When Donna tried to use the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor's Z-Neutrino Biological Inversion Catalyser on the Daleks, Davros electrocuted her. The electrical shock on Donna stimulated her brain, awakened the Time Lord DNA that transferred to her during the two-way biological meta-crisis, and gave her "the best part of the Doctor — his mind," rendering her the "DoctorDonna" of the Ood's prophecy.
She used her new-found intellect to deactivate the reality bomb and disable the circuitry on the Daleks' controls and helped use the magnetron to bring twenty-six of the planets back to their rightful places in the universe. The Meta-Crisis Doctor, fulfilling one of Dalek Caan's prophecies, destroyed the Daleks. When the Supreme Dalek wrecked the magnetron, Earth was the last planet still in the Cascade. Donna helped the Doctor and his companions to "tow" the Earth to its proper place in the galaxy with the TARDIS.
After assisting the Doctor in sending the Meta-Crisis Doctor to Pete's World and saying farewell to Rose, Donna's mind overloaded, a consequence of the unbearable Time Lord-human meta-crisis. Donna now had a second mind in the form of the Doctor's knowledge and some of his personality aspects, which started to encroach on her original mind and overwhelm it. To save her life, the Doctor was forced to erase her memories against her wishes and bring her home, which suppressed her "DoctorDonna" alter ego. (TV: Journey's End)
Back on Earth
The Doctor took Donna home, with strict instructions to her mother and grandfather never to tell her about the TARDIS or him. The Donna who had saved the universe was dead, fulfilling another of Dalek Caan's prophecies. Donna was left to her normal life. Wilfred, her grandfather, promised to keep thinking of the Doctor on her behalf, and to never mention the Doctor to her as that might trigger her memory of events and cause her mind to "burn up", killing her. (TV: Journey's End) To keep her safe, Wilf took her diary of her travels. (PROSE: A Short History of Everyone)
While trying to syphon emotional pain off of the Tenth Doctor, the Reach deposited him in the living room of the Noble household while Donna was having an argument with her mother in the hall. The Doctor left before Donna could see him. (COMIC: Revolving Doors)
Actions against the Ultimate Sanction
Donna became engaged to Shaun Temple. According to her grandfather though, she and Shaun had some financial issues as neither had good jobs — she was earning "tuppence" while he was on minimum wage. She nearly bumped into the Doctor twice, once while Christmas shopping during which she angrily warned a nearby traffic warden to leave her car alone. On Christmas Day in the Nobles' house, she gave Wilf a book by Joshua Naismith but did not know exactly why; saying that she simply felt like he should have it. The Doctor surmised it was her Time Lord subconscious directing Wilf since he was so important.
Later that day, when the Saxon Master turned every human into versions of himself, Donna's half-Time Lord mind caused her not to transform. The shock of seeing her mother and Shaun transformed into duplicates of the Master reawakened some of the memories of her travels with the Doctor. Visions of aliens she had met appeared in her mind. She called Wilf and was told to run for her life. She ran, but was cornered by Master duplicates in an alley, and was beginning to break down over the rush of recovered memories. However, the Doctor had also implanted a form of mental self-defence in her mind that released a blast of energy, putting Donna to sleep and knocking the Master facsimiles unconscious.
On Boxing Day, while Gallifrey appeared in the sky hurtling towards Earth, Shaun found her unconscious and brought her home. She came to when the TARDIS appeared in the street and complained that she had, yet again, missed something important. Sylvia was just amused when Donna said that as she knew Donna to be safe. (TV: The End of Time [+]Loading...["The End of Time (TV story)"])
Starting a family
In the Spring of 2010, Donna and Shaun were married and left the church with family and friends cheering them on. Donna asked for a photograph of her friends, herself, and Shaun, allowing her mother and grandfather to speak with the Doctor one last time. They returned and gave Donna an envelope holding a gift from her deceased father and the Doctor, a Celebration Lottery ticket the Doctor bought with money borrowed from her father. Although she considered it to be a cheap present, she remembered that the next lottery draw had a triple roll-over prize before stuffing it in her dress for safekeeping; both Sylvia and Wilf knew that the Doctor had made sure it was a winning ticket and thus secured Donna's financial future. (TV: The End of Time (part two) [+]Loading...{"part":"Two","1":"The End of Time (TV story)"}) Donna gave away the winnings, amounting to £166 million, to charity, other than spending a small part on buying a new house for her family, subconsciously attempting to be like the Doctor. At some point, she was fired from her job after she destroyed her work computer by spilling coffee on it. (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"])
Sometime in the later 2010s, a meeting between companions of the Doctor was organised by Alice Obiefune and Donna walked in. However, as she could not remember the Doctor, she assumed that she was in the wrong room and went on her way. (COMIC: The Meeting)
After their wedding, Donna became pregnant, and she and Shaun had a child, who later transitioned to female. Donna named her daughter with her surname, over "Temple-Noble" which she considered to sound like an "old ruin". Unbeknownst to Donna, some of the DoctorDonna was inherited by her daughter, along with some of Donna's memories of her adventures with the Doctor, which influenced her change of name to Rose. Donna was highly supportive of her daughter, and tended to get angry whenever someone mocked Rose for being transgender. (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"])
Years after losing her memory of the Doctor, Donna had a "strange sense" that there was more to her life than she could remember. (PROSE: We Are Family [+]Loading...{"page":"35","1":"We Are Family (short story)"})
During an encounter with the Meep, Donna encountered the Doctor in his fourteenth incarnation. With London under threat of destruction, the Doctor was reluctantly forced to utter a code phrase that restored Donna's memories and the DoctorDonna in order to stop the Meep. Although warned that she would die, Donna selflessly accepted this as the lives of nine million people were at stake, including her family's. After complaining about the effects that the DoctorDonna had continued to have on her even subconsciously, Donna used the time that she had before she was to burn up - about a minute and a half — to help the Doctor in stopping Beep and saying goodbye to him before seemingly dying. However, the DoctorDonna returned in Rose as well, allowing her to stop the Meep's mind-controlled soldiers. With the meta-crisis shared between mother and daughter, the deadly affects were slowed down and Donna and Rose were able to rid themselves permanently of the danger by simply letting the DoctorDonna go, safely expelling the meta-crisis from their bodies. (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"])
Traveling with the Fourteenth Doctor
After regaining her memories, Donna rejected Rose's request to see inside of the Doctor's TARDIS out of fear that her daughter would be swept off on an adventure with the Doctor. However, the Doctor invited Donna to travel with him to go and see Wilf, who Donna noted would be happy that she got her memories back and that he could see the Doctor one last time. Sylvie reluctantly agreed to Donna going on one last trip while Shaun easily agreed, showing no concern about his wife going off in a box with another man because he knew that the Doctor was no threat to their marriage. The two enjoyed the changed interior of the TARDIS, including a coffee machine, although Donna questioned why the Doctor's fourteenth incarnation had the same face as the Tenth Doctor. The Doctor brushed the question off, but he admitted to remembering every second with Donna and that losing her had killed him. Donna encouraged the Doctor to use his second chance to "do something completely new, and have some friends", instead of going off on his own when the adventure was over, to stick around and spend time with Donna and her family. As she moved her hand absentmindedly, Donna accidentally spilled her coffee on the TARDIS console, causing it catch on fire. The TARDIS dematerialized, completely out of control, and the Doctor warned that they could end up anywhere in time and space. (TV: The Star Beast)
After a brief stop in 1666 England, where they encountered Isaac Newton and inspired him to coin the term "mavity", the Doctor and Donna landed on an abandoned spaceship at the edge of the universe. The TARDIS was able to repair itself, but the Hostile Action Displacement System detected danger and dematerialised, leaving the Doctor and Donna marooned on the ship. Two not-things that had infiltrated the ship took their forms, intending to enter N-Space so that they could wage war across the entire universe. The ship's late captain had set the ship on a slow countdown to self-destruct to kill the not-things, and the TARDIS returned just before the explosion. However, Donna was abandoned aboard the ship to die after the Doctor unknowingly rescued the not-thing impersonating her instead. She tearfully watched as the ship began to explode, but the Doctor realised his mistake just in time and returned to save her.
Returning to Earth a few days after they left, the Doctor and Donna found Wilf waiting for them. Donna was overjoyed to see him but noted that the rest of her family were not there. Wilf said he had "told them to bunker down" as the world was coming to an end, at which point the people around them seemingly began rioting and a plane crashed nearby. (TV: Wild Blue Yonder)
Undated events
At some point, Donna was taken to the Black Archive by UNIT to have her record as a companion of the Doctor taken. Her memories of the visit were subsequently erased and she was sent on her way. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
At another point, Donna was abducted by Adam Mitchell as part his plan to get revenge on the Doctor, in collaboration with the Tremas Master. She was placed in stasis alongside the Doctors' multiple other companions, before being released by the Doctors first eleven numbered incarnations with the help of Frobisher. (COMIC: The Choice, Endgame)
The Tenth Doctor and Donna watched the courtship of the Zyglots, ran from intelligent dogs in a flying house, joined forces with a survey team to escape a living swamp, witnessed "something" bring time to a halt, saw the Beatles perform at The Cavern Club, chased after "vampire goth cannibals", saw time get meddled with while being chased by Cossacks, and got infected by a reality-altering psychic parasite. (COMIC: The Time of My Life)
Legacy
At some point, Donna recorded a holographic message on the TARDIS's Emergency Program One when she didn't get the chance to say goodbye to the Doctor properly. She told him she had the time of her life and not to find someone to stop him as she said at Christmas, but someone to keep him going. This message was played to the Doctor when he travelled on his own again. (COMIC: The Time of My Life)
When the Doctor discovered what the Manus Maleficus was capable of doing, he was momentarily tempted to use it to save Donna from burning up without wiping her memories. (COMIC: The Crimson Hand) When the Tenth Doctor found himself warring against the Kotturuh in the Dark Times, he christened the flagship of the Victis Fleet as the HMS Donna, fondly honouring his former companion's stubborn unwillingness to give in. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) During his early travels with Gabby Gonzalez, the Doctor accidentally referred to her as "Donna" on a few occasions. Knowing that the Doctor had had companions prior to her, Gabby suspected that Donna was her immediate predecessor in the role. (COMIC: Cindy, Cleo and the Magic Sketchbook)
As a result of growing from her DNA, Corin inherited some of Donna's mannerisms. Rose Tyler noticed that half of him was "gossipy and chatty and funny", and was prone to "Donna-swearing". Corin later convinced himself he needed "Donna-strength" when facing the Cask Men. (PROSE: The Turning of the Tide)
The Doctor felt guilty over what travelling with him had done to Donna, feeling that he had screwed up her life; these feelings persisted into his next incarnation. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler) At some point, he also told River Song about Donna and what happened to her. When River eventually encountered the Tenth Doctor and Donna, she was visibly moved when she realised who Donna was. (TV: Silence in the Library)
Donna was inadvertently responsible for the appearance of the Doctor's twelfth incarnation when she convinced him to save Lobus Caecilius' family from the destruction of Pompeii. The Doctor subsequently took on Caecilius' face to remind himself of Donna's plea; to always save someone, no matter what. (TV: The Girl Who Died) The Doctor would continue to remember Donna's words in later incarnations, with the Thirteenth Doctor later echoing them to Yaz, Ryan, and Graham. (COMIC: Hidden Human History) Shortly before regenerating, the Twelfth Doctor dreamt of Donna along with some of his other companions. (TV: The Doctor Falls)
The Encyclopaedia Gallifreya had information recorded on Donna. (PROSE: Citation Needed) A Time Lord author learnt of Donna and the Human-Time Lord Meta-Crisis she'd undergone while doing research for his book and briefly considered that she might have been the Hybrid of Gallifreyan legend but ultimately dismissed the idea as her story didn't fit the prophecy. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) In 2022, Penny Carter told Cleo Proctor that the man she encountered during the Adipose Industries incident, whose face she had forgot, was called doctor by his friend. (AUDIO: SOS)
Career
Donna worked as a temporary secretary in several places, including H.C. Clements and a double glazing firm. (TV: The Runaway Bride, The Sontaran Stratagem) She worked for health and safety for two days and kept the ID card. (TV: Partners in Crime) At some point, she worked for six months at Hounslow Library, where she learned the Dewey Decimal System in two days. (TV: The Doctor's Daughter) By 2023, Donna had lost her current job after accidentally spilling coffee on the computer. (TV: The Star Beast)
Personality
Donna's first encounter with the Doctor was bewildering for both: the Doctor was shocked into speechlessness by her sudden appearance in his TARDIS; Donna was furious with him for "kidnapping" her and twice slapped him in the face when he was overexcited in the face of her missed wedding and imminent danger or death. (TV: Doomsday, The Runaway Bride) Though Donna's sharp tongue and hair-trigger temper kept the Doctor at arm's length for most of their first adventure, quieter moments showed a more level-headed and perceptive woman. (TV: The Runaway Bride)
Although she sometimes appeared unintelligent and persistently referred to herself as "only a temp", the Doctor responded on one occasion by calling her "brilliant" (TV: Turn Left) and she was actually quite smart; she mastered the Dewey Decimal System in two days of work at a library (TV: The Doctor's Daughter) and remarked that she could walk around an office blind-folded, quickly picking up on an important clue others might've missed in that no one ever gets sick or has days off at an ATMOS factory raided by UNIT, impressing Martha Jones. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem) When she joined the Doctor in his journeys, her quick and sometimes dry wit often came out, syncing with his own. (TV: Partners in Crime etc.)
Donna's quick, sharp wit, sarcastic quips and, above all else, fiery temper hid a deep well of compassion. She reached out to Agatha Christie, trying to share her own story of failed marriage. (TV: The Unicorn and the Wasp) She helped free the Ood from mass slavery. (TV: Planet of the Ood) When the Doctor was forced to make the terrible choice of destroying Pompeii to save the world, Donna took some of the burden on herself by helping him push the lever to trigger the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. (TV: The Fires of Pompeii)
Though most companions were, to some degree, the Doctor's conscience, Donna adopted this role more openly and forcefully than her predecessors. She pleaded with the Doctor to save the inhabitants of Pompeii — if not all of them, then a single family — and got her way with Caecilius' family, (TV: The Fires of Pompeii) although by the time of the Great Smog of London, Donna had come to accept that the Doctor could only do so much when dealing with established historical events and appreciated his assurance that he would do what he could to save lives. (AUDIO: The Creeping Death) On another occasion, Donna insisted that the Doctor acknowledge Jenny as his daughter, no matter how she was created or what job she was trained for. (TV: The Doctor's Daughter) She also convinced the Doctor to leave the Racnoss and her children after he began to drown them, rather than keep going. (TV: The Runaway Bride)
Likewise, travelling with the Doctor made Donna a better person. He tempered her sharp tongue and brought out a more clever, compassionate aspect of her personality. She acknowledged that in the past, she had been selfish, always putting herself first. Travelling with the Doctor changed that: she started looking out for others, automatically helping where she might not have before. In some instances, she became almost motherly towards the Doctor, telling him to take care, reprimanding him when his actions were found wanting, automatically fixing his tie, etc. He even once stated that "she [Donna] takes care of me!" (PROSE: Beautiful Chaos, TV: The Fires of Pompeii, The Doctor's Daughter, The Sontaran Stratagem)
When the Doctor's former companion, Martha Jones, recalled the Doctor to Earth, she and Donna became fast friends; neither was jealous of one another, and both were willing to share experiences. The Doctor found this disconcerting. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem) Her relationship with Rose Tyler was initially abrasive in the parallel world (TV: Turn Left) but friendly in the Doctor's world. She also enjoyed an attraction to Captain Jack Harkness, which at one point involved her pushing Sarah Jane Smith out of the way to get a hug from him. (TV: Journey's End)
Unlike Rose and Martha, Donna was intent on maintaining a platonic relationship with the Doctor, reacting with disgust when she misinterpreted his comment, "I just want a mate", (friend) as, "I just want to mate", (breed). (TV: Partners in Crime) Both the Doctor and Donna also corrected many people who thought they were married, saying things like, "We're so not married. Never". (TV: The Fires of Pompeii, Planet of the Ood, The Doctor's Daughter, The Unicorn and the Wasp) However, they did pretend to be married so they could appear on the TV show Haunted Makeovers. (AUDIO: No Place) She did kiss him, but only to give him a shock as part of his cure for cyanide poisoning. (TV: The Unicorn and the Wasp) She was very supportive of the Doctor, at one point forcing him to admit that despite the potential collapse of universes, Rose's return was still a good thing. (TV: The Stolen Earth) She also supported the Doctor when the time came to leave the Meta-Crisis Doctor and Rose behind on Pete's World. Dalek Caan referred to Donna as "the most faithful companion". Just before her memories were wiped, she tearfully echoed Rose's earlier desire to travel with the Doctor "forever". (TV: Journey's End) The Doctor reciprocated Donna's feelings, referring to her as his best friend. (TV: The End of Time) The Fourteenth Doctor later admitted that he remembered every second of his time with Donna and that losing her had killed him. (TV: The Star Beast)
The Meta-Crisis Doctor, working from his original template's memories, recognised that Donna's brash attitude arose from her belief that she was unimportant; she was "shouting at the world, 'cause [she thought] no one's listening." The original Doctor attributed this to her mother never telling Donna she was important to her and told Sylvia to tell her that more often. (TV: Journey's End)
The Doctor would later remember Donna as being impossibly stubborn, refusing to ever give in. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
Even after her memories were wiped, Donna retained some of her old personality, in part due to the subconscious influence of the DoctorDonna which tried to make her be more like the Doctor. This included her selfless attitude when others were in danger, telling the Fourteenth Doctor that her life was nothing when compared to her family's and the nine million other people in danger in London. Donna was also confused why the Doctor would care about her, once again expressing a belief that she was just no one which the Doctor vehemently denied.
After regaining her memories, Donna's original personality came back with full force, starting with Donna instantly complaining about how the meta-crisis had caused Donna to give away all of her lottery winnings. However, while Donna admitted that she would love nothing more than to travel with the Doctor again, she was content with the adventure that she was having as a wife and a mother, although Donna accepted one last trip when it was to see her grandfather, excited at being able to show Wilf that her memories were back and to see the Doctor again. However, Donna kept Rose from even peeking inside of the TARDIS out of the fear that she would accidentally get whisked away on some adventure, showing the maturity that Donna had gained in the years since she had lost her memories. This slipped away once Donna was alone in the TARDIS with the Doctor, with Donna's usual enthusiasm returning at how the TARDIS had changed since she had last seen it. Donna encouraged the Doctor to take his second chance and do things differently by sticking around and having friends this time. (TV: The Star Beast)
Behind the scenes
- The name Donna Noble was not revealed to the public until promotional material began to circulate for The Runaway Bride. In the closing credits of Doomsday, the character is only identified as "The Bride".
- As revealed by Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat, the original draft of Forest of the Dead would have revealed in his final scene that Lee McAvoy (Donna's husband within the virtual world in the Library's data core) was in actuality a woman in the real world. This would have made Donna the first on-screen companion to enter into a homosexual marriage, albeit unwittingly on her end. In the end, Bill Potts, six seasons later, became the first TV companion to pursue a gay relationship on-screen, albeit one that did not involve a formal wedding.
- Originally the new companion for Series 4 was meant to be a completely new character, and showrunner Russell T Davies had begun thinking of a Donna-like character called Penny Carter. After Catherine Tate indicated that not only had she had a great time filming The Runaway Bride but was interested in doing a full series, Donna was brought back as a series regular. Penny Carter was later rewritten as a minor role in Partners in Crime.
- A deleted scene from Journey's End included in the Series 4 DVD box set showed Donna, after her mind-wipe, reacting with recognition to the sound of the departing TARDIS, but dismissing it. This scene was removed to avoid creating a discontinuity; it had just seconds earlier been explicitly established that if Donna remembered anything about the Doctor or her travels with him, her mind would burn up.
- Due to timing and her short tenure on the series, Donna appears in only two comic strip stories published in Doctor Who Magazine, and two Doctor Who comics by IDW Publishing.
- Russell T Davies has stated that he sees Donna as how the First Doctor's companion Barbara Wright would be presented today: "an equal to the Doctor, a friend, a mate, a challenge". (REF: The Writer's Tale)
- Russell T Davies mentions in The Writer's Tale that Catherine Tate was very interested in appearing on The Sarah Jane Adventures as her daughter loved watching it. * Davies had no idea how to reconcile Donna's fate in Doctor Who with a guest appearance, so it got declined.
- The setting of Donna's present day in series 4 of Doctor Who is inconsistent, and her later appearance in the Christmas Special and New Year Special The End of Time is not dated on screen at all. In the television story The Fires of Pompeii, Donna mentions the Doctor saving her in 2008. In the novel Beautiful Chaos, set between the television stories Forest of the Dead and Midnight,[1] a newspaper at a newsagent gives the date as Friday 15 May 2009. During an in-universe episode of The Blue Box Files in the audio story SOS, Abby McPhail describes the events of the television story Partners in Crime as taking place in 2008.
- Off screen, in the commentary[which?] for The End of Time, the story's writer Russell T Davies stated that Donna's wedding to Shaun Temple takes place in spring 2010, which still raises issues due to implicitly setting The End of Time before the Easter Special Planet of the Dead according to the chronology in Beautiful Chaos.
Footnotes
- ↑ Donna recalls seeing talking skeletons in Beautiful Chaos, and in the television story The Stolen Earth, Wilfred Mott tells Rose Tyler that Donna last phoned him from the planet Midnight.
External links
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